After posting the meme about the Rings, I was struck by the greatness of Tolkien which goes far beyond his writing, linguistic and storytelling abilities (which are, of course, unparalled to date). In fact, just the "basics" of the rings give an incredible insight on the times we are living, times that Tolkien could not foresee but was able to "predict" based on the absolute logic of his personal believes. There is the One Ring, pure evil, made to dominate all life (the nightmare of the world government). There are the Nine and the Seven, doomed by the desire for power and by greed (currently well represented by the various govs around the world and their associations). Then there are the Three. They give the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination, and despair, the power of preservation, protection, and possibly concealment from evil and the power to heal, respectively. When the One is finally destroyed, the Three lose all power as they are not needed anymore, and least their bearers are tempted to misuse them.

It strikes me that what is going on now so much resembles Tolkien's idea: the evil currently suffucating the world and what is needed to purge it or at least to counter it effectively. I think Internet, Bitcoin and Nostr-like ideas are part of the Three. Some parts are still missing but we are working on it!

P.S. I purposefully kept this short for the sake of clarity. One could probably write a book on the matter... :-)