Foreword

Dante’s The Divine Comedy is typically read for its depictions of Hell in Inferno but wedged in the middle is the journey through Purgatory. At the entrance to Purgatory, an Angel, guarding, marks Dante with the letter P (peccatum / sin) on his forehead, seven times, representing the seven deadly sins. As they progress a sin is removed, a necessary requirement for a soul to enter Paradise.

Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, lust, greed, gluttony. The soul of Crypto is not likely to enter Paradise any time soon, but fortunately there is hope in Purgatory, unlike in Hell. It requires work, reflection and time, but one can still make it to Heaven from Purgatory. The common thread to redemption is recognition of the sin. Can we make it to level 2?

In this, our second issue, we invite the reader to focus on Crypto’s redemption through solarpunk and lunarpunk praxis and to sandwich it all between two meditations on Crypto’s relationship with death, a Maximum Extractable Memento Mori. We see the path to redemption as involving the acceleration and escalation of counter-economic practice in all its forms — cypherpunk, solarpunk, lunarpunk. Free will, it’s our choice. Contribute to the corruption or transcend it.

When Dante steps into Heaven he discovers the first level is the Moon. The Moon is associated with inconstancy, of those who for one reason or another abandoned their vows, lacking some but certainly not all fortitude. As a matter of grace, God has tallied them up as full of most good intent, but falling at the last hurdle. There is, you see, always the opportunity to decide well, for those still in the mix.

We are in the mix.