The Hunt Begins

I’d landed a copy of The New Co-operator., a cryptic newsletter that hit my inbox from who-knows-where. Its latest edition waxed poetic about the Grok 3* logo—an artistic rendition of a black hole—and pushed cooperatives to “leapfrog into the future” with AI. The author? Cooperator X, a ghost except to his trusted few. I had to find him. The trail led me to The Workers Cellar, a cliffside haunt beneath Co-op Café. Brick walls bore faded cooperative posters, curling at the edges like clues to a lost era. Coffee and old books scented the air, mingling with the hum of laptops on battered tables.

A tuxedo puspin cat lounged on a leather chair, tail twitching as if it knew the secrets I didn’t.

Overhead, wires fed a glowing Starlink router—a lifeline in this basement time capsule. Outside, the ocean thrashed the cliffs, restless. There he was: Cooperator X—lean, graying, coffee in hand, eyes glinting like he’d been expecting me all along.

Who Are You?

BitcoinPilipinas.com (BP): Took some digging, but I found you. That newsletter—The New Co-operator.—it got me. The Grok 3 logo, AI for co-ops? What’s your deal?

Cooperator X: smirks, sipping coffee Guess the cat’s out of the bag. Just a guy who’s been around co-ops long enough. Saw the Grok 3 logo—a black hole, sucking in everything—and it hit me. That’s what we need: pull, depth, a jump forward. AI’s the rocket fuel.

BP: You’re a mystery, though. No one knows you outside your list. Why the shadows?

Cooperator X: shrugs Don’t need the spotlight. Friends get the newsletter—co-op folks, dreamers. Keeps it real. But you’re here, so let’s talk. What grabbed you?

BP: That “leapfrog” line—and Grok 3. What’s a black hole got to do with cooperatives?

Cooperator X: Ever read Heinlein? Stranger in a Strange Land? [Editor’s Note: Published in 1961] “Grok” is his word—Martian for knowing something so deep you become it. The logo’s perfect: a co-op that groks itself pulls everyone in, no escape. AI can get us there—smarter, faster.

Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, comes back to Earth.

BP: Stranger—that’s the one where Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, comes back to Earth and sees everything differently. He starts a movement that’s part religion, part philosophy, and flips human thinking upside down.

Cooperator X: Yeah, yeah, that one. Smith learns that humans see themselves as separate, but Martians grok—they deeply connect, beyond words.


Soul of the ‘60s

BP: You’ve got history in your bones. The newsletter hints at it. What’s the ‘60s got to teach us?

Cooperator X: Everything. Back then, the world was raw—Manila still half-bombed from the war, worse than most. Cold War breathing down our necks—U.S. bases, Soviet whispers. Communism roared: Huks winding down, CPP firing up in ‘68. Co-ops? They were the quiet giants, finding their feet.

BP: How’d they rise?

Cooperator X: Grit and glue. The ‘57 Non-Agricultural Co-op Act gave them bones. Philippine National Bank tossed some cash. The Church—Vatican II fever—pushed hard. Priests turned organizers, federations bloomed—thousands strong. Agrarian reform tied them to the messy big picture.

BP: Priests running co-ops? That’s a curveball.

Cooperator X: Nah, it’s survival. Feed the poor, skip the revolution. Mondragon did it in Spain—same soul, different dirt. Priests here caught that vibe, especially in the ‘60s when Vatican II was kicking up dust. But it’s not like Mondragon waited for Rome to tell ‘em what to do—it was the other way around, or maybe a bit of both.

Feed the poor, skip the revolution.

BP: Hold up—Mondragon predates Vatican II? So who influenced who?

Cooperator X: grins Good catch. Mondragon started in ‘56, a Basque priest named Arizmendi dreaming big—worker-owned factories, no bosses, just grit and faith. Vatican II didn’t hit ‘til ‘62, when the Church got all fired up about justice and the little guy. So Mondragon wasn’t born from Vatican II—it was already rolling. Arizmendi pulled from Catholic social teaching, sure, that old-school stuff about dignity and community, but he wasn’t waiting for a papal nod. By the time Vatican II rolled out, preaching solidarity and the poor, Mondragon was proof it could work. Probably lit a fire under the Church here—priests saw Spain and thought, “Hell, we can do that too.”

BP: So it’s not a straight line—Vatican II to Mondragon?

Cooperator X: Nope. More like a dance. Mondragon showed what faith plus elbow grease could build—worker co-ops thriving, not just praying. Vatican II gave it a megaphone, turned it into a mission. Here, priests took that energy and ran—organizing farmers, weaving federations. Was it Mondragon inspiring Vatican II, or Vatican II amplifying Mondragon? Both, I’d say. Same roots—Catholic ideas about people over profit—but Mondragon proved it first, and the Church jumped on board. Survival’s the thread: keep folks fed, dodge the chaos. That’s the soul they shared.


Red or Quiet Pandas?

BP: Communism screamed louder back then. Why didn’t co-ops steal the show?

Cooperator X: leans forward They didn’t need to yell. Communism had the theater—guns, flags, rage. It promised the moon: tear down the landlords, smash the bosses, hand the land and factories to the workers. A clean slate, no more hunger, no more bowing. That’s a siren song when you’re broke and pissed—especially in a place like the Philippines, still limping from war, with elites hogging the pie. The Huks, then the CPP, they rode that wave, painting a picture of revolution so vivid you could taste it. Co-ops? They were quieter—farmers splitting rice, workers pooling sweat, building something slow and steady. The International Cooperative Alliance had been humming since 1895—older, tougher, less flashy. They didn’t shout; they endured.

BP: So communism’s pitch was sexier?

Cooperator X: Damn right. It was all-or-nothing—blood in the streets, power flipped overnight. Co-ops didn’t have that heat. They’re a grind: meetings, dues, figuring out who gets what. No grand speeches about seizing the means—just folks haggling over a tractor or a sack of grain. Communism dangled utopia; co-ops offered a better today, maybe a solid tomorrow. Less appealing if you’re young and itching to burn it all down. Plus, co-ops didn’t have the propaganda machine—communists had pamphlets, songs, martyrs. Co-ops had ledgers and handshakes. Guess which one stirs the soul faster?

BP: Socialism and communism blur for me. Clear it up?

Cooperator X: Easy. Socialism’s the toolbox—co-ops, state control, whatever works. Communism’s the endgame: no classes, no rulers, pure vision. Huks and CPP chased that, but their fight was socialist—land, guts. Co-ops wanted the same, minus the chaos.

BP: Hold up—you said in there, “Socialism’s the toolbox—co-ops, state control, whatever works.” So, are cooperatives socialist? I mean, flat out—are they?

Cooperator X: leans back, smirking Depends on who’s asking—and what they mean by “socialist.” Short answer? They can be. Long answer? It’s murkier than that. Co-ops aren’t born with a red flag pinned to their chest, but they fit in socialism’s toolbox, sure. They’re about people owning the game together—land, labor, profit. Sounds socialist, right? But they don’t need a party line or a five-year plan to hum.

BP: Okay, break it down. What’s the overlap?

Cooperator X: taps the table Look at the roots. Socialism’s big idea is collective control—workers, not bosses, calling shots. Co-ops do that: members own it, run it, split it. No fat cat at the top skimming cream. That’s why Karl Marx’s crowd nodded at ‘em—early co-ops in Europe, like Rochdale in the 1840s, were workers fighting back against raw capitalism. Same here—‘60s Philippines, co-ops were farmers and laborers saying, “We’re done being pawns.” Socialist as hell in spirit.

BP: So they’re socialist by default?

Cooperator X: shakes head Not quite. They’re chameleons. A co-op can thrive in a capitalist jungle—think credit unions or farmer co-ops competing with big agribusiness. They don’t need a state to cradle ‘em. Mondragon in Spain? Billion-dollar co-op network, worker-owned, but it’s playing the market game. Socialist guts, capitalist skin. Then flip it—some co-ops here got roped into government agrarian reform, top-down style. More socialist there, leaning on state muscle.

BP: Sounds like they’re dodging labels.

They’re practical, not ideological.

Cooperator X: Exactly. They’re practical, not ideological. Socialism loves ‘em because they prove people can run things without a lord or a tycoon. But co-ops don’t care about the ism—they care about survival. You grok the idea of working together, you don’t need a manifesto. They’re socialist when it fits, but they’re not married to it.

BP: What about the AI angle from your newsletter? Does that tilt them socialist or something else?

Cooperator X: grins Neither. AI’s just a tool—amps up what’s already there. If a co-op’s grokking its soul, AI makes it sharper—tracks crops, predicts markets, binds members tighter. Could be socialist if it’s leveling the field for the little guy. Could be capitalist if it’s chasing profit hard. Point is, the co-op decides. Not the label.

BP: So, Martians or Earthlings—socialist or not?

Cooperator X: laughs Both. They’re Martians when they grok the collective vibe—socialist to the core. Earthlings when they’re scrapping in the real world, playing whatever hand they’re dealt. Socialism’s in their DNA, but they’re not chained to it. That’s their magic.


Aliens Among Us?

BP: Back to Grok 3 and AI. How’s that fit your co-op gospel?

Cooperator X: It’s the next frontier. In Stranger, Valentine Smith—he’s Martian-born—sees us as lonely specks. Martians grok: they merge, no edges. A co-op’s got to grok itself—be one thing, not a bunch of parts. AI’s the boost: data, decisions, unity, fast.

Martians grok: they merge, no edges.

BP: So the [cooperatives that] flops—they don’t grok?

Cooperator X: Spot on. They’re shells—rules, no heartbeat. The ones that hum? You walk in, and it’s electric. They’re not joining; they are it. AI can amplify that—make it sharper, tougher.

BP: grins You’re making me a believer. Newsletter’s just the start, huh?

Cooperator X: laughs Maybe. Keeps the fire going. You want in? Plenty of co-ops need a nosy journalist.

Earth or Mars?

The ocean quietly growled as the cat stretched, unimpressed. Cooperator X set his mug down, our talk bouncing from his newsletter’s AI dreams to ‘60s roots and Martian riddles. It crystallized: co-ops aren’t just about surviving—they’re about grokking, becoming something bigger. With AI, maybe they leapfrog past earthling limits. So, are cooperators Martians among us, or just earthlings reaching for the stars?

I left the The Workers Cellar wondering—and half-convinced I’d glimpsed the answer.


*Grok 3

Grok 3, unveiled by xAI on February 17, 2025, is a cutting-edge multimodal AI powering the Grok chatbot, crafted to accelerate human discovery with advanced reasoning and real-time data crunching. Built on the Colossus supercomputer with over 200,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs—10 to 15 times the compute of Grok 2—it tackles everything from math (93.3% on 2025 AIME) to science (84.6% on GPQA), boasting a 1402 ELO on Chatbot Arena.

  • GPU: Graphics Processing Unit—a specialized chip designed for rapid parallel computing, originally for rendering graphics, now widely used to accelerate AI and machine learning tasks.
  • GPQA: Graduate-Level Professional Questions Assessment—a benchmark testing AI on advanced science and reasoning, aimed at gauging expertise beyond general knowledge.
  • ELO: Elo Rating System—a method to rank skill levels, adapted from chess, used here to compare AI chatbot performance based on user preference in head-to-head matchups. The Elo rating system in chess is a method used to calculate the relative skill levels of players. It was developed by Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor and chess player.
  • AIME: American Invitational Mathematics Examination—a challenging math competition for high schoolers, used as a metric to evaluate AI’s problem-solving prowess.
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