Epsidode notes for post-state plutocracy
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@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Bitcoin is not compatible with ESG investing.
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## References
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1. Gallersdörfer, Ulrich, Lena Klaaßen, and Christian Stoll. ‘Accounting for Carbon Emissions Caused by Cryptocurrency and Token Systems’, 2021. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.06477.
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1. Goodkind, Andrew L., Benjamin A. Jones, and Robert P. Berrens. ‘Cryptodamages: Monetary Value Estimates of the Air Pollution and Human Health Impacts of Cryptocurrency Mining’. Energy Research and Social Science 59, no. March 2019 (2020): 101281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101281.
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1. Gallersdörfer, Ulrich, Lena Klaaßen, and Christian Stoll. ‘Accounting for Carbon Emissions Caused by Cryptocurrency and Token Systems’, 2021. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.06477.
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@ -36,4 +37,5 @@ Bitcoin is not compatible with ESG investing.
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1. Schinckus, Christophe. ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: An Overview of the Sustainability of Blockchain Technology’. Energy Research and Social Science 69, no. May (2020): 101614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101614.
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1. Vries, Alex De. ‘Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption Is Underestimated : A Market Dynamics Approach’. Energy Research & Social Science 70, no. July (2020): 101721. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101721.
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1. Vries, Alex de. ‘Bitcoin’s Growing Energy Problem’. Joule 2, no. 5 (2018): 801–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.04.016.
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1. Vries, Alex de, and Christian Stoll. ‘Bitcoin’s Growing e-Waste Problem’. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 175, no. September (2021): 105901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105901.
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1. Vries, Alex de, and Christian Stoll. ‘Bitcoin’s Growing e-Waste Problem’. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 175, no. September (2021): 105901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105901.
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1. Wanat, Emanuel. 2021. ‘Are Crypto-Assets Green Enough? – An Analysis of Draft EU Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets from the Perspective of the European Green Deal’. Osteuropa Recht 67 (2): 237–50. https://doi.org/10.5771/0030-6444-2021-2-237.
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@ -24,7 +24,6 @@ And several notable investors have also described it as a bubble:
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* George Soros
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## References
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1. Chancellor, Edward. 1999. ‘Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation’.
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1. Blanchard, Olivier J, and Mark W Watson. 1982. ‘Bubbles, Rational Expectations and Financial Markets’. NBER Working Paper, no. w0945.
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1. Bernstein, William J. 2021. The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups. Grove Press.
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@ -34,9 +33,5 @@ And several notable investors have also described it as a bubble:
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1. Mackay, Charles. 2012. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Simon and Schuster.
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1. Nabilou, Hossein, and André Prüm. 2019. ‘Ignorance, Debt, and Cryptocurrencies: The Old and the New in the Law and Economics of Concurrent Currencies’. Journal of Financial Regulation 5 (1): 29–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/jfr/fjz002.
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1. Smales, L. A. 2022. ‘Investor Attention in Cryptocurrency Markets’. International Review of Financial Analysis 79: 101972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2021.101972.
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## References
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* [@blanchard_bubbles_1982]
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* [@caferra_bitcoin_2021]
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* [@fry_negative_2016]
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* [@tonelli_internet_2022]
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1. Kolchinski, Alex. 2022. ‘Crypto Is an Unproductive Bubble’. Alex Kolchinski (blog). 18 March 2022. https://alexkolchinski.com/2022/03/18/crypto-is-an-unproductive-bubble/.
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1. Krugman, Paul. 2021. ‘The Brutal Truth About Bitcoin’. The New York Times 21.
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@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
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# Is Web3 green?
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Web3 is allegedly based on crypto assets which have a known [environmental footprint](environmental-footprint.md) problem. Therefore web3 is not green.
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## References
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## References
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* Wanat, Emanuel. 2021. ‘Are Crypto-Assets Green Enough? – An Analysis of Draft EU Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets from the Perspective of the European Green Deal’. Osteuropa Recht 67 (2): 237–50. https://doi.org/10.5771/0030-6444-2021-2-237.
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@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
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# Greater Fool Theory
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The greater fool theory is a thesis in economics that market participants can sometimes profit from the purchase (i.e. [speculation](speculation.md)) of overvalued assets , assets whose [market-value](market-value.md) drastically exceeding their [fundamental-value](fundamental-value.md) , if those assets can later be resold at an even higher price to another market participant who makes the same assumption and so on ad infinitum.
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The greater fool theory is a thesis in economics that market participants can sometimes profit from the purchase (i.e. [speculation](speculation.md)) of overvalued assets , assets whose [market value](market-value.md) drastically exceeding their [fundamental-value](fundamental-value.md) , if those assets can later be resold at an even higher price to another market participant who makes the same assumption and so on ad infinitum.
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The greater fool theory presumes an infinite chain of fools in order for all participants to profit or "make it" or profit from the [bubble](bubble.md).
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@ -1 +1,8 @@
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# Immutability
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The property of a data structure in computer science that data cannot be changed once it has been written. Append-only data structures like [blockchains](blockchain.md) are immutable, they lack a delete operation that allows removal of data from the chain.
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Immutability has been critized as a vector for abuse and harassment when personally identifiable information cannot be removed from a publicly accessible system.
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## References
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1. White, Molly. 2022. ‘Abuse and Harassment on the Blockchain’. Molly White. 22 January 2022. https://blog.mollywhite.net/abuse-and-harassment-on-the-blockchain/.
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1. Guadamuz, Andres. 2019. ‘All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace: A Critical Look at Smart Contracts’. Computer Law and Security Review 35 (6): 105338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2019.105338.
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@ -1 +1,14 @@
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# Market Mania
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## References
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1. Chancellor, Edward. 1999. ‘Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation’.
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1. Blanchard, Olivier J, and Mark W Watson. 1982. ‘Bubbles, Rational Expectations and Financial Markets’. NBER Working Paper, no. w0945.
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1. Bernstein, William J. 2021. The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups. Grove Press.
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1. Demmler, Michael, and Amilcar Orlian Fernández Domínguez. 2021. ‘Bitcoin and the South Sea Company: A Comparative Analysis’. Revista Finanzas y Política Económica 13 (1): 197–224.
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1. Baur, Dirk G., and Thomas Dimpfl. 2021. ‘The Volatility of Bitcoin and Its Role as a Medium of Exchange and a Store of Value’. Empirical Economics 61 (5): 2663–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-020-01990-5.
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1. Caferra, Rocco, Gabriele Tedeschi, and Andrea Morone. 2021. ‘Bitcoin: Bubble That Bursts or Gold That Glitters?’ Economics Letters 205: 109942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109942.
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1. Mackay, Charles. 2012. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Simon and Schuster.
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1. Nabilou, Hossein, and André Prüm. 2019. ‘Ignorance, Debt, and Cryptocurrencies: The Old and the New in the Law and Economics of Concurrent Currencies’. Journal of Financial Regulation 5 (1): 29–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/jfr/fjz002.
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1. Smales, L. A. 2022. ‘Investor Attention in Cryptocurrency Markets’. International Review of Financial Analysis 79: 101972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2021.101972.
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1. Kolchinski, Alex. 2022. ‘Crypto Is an Unproductive Bubble’. Alex Kolchinski (blog). 18 March 2022. https://alexkolchinski.com/2022/03/18/crypto-is-an-unproductive-bubble/.
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1. Krugman, Paul. 2021. ‘The Brutal Truth About Bitcoin’. The New York Times 21.
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@ -98,4 +98,28 @@ In episode #3 of our ongoing deep dive into web3 and crypto, we explore the natu
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* [productive-asset](../concepts/productive-asset.md)
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* [ico](../concepts/ico.md)
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## References
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## References
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* Bank of International Settlements. 2018. ‘Cryptocurrencies: Looking beyond the Hype’. In . Bank for International Settlements Basel. https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2018e5.htm.
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* Boreiko, Dmitri, Guido Ferrarini, and Paolo Giudici. 2019. ‘Blockchain Startups and Prospectus Regulation’. European Business Organization Law Review 20 (4): 665–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40804-019-00168-6.
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* Brownsword, Roger. 2020. Law 3.0: Rules, Regulation, and Technology. Routledge.
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* Burilov, Vlad. 2019. ‘Regulation of Crypto Tokens and Initial Coin Offerings in the EU: De Lege Lata and de Lege Ferenda’. European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance 6 (2): 146–86. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134514-00602003.
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* Butler, Simon. 2021. ‘Cyber 9/11 Will Not Take Place: A User Perspective of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies from Underground and Dark Net Forums’. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 12812 LNCS:135–53. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79318-0_8.
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* Cumming, Douglas J., Sofia Johan, and Anshum Pant. 2019. ‘Regulation of the Crypto-Economy: Managing Risks, Challenges, and Regulatory Uncertainty’. Journal of Risk and Financial Management 12 (3): 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm12030126.
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* Ferrari, Valeria. 2020. ‘The Regulation of Crypto-Assets in the EU – Investment and Payment Tokens under the Radar’. Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 27 (3): 325–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X20911538.
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* Finck, Michèle. 2018. Blockchain Regulation and Governance in Europe. Blockchain Regulation and Governance in Europe. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108609708.
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* Goforth, Carol R. 2021. ‘Regulation of Crypto: Who Is the Securities and Exchange Commission Protecting?’ American Business Law Journal 58 (3): 643–705. https://doi.org/10.1111/ablj.12192.
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* Guadamuz, Andres, and Chris Marsden. 2015. ‘Blockchains and Bitcoin: Regulatory Responses to Cryptocurrencies’. First Monday 20 (12). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v20i12.6198.
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* Hacker, Philipp, Ioannis Lianos, Georgios Dimitropoulos, and Stefan Eich. 2019. Regulating Blockchain: : Techno-Social and Legal Challenges. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198842187.001.0001.
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* Hofman, Darra, Quinn DuPont, Angela Walch, and Ivan Beschastnikh. 2021. ‘Blockchain Governance: De Facto (x) or Designed?’ In Building Decentralized Trust, 21–33. Springer.
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* Kapsis, Ilias. 2021. ‘Should We Trade Market Stability for More Financial Inclusion? The Case of Crypto-Assets Regulation in EU’. FinTech, Artificial Intelligence and the Law: Regulation and Crime Prevention, 85–104. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020998-9.
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* Kraus, Daniel, Thierry Obrist, and Olivier Hari. 2019. Blockchains, Smart Contracts, Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and the Law. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788115131.
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* Lee, Joseph. 2022. Crypto-Finance, Law and Regulation: Governing an Emerging Ecosystem. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Crypto-Finance-Law-and-Regulation-Governing-an-Emerging-Ecosystem/Lee/p/book/9780367086619.
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* Liaw, K. Thomas. 2021. ‘Trading and Regulation of Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins and Other Cryptoassets’.
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* Maia, Guilherme, and João Vieira dos Santos. 2021. ‘MiCA and DeFi (“Proposal for a Regulation on Market in Crypto-Assets” and ’Decentralised Finance’)’. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3875355.
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* Rae, Shaela W, and Lorraine Mastersmith. 2019. ‘Crypto Asset Trading in Canada: Entering a New Era of Regulation’. Banking & Finance Law Review 35 (1): 153–85.
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* Reiners, Lee. 2020. ‘Cryptocurrency and the State: An Unholy Alliance’. S. Cal. Interdisc. LJ 30: 695.
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* Walch, Angela. 2015a. ‘The Bitcoin Blockchain as Financial Market Infrastructure: A Consideration of Operational Risk’. NYUJ Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 18: 837.
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* ———. 2015b. ‘The Bitcoin Blockchain as Financial Market Infrastructure: A Consideration of Operational Risk’. NYUJ Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 18: 837.
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* ———. 2019a. ‘Deconstructing ‘Decentralization’: Exploring the Core Claim of Crypto Systems’. C. Brummer (Ed.), Crypto Assets: Legal and Monetary Perspectives, 1–36. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3326244.
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* ———. 2019b. ‘In Code (Rs) We Trust: Software Developers as Fiduciaries in Public Blockchains’.
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* ———. 2019c. ‘Software Developers as Fiduciaries in Public Blockchains’. Regulating Blockchain. Techno-Social and Legal Challenges, Ed. by Philipp Hacker, Ioannis Lianos, Georgios Dimitropoulos & Stefan Eich, Oxford University Press, 2019. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3203198.
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@ -19,8 +19,132 @@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ0iCJkM3PU
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* [free-rider-problem](../concepts/free-rider-problem.md)
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* [private-money](../concepts/private-money.md)
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## Summary
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#todo
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## Episode Notes
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**Preface**
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1. This week we’re going to start diving into the more utopian visions of crypto and web3. Unlike in the previous interviews where we discussed positions that were largely either monetary or financial reconfiguration (reinstate the gold standard, get rich quick) this time we’ll start engaging with people who really do have a set of political imaginaries about “making the world a better place” as they see it.
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2. Specifically we’re going to engage with the imaginaries laid out by technologists and venture capitalists about a vision that allegedly aims to transition the world from the existing US-led international order to a vision in which blockchain technology and technocracy are the new foundations for global human governance.
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3. This thesis has been put forward in various forms. So far, the most fully articulated form that we have found is from Balaji Srinivasan. We’ll link to the source material in the show notes.
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**Conflict of Interests Disclaimer**
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1. It’s hard to disentangle VC narratives from:
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1. Talking their books
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2. Increasing exit liquidity
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3. Creating new tax optimization structures and havens
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2. We can engage with these arguments in good faith. We have source material on what they allegedly believe and we’ll analyze that on the merits.
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1. [https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics/)
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2. [https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/is-bitcoin-anarchy-or-civilization?s=r](https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/is-bitcoin-anarchy-or-civilization?s=r)
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3. [https://1729.com](https://1729.com)
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1. [https://1729.com/the-network-state](https://1729.com/the-network-state)
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2. [https://1729.com/slides/the-network-state.pdf](https://1729.com/slides/the-network-state.pdf)
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5. [Balaji S. Srinivasan: The Network State](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5UAtAOV66c)
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6. [Sovereignty in the 21st Century | The Balaji Series | Episode 1 (WiM115)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4RTXF1JX0E)
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7. [35: Balaji Srinivasan - The Heretic & The Virus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km9YC1XF1F4)
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3. First rule of sociology: Whether or not this view is intellectually coherent isn’t so much as important as whether people believe in this worldview as if it were coherent.
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1. Prefigurative politics - the best way to predict the future is to make it.
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**Pro**
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1. These ideas are all based on the overarching conception of the self-sovereignty of cyberspace.
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1. In their words - “A network state is a social network with an agreed-upon leader, an integrated cryptocurrency, a definite purpose, a sense of national consciousness, and a plan to crowdfund physical territory.”
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2. Constant push inside of libertarianism to create ideal communes of pure libertarian thought. Buying towns, islands, seasteading, etc …
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3. This is not a completely new idea, we see echoes of this going back to the early internet days of the 1990s Electronic Frontier Foundation and Barlow’s ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’.
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4. Peter Thiel thesis on human progress - We’ve hit a wall on physical progress, so the “digital realm” is the only frontier accessible.
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1. The state is holding back progress in physical sciences.
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2. The research taboos of the past need to be revisited.
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3. Cryptocurrencies, seasteading, transhumanism, space travel, and life extension are the foundational ideas of the next era of human development.
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4. Why do they want to build a network state?
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1. On 1729.com their explanation: To do biomedical research and human genetic experiments that are prohibited in other countries.
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5. Classic problem in political science and philosophy to create justifications for sovereign states. There are many schools of thought.
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1. Thomas Hobbes argued that the absolute power of the sovereign was ultimately justified by the consent of the governed, who agreed, in a hypothetical social contract, to obey the sovereign in all matters in exchange for a guarantee of peace and security.
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2. Jürgen Habermas argues the modern state plays a large role in structuring the economy, by regulating economic activity and being a large-scale economic consumer/producer, and through its redistributive welfare state activities.
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3. Conflict theories of state formation and the claims of a legitimacy based on conquest and a subsequent monopoly on violence. This is a popular view in libertarian circles. The state is in perpetual frozen conflict with the individual and taxation is a protection racket not unlike the mob.
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6. The traditional functions of the nation state are being replaced by cyberspace and citizenship (what does citizenship grant me: access to a physical space, the people there and the services provided most obviously physical defense, social security, participation in governance)
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1. Physical access (to other people)
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2. Physical access to jobs
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3. Control of a currency
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4. Regulation
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5. Property rights enforcement nationally & internationally (justice and arbitration?)
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6. Redistribution (and addressing redistribution) and public goods
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7. There is a grain of truth in all these claims.
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1. Zoom and Twitter connect people across the world.
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2. Remote working is now a reality
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3. Transferwise and wire transfers have lower barriers to money flows
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4. The sufficiency of self-regulation in the private sector is a popular perspective
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5. Digital commodities are regulated internationally (ICANN, web hosting)
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6. Self-organizing communities (everything from good things like Linux and Open Source to bad things like 4chan and QAnon) have proved enormously influential in shaping culture and creating public goods.
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8. ThePirateBay has existed since 2003 despite government attempts to remove it from the internet. No government cares enough to really pursue it because it only infringes on the private sector and there’s no political will to shut it down.
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1. People have successfully built antifragile services that exist outside the regulatory perimeter that have endured the test of time.
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7. “There is a coming war between the United States government and the forces of China, Bitcoin and the internet.”
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1. This war is extremely desirable and we should work to accelerate it.
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2. Normative statements about the inevitably of future “belonging” to one ideology.
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8. “The 21st century doesn’t belong to China, the United States, or Silicon Valley. It belongs to the internet.”
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1. Belief in the “great cycles of history” model and the decline of Pax Americana.
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9. Nation states are being dissolved from within. The internet is global, the internet is the basis of human life, so borders should not exist. Citizenship is an anachronism.
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1. “No borders politics” is legitimately a divergence from classical right wing positions. Usually resonantes with far-left positions. This is an interesting shift in thinking.
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2. Synthesis of ideas from Chomskyan anarchism and neoreactionary thought.
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1. “Burning Man Techno-anarchism turned to nation-building ”
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10. The supposition is that the state can (and should) be hollowed out, we can replace all of its legacy functions with software, and the public goods that it once supported can be replaced by either the private sector or blockchain apps.
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1. Replacing the DMV and the tax authority with automation is a genuinely appealing idea to many people. Replacing it with the private sector is more controversial.
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11. Modern nation states are simply too big. People reason about community and politics at a Dunbar’s number level.
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1. Joseph Henrich has made a strong case that Western high-trust cultures are weird by most historical and global standards. It may be a “pathological” form of organization and something better may exist.
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12. A more optimal form of human self-organization is somewhere between a tribe and the modern nation state. The direct democracies of ancient Greece or authoritarian capitalist city-states like Singapore are an ideal middle-way that produces greater prosperity.
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1. Blockchain-friendly hubs are being created across the world (El Salvador, Singapore, Zug). These cities can be purchased using crowdfunding to give blockchain technology the rights of sovereign states and create utopias which will attract top talent looking for low-taxes, business opportunities and like-minded communities.
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13. There is a kernel of truth in all this, western democracies are slow and sclerotic and public trust in institutions is at an all time low. The Americans legitimately elected an imbecile to control their nuclear arsenal … things are clearly not working optimally in democracy.
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1. Infinite supply of whataboutisms talking about the genuine deficiencies in the American hegemony and rules based international order.
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14. "Crypto is the smartest people in the world exiting into their own economy"
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1. Problems like climate change show that liberal democracies and the existing international order are highly vulnerable to paralysis on global tragedy of the commons problems.
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2. Just like evolution, corruption is the natural state of being, so we need to embrace corruption rather than live up to the ideals of liberal democracy.
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3. Instead of a strong man to save us, we need strong tech.
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15. Web3 is a paradigm shift akin to the industrial revolution. Our current reading of economics is incommensurate with the inevitable new world order that will exist after blockchain and tokenization subsume all of human life.
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1. We can’t stop runaway phenomenon. We simply have to embrace them.
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2. Crypto is inevitable. We can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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3. Creative destruction is unpredictable but in the end it’s right.
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4. Historical inventions like the printing press were fraught with concern and risk, and yet humanity survived those paradigm shifts. The disruption of the financial system is no different than the printing press.
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5. The train of progress only goes one direction, get on or get off. There’s no place for Luddites in the future.
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6. Matt Damon superbowl ad is the soft form of this worldview.
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**Critique**
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1. A philosophy built on a disdain for top-down command and control structures.
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1. A conception that a classless and hierarchy-free world is possible.
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2. The entire argument is predicated on the technology being able to do the things they claim, perhaps at some point in the future. This is falsely treated as a technical reality and an inevitability.
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1. The claims of cryptocurrencies or “algorithmic central banks” having the capacity to serve as national currencies seems unsubstantiated by evidence.
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2. Postal service claim - In the 1700s nothing moved faster than a horse. Yet the advent of the steam engine and capacity to send information faster than horse didn’t fundamentally alter our notions of statehood and justice.
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3. Comparisons to kibbutzim and moshavim.
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4. Biomedical experimentation outside of the regulatory perimeter is generally considered a bad idea for very good reasons.
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5. "Crypto is the smartest people in the world exiting into their own economy"
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3. Who will fix the potholes in the road? Why will they fix the potholes?
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1. Cartmanland
|
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2. This is a vision of the future detached from the lived experience and day to day economics of the vast majority of people globally.
|
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3. How will this new economy function when their financial system can't even be used to buy goods and services?
|
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1. “Crypto doesn’t currently function as money, not because of technical or economics limitations, but because statists won’t give up their power.”
|
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2. Doesn’t include the view that the economics of the system are wrong to give rise to a medium of exchange.
|
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3. A worldview from a VC echo chamber talking their books or trying to strongarm their heterodox views using capital.
|
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4. A tech-led plutocracy, not a utopia.
|
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5. The state exists for a very good reason. It’s the only structure proven to sustain public goods at a civilization level and be the guarantor of last resort for justice, defense, and monetary issuance.
|
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1. Property rights over physical goods are not enforceable with cryptography.
|
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2. Dispute resolution between humans can rarely, if ever, be reduced down to code.
|
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3. We still need magistrates and courts.
|
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4. We still inevitably need a structure like a central bank.
|
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5. How does this solve the public goods problem? There appears to be no coherent connection between crypto coins and solutions to this problem.
|
||||
6. The appeals to global UBI are interesting but don't make sense economically. How will we fund it?
|
||||
7. We'll all be full-time FX traders at face value makes zero sense. Price discovery is important but who will smelt the aluminum for your MacBook
|
||||
8. Oligarchy of the technical elite rule and those with access to capitals, where the vast majority of the public which has no ability to purchase say in governance. Which is now purely bought and sold as a commodity.
|
||||
9. This perspective on web3 is an embodiment of what the political theorist Macpherson calls "possessive individualism", a philosophy in which an individual is conceived as the sole proprietor of his or her skills and owes nothing to society for them. These skills (and those of others) are a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market and in such a society is demonstrated a selfish and unending thirst for consumption which is considered the crucial core of human nature.
|
||||
10. Ronald Coase's theory of the firm as an economic answer to possessive individualism.
|
||||
1. Why aren’t we all sole proprietors?
|
||||
2. Transaction costs model
|
||||
11. This is a bleak dystopian vision of the future.
|
||||
1. Neal Stpehensons’s Burbclaves
|
||||
2. We can’t run nation states like we run tech startups.
|
||||
3. Skeptical about finding a quick-fix in technology or politics. There is wisdom in learning from the past and the institutions that exist.
|
||||
4. Esperanto-style solutionism has never worked for societies or economies.
|
||||
5. Anna Neima’s book The Utopians is full of similarly minded people and communities. They usually dissolve or collapse.
|
||||
|
||||
## References
|
||||
1. Barlow, John Perry. 2019. ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’. Duke Law & Technology Review 18 (1): 5–7.
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
|
@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ We think good sensemaking begins by clarifying and agreeing the questions we wan
|
|||
* What are the [narratives](../../claims/narrative-economics.md) and claims made for web3, both positive and negative?
|
||||
* Based on the theory and evidence at our disposal, how should we evaluate these claims?
|
||||
* Given our evaluations, what should we do? Should we support and/or improve web3 technology, or, alternatively, restrict it? How does this differ across different uses (e.g. [DAOs](../../concepts/dao.md) vs [NFTs](../../concepts/nft.md))? How should we do this?
|
||||
* More generally, what options are there both in web3 and beyond to fulfil on the aspirations voiced for it? And thus, how should we direct our attention, time and money most effectively to realize these aspirations whether via web3 or other means?
|
||||
* More generally, what options are there both in web3 and beyond to fulfil on the aspirations voiced for it? And thus, how should we direct our attention, time and [money](../../concepts/money.md) most effectively to realize these aspirations whether via web3 or other means?
|
||||
|
||||
And here is our full structured tree of questions:
|
||||
|
||||
|
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Loading…
Reference in New Issue