Blockchain and trusted third parties
As Cory Doctorow points out, merely putting something on a blockchain doesn’t make the data itself ‘trusted’ (or useful!)
In passing, it’s interesting that he cites Vinay Gupta in the piece, as Vinay is someone I’ve historically had a lot of time for. However, Mattereum (NFTs for physical assets) just… seems like a distraction from more important work he’s previously done?
In other words:Source: The Inevitability of Trusted Third Parties | Cory Doctorowif: problem + blockchain = problem - blockchain
then: blockchain = 0
The blockchain hasn’t added anything to the situation, except considerable cost (which could just as easily be spent on direct transfers to poor farmers, assuming you could find someone you trust to hand out the money) and complexity (which creates lots of opportunities for cheating).
'The individual' is an idea like other ideas
I thought I'd share some things that have really opened my eyes recently.
The first is a two-part interview with Vinay Gupta from the Emerge podcast in 2019. I've followed Vinay's work ever since we tried to get Firecloud (a P2P publishing platforming using WebRTC) off the ground in 2013 when I was working at Mozilla. Ten years ahead of the curve, as always.
Working with Vinay absolutely blew my mind, and although we haven't met up in person for a few years, he's been changing the world in the meantime. He was the release manager for Ethereum, and he's currently CEO of Mattereum.
The difference with Vinay, though, is that he's enlightened. I don't mean that in a LinkedIn kind of way. I mean that in a studied-under-a-Hindu-guru kind of way. This underpins all of the humanitarian work he does, some of which you can see at myhopeforthe.world
The two episodes on the Emerge podcast are entitled Waking Up in the Monster Factory (Part 1 / Part 2). I guarantee they are worth your time.
The second thing I'd like to share is a documentary series by Adam Curtis that was released last month. Entitled Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World it's available on BBC iPlayer and YouTube.
The late, great Dai Barnes implored me to watch Curtis' 2016 documentary HyperNormalisation. I'm only half way through the new documentary series, and it's having a similar effect as when I watched that. A feeling of waking up, and seeing the world as it really is. It's kind of counter-conspiracy theory.
The crucial thing for me, and my reason for sharing both of these, is a recognition that there's no-one coming to save us. But, unlike those people discussed in the 99% Invisible podcast episode The Doom Boom, it's up to us to figure out how to pull together collectively — instead of hunkering down and just making sure that our immediate family and friends are OK.
Quotation-as-title by Harold Rosenberg. Image by Antonino Visalli