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Technology offers power, and power rewards those that use it. This applies as equally to modern tech as it did to older tech like literacy, so there isnt much
by ergothus 8y ago
Technology offers power, and power rewards those that use it. This applies as equally to modern tech as it did to older tech like literacy, so there isnt much point in focusing on that aspect.
The meritocracy dream is that everyone unites to use power not only for themselves, but in support of a degree of equality (some versions want equal results, others strive for equal opportunity, but for this argument those are the same basic goal). After all, it is in our each of own interests to avoid a concentration of power in others that could harm us.
But in reality, people are lazy. We want to be comfortable. Governments (or other social bodies) exist to exercise our power so we dont have to worry about every detail. Power concentration is the easiest result, regardless of system of governance.
Power concentration isnt inherently bad, but it is ripe to be exploited, because the ultimate watchdogs over it - us, the common people - dont want that job.
I read a great statement here a few months ago, that went something like "modern democracy isnt the people deciding what govt does, it is the people deciding the boundaries within which govt operates."
I've been pondering that a ton lately. It shows how I, a US liberal, the many libertarians here, authoritarian conservatives, fiscal conservatives, European-style liberals, and most everyone else can all be so baffled by each others' views. We evaluate not the rules we want, but how we expect the govt to behave within those boundaries.
Unfortunately, while this eases my mind on how otherwise intelligent people want "dumb" things, it also suggests that there is no reliable system: we require a system as a matter of scale, be it loose or rigid. Any system exists because of a degree of trust that the system will not be manipulated or abused. ("System" here includes any interactions as simple as expecting contracts to be followed, so minimal govt is just a different system) You are rewarded for abusing the system. After the abuse is painful enough, people will demand a new system. Advocates for any given system will argue they have protections ("minimal government", "oversight", etc) but those rely on people being informed and active enough to repel abuse...and we're not.
- canadaduane 8y agoGreat points, and thanks for recapping others' illuminating points about government. I recently attended Ethereum DevCon and heard a succinct definition of decentralization from Prof. David Lee Kuo Chuen that I've been pondering in the week since: "Decentralization is dynamic, continuous distribution of trust." This may be the core of why people are excited about new consensus algorithms like blockchain: we've seen how static, centralized systems of trust distribution eventually break, and the discontinuity of trust that results is very harmful to societies (e.g. bad kings, bad presidents, corruption in parties, collusion of central banks, hacked central servers, etc.) I think we are still in very early days (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVZxjVJz4ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVZxjVJz4ds haha) but "blockchain" is the beginning of something new that has to do with helping solve social issues in a new way, with dynamic distribution of trust at the center of that solution.
- XorNot 8y agoExcept "blockchain" doesn't decentralize anything. It's decentralized in the sense that none of the big powers of the world care to try and take over things like Bitcoin, but it is fundamentally based on rewarding those who can gather the most autonomous resources. Blockchains are one of the worst methods to decentralize anything, because they don't require any consensus from the "governed" - they do exactly what whoever has ansible/puppet/chef connected to the most computers wants them to do. EDIT: Let's put a very real example on this - if blockchains controlled anything powerful, then there becomes two superpowers - nvidia and AMD. All they do is retool their business cycle so GPUs coming off the line go into N-months of burn-in doing blockchain things in an air-conditioned warehouse, and then get on-sold to consumers. Blockchains reward compute capacity, and nothing else.
- canadaduane 8y agoI was careful to avoid the use of the term "blockchain" as a final achievement because I agree with you regarding current limitations of our technology as a means of decentralized consensus. I see a future where more efficient algorithms supplant the current (very costly) blockchain BFT architecture.