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A decentralised, trustless future perhaps? I'm semi-conspiratorial, semi-fatalistic about society's ability to change politics politically / non-technically.

A decentralised, trustless future perhaps? I'm semi-conspiratorial, semi-fatalistic about society's ability to change politics politically / non-technically. There are too many who are too apathetic (and I might even be one of them by already being semi-fatalistic) that anchor the current system in perpetuity. My conspiratorial side says this is by design, whilst my fatalistic side says it's human nature (essentially Hanlon's razor). Revolutionary change is often a case of "it" getting (a lot) worse before it gets better, but with the inevitability of returning to the previous status quo just with different bums on the same seats. (I've previously stated my desire to write a novel based on this concept in order to try and explore the inevitability, or otherwise, of this 'revolution for nothing' and the changing priorities of individuals as their levels of power increase from zero to monarch and how that may just be a limitation of civilisation).

_carbyau_ 5y ago
"A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?" I think we need a DNS-like service that simply hold small encrypted blobs, just big enough to contain an IPv6 address. When you "add" someone to your list of contacts, you are giving them the key to decrypt the blob that you update with your IP.(Complications ahoy here but this is the basic idea.) That way, people can message your phone/computer-of-choice direct with whatever E2E protocol you want. No middleman. Then you need an app layer built on that to manage messaging, video calls, group chats etc. But that app layer could be open and free. People often like some XML based protocol from the 2000s, but as long as it is secure - whatever.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  There's so many issues with this. The biggest being the need to be online at the same time. But other issues: using it from multiple devices? Using it from different locations? Maybe it'll work with a tor hidden service or something because at least that stays the same (I think some chat apps already so that)
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    The part here is a "DNS for all" approach. Once you have that, everyone can run their own hosting. Everyone could have their own Matrix server, or whatever flavour of messaging you want.
sul_tasto 5y ago
You may be interested then in The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun.[0] There is also an adaptation by Christoph Hein that is quite good.[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_wahre_Geschichte_des_Ah_Q_(B%C3%BChnenwerk) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_wahre_Geschichte_des_Ah_...
EMM_386 5y ago
> There are too many who are too apathetic. Revolutionary change is often a case of "it" getting (a lot) worse before it gets better, but with the inevitability of returning to the previous status quo just with different bums on the same seats. The problem with this is that you have far too many keyboard warriors who read clickbait headlines and decide they want to change the system. The people actually working in that system have decades of knowledge about how it works. That isn't always a bad thing. They may understand how to navigate a complex system to get the real change you want, to actually happen. Imagine if people in this "decentralized, trustless future" saw a YouTube video of an aircraft landing and came to the conclusion that they didn't use enough rudder on landing, without understanding the nature of a 25 knot crosswind. They'd vote, the pilots would be fired, and aviation safety would drop another notch because the people voting didn't understand the scope of what they were voting on, because they weren't trained pilots.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  I was referring to a potential way that messaging could avoid the ongoing pendulum between small, independent and as-yet un-tainted by snooping platforms and the large, popular, privacy invasions they eventually turn into because of their centralised control. I wholeheartedly do not believe in making aircraft safety a democratic process. Horses for courses. Winston Churchill's quote: “…democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    > I wholeheartedly do not believe in making aircraft safety a democratic process. But if I read you correctly ("society's ability to change politics") ... this is how the US got things like January 6th. It's completely destabilizing for a functioning democracy when relatively small groups of like-minded people can coordinate over private channels and rally themselves into something crazy. The reason politics "works" (and I use that term lightly these days) in this country are because things are all done out in the open. If you don't like "snooping" and would prefer our politics be done in the dark ... that isn't freedom, that's back-channel politics. We don't want that, I don't care if the left or the right is doing it. I am actually in favor of E2E encrypted chats and the like. But we need to keep politics out in the light of day. If you want to change the system, run for office.

_carbyau_ 5y ago

"A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?" I think we need a DNS-like service that simply hold small encrypted blobs, just big enough to contain an IPv6 address. When you "add" someone to your list of contacts, you are giving them the key to decrypt the blob that you update with your IP.(Complications ahoy here but this is the basic idea.) That way, people can message your phone/computer-of-choice direct with whatever E2E protocol you want. No middleman. Then you need an app layer built on that to manage messaging, video calls, group chats etc. But that app layer could be open and free. People often like some XML based protocol from the 2000s, but as long as it is secure - whatever.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
There's so many issues with this. The biggest being the need to be online at the same time. But other issues: using it from multiple devices? Using it from different locations? Maybe it'll work with a tor hidden service or something because at least that stays the same (I think some chat apps already so that)
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  The part here is a "DNS for all" approach. Once you have that, everyone can run their own hosting. Everyone could have their own Matrix server, or whatever flavour of messaging you want.

sul_tasto 5y ago

You may be interested then in The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun.[0] There is also an adaptation by Christoph Hein that is quite good.[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_wahre_Geschichte_des_Ah_Q_(B%C3%BChnenwerk) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_wahre_Geschichte_des_Ah_...

EMM_386 5y ago

> There are too many who are too apathetic. Revolutionary change is often a case of "it" getting (a lot) worse before it gets better, but with the inevitability of returning to the previous status quo just with different bums on the same seats. The problem with this is that you have far too many keyboard warriors who read clickbait headlines and decide they want to change the system. The people actually working in that system have decades of knowledge about how it works. That isn't always a bad thing. They may understand how to navigate a complex system to get the real change you want, to actually happen. Imagine if people in this "decentralized, trustless future" saw a YouTube video of an aircraft landing and came to the conclusion that they didn't use enough rudder on landing, without understanding the nature of a 25 knot crosswind. They'd vote, the pilots would be fired, and aviation safety would drop another notch because the people voting didn't understand the scope of what they were voting on, because they weren't trained pilots.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
I was referring to a potential way that messaging could avoid the ongoing pendulum between small, independent and as-yet un-tainted by snooping platforms and the large, popular, privacy invasions they eventually turn into because of their centralised control. I wholeheartedly do not believe in making aircraft safety a democratic process. Horses for courses. Winston Churchill's quote: “…democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > I wholeheartedly do not believe in making aircraft safety a democratic process. But if I read you correctly ("society's ability to change politics") ... this is how the US got things like January 6th. It's completely destabilizing for a functioning democracy when relatively small groups of like-minded people can coordinate over private channels and rally themselves into something crazy. The reason politics "works" (and I use that term lightly these days) in this country are because things are all done out in the open. If you don't like "snooping" and would prefer our politics be done in the dark ... that isn't freedom, that's back-channel politics. We don't want that, I don't care if the left or the right is doing it. I am actually in favor of E2E encrypted chats and the like. But we need to keep politics out in the light of day. If you want to change the system, run for office.