Hello Lloyd... it seems the more time I spend in cryptoland the more I’m encountering that seems quite fascinating. I find the idea of “trust less”systems fascinating, but also a bit baffling in the sense that the moment ultimately the interface is with the human creature, one almost has to deal with trust if for no other reason because at some level, the human must be convinced to “let go”of their thing in order for it to be transferred to another... in the digital space, it seems easier... UT when one is crossing to the physical, it seems a bit more complex. On top of that, it also seems at least part of the story yet to unfold is what will current stakeholders in the existing status quo (read governments) actually get out of the way to stop muddying the waters for these alternate ways of doing things to rise... maybe this a bit of my own “tinfoilhatwearing”coming out, but it seems that as long as power, systems of control, and conferred status and benefits, can be milked out of existing systems, government and other legal entities will not easily relinquish their perceived role without a great deal of consternation.
How are you seeing efforts like Mattereum et al addressing this?
thanks Eric, I think the easiest way to answer is to say that I expect there will be a great deal of consternation! :)
One of the inspirations for Mattereum (I was having conversations with the founders before they launched) was the idea that they wanted to avoid a future that could be summed up as "Made in China, delivered by Amazon" - so how do you build a system of trade that's as efficient (or more so) than Amazon without it being tightly integrated and owned by a small number of people. They also recognise that the prices we (in the "West") pay for goods is kept low by actual and financial violence against other human beings, just ones that we don't generally see (and don't want to see), they talk about "you've seen what fairtrade coffee costs, now think what a fairtrade laptop or smartphone would cost"
I think we're currently seeing the unfolding consequences of the original internet - the "internet of ideas" in the chaos that surrounds news and information at the moment - what happens when you give politicians a tool like Twitter (which is a boiled down version of the thing called 'blogging')? Well eventually you get politicians who use Twitter as their main way to talk directly to ordinary people and you get a news media that mainly reports and amplifies whatever lies they choose to tell. Could we have done something about this ten years ago? Maybe, but it might have involved deeply lessening the power of blogging and microblogging technology and keeping certain people out. And that's countercultural for most of the people building the tools.
I hope that we've learned something but I'm not entirely sure.
If you've 90 minutes to spare sometime to listen to Vinay talking, this is where his thinking is right now. I'm still trying to get him to use his Steemit account a bit more :)