|
|
|
|
Maybe I'm blocked
|
Do you remember Tales from the Crypt? It was a TV show in the late 80s and early 90s, and it was hosted by the Crypt Keeper, a horrifying puppet with sardonic comments and sarcastic moral advice. Often when someone mentions "crypto", I imagine the Crypt Keeper at the bottom of the dark web, cackling and saying something like "Let's see how it gets *bent* out of shape," before wide panning to a programmer being crushed beneath an entire crypto mining rig.
|
[Intellectual leap to crypto and NFTs]
|
Not all my readers are here for the geek, so let me explain, very briefly, what's happening in the ether. There's this stuff you've probably heard of called "cryptocurrency". It's bits and bots documented on blockchains, which are basically digital ledgers keeping track of stuff. Cryptocurrency can be bought, traded and sold for, erm, fiat money and it can be "mined" like gold. You set your computer to do certain tasks (mine) and you get certain rewards (fractions of crypto coins). Here's the thing though, mining is incredibly resource heavy. I'm talking about energy resources. This is not good for Earth, the planet we live on. In fact, it's really, really bad. The resources required by the large number of computers processing stuff every time that digital ledger is updated (which is happening *all* the time), is astronomical. There are some organizations out there working to have more sustainable blockchains, but they seem to be few and far between.
|
Moving on to NFTs - non-fungible tokens. You can think of these as certificates validating authenticity. They can be created and associated with, for example, a digital work of art. The thing is, digital things can be copied quite easily. NFTs associated with one of these artworks isn't the same as owning a physical thing, and there's a big discussion happening around NFTs and whether or not they suck.
|
Spoiler: the whole thing smells funny. You see, blockchain proponents like to spout intellectual about equality and decentralizing power, which are good aims. But the current landscape isn't promoting equality and power is not being doled out to marginalized groups. It is simply the wild west. And NFTs for art aren't liberating the artists, it's an absolute scam. Much like the world of fine art.
|
The Open Web used to be the wild west too, and then it became ubiquitous in our lives. Like the real world, corporations and capitalist interests saw how much fun we were all having with the web and found ways to suck the joy and beat us into submission. They used the Web's wild west situation to harm us in the real world. They skirted government regulations, some of which were designed to protect us, the people. Big Tech has moved fast and broke stuff, and after 32 years since the invention of the WWW, we are living in a world where we're being watched, manipulated and controlled by algorithms. So that's nice.
|
|
You know what the wild west didn't have? Equality and decentralized power. Early innovative tech always feels like it's going to promote these things. Open Web advocates (:wave) certainly promote them, so there are people working to ensure our NEW systems (e.g. technology based and/or supported) are designed with this in mind. Many of these people (:wave) are also working to correct flaws in the old systems.
|
Sadly, dear friends, we are not the majority, and we have been losing. Now I am a punk rocker through and through, I'm pretty leftie, to the point of my own eternal despair at the state of the world. And though I have quite a lot of beliefs around how society could be better, I do not believe that anarchy is a good (non)system for anything, really. We are not inherently responsible enough for anarchy.
|
You know what the wild west was? Anarchy. And so is blockchain and so was the early web. I haven't seen *sustainable* common good stemming from anarchy, ever. Maybe I'm just pessimistic this week, but while the Web has certainly been good for society in many ways, it's also largely responsible for the very polemic political, social and economic landscape we're living in. I'm sorry, but I feel that is true.
|
Now don't get me wrong, I am not *against* blockchain, cryptocurrency or even NFTs (although that last one I'm more skeptical about than the others). I just haven't found a reason to be *for* any of these things. Blockchain remains a resource-heavy answer to a problem no one has. Until the industry has fixed the problem it created, I'm going keep Environmentalist Hat visible and remind people that our planet is on fire. Blockchain as a thing ain't helping.
|
Cryptocurrency is volatile and while it might be backed by its own existence, it still mirrors valuation-speculative capitalist markets. Remember what happened in 2008? Remember who was affected by speculative real estate loans? What happens when governments or banks with power in the real world decide to use their real world legislative or capitalist power to back, destroy or otherwise influence a crypto?
|
Finally* at the risk of pissing people off, WHO do you think is benefitting from all this stuff? Do you think it is the most vulnerable in society who are being helped by these technologies? Do you think the existence of this stuff is redistributing power?
|
|
Well, not "finally" because my out-loud-thinking here has brought up loads of issues that I'll likely come back to.
|
|
Maybe I need help?
|
|
It was an accident, this newsletter episode. It's more like a blog post, to be honest. Not sure what to do with it. Maybe you want to tell me? I've read this several times, and it sounds so very critical. And it is, I guess, but I'm excited about all this stuff. It's new and shiny and I want to help design a future for it that really is equitable and good. So I guess my point is – Yes, have your fun with crypto and blocks, but beware.
|
I will remind you, dear reader, that I don't know anything about anything. Just like you. Lots of love. Hit me back.
|
Here's a bunch of links, some on what I was writing about above. Some not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
