daniel on crypto
dec 2021 article by daniel pinchbeck – What Revolution Will Be Tokenized? – Why the Left Hates Crypto, Part One
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/what-revolution-will-be-tokenized
intro’d via michel’s fb share.. then found this from daniel pinchbeck:
What Revolution Will Be Tokenized?, by @DanielPinchbeck https://t.co/6735mh5or5
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/DanielPinchbeck/status/1476227511113719826
notes/quotes from article:
Over the last weeks, I have been diving into Left Wing critiques of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. I think this is crucial because Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies offer the only authentic challenge to the dominance of fiat currency we have seen in our lifetimes..t
yeah.. maybe.. but not over the course of history.. ie: debt (book) et al.. it’s all same song.. legit authentic alt/challenge would be to let go of any form of m\a\p
Satoshi Nakamoto, pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, explicitly designed it to break the hegemony of the Central Bank system and to establish a new global reserve currency. Bitcoin was released as a direct response to .. t.. the 2008 financial crisis, when US and European governments bailed out the “too big to fail” financial institutions.
no hegemonies will ever be broken if we keep responding.. we need a means to let go of any form of people telling other people what to do
As I will explore in what follows, I sympathize with the negative views about crypto held by a wide range of Leftist journalists and academics. Still, I believe the Left is making a huge mistake in *dismissing this area. What the Left should be doing is engaging directly with it – intervening, experimenting, and **iterating. I am not sure what the alternative is, as transforming the financial system through electoral politics or the existing nation-state seems extremely unlikely, if not impossible.
what we need to do is let go of *all the areas .. realize they are all in sea world.. so any **iteration et al.. is just perpetuating tragedy of the non common
While *challenging the fiat system with a vision of technologically mediated and theoretically depoliticized private money, Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies remain tools explicitly designed to **perpetuate our current socioeconomic model in which atomized individuals compete against each other for resources, some of which are actually scarce and some of which are kept artificially scarce. The prospect that we might intentionally design and deploy some kind of blockchain-based ***substitute for the current monetary system to make a world that is more cooperative and regenerative may be very faint, but it cannot be dismissed out of hand.
not *challenging.. morphing/tweaking.. et al.. as long as there is any form of m\a\p.. will still do **this
need legit alt.. ***sub is just same song
In future essays, I intend to explore how the Left might creatively intervene in this sector (I realize there are some initiatives already happening). Before getting there, I will review the major Leftist criticisms of the claims made by cryptocurrency enthusiasts. This will be spread over a few newsletters.
we need to creatively let go.. ie: try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence w/ubi as temp placebo.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, Cardano, and Tezos can’t be used to purchase normal goods and services. Crypto-tokens can be described as “counter-trade objects with money-like branding,” according to Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance. Investors can use them to trade for similar objects – NFTs or other cryptocurrencies – but otherwise have to convert them back to fiat to use them.
the deeper problem.. is to get back/to legit needs.. and org around those
A book promoted by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, an economist from MIT. Radical Markets proposes a vision of the future where everything — your home, your possessions — is continually on auction to the highest bidder. This is the opposite of my preferred future, where people would have the capacity to escape or opt out of market economics if they so choose (as Marx put it, “freedom from trade” rather than “freedom to trade”). I also don’t see how movements in this direction help us address the ecological emergency, currently threatening us with civilizational collapse and near-term extinct
Crypto-enthusiasts identify lack of trust as one of the major problems in our society.. The argument for blockchain is that the crisis of social trust can only be addressed through switching over to the use of blockchain-based smart contracts, where our obligations to each other are mathematically defined and controlled.
oi.. not so much a lack of.. rather.. a misunderstanding of.. trust
red flags and of math and men et al
Part Two Coming Soon
jan 2022:
I sympathize with the Left’s criticisms of #Crypto as speculative assets. But I don’t see another tool for addressing the fundamental problems with our political economy. How can the Left assimilate #blockchain and build something better?
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/DanielPinchbeck/status/1477701676022874114
ie: hosting life bits.. hosting daily curiosities.. as a means to undo our hierarchical listening
my new essay on this topic… danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/crypto-criti…
Crypto Criticism, Part Two – Confronting the Left’s negative critique of cryptocurrency
notes/quotes from article:
David Golumbia argues that the design of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have an intrinsic Libertarian bias – that this political ideology is “encoded in the software itself.” Crypto is a way to avoid regulation and taxation, and ultimately bring down governments which, Libertarians believe, limit human freedom. Golumbia writes that Bitcoin’s core proponents seek an “anarchic apocalypse” to put governments out of business:
Blockchain-based technologies can redefine the creation and distribution of both economic value and political power. Rather than rejecting them, we should use them to build something new..t
yeah.. something legit new.. sans any form of m\a\p
Ethereum is currently in the process of transitioning from “proof of work” to “proof of stake” mining, which requires far less energy. But this has not yet been accomplished. Critics such as Michel Bauwens and Alex Pazaitis, in a recent report for the P2P Foundation, argue that there are inherent problems with both modes of maintaining distributed ledgers: “Both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake protocols do not present fair mechanisms for the distribution of power in decision-making.
decision making is unmooring us.. we need to let go of any form of democratic admin
On the other side of this argument, there are some who believe that blockchain-based innovations are necessary. They can reinvent our economic and political systems to be far more equitable and ecologically regenerative. A number of new projects are working in this direction. I will briefly mention a couple of initiatives here. I hope to look at these projects – among others – more closely in future newsletters.
1\ P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival.. This report from the P2P Foundation focuses on ways that blockchain-based technologies can be the backbone of a profound redesign of society. . This new commons-based structure, the authors propose, can be mediated by blockchain-based distributed technologies, or further iterations of distributed ledgers, such as Holochain. , The report discusses a number of blockchain-based projects that can support the transition to a new social model based on commons-based peer production. These include Envienta, FabChain, DAOStack, Faircoin, Trustlines, Regen Network, and so on.
planetary survival – what we need is a means to org around legit/deep needs.. not assumed/secondary needs (of sea world)
2\ Holochain – The authors of the P2P report write that Holochain “reimagines distributed ledgers altogether based on principles derived from biomimicry.” Rather than seeking to build a mathematically perfect structure that eliminates the need for trust between humans, Holochain applies the concept of a “web of trust”: “If A trusts B and B trusts C, then trust can be assured among all the peers.” Holochain “uses mutual credit as its main mechanism for exchange of value,” and seeks to limit the decision-making clout of big investors. Holochain, as I understand it, is not a blockchain technology but a parallel system designed in such a way that it addresses the Libertarian biases inherent in most crypto projects, including Bitcoin and Ethereum
3\ Proof of Humanity / Democracy.Earth – Proof of Humanity seeks to address one of the core problems of the Internet –.. founders of the Internet didn’t develop protocols around personal identity. ..When I started my company, Evolver, back in 2007, we wanted to address this problem of identity by implementing technologies that were being developed back then, such as the Identity Commons. . With Proof of Humanity, you undergo a verification process designed to prove you are a human being, not a Bot or AI. Once you have successfully passed the registration process, you start to receive a regular Universal Basic Income (UBI).. If Proof of Humanity is scalable, it could help to bring about a more egalitarian restructuring of society.
nationality: human ness.. but sans verifiability et al in order to get money et al
Instead of rejecting blockchain-based tokenomics as a regressive social force and dismissing its utility for progressive or socialist goals, Leftists should actively experiment with this technology.
In George Monbiot’s recent essay, Surface Tension, he writes: “Human civilisation relies on current equilibrium states. But, all over the world, crucial systems appear to be approaching their tipping points. If one system crashes, it is likely to drag others down, triggering a cascade of chaos known as systemic environmental collapse.” He explores why we are unable, as a society, to address the ecological emergency. We retreat, instead, into distractions and various forms of escapism..t
ie: any form of m\a\p et al
Monbiot believes our only hope is mass disobedience. But a more sophisticated and perhaps more important form of disobedience involves building the new social infrastructure needed for the transition..t
imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data (perhaps hosted in blockchain) to augment our interconnectedness..
This — rather than trading speculative assets — may be where blockchain-based systems for exchanging value become meaningful and even necessary for humanity’s future. At the same time, I am wary of the tendency of utopian ideals to function as covert propaganda for Capitalist schemes, as we have seen again and again in recent history. We saw it with the thwarted promises of Web2.0. However, this may be a point where the future is up for grabs, and we need more capable, well-intentioned people working on theoretical and practical implementation..t
we just need to org/infra around legit needs
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh
there’s a nother way
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be you. 