The Root of Negative Public Discourse & How Web3 *Might Facilitate Change
First, a quick disclaimer: This is a long-form (in the Millenial sense of the term) response to an intriguing question/debate I engaged with on LinkedIn regarding the state of authentic dialogue in society and potential impending violence during the upcoming mid-term/presidential elections. Too long for that forum. Genesis thread here: https://bit.ly/3HsAKeN for reference.
Anyway, it’s Sunday and the last day of holiday vacation. Also, I’m launching an eCommerce Incubator this month, and I’m in the middle of writing a major piece on Mirror. Need the creative energy and this response is related to that work. Nevertheless, I’ll try, lazily— so please forgive the relative brevity and smart-assedness here. No time to make it more palatable. Prerequisite knowledge regarding Web3 technology is recommended.
As a matter of opinion, the *major root causes of our negative discourse are as follows. To be clear, these causes (or stimuli), are in chronological order, from the perspective of a privileged 40-year-old white male, and adjusted for population growth and inflation. Also, we are really fairly early in terms of that ever-important disintermediation Christopher Lochhead & PlayBigger talk about — a.k.a. decentralization. I could write 2,000 words on each of the following stimuli (causes) and correlating responses (effects). Just going to list high-level thoughts that, in this limited forum, may appear to be incomplete/emotionally driven:
△STIMULI:
1. Lost Quality of Life: Long-term states of stress & anxiety (starting decades before Jan of 2017, March of 2020, & Jan. 6 of 2021) primed us. “A dead tree appears strong until a storm comes along” and all that. This is closely related to Stimulus #2 immediately below.
2. Lost Quality of Function: A.K.A. consolidation and pasteurization, which tend to leave a portion of society behind– and very angry as we have seen. Ahem…tr*mp (yes, lower case). This is true in just about every consequential social system except for news & information. This is basically the result of bureaucracy, wealth consolidation, and overall, the fact that our system doesn’t have an automated purge mechanism for law, representation, & policy. Our system has not been allowed to naturally fail and therefore reset on the political & financial side (yet). So we have a systemic lack of function and ever-growing friction within said system. A.K.A. it's hard to innovate, let alone get things done.
3. Lost Quality of Knowledge/Information: In the context of #2 above, misinformation & optimization for engagement (assuming tribalism is a symptom and not a cause, which is my opinion). All it took for Strongmen throughout history to rally troops and citizens was a declaration and a bit of (engaging) persistent propaganda (a.k.a. misinformation).
▽THE *POTENTIAL WEB3 RESPONSE:
* Corresponding with Stimuli #s 1–3 above
1. Quality of Life (Web3 Response): We’ve gotten to the point where people are fed-up, and they’re voting with their feet and wallets. This is being enabled and expedited by technology. The sheer speed of the decentralized web will only contribute to that expediency.
Ultimately, this means more agency in what has, in recent history, been an arduous daily routine of frustration that is abating, as well as deeper connection and more time with loved ones. This feeds and makes most of us healthier at a base level. And if that’s not your thing, it’s hard to deny that we are all reclaiming a significant portion of our time as of late, even if we have more intermittent distractions.
Lastly, when you throw AI into the mix, and the implications of basic income resulting from it, this becomes a profound tool in reducing the current hyper-sensitive/emotional state of fight-or-flight, which makes us prone to aggravation and unhealthy, lizard-brained reactivity. As with Stimulus #1 above, this response is also closely related to Response #2 below.
2. Quality of Function (Web3 Response): Blockchain and decentralization both bring transparency. Whether it’s a financial transaction or simply exposing the full breadth of action and credibility of a user, cross-platform. There’s nothing more frustrating than not having control over our lives, which has become progressively more fleeting, especially in the last 20 years. There’s a lot to unpack in that last sentence from a technical perspective that we don’t have time for here.
Recently, Lex Fridman & Elon Musk were discussing ideas for the government on Mars. Even in that interview, with two of the most brilliant people on planet Earth, there was a lack of complete understanding (at least on Elon’s part) of the benefits, purpose, and implications of a DAO as it relates to tooling and governance. He basically proposed a litany of strategies — "If only there was a way to [insert existing DAO functionality]". Not an Elon follower, really, but the guy is pretty damn tech-savvy. So it’s very telling (about the state of Web3) with regard to mass adoption & the world's shallow understanding of it at present.
Here again, not enough time/space to explain given the forum but basically, through smart contracts, we can program a (unilaterally) immutable form of governance, devoid of emotion and bias that intentionally balances the weaker side of human nature. And if you look at the Mandelbrot Set/Chaos Theory (as illustrated below), possibly balance nature itself and prevent ourselves from imploding– or at least be more cognizant of the current Gantt of imbalance/s.
There is a sweet spot in the states of decentralization of all of the above that decentralized technology can solve: ie, at what position are we at in time relative to the state of decentralization (or traditionally, "chaos") as it pertains to: 1. Quality of Life, relative to 2. Quality of Function, relative to 3. Quality of Knowledge? I believe that right now we are terribly misaligned if you think of these 3 items in terms of a Gantt chart.
That said, as Web3 tooling and mechanisms improve, and the decentralized… everything, matures (and goes mainstream), we’ll find ourselves in a much-improved position and society– if we can keep everything non-custodial (a prolific thinker once told me this is the key ;-), I think there’s a good chance of that — at least at a gut level from what I see happening within DAOs and communities on Discord. I know that's subjective.
3. Quality of Knowledge/Information (Web3 Response): I don’t think that emerging thought leaders/participants/early adopters/producers of future mainstream content will stand for mass-centralized custody of information, thought, or financial markets. Social media included. Facebook is dying (albeit slowly) right before our eyes as an example of this. Primarily due to the lack of transparency and mistrust from said emerging groups.
The technical solution to this likely will come in the form of transparent Information Provenance via tokenization (NFTs) that will allow us to instantly get a sense for the legitimacy and lifecycle of any piece of content and any derivative works resulting from each piece of content that came before it. As with Stimulus #3 above, this response also relates to the response outlined in the #2 Response immediately above. Maybe even "Lost Quality of Life", mentioned in Stimulus #1 above.
Because, without permission or intermediaries, one can be fairly compensated for their work more directly and this is important: without the filter of a profit-sensitive bureaucratic organization. This will initially cause some unrest, but it will eventually evolve, ultimately into more stability through authenticity and truth. Again, more transparency is facilitated by Web3, blockchain/NFT, and related technologies/social architecture.
And lastly, by decentralizing mainstream media, we the people will have more of a role in what we as a society will tolerate in terms of optimization for engagement and other unhealthy practices propagated by Mr. Zuckerberg and every one of his competitors (direct and indirect) who must adopt inhumane practices to compete — or die. Here again, the emerging thought leaders/early adopters won’t stand for such irresponsibility in a more healthy DAO-based and/or decentralized ecosystem. As with all of the above, this will take time.
SUMMARY:
To answer the thoughtful question from LinkedIn (paraphrased as)…
“What is the root cause of our negative discourse and how can blockchain (I would call it "Web3", which includes blockchain) technology solve for tribalism/echo chambers & allow for healthy dialogue?”
I’ll end with this…
You’ll never fully know, nor will I, unless we all participate in, adopt en masse, and advocate for the decentralization of every aspect of our civilization– provided that we programmatically provide ourselves with mutually agreed upon, liquid guardrails in an otherwise immutable and democratic (healthy) ecosystem.
#WAGMI
