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https://doctorow.medium.com/a-useful-critical-taxonomy-of-decentralization-beyond-blockchains-3617809d52da>
"I keep getting sucked into discussions of web3, decentralization and
cryptocurrency. It’s only natural: much of the rhetoric and stated goals of the
people behind these technologies intersect with my longstanding causes, like
access to cryptography and decentralized communities (what we used to call
P2P).
The reason I say I get “sucked into” these discussions is that, despite the
rhetorical overlap, I’ve sensed a significant ideological divergence between my
position and the dominant web3 ethos. In general, I would say that I think
there are only a few circumstances in which markets produce good incentives and
distributions, and that these depend heavily on publicly accountable governance
that set up their rules.
Which is not to say that I reject markets altogether. As John T Harvey — the
“Cowboy Economist” — says, an economist who says that we must always use
markets to attain our goals, or never use them, is like a carpenter who says,
“I will only join those two pieces of wood together with a nail; screws are for
commies!”
So I think markets are a tool, not a ethical imperative, and I think the core
of the web3 project not only values markets beyond their worth, but also sees
the problems of markets as the result “distortion by regulators” and wants to
eliminate the publicly accountable governance (AKA “deregulating”) that I see
as essential to getting good results from markets.
That means that while I often find myself having conversations with web3
advocates that feel like the excited conversations we had 20 years ago at the
old O’Reilly P2P conferences (which I sat on the committee for), beneath the
surface, there’s a deep and meaningful rift."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
