Many thanks to Gregor Borosa, Mischa Tuffield and Carl Cervone for review and feedback
In the first part of this article, I wrote about the values and principles behind Ethereum, highlighting them as key driving forces for its long-term growth and commitment to decentralization.
In this section, I will delve into the key philosophies, metaphors, and guiding principles that help the community navigate their choices and remain true to their values.
Principle of Subtraction is a Cure for Modern Society
💡 “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In the natural world, all forms of life have a tendency to grow and reproduce. This applies from the cellular level to plants, animals, humans, businesses, organizations, and even countries. In our society, there is a common belief that growth equates to success: more money, more people, more power. However, is this the only way? Just as in biology, the growth of unhealthy cells leads to cancer and death, while the growth of healthy cells promotes prosperity and happiness.
In the blockchain networks, as with all organisms, the curation mechanism must exist to enhance the health of the ecosystem and incentivize the growth of good actors. An organization positioned at the heart of the blockchain ecosystem inherently has the privilege to influence the network. It can grow bigger and faster or it can take an alternative approach.
The Ethereum Foundation plays a vital role in keeping the ecosystem aligned with its core values, guided by principles such as the philosophy of subtraction, continuous improvement, and long-term thinking. They serve as stewards of these values, prioritizing empowerment and decentralized decision-making within the ecosystem. It does not intend to grow faster and bigger, instead it aims to “grow small”. By allowing decision-making to occur at the edges, where those closest to the problem have the best insights, the Foundation enables the ecosystem to grow and innovate. It willingly removes itself from the equation when needed, facilitating effortless and natural continuous improvement. This approach is simple and beautiful.
💡 “Beauty in Subtraction. Subtraction allows ideas to taste or strength to exist in their purest form.” — Aya Miyaguchi
It turns the ecosystem into something analgous to a constellation or a garden.
Infinite Garden
💡 “I call it a garden because just like nature, Ethereum ecosystem wasn’t designed, it has evolved … The participants in the garden can change, but the garden keeps growing and stays infinite … Ethereum is not just a technology, but what makes it special is the ecosystem, the infinite garden. And the way you shape the garden driven by curiosity, excitement and desire to improve the garden for the good of everyone.” — Aya Miyaguchi
While many other Layer 1 solutions adopt a more directive approach to achieve their goals, the Ethereum ecosystem flourishes organically. I believe this is a crucial reason why other innovative blockchain designs, built from the ground up, continue to lag behind in terms of economic activity and adoption. The collective intelligence and freedom of expression, inherent forces in life, consistently discover better solutions to bridge gaps and solve emerging problems.
In the Ethereum Infinite Garden, there are “gardeners” who nurture and sustain it, ensuring its infinite growth and flourishing. It’s not about simply giving a lot of money for people to start building on their network. It may turn your garden into a field full of weeds and useless plants taking the nutrients from the soil and not giving much back. It’s about guidance, support and “gardening”.
When everyone is welcome to participate and work on their ideas, what happens is — permissionless innovation.
Permissionless Innovation
💡 “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” — Bill Joy
Permissionless innovation allows for unrestricted building and innovation without the need to ask for access to technology and permission from an authority. It liberates individuals from hierarchical company structures, eliminating the requirement to convince a limited number of top decision-makers to pursue their ideas. Instead, it grants permissionless access to the technology and tools that allow anyone to build whatever they want. When a billion people have this access, they can generate groundbreaking ideas and solutions that were previously unimaginable.
With that approach in mind, no matter how good a technology is, there is a natural inclination that many smart people outside a single company, even if they don’t have access to the same financial capital, can build a better and more usable system.
All open blockchains facilitate permissionless innovation to varying degrees, but it exists on a spectrum. The combination of progressive decentralization, development coordination, and permissionless innovation is a blend that, when appropriately applied over time, can lead to a healthy and growing network. I believe the level of contribution and permissionless innovation in the Ethereum ecosystem led it to where we are now. By providing open access to information and technology, it creates a level of innovation no single organization can compete with.
How Ethereum enables permissionless innovation?
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
💡 “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” — Eric S. Raymond
In the renowned article “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”, Eric S. Raymond compares two models of software development: the cathedral and the bazaar. The cathedral approach is a top-down method, where a system is carefully designed by brilliant architects and small teams, keeping the source code closed. On the other hand, the bazaar workstyle, which was initially implemented in Linux development, embraces features such as releasing early and often, delegating everything possible, and being radically open and transparent. It reminds a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches. The key message of this influential essay is that contrary to the intuition and obvious complexity of the operating system development, the bazaar style led to one of the most successful and stable software products of all time.
All permissionless open-source blockchains are bazaars to some extent. But just making a project open-source does not necessarily turn it into one. Some projects utilize more bazaar features than others. And those who embrace the bazaar style in all its glory enable more permissionless innovation. There are certain preconditions for this model, but it’s beyond the scope of this article.
Eric S. Raymond put it in a way that relates to the Ethereum Infinite Garden metaphor:
💡 “The Linux world behaves in many respects like a free market or an ecology, a collection of selfish agents attempting to maximize utility which in the process produces a self-correcting spontaneous order more elaborate and efficient than any amount of central planning could have achieved.”
There is a striking resemblance between these two analogies. The beauty of design is not always immediately apparent in a bazaar, as it is in a cathedral. Personally, as an engineer and software architect, I feel intellectual satisfaction when I see a well-thought-out system designs. However, as the lesson of Linux demonstrates, the community often discovers a better way to solve problems and uncovers use cases that the original creators had not even considered.
Ethereum is the new bazaar. Or at least the first of its kind.
Cypherpunk Spirit
Cypherpunk ideology is another important philosophy that has significantly influenced the emergence of blockchains, particularly Ethereum.
Cypherpunk culture emerged as a response to governments’ attempts to regulate free access to encryption. With a focus on privacy-enhancing tools, cryptography, and the promotion of individual sovereignty, the “cypherpunk spirit” has served as one of the ideologies behind the development of technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Inspired by the cypherpunk movement’s emphasis on decentralization, privacy, and individual freedom, Ethereum incorporated these ideas into the platform’s architecture.
Cryptoeconomic systems are, in a way, a continuation of the cryptographic systems built by cypherpunks. One of the essential principles to ensure the viability of these systems is the idea that they must be significantly more expensive to attack than to protect.
💡“Systems that consider themselves ideological heirs to the cypherpunk spirit should maintain this basic property, and be much more expensive to destroy or disrupt than they are to use and maintain.” — Vitalik Buterin, A Proof of Stake Desing Philosophy
Summary
Ethereum has paved the way for the creation of new models of collaboration, co-creation, and ownership. It is not only driven by values such as freedom, fairness, and openness, but its leadership is also guided by principles of subtraction, continuous improvement, and loyalty to values. In the face of numerous threats to humanity, these principles hold greater significance for modern society than ever before. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these values and principles remain untainted.
As we innovate and build new systems together, we can let our curiosity, excitement and playfulness drive us forward. The best way it is embodied in the combination of the quotes from the two authors mentioned before:
💡 “We truly have at our fingertips the power to craft the future we desire through code and purposeful action — if you see something you don’t like, contribute with something you do like. We believe it is important, especially at this critical point in time, to follow our heart instead of meaningless extrinsic rewards. This is how, perhaps, we can open a portal toward our maximum potential, both on an individual and collective level.” — Mihai Alisie, “Learning to Dream with Open Minds”
💡 “Relating to your own work process with fear and loathing should therefore be regarded in itself as a sign that the process has failed. Joy, humor, and playfulness are indeed assets… It may well turn out that one of the most important effects of open source’s success will be to teach us that play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work.” — Eric S. Raymond, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”
We can see how these statements resonate between each other. In the context of this article, I would like to rephrase the last quote as follows:
💡…It may well turn out that one of the most important effects of Ethereum and Web3 will be to teach us that play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work.
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