Guns, Germs and Databases
Without the exploitation of its vast oil reserves at the start of the 20th century, the Arabian Peninsula would today be much like a Sahel country instead of the regional power-hub it currently is, handled with care — if not outright trepidation — by the worlds’ superpowers. Yet these reserves were already there in the 19th century (and before) without making any impact. This is so obvious, that we need to make a conscious effort to put its cause into words: only after the internal combustion engine started its inexorable rise in society, did oil reserves become a real asset.
As Jared Diamond tells us in Guns, Germs and Steel, coincidental geographical, geological or ecological features have shaped the distribution of power in human society for the past 10.000 years or so. The confluence of two navigable rivers, the delta of a river, the crossing of two trade routes — all are examples of locations with circumstances that favour the growth of a wealthy and influential community. As our technology progresses, different facets of our natural environment take on new importance — as the example of oil shows us.
As a species, humans increasingly construct their own environment. Cities form artificial landscapes that foster development of culture and technology in general, and some cities may have historically determined qualities that foster development in a particular direction, like for example Silicon Valley.
One such development was the rapid growth of the physical part of the internet, from the mid-nineties onwards. Dubbed ‘cyberspace’, this new area has opened up vast opportunities for development. Originally conceived of as a very egalitarian space without distinguishing features, it soon morphed into a landscape with both centres and backwaters. Today we recognise the internet’s own kind of superpowers. And, having become the richest companies on earth, they have invaded society beyond cyberspace to wield enormous influence — often much to our detriment.
Complex phenomena often have complex causes. But I endeavour to put forward the hypothesis that one piece of technology was particularly formative in this shaping of cyberspace — and I predict that it’s importance has peaked and power balances will shift as a consequence in the near future.
Let me divide computer programs in two classes: those that are used individually, and those that we use together with others. Examples of the former are word processors and spreadsheets; examples of the latter are programs that support ride sharing, holiday home rental, second hand article buying and selling, etcetera. And beyond these relatively simple information infrastructures for co-operation are programs like SAP used by commercial or governmental organisations. These support systems enable them to organise at really large scales. The world simply wouldn’t function anymore were they to fall away — we’ve got a flourishing rogue ransom industry to remind us of this uncomfortable truth.
In my previous column I’ve argued that we should analyse such programs in terms of the role they play in helping us to bring forth a coherent process with many people, and their role in letting us connect over large distances. I identified the common database as the technology par excellence that combines these two features. All of the internet’s programs revolve about a database, where we can describe a database as a central place where we store structured information. The first part relates to connection — all concerned parties know where to find the place, which makes it central — and the second part relates to the coherence of the process.
Thus we see that cyberspace brings us the power to organise over distance, but that the technology we’ve used so far morphed it (cyberspace) into centres and backwaters. And, as always before, parties that control the centre of things, where many people pass, wield power and get rich, whether they be bridges, towns, oil wells, or servers with our data.
There is, however, no intrinsic reason why the power to organise (over the internet) should come at the price of central places that can be monopolised.
This, of course, is the song sung by many blockchain adepts. Their solution goes some way to alleviating the problems associated with central databases:
- it is harder to control access to a blockchain database than to a normal database;
- it is much harder to manipulate the stored data in your advantage than with a normal database.
But a blockchain database is still a database; is still the accumulation of vast amounts of data, that, as a collection, can be monetised or used to wield power.
Blockchain is not an endpoint, but points out a direction of development. Along that direction, a lot further, actually over the horizon right now, lies Perspectives. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the only technology in existence right now that is especially constructed to create information infrastructure support for a very wide range of co-operative practices, that uses no database at all.
Whether it will be Perspectives, or an even stronger technology that we cannot conceive of right now, we don’t know: but we can be certain that the sun is setting on the era of databases. Large, powerful and rich companies do not fall quickly, nor without a struggle. But the sine qua non of their existence — the reliance of human society on databases — will evaporate. And otherwise than with addiction to oil, we don’t have to kick cherished habits to free ourselves: we will be able to rely on in-place substitutions.
This is the fourteenth column in a series. The previous one was: Coherence and Connection. Here is the series introduction.