Nice flex, bro!
Before starting off, I want to state this article shouldn’t be considered as criticism, or a personal attack on anyone who sponsored a side-event during this years Breakpoint, instead I want to thank them for spoiling me rotten and welcoming me. I went to a lot of parties and really enjoyed every single on of them. Icing on the cake after a year of grinding. Also I’m no stranger to partying.
This years Breakpoint was the first conference I attended in my life. Expectations for the conference were high, but the experience exceeded the expectations with a landslide.
Being a newcomer to big conferences like this one, I was still unaware of the lavishness that came with the main and side events. I really felt taken care off from the night I arrived in Lisbon. And every single day and night that followed.
On my third night however the experience was somewhat different; Breakpoint threw a nice party after the opening ceremony. Right after the ceremony I went out for dinner with a friend, as we were not aware that there was food about to be served in the venue of the opening party. I think the organisation should have communicated this better. Upon returning to the venue I found out that almost all people went to a side-event, on the other side of Lisbon. The place was empty and I saw what must have been over 1000 dinner boxes, unattended. The DJ was playing amazingly, lighting was spot-on, open bar, beautiful venue, as good as empty, yet payed for.
As I was invited to attend that side-event personally I decided to go there as well, as everybody seemed to be going there. Upon arriving there there was a massive line in front of the door. The venue held up to about 500 people. It seemed that that same amount of people were also standing in line, waiting for people to come out. The host invited twice the amount the venue could hold. After one and a half hour I finally got in. There was food and drinks, nice music, really good party! I was still thinking about what was going to happen with all the food that was at the official opening party. I never found out unfortunately. Stuff like that bugs me, I didn’t always have enough to eat.
On an other occasion I was on my way to a side-event, by foot, because I like walking long distances to clear my head. When I was almost at the party, a man in a corner of the reception of a building caught my eye. He appeared around 70 years old. On the floor in front of him was cardboard sheets with a sleeping bag on top of it. I stopped mid-stride and we made eye-contact. Having gone through this ritual many times myself, I couldn’t help but notice feeling strayed from myself. I felt undeserving of the lavishness I was walking towards, for the 5th night in a row. I did end up at the party, and I enjoyed it, but the feeling has stuck with me ever since, lurking in the background.
I discussed this feeling, and my observation regarding teams outcompeting each other at the cost of waste, with some of the awesome people I met during Breakpoint. I told them I thought the organisers of all the main and side event should communicate and plan better amongst themselves to prevent them from both stocking up food for the whole conference. The feedback I got from my new friends was sympathetic but clear: “You are not going to change this culture of wasting, exorbitant spending and gathering clout.” “This is just the way it is, it is a game of who spends the most. It’s investor culture.” “You won’t be able to organise this in a better way.” “Everyone will agree with you, but they won’t do it.”
Basically it comes down to we like to talk the talk but not walk the walk. We all like the idea of decentralisation because it would make the world a better place. We all think energy-efficiency is a good flex when comparing your tech to others. We all say that we are solving the worlds problems using blockchain tech. But the moment we arrive in a city for a conference we only seem to care about who has the most hyped party, the most clout. To me this seems hypocritical. Of course we are allowed to treat ourselves, I too have worked my ass off, but throwing an excessive amount of money into parties seems like a weird flex, bro.
What if we could create a new flex? What if the new flex is actually solving real world, real peoples problems? That’s what we are always on about. I thought about what could have been done with all the food that was left at Convento do Beato? At least feed 1000 people for one night right? How many homeless people could have been given shelter for the upcoming winter with all the money that was spent on free partying? How many trees could have been planted? How many schools could have been built in Africa, like Colin Ogoo does? What if we at least tried just a little?
When talking about this with another great person I met during Breakpoint he came with the best idea ever; “It’s about winning Stevey." He said. "They want the biggest, best parties, because it’s a win, a flex. You should set up a leaderboard for donations to charity next year.” So simple, yet so brilliant. Have the leaderboard be shown at every venue, all day, a banner on the website maybe even.
Organising this would require a lot of work, and I won’t be able to do so on my own. Thus I wrote this article as a way to ventilate about my mixed feelings about “the culture”, and to announce that I’ll be exploring something called “Nice flex”. I’ll try to create a DAO focussing of promoting donating to charity as a flex, next year. Reach out if you want to help me create a small dent in our culture, and a big impact for people and the environment.
I hope next year the flex will be "DAA saved 10 square miles of gorilla habitat. Monke DAO gave all homeless people in the city that hosts Breakpoint food and shelter for 5 months." I hope people who said we can’t change will see we can.