Ethereum Devcon1 Retrospective: Oh, sweet, tasty kool-aid.
While it is all still fresh in my mind, I’m jotting down my thoughts and feelings from the past week’s Ethereum devcon1.
Let’s start on the surface. It was extremely well put together in a rather limited time it was decided to put it on. Massive amounts of kudos to all those involved who made it happen. There were lots of behind the scenes people who made it flow so well! I got to meet more of my colleagues from ConsenSys in meatspace, as well as engage with all the faces & people I’ve only talked with on Github, Reddit & Twitter. The talks were really great. It blew me away just how much was packed into 5 days. Several talks, that felt almost casual, revealed huge new opportunities in just their own 20 minute slots.
In more ways than one, this felt like *the* coming out party for Ethereum. There’s always been some skepticism, even after the launch at the end of July. But now the world knows that we have arrived. The stage has been set! We’re hitting the ground running. There will be obstacles, most definitely, but we do see where this movement is heading, and we are ready!
Now. Onto the more deeper thoughts.
One of my favourite parts of the whole conference was when Vitalik (inventor & chief scientist) came on stage to end it off. In the most honest & genuine manner I’ve seen/heard, he thanked the community. He emphasised the diversity of it, even at this early stage: technologists, bankers, philosophers, political activists, environmentalists, etc. We’ve all gravitated towards this exciting project. It’s becoming a movement in its own right. The new public computing commons can empower all of us. I cry in Disney movies, so I admittedly had to stave off a tear or two… We are actually, really busy with something grand, and most of the people involved have their hearts in the right direction.
After having read many books about how our own thinking can be biased & riddled with fallacies, I try to remain skeptical & try to absorb as many different perspectives as possible. Thus, I always try to sober up. Remove the drip of the kool-aid, and figure out if we might all just be insane. I was tweeting the whole time & realised that from the outside we might all look like a bunch of people swept up in the church of Ethereum.
We are worshipping the technological Akashic Records as it bestows upon us its wisdom. We gather the Ether that is all around us, injecting it through magical maths & symbols into this public computer beyond the veil, in order to interact with it & download its wisdoms. Pope Vitalik & the core cardinals are crafting this magic machine that allows us to tap into it. A new world of wonder, promises & enlightenment awaits us all! We, the techno-shaman missionaries are the divine manipulators of this magic, helping to spread the gospel.
It could be, right? Are we insane? Are we so deep down the rabbit hole that we can’t see the light anymore? Who knows really? I & a lot of others have arrived at this point because we understand the world in a certain way & we perceive the future in a certain way. The uncontrollable strands of the rope of the future, seems like it is pretty likely it will be knotted in a way we envision it. We’ll at least try to.
What is this future exactly? Joseph Lubin captured this quite well in his talk. The network will continue to rise & overtake society’s structure as the main form of governance. Balaji Srinivasan captures it eloquently as well: “The network is the new Leviathan”. It’s a new socio-economic & political mesh. We have become globally connected, but we are not globally empowered. We have global systems, but we don’t share in it: both in terms of responsibility & equity. There’s lack of ownership, with too many “stakeholders” that don’t have any stake at all. If we allow people to become more empowered stakeholders in the public works we build for each other, the more empowered we all become. Gone will be the days of the disenfranchised. Gone are the days of fear of technological unemployment. Shared infrastructure means deeper empathy. A computing commons that empowers new stakeholders around the world, resulting in a global “$50 startup”, can bring this future to fruition. Ethereum will serve to be this backbone. An interconnected mesh of information, empowerment & deeper shared responsibility from which we can all gain from.
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In university, I did a play as an amateur actor. The director, Loren, did an exercise to try and improve our acting. We were to do a rehearsal, but be completely over the top. Go to the extreme. Shout your lines with passion & kiss deeply on stage. The act of pulling out towards one extreme, makes the mould more malleable. When it goes back to its resting state, it’s a new one: a better one. For now, the pendulum is swinging the other way: away from centralisation in a global world. It’s fragile & aching under a pyramid with increasingly weak foundations. The mould of society is going to be stretched to a new extreme.
We are getting drunk on optimism, drinking the kool-aid that tastes like a whiskey at sunset. We are spelunking deeper down the rabbit hole. We have the wind in our hair as we ride the pendulum at velocity into this new direction…
In the future, we might sober up: switching the whiskey for some water, going back up for a breath of fresh air & enjoying the silence without the wind.
Joseph Chow, a friend & colleague, expressed it quite well after devcon1: “This is practically as good as it gets”. We are trying to change the world and we are lucky that we can. So, for now, we’ll continue this journey. We’ll have fun, work hard & we’ll learn. Blockchains will most definitely be a part of our shared future in some form.
Are you a critic? Are you a skeptic? Are you a believer? We’ll need everyone to build & battle-test this. Devcon1 lit the fuse under this rocket. It’s going to be a grand adventure. I’d rather be an optimist, building things I see can make us a better future & potentially be wrong, than not do it at all. As modern day philosophers would say. #yolo.
See you at Devcon2!
