Voices Of The Poor: Can Any Blockchain Hear Us?

By Samson on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

Samson
Samson
Nov 4 · 5 min read

I occasionally find myself at the World Bank in Washington, DC and today as I sat in a meeting I had a moment of Deja Vu. Nearly two decades ago, while studying Anthropology at Florida State University, I was assigned this book, “Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us?”

It has a bright orange cover and sticks in my memory for a variety of reasons. While sitting in the meeting someone made a tone-deaf remark that transported me back through the decades and into the nineteen-year-old version of myself. And at that moment, at the World Bank, I heard my teenage voice come out of my mouth,

“Poverty is inherited. Every generation gets poorer. How will blockchain prevent generational poverty?”

Ok, granted 20 years ago I wasn’t talking blockchain. But as a child of poverty, I’ve grown up to appreciate from whence I came and how slippery the socioeconomic ladder can be when it is constantly greased by the fatty secretions of institutional racism. The bias largess of racial prejudice, codified into institutional barriers to economic and social mobility, typically along ethnic or cultural lines, making it as about as hard to escape the pit of poverty as a morbidly obese sinner to pull himself up and through the eye of a needle. Humans are funny that way. About half of us want to do good. About half of us want to do what is good or best for our personal interest, bellies, and wallets; with occasional overlap depending on the moment in time that Maslow’s Hierarchies and greed find us discussing the “greater good”.

I’m privileged to have a voice, period. Yes, I’ve worked hard, riding primarily on the coattails of my mama’s toil, to gain a modicum of luxury and live quite the extravagant life. In all respects, I am the American Dream to come to fruition. But in that awareness, I encourage you policy and decision-makers, thought leaders and business mavericks of the so-called decentralized future to pause and consider what is the goal of a decentralized future?

  • Do we want to create new barriers to entry or eliminate barriers?
  • Do we want to replace the old guard with a new, more elite, digital one?
  • Do we want new masters? Or no masters?
  • Is the goal really equality?
  • How do we define equality and can we have equality without access, opportunity education and political empowerment?
  • Will we require the poor to pay for the resources to ensure economic and political inclusion?
  • Or will new blockchained systems pay the lip service to equality and anti-poverty outcomes that our current system has since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty?

These are all tough questions and I don’t for a moment pretend to have any or all the answers. In truth, I’m more Thanos school of thought when it comes to human problems. But! If we can get our act together before Mother Earth snaps her fingers, perhaps there is still yet hope for us. In the meantime, blockchain enthusiasts, experts, believers, policy wonks, and practitioners as we proceed to carve the future out of code consider the underlying problems that exacerbate a loss of trust, faith, and confidence in government and its novel creation, money. Neither bitcoin or blockchain solve or even address poverty, unemployment, opportunity, access, justice, fairness or any of the qualitative words that describe the human condition as we know it. However, blockchain may be a tool that is as useful in understanding and developing new ways of shaping our reality as profoundly as the written language and wifi has. So, let us go forth into the expanse of opportunity, listening not solely to the sound of value lining our own wallets but to the voices of those seeking to be heard and the opportunity that together we may solve Humanity’s biggest challenge. How to inspire Humans to be less human and more humane.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about how technology, policy and the human desire to do good can positively impact the poorest of our Global Community, feel free to reach out to me at samson.williams@law.unh.edu with questions or check out Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us. As fate would have it, it was actually a report commissioned by the World Bank in the 1990s and can be found here for free or purchased on Amazon.

Together we can. Divided we can not.

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Thank you for reading my article. On LinkedIn and for the Blockchain Business Magazine I regularly write about technology, cannabis, crowdfunding, health and compliance investing trends. To read my future posts simply join my network here or click ‘Follow’. Also feel free to join me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

About Samson Williams

Samson is an internationally recognized anthropologist and expert in operations, emerging technology, finance and organizational change management driven by FinTech innovation. Samson is ranked among the globe’s top innovative technology professionals for his cutting-edge research and applications in crowdfunding, tokenomics and digital securities. Samson is the co-creator of the University of New Hampshire School of Law’s Blockchain, Cryptocurrency & The Law Certification Program, adjunct professor at Columbia University in NYC, a Board Member of the Crowdfunding Professional Association, contributor at the Blockchain Business Magazine and Principal consultant at Axes and Eggs. For business inquiries, Samson can be reached at samson@axesandeggs.com

ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

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Samson

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Samson

Cheerleader of all things startup and entrepreneur. Life's a hustle, invest in something worthy of you. @AxesAndEggs @UNHLaw #Blockchain #Cryptocurrencies

ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The best damn place to read and write about crypto and blockchain.

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