Sustainability audit through visions in blockchain projects
I believe that every project and every startup should examine its project for sustainability. Let me share my view in order to discuss sustainability today and the visions for the blockchain projects to be able to carry out a sustainability audit.
Crypto investors can be roughly classified into two main categories: idealistic and capitalistic. In my opinion, the capitalist approach is not sustainable in the long term. I question capitalism — and I suggest that social security like health care and basic income should be made accessible to everybody as a basic human right.
What would be necessary in order for it to work?
The technologies, such as blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and robotics are being developed faster and faster. Using these technologies it becomes possible to achieve 100% automated and sustainable systems. We should be careful not to make a big mistake on the way though. The question is: with 100% automation, who should be rewarded for it and how? In today’s society, we see the lack of balance in the power distribution between the rich and the poor. When introducing new systems, the company has to take that question into consideration. It is therefore important to design fair and sustainable systems that make a society their focus.
1️⃣ Digitalization vs. Decentralization
In Germany, there is more talk about digitalization than at any other time. Companies try to secure their survival because they often translate sustainability as survival. In many companies, new job roles are emerging such as the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). I smile every time I hear that “digitization is our future”, “we have to digitize”. In my opinion, the future is already being decentralized today. I believe many companies and governments are missing the opportunity to decentralize and invest in something sustainable.
In the future, digitization should go hand in hand with decentralization and not be determined by central entities. The two terms overlap, but it is possible to put most of the budget for decentralization. Unfortunately, many companies are afraid of this step, as it means to lose the control gradually. Among other things, Tim Berners-Lee tells that the internet should be decentralized, but unfortunately, it has centralized itself through giants like Amazon, Google, etc.. The Web3 thoughts of Gavin Wood and Vitalik Buterin are going in the right direction. It would help a lot if the population would be aware of the decentralization social movement because sustainability means decentralization.
The biggest challenges I see today are regulations and the fact that for many business models there is no room for purely idealistic approaches.
2️⃣ Globalization
The world has been moving towards globalization for a long time. There are political, economic, social and other international blocks and alliances across the planet. European Union, Mercosur, NAFTA are just some examples. Erasing borders leads to overall economic advances, increasing movement of goods, capital, and people.
Slogans like “America First” by the US President Donald Trump sound disturbing for me, but he has just expressed his own beliefs. Many presidents before him, as well as leaders of other nations, think about their countries and nations the same way. They just don’t dare to talk about it directly out of political etiquette. I don’t know any president who says: “others first”. Such nationalistic thoughts I consider as a regression of the social movement and not as a promotion of globalization and prevents the cosmopolitanism and world peace that we all desire.
In Europe, there is much debate about the technology companies Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA) from USA and Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Xiaomi from China. Experts push forward the fact that Europe has to progress on the establishment of the European corporations and that it is necessary to establish profit-oriented businesses in order to be able to compete worldwide with the USA and China. In other words, for me, it is the same as Trump’s call to the world “America First”.
Capitalism was necessary to get where we are today, but will do more harm than good in the future as in such countries one tends to care only about his own needs. We need global awareness worldwide to improve the quality of life worldwide so that global development can move forward as this would lead to more freedom and peace.
4️⃣ The future of work
Profit-oriented organizations can’t grow infinitely in a finite world, it is just not possible. The forms of organizations that we know today for companies operating worldwide will be changed to decentralized organizations with the time. Cybernetic approaches are needed to adapt to the changes. There are still challenges in legal issues that need to be clarified as well. I am convinced that the future belongs to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) without any employees or even CEOs so that organizations will be controlled by the community.
The self-determination of people can be achieved with decentralized platforms. Next generation business models, products and services will be created with the help of new technologies such as AI, ML, and Blockchain. Education, research and creative work are becoming increasingly important.
We humans are not meant to perform manual labor. Basic income, basic provision, carefree and much more interesting life will be possible.
5️⃣ Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies
The hype about Bitcoin, Ethereum and others have been very intense in recent years. I am pleased that we have this transition phase to programmable money. The way towards basic income is also a transition phase in the right direction. If a basic income is established, if the technologies allow us to avoid spending so much time for monotonous tasks anymore, then the question arises, do we still need money?
Visions
This way of thinking results in many new possible visions that can be used to assess blockchain projects sustainability if sustainability is at all important for your project, such as:
- There are no national borders, the living standards worldwide have been adapted and the earth’s resources are being used sustainably.
As an intermediate step: Every country makes life in another country better than in itself. There are always only others in the first place. Everybody accepted the idea of “Others first!” - Most of the organizations are organized as DAOs and belong to society.
- There are no profit-oriented organizations in the world.
- Humans work hand in hand with smart robots. Most human activity revolves around education, research and creative work in collaboration. The autonomous machines carry out tasks based on the results of humans and smart robots.
- People around the world enjoy their lives without having to worry about any risks or losses.
- For people across the globe, awareness of decentralization is as self-evident as the internet today.
- In the long term, there will be no money, not even in the form of cryptocurrency. Value exchange is achieved through social contribution.
Conclusion
If machines work for us, if we don’t need money to enjoy life, isn’t that a beautiful vision?
The visions were intentionally written in a very provocative way. To enable such visions, it is necessary to think, talk and act in a future-oriented, utopian, visionary, fair, open, transparent, decentralized, global and sustainable way. It is essential to make sustainable contributions by looking at such visions to lay the foundation stone for tomorrow.
I am convinced that we have been given the opportunity to develop the mindset in our society to achieve these visions.
With this in mind, I wish us an exciting future.
And isn’t that what we all want?
