RE: Co-evolving the Phase Shift to Crypto Capitalism by Founding The Ethereum Commons Co-op
I’m very happy to find your article and I believe it’s one of the most brilliant considerations. I’m working on Butterfly economy project and I think Butterfly economy and its components can respond to some of the mentioned issues.
I will try to point out these solutions in the following text. It will be appreciated if we can discuss further for more understanding of each other and more information.
“The negative externality is primarily at the highest system level: the Technology <> Society loop. This is my favorite way to think about our existence on Earth (and will show up later in this article). It’s the idea that technology affects the texture of society, which in turn affects the kinds of technology we build. It’s a reinforcing feedback loop, and it’s getting faster (I recommend watching the whole gif)”
Tech <> Society loop is definitely present and plays a huge role in the history of humanity. With better technologies, the loop gets shorter.
In short, Butterfly economy is supposed to change the Tech <> Society loop to the Tech = Society balance. Please let me explain.
I agree that technologies inspire people to make better technologies and vice versa — the loop speeds up. However, we can also assume that order for technologies comes mainly from people and society. From this point of view, we can see the Tech <> Society loop as an insufficiency of the system or a sign of its undevelopment. Tech <> Society loop is more like a lag instead of a loop — a lag between people’s needs and development of technologies that can fulfill them. I would say that in the most cases Tech is just trying to catch up with the Society, even it is not obvious.
E.g. we can say that people started to share their lives after social platform arised. But actually, people wanted to share since before (through letters, postcards etc.), but they had to wait for some platform (e.g. Facebook) to make it possible in the internet space.
If people could bring this idea to live without huge knowledge of IT and lots of money, we would have this sharing service much earlier — at the moment when the first human on this planet got an idea to share an interesting story quickly with his friends far away.
In regard of above and necessity to enhance the society, I believe we need an infrastructure that enables an idea to be turned into a service and adapted by everybody in the easiest and fastest way. With such an infrastructure, we can have services aligned with society (economy) and its dynamics.
With current technology, it took many years for Facebook to grow globally. With Butterfly economy, it could be achieved in one day. It sounds unbelievable but it’s definitely possible because the speed of adapting a great service and idea will be just like a speed of light.
From The Call for Butterfly Economy article: “To enable Butterfly economy, we create a decentralized network, called Butterfly network. It enables users to turn their behaviour and ideas into services instantly with use of internet protocols they like or create by themselves.”
Of course, the Tech = Society balance will not directly solve the main problem of negative externalities. It just makes Tech to be up to date with Society dynamics. Society itself has to come with solutions (e.g. mentioned meta-structures) and proper values to prevent negative externalities. However, these meta-structures can be designed in Butterfly network and processed with help of consensus platform like Ethereum.
“You can create (and self fund) arbitrary trustless meta-structures on Ethereum (through smart contracts). Essentially you can say “this public protocol/utility should exist, right?” And if the people agree, you can get funding to build it. (Through a token sale.)”
I totally agree that this is the step ahead to build “meta-structures”. When we want to use a protocol defined in Ethereum, we have to join Ethereum platform and agree that this protocol should exist, together with great amount of people. On the other hand, if a particular protocol doesn’t get enough popularity, it loses network effect and becomes dismissed.
In terms of this, I believe we need protocols that are not centralized around platforms but (de)centralized around users.
From The Call for Butterfly Economy article: “In Butterfly economy, users adapt the protocols and write their own rules to users’ personal space to let others know what a services and interactions they support. Butterfly network works as a common language of decentralization that enables these users to understand each other’s services and adapt successful ones with a single click and without platforms.”
Also, to make users and whole new economy more flexible, the protocols should be compatible:
From The Call for Butterfly Economy article: “The most importantly, Butterfly network makes internet protocols compatible. It means that when a user adapt some protocol, he can still communicate and interact with people using different one.”
“There are so many of us out there (4B+ smartphone users!). Let’s help and empower each other to make this happen.”
Butterfly economy is definitely effective for this. It enables users to impact others and the whole world with a simple idea.
“To create a new antifragile system that’s makes humanity better as we create converging exponential technological change.”
Once users do not depend on platforms and their protocols, they can always choose freely the best services, AIs, storages, consensus platforms and other softwares. Both freedom of choice and compatibility among various users’ protocols will enable technologies to continuously evolve without necessity of revolutions.
“In our modern age, this co-op shifts into a platform co-op or a protocol co-op, where the thing which is being owned/governed is a platform or a protocol. The goal is not to have the 4B+ smartphone users be the object of some new system that they have no ownership/governance over. No, the new system should be reflective of a society where all can learn, create, and provide value. Where the system is created by those within it.”
I totally agree and believe this is exactly what Butterfly network brings. Maybe only one note about governance. For me, the higher priority is to give users independence. In terms of governance, I do not see much difference between centralized and decentralized governance. In case of centralized governance, we are hostages of some central authority, while in case of decentralized governance, we are forced to follow (usually) the majority.
“By defining decentralization as a core value, we’re acknowledging that the values themselves may be decentralized (i.e. self-defined). So the shared values may be more like individuals self-defining their value set along given shared spectra, rather than as binary statements. (Here’s Vitalik on “The Meaning of Decentralization”.)”
Brilliant. Like you mentioned, I also believe the importance of self-definition and I’m sure that users can self-define and adopt their own protocols with Butterfly economy.
“So we can start to reject monolithic definitions of the past and self-define constructive gradients/spectra that we’re currently on. That is what I mean by decentralization.”
Exactly. From this point of view, platforms (both centralized and decentralized) are suitable for “monolithic” definition. Platforms make the Tech <> Society loop longer (they more or less resist changes) and lower the flexibility of users. (e.g. when users want to switch to different platform with better services or change some rule of a platform)
“The Base <> Superstructure. The Base (capital, technology, etc.) shapes the Superstructure (ideology, society, etc.), which in turn maintains the Base.”
Not from the particular age or political/society beliefs’ point of view, but from “planetary’s’’ point of view, the Base (imho) also contains all humans behaviour and ideas. (we do not live in the age when we need to produce more food or products, but in the age when we need to redistribute the food better and think of us in context of the sustainability.)
On the other hand, I perceive superstructure (where ideology and society aspects are present) as a field for AIs and humans to cooperate in terms of setting the proper ideologies that drive and respond to humans behaviour. E.g. there can be AI and rules set to share planetary resources to guarantee sustainability.
In my opinion, the Base <> Superstructure corresponds to the principle of dividing users and their behaviour from their observation, analysis and guidance which I mentioned as an issue in the Token Curated Registries in Butterfly Economy article.
Thank you Rhys for your article. I could see Butterfly economy in a different context. Any comments or discussions are welcome!
