Blockchain and the future of the future
Our lives are dominated by the unintended consequences of decisions we had no part in shaping, and have little hope of ever affecting. If that sounds bleak, it is. It’s also a great equalizer. Everyone’s days are equally spent reacting to circumstances beyond our control. What ultimately separates us is some people start off with a much stronger hand to play.
In his rush to launch the Iraq War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously quipped:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
The blinding speed with which blockchain technology is envoloping the public consciousness gives us the opportunity to examine some of our assumptions, and to take stock of the present moment.
Known knowns of blockchain
Blockchain technology is being built today to solve problems we understand and experience in our daily lives. Today’s blockchain solutions are designed to alleviate existing bottlenecks in trust, centralization, transaction speed, and security. Bitcoin makes the process of sending money as simple as sending an email. No banks or third party intermediaries are needed to conduct, verify or maintain transaction records.
Known unknowns
We know that we don’t know what life will be like when people adopt blockchain technology en masse. Those of us who believe in the core technology, and the possibilities it represents, are extremely confident that decentralization will lead to new ways of doing business, and new ways of relating with our fellow humans. It’s also possible that today’s incumbents will find ways to use their existing financial resources, and their control over policy-making, to dominate the new technology.
No one who benefits from today’s status quo is going to let go of power without a fight. We know that we don’t know what is going to happen, only that change is occuring.
Unknown unknowns
As much as we crave disruption, we can’t say with any certainty that we haven’t already seen the high water mark. We don’t know that change is always good. It will be years before we truly appreciate the impact of what is being built today, or know when the limits are reached.
Accelerating the impact of blockchain in the future depends on the benevolence and foresight of today’s early adopters, many of whom have succumbed to the lure of Lambos, yachts and the finer things. Worldly pleasures are hard to resist. How much of capitalism’s excess recreates itself on the blockchain one of the thorniest and most menacing of the unknown unknowns.
The future of the future
As difficult as it is to agree on the present, it’s impossible to chart the future before its time. Blockchain is a mirror, which allows us to reflect on the best and — at times — the worst in human nature. The most enthusiastic among us are convinced that change is good, necessary, and on our doorstep. We also know that disruption has winners and losers, and we hope that we have the power to make winners out of the downtrodden, and upend comfortable life of the powerbrokers and institutions who have grown fat off the status quo. Will it stop there? Can we tame the genie now that he’s out of the bottle? With no road map, and no precedent for disruption at the scale of the blockchain, we can only hope that our shared humanity leads us to a better place.
