“I think that Satoshi would barf…”
I have a son called Alan. He is a little boy who, against all odds, opened his eyes 22 months ago. Although he does not know it, he has shifted our view on life. A process that most parents go through and that changes the way you plan and view the future.
The focus changes and the future of your child takes the center stage. You will become less about ego and more about self-sacrifice. A beautiful thing that makes you question the world we live in. You will focus more on what could done to create a better future for the next generation.
A trigger to finally write this article is the Libra project of Facebook. What amazes me is how positive this project is being received. No, the project does not validate anything, nor does it shift power from a platform to its users. The bottom line is that Libra project is a means for Facebook and its partners to expand their walled gardens. Gardens that are used to grow user data in order to exploit it.
To quote Timothy C. May:
“I think Satoshi would barf”.
One of the most important things I want my son to be able to do, is to think and speak freely. To be able to make up his own mind and to be able to create his own future. This without being scared of expressing who he is and what his beliefs are.
And without being afraid that the walls have ears. I would go as far as saying that projects like these and the path we are on are a danger to our freedom of speech and freedom of thought. In this lengthy article which does not have the usual distracting graphics, I will explain why.
The good
There is no doubt that our ability to communicate is what makes us humans such a wonderful and powerful species. With our linguistic artillery, a gift of our cognitive revolution, we can create communities, create new realities and change the course of history. As described in the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, no other species uses communication to the same extent we do. It is what makes us human and is probably the most valuable gift that nature gave us.
The digital communication revolution has turbo-charged this ability. It has given us new and easier ways to communicate and to express ourselves. And because communication leads to communities, it has created millions of digital communities that are now shaping our new and virtual world. A virtual world that is improving our lives tremendously. An ever-expanding world that is available within a blink of the eye.
This leads to change. One of the first words my son learned was Google. Usually pronounced by him as GooGoo while pointing to the Google Home device to play his favorite song on Spotify. The word Blockchain still is too much of a stretch for him unfortunately. The technical progress over the last two decades is mind-blowing.
It has made our world so much smaller. It has made expressing ourselves so much easier. It has torn down the walls of the boxes we used to be confined to. As a result, we do not fit in the left or right ballot box anymore and that is a great accomplishment.
The bad
Our interaction and communication in our virtual world is way more superficial than in our real world. This is a result of its vastness, of our perceived anonymity within it and because of the relevance and importance we attribute it. Nowadays, if someone is posting something with the title: “The new weapon of Kim”, you probably will see a photo of Kim Kardashian’s booty instead of a headshot of a North Korean dictator called Kim Jong Un.
And that is just great as you and I can distinguish the difference between our real and virtual world. We see that our virtual world has less relevance and importance than our real world.
But more and more people and institutions do not see this difference anymore. They see our real and virtual selves as equals. In our virtual world, because it does not forget, there is no room for our shadows and thus we express our un-authentic selves. The Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote:
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is”.
Not acknowledging the fact that everyone carries a shadow in our virtual world, will cause any decision-making process based on our virtual self to be tinted and one-sided. And because of the increasing importance of our virtual world, the more dangerous this becomes as inclusion or exclusion in our real world is increasingly based on who we are in our virtual world.
Because of their business model, that the platforms we use to access our virtual world are designed like gambling machines. Apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google and Snapchat are designed for engagement and capitalize on our primal instinct to gossip.
A design that opens the door for a bigger problem and that is manipulation. Social media platforms have become platforms for disinformation and have become integral part of information warfare. Nowadays, when there is a geopolitical conflict, the troll farms go in high gear and use these platforms as weapons to manipulate the public opinion.
A strategy, invented by people like Vladislav Surkov, that is proven to be very successful. A lot of false narratives have been pushed that the public opinion has accepted as the truth. If we do not watch out, little Alan will become part of a future where nothing is real and anything is possible.
And the Ugly
Revolutions are usually defined by a shift of power and ownership. In our digital communication revolution shift has taken place two times. In the early days, the world wide web used to be a free haven that could be described as an anarchy. It was a network that empowered its users and shifted power and ownership away from the telco’s. An exciting period say the least.
It did not take long before the first wave of commercialization hit the internet. Because of its characteristics, the internet provided an easy and cost-effective way to reach people. The dot-com bubble started when the commercial potentials of the internet got discovered.
Newly formed companies financed by tons of high-risk capital were fighting for every piece of internet real estate with the goal of monopolizing existing business models in a new and emerging virtual world. Although it caused quite a bit of wreckage, the commercialization accelerated the development of the internet.
During this period, some companies saw a future potential in something most people overlooked. It all had to do with the value of data and specifically user data. Our interaction with our virtual world says a lot about who we are in our real world. And this, in itself, is more valuable than most of us realize. Combined with the fact that our virtual world does not have a lot of rules and regulation, this opened the door for a second shift in power and ownership.
A shift that led to the monopolization of the platforms that have become the cornerstones of our virtual world. This has turned the open internet into a network of cartels and monopolies.
One needs to understand that creating a monopoly requires a lot of effort. A monopoly does not just happen. It involves a plan. And in order to create a monopoly, this plan needs to be concealed. And this is exactly what these companies did. By using a strategy of the iron hand within a velvet glove, they were able to create huge communication and social media platforms that basically imprison their users.
Platforms that are walled gardens that are used to grow user data. Data which is used as oil to fuel a trillion-dollar business model. Data that protects and strengthens the data monopolies that these companies have become. Data that is being harvested continuously and in a very concealed way. As a result, the walls in our virtual world have grown ears.
Our virtual world is now writing new chapters in the novel 1984 of George Orwell.
One company is the poster-boy example of one of these data monopolies. A company that goes by the name of Facebook, but that is also known as WhatsApp or Instagram. A company that has become vital for modern day communication. A company that known for being deceitful and that does not give a rats rectum about the privacy of the users of their platforms. A company that continuously abuses the data it harvests for the sake of powering its business model and its monopoly.
A company which oppresses its users and that acts aggressively to any threat to its authority. A company that bends the rules and legislation for its own benefit and that has become a political and economic powerhouse with market cap of more than 500 Billion USD.
Now this company has launched a project called Libra. A project that is setup to protect and strengthen the monopolies of its members. Let me explain. A real blockchain is something that decentralizes power and ownership. It breaks up monopolies. This is why Libra is a so-called permissioned blockchain. In short, a fancy database with a central authority that lacks something that is of essence for any blockchain technology. That is the word permissionless.
Because of this, Facebook will stay the central authority in its blockchain network. It also allows Libra to take shortcuts in their codebase like only implementing a consensus algorithm which behaves like pBFT called LibraBFT. And because of the way it is setup and organized, Libra will never become a permissionless blockchain.
But there is more. Libra states that user data will not be shared. But if we look at the history of this company, we know that eventually this we should not take its words for granted. In the end, the Libra project is a way to empower Facebook and its members even more. Libra is not a cryptocurrency but a tool that integrates the individual monopolies of the parties involved to create a super monopoly.
The NGO members are only involved to give the project a bit of credibility. Libra will have a mind-blowing number of users from the get-go and this will give it a very high chance of succeeding. Some say that Libra validates cryptocurrencies and the blockchain movement. Libra is not setup to decentralize power and ownership. It is setup to do exactly the opposite. It is a multi-edged sword that is an all-out attack on the shift of power and ownership that cryptocurrencies and the blockchain movement are trying to achieve.
Because of all of this, projects like Libra are a threat to our freedom of speech and freedom of thought. They are tools to create super monopolies. Monopolies that are built on the exploitation of are virtual selves. If we continue down this path, it will lead to a future where everything is controlled by digital super monopolies. A future that will write new chapters in the novel 1984 of George Orwell. And that is a future we certainly do not want for our kids and for future generations.
A Dystopian Future?
In his quest to create a digital censorship resistant peer-to-peer currency for the people called Bitcoin, Satoshi found a way to solve something that is called the Byzantine Generals’ Problem. And by doing so he found a way to get rid of central authorities within systems. Something that is key to censorship resistance as it is a way to break up monopolies. Bitcoin is focused on money and transactions. But its launch has led to the birth of a movement that is out there to decentralize the world and to shift power and ownership back to the people.
When Satoshi started with his project, the majority of the people did not see its relevance. People thought that Bitcoin would become yet another piece of wreckage on the internet superhighway. But after a bit more than a decade, Bitcoin and the movement it gave birth to, have become relevant. Although this movement is still in its infancy it is already under attack. A good thing as it validates the movement.
For my little boy Alan, I have become part of this movement. I am involved with a group of people that are trying to create a new decentralized communication and social media platform. A platform where its users are the owners of the platform. This as we believe that ownership of communication is key in solving the privacy problem we are faced with today. I really hope that our movement will become big and strong enough to succeed in its goals.
It will provide him and future generations with a better future. And if our movement fails, I comfort myself with the fact that our virtual world does not forget. He will eventually read this piece. He will read that his dad warned about the consequences of the path we are on right now and that his dad was part of a movement that was trying to build a better future form him and for future generations. He might think that his dad was boiling the ocean a bit but he will see that his dad meant well. And in the end, that is all that matters.
