Re: <nettime> Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

If one rejects that Bitcoin 'happened' to us, and that there is a 
system/deep intent behind it, then what's left is that Bitcoin is a 
moral/ideological failure of its designer(s), and the society as a whole 
failed to inform the designer(s). But the idea that the the society 
needs to develop a body of morality (by, I guess, producing more liberal 
arts and comparative lit grads?), which will then trickle down (up ?) to 
techies, making them do more good than bad, is a non-starter these days; 
it may have worked in far more cohesive societies with a volume of 
intrinsic "values" and low tech environment, where mechanical gizmos 
were more or less obvious, so the public could easily tell the immoral 
from the moral ones, and properly condemn/reward the inventors.

Abdicating from understanding the subject matter, and trusting that the 
morality will somehow permeate into and inform those who do understand 
is unlikely to work - it definitely does not work today. Techies 
spontaneously develop a "class" of their own, regardless of where they 
come from, which insulates them from the unwashed (but supposedly moral.)

The only alternative that has (greater than zero) probability of working 
is a dramatic shift in the general technical literacy, like we had a 
shift in the general literacy. If that cannot be done ("out of the 
question" as you claim), then there is only one thing left to do: cut 
off their goolies ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04clpd7h0b0 ) , 
which is a bit barbaric even for the 21st century.

But I want to get back to Bitcoin as a random mindless technology that 
found its receptors in the society, and use proof by negation: Bitcoin 
has three key components: asymmetric crypto (for signatures), Merkle 
tree (for chains) and virtual machine that executes code. Asymmetric 
crypto uses modular arithmetic in the finite field, Merkle tree uses 
one-way hash functions. Which of these technologies/inventions or 
combinations thereof start to present the moral failure? Should we blame 
Whit Diffie, Ralph Merkle or Von Neumann and their respective societies? 
Where do you draw the line, and how is that line not arbitrary?

Technology inventions may look like a progeny of ideology and politics 
to the outsiders, but they are usually not. Most are truly random and go 
through a random series of application stages before they catch on or 
die. Ideology and politics come later, when one of these application 
stages start to look as a promising substrate for the particular 
ideology/politics to parasite on. With Bitcoin it happened only in the 
last few years.


On 12/29/17, 17:17, byfield wrote:
> So Bitcoin was a failure, in your view, except that whoever designed it
> didn't have goals or their goals were random, because $TECHNOLOGY? Or
> something like that. It's hard to make sense of some of what you're
> saying. I think I agree with some of your less grumpy points – for
> example, I brought up the political beliefs that informed the design of
> Bitcoin not to blame anyone (?!) but to explain why the avid-reader's
> analysis (not as good as Visa, FDIC, NASDAQ, etc) are completely off the
> mark. And *that* was incidental to my main point, that context-specific
> *disposable* blockchain-type stuff will probably be the most durable
> effect.
>
> It seems like the argument that Bitcoin might as well have emerged fully
> formed from the head of Zeus opens the door to the very things you've
> lamented: the failure to understand in broad terms how and why PoW-based
> projects are fatally flawed, or moral criticisms that they don't advance
> parochial political agendas. You say that how we choose to use these
> technologies matters more than their origins (who could disagree?), but
> on what basis are people supposed to make those kinds of choices at any
> scale? In your terms, what kinds of dice can be thrown and in what
> direction? I don't think better STEM education is quite up to that task,
> so the next best thing might be a slightly clearer understanding of the
> social ideals that inform *some* aspects of new technologies. That's
> pretty woolly, I know, but not as woolly as staging global magic-lantern
> shows and asking everyone to cow-click on dis/like icons until the music
> stops. And it's not even that woolly, really. Untangling blockchain-type
> stuff from 'Bitcoin' (and in particular seeing how ISO 9000–level *dull*
> blockchain stuff is) will be a necessary part of demystifying what's
> going on.
>
> You often argue for a certain kind of technological realism, but the
> pace at which algorithmic tech is developing ensures that even
> well-educated people will be left in the dust — and a lot of that dust
> will be particulate bullshit. Maintaining detailed understanding across
> fields will be out of the question. So what's left? A lot of the
> technical literacy you advocate will be limited to schematic overviews;
> and understanding who's claiming what will be essential to that. It's
> not a simple past-vs-future problem.
>
> Cheers,
> Ted
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