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The core problem TFA describes isn't complexity, capitalism, or bots. It's the lack of trust. People are fine w/ a few big players (or even one big player) as long as you can trust them, but we don't trust the players anymore: Google, Mastercard, our governments, etc. We think they're all corrupt, and broadly we're right [0]. Blockchain's answer is "OK we give up on trust", but humans can't live that way--or at least strongly don't want to. Successful markets, courts, schools, workplaces, all arise out of a culture of trust and accountability, not the other way around. Unless we hold these institutions accountable they will inevitably decay; our markets will become lemon markets; our courts will become kangaroo courts; our schools will become insipid daycares; our workplaces will become surveillance salt mines. There is no technology that allows us to abdicate our duty to justice and to each other. There's this episode of Star Trek: TNG [1] where the crew rescues some 20th century humans. One's a blowhard who keeps using ship-wide communications to make random demands, so Picard finally marches down to the guy's quarters to explain that comms are for ship business only. The guy is like "well if they're so important why don't they require an executive key?", to which Picard replies "we're aboard a starship so that is not necessary, we're all capable of exercising self-discipline". There is no tech, no bureaucracy, no system of rules and regulations that can save a culture unwilling to save itself, whose answer to "what is acceptable to do" is "anything that isn't explicitly illegal, and sometimes explicitly illegal stuff depending on how much money you have". If we spent 1/100 of the effort on community building as we did zk-snarks or whatever the fuck, we simply wouldn't have these problems. Or as the kids say I guess, touch grass. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JcQxfhcg2Q [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQQYbKT_rMg |