Hi Reader,
let me take you on a ride to get the grasp of blockchain technology and what's going on in decentralized web. If you've just began your blockchain journey(like yesterday), allow me to put forth a story for you. And if you've already mastered web 3.0, go on. Read, it's fun. I'll be waiting for your thoughts in comments.
Okay, so our story starts from the hunting-gathering days of Homo Sapiens. dramatic flashback music starts
It all began here
Long before when computers weren't a thing, our ancestors had been gathering wild plants and hunting animals for survival. It was in fact the longest span of our history. People would come together, form bands to scavenge, hunt, fish together. The people were nomads and roam in search for bountiful places. A day in their life would look something like... the group would come together and discuss tasks individuals want to carry out in the day. The group size is small say 80 odd members and they prefer agreement on tasks. They hunt for the game during the day and distribute the reward among them. The food is fundamental and a critical resource to them. The important decisions of the group revolve around food. How do they organise themselves is an interesting question.
Problems then
Hunting wild animals sounds life threatening with stone age weapons. Who would risk life for it? Can you hunt in other tribe's territory? Who owns the food and how is it distributed? How are you planning to secure all that surplus food? What if the evil tribe loots? Apart from subsistence, how can you raise your standard of living? In other words, they need security, rules to establish trust, more food and ways to earn on this surplus.
Solutions then
Communities were the strength of our ancestors. Observing Pygmies of Africa, Eskimos of Arctic and other modern-day bands one can figure out the key ingredient. People in band societies often
- secure unrestricted access to land for everyone in the group,
- make food and goods available to wide networks of kin through sharing and distribution, and
- work to build consensus in decisions that concern the well-being of the group.
Our ancestors didn't tweet #wagmi, they executed it.
The community driven life worked out well in creating an egalitarian society. No individual wealth differences, no centralized authority to decide fate of everyone and low-frequency of food shortages. Untill of course, we rose in numbers and these solutions weren't enough. We needed technologies backing our social strengths.
Transition
Technology gave us immense power to get them resources pumping. But you see our body remains the same. The DNA attribute called "desire" still persists. And we get stuck in a vicious cycle. Problem -> solved by technology -> New problem.
If you're curious in studying historical patterns like me, you can figure out in most of technological revolutions, we keep on creating inequalities among ourselves. Every time there is a crunch in resources, humans agitate.
Both agriculture and industrial revolution has created a rich elite class of producers and regulators. With digital revolution we're now witnessing a new social fabric.
Modern day 21st CE
Ages passed by and we again created the same story for ourselves. Our ancestors had challenges with food. Today, we struggle with data. We develop a new landscape in 0s and 1s. We've not explored the universe, yet we're eagerly creating Metaverse.
Data is the new food.
Hunters used arrows and spears to gather food, tech companies use programs to gather data. This new food is being generated in leaps and bounds. The one who knows how to play well with it, becomes the tribal chief of this verse. The big tech companies are running the show of ongoing revolution. Which brings us to why is it a matter of concern?
Issues now
- You see, if you produced food, you could sell it, earn a living. On the other side, when you and I produce data, there is no means of selling it directly. You can't go like, Hey Meta, gimme 10 bucks and I'll share my music preferences! The only thing you're getting in return is dopamine rush. You don't own your own data.
- Tell me this, how do you trust this centralized system. The security, privacy, political influence, ethics? Who is guaranteeing all this? We trust the word given by the ones at the top. Your data is creating more data anonymously. The opaque decisions that concerns your personal data needs transparency.
- The third issue is what makes blockchains inevitable. The rising wealth inequality, which trickles down to socio-political disparities. The system we've adopted right now is simply not inclusive and sustainable.
Solutions now
Learn from our ancestors. We need communities back in power to run more transparent and inclusive systems. Blockchain is here to do the same. A nobody named Satoshi Nakamoto gave us this solution to generate trust in our digital world. Nakamoto pulled it off by introducing us with a crypto-currency running on blockchain. We're more hopeful than ever to establish a democratic order in our world of data. No more monopolies. No more data centralisation. No more dictatorship, a system where we're all part of decision making. We all become hunter-gatherers once again.
How does a blockchain exactly work? We'll talk about that some other day. Right now, the aim was to understand why a 'community driven technology' is the future.
If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
With this beautiful African proverb, let's also see where do we stand right now.
Not there yet!
The hype is wild but the solutions are young. It's more of a young, wild and not so free kinda situation. The great minds are working to get the best out of scalability, security and consensus. Mass adoption is a challenge. It's not a simple story for political leaders and markets. The current stakeholders in-charge have to make sure it's a smooth transition. One thing is for sure, the pace at which we're seeing solutions dropping every hour, it won't take too long.
That's it!
Wow! I sincerely hope you had fun reading how our social behaviour is integrated with decentralised web. Till I come up with next article. Drop a comment or, say 'Hi' on Twitter :)