Morlock Elloi on Sat, 30 Dec 2017 21:54:03 +0100 (CET)


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


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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