A Cryptoeconomic Solution for Modern Oppression

Today there is nothing as oppressive as the expectation of unremunerated attention.

Attention should be understood here as a temporary donation of, at the very least, one's time. This presupposes that actions, objects, programs or messages that attract and capture the attention and time of others *do not* constitute a sufficiently compensatory benefit.

Uncompensated attention should cease to be an assumed expectation or requirement to engage in atomic experiences (e.g. reading or commenting on blogs, voting in elections). Instead, inducing or attracting said attention in exchange for *any* form of acceptable remuneration should be pursued. In my view this is only possible by adopting and applying newly emergent economic incentive architectures facilitated by tools provisioned by cryptoassets and blockchain technology (particularly with regards to 'Smart Contracts'). By pursuing such a strategy we seek to emancipate our global citizenzry from the de facto compulsion to relinquish and forfeit valuable personal time and information in exchange for unremunerated experiences.

Thus, my claim is as follows: All experiences should be *potentially* remunerative.

As the title of this post indicates, we are seeking a cryptoeconomic solution - or at the very least an orientation towards a solution - to the problem of unremunerated attention. It may be helpful if we provide a brief definition here. Cryptoeconomics should be understood as an emerging field of study of how we use digital incentives to drive specific resources and behaviors on decentralized networks that lead to some globally desired result such as security or network effects. There is a site called Cent that has been accessible to anyone around the world with an internet connection at beta.cent.co that is conducting an extremely novel and at the same time deceptively simple cryptoeconomic experiment.

First of all, despite only being around for three months or so, Cent has already established itself as a community - to be sure it is still small by modern internet standards. It aspires to be the de(cent)ralized reddit-meets-quora that in(cent)ivizes users by way of Ether (ETH) bounties. Users pose questions or requests to the community that, crucially, carry with them a set bounty denominated in ETH to incentivize as many respondants as possible, and based on the number of upvotes respondants get from other respondants, they will receive a proportional share of that bounty. The key innovation here is that the payout is carried out by a Smart Contract that runs on the Ethereum network - after a question is submitted it triggers an unstoppable automatic application wherein a pre-set timer begins its countdown with payouts released automatically as soon as the bounty period expires.

So to summarize: Cent allows users to offer ETH (digital incentive) in order to drive other users to provide quality responses vying for that Ether which attracts new users who provide ever more quality responses and pose new questions with bounties to attract new users repeat ad infinitum. They have bootstrapped an active community where users are referred to as Centians. Hundreds of bounties have been set and respondants have received thousands of dollars worth of ETH for their attention. Users even receive a portion of the bounty simply for either upvoting or downvoting responses. This is an *almost* perfectly structured incentive architecture. Almost.

The shortcommings - in my view - stem from how the question/bounty-posing feature has been incentivized - or the lack thereof - and the potential for abuse and gaming of the system as it is set up today. Whilst there may be marginal benefit in being able to relatively reliably source a certain amount of responses, it is a shame that there is no way to at least subsidize bounty setters. As a result bounty values have remained trivial, ranging between $3~20 (relative to the given value of ETH to USD at the time a question/bounty is set). Trivial bounties beget half-hearted responses.

Additionally, there is the growing problem of users setting up multiple accounts to game the system and win a larger share of the bounty. There is currently no mechanism in place to prevent someone from setting up multiple accounts in order to game the system by upvoting their own posts and downvoting others. It isn't hard to imagine even passionate contributers becomming frustrated over time if their attention is undercompensated whilst scammers are receiving 3~5x more, at least. Of course if these issues are not addressed they will most likely inhibit any real growth for Cent and its community. Fellow Centian @Maxsterly has already voiced frustration regarding the inability to subsidize question/bounty-setters and multiple users including @dreambig and @soothsayer have complained about the scammers with multiple accounts. Operating a system based off of decentralized logic makes it more difficult - but not impossible - to minimize or prevent such behaviour.

So to conclude I would like to propose a few potential novel solutions:

Firstly, Cent should provide the option for users to 'tip' bounties that they have an interest in. Tips could be split 50:50 between a) the user who set the bounty and b) the bounty itself by adding to it thus incentivizing better responses.

Secondly, Cent should designate those Centians who have been active and provided thoughtful responses over time as arbiters of up upvoting; create a class of 'Centurions' if you will. This will a) eliminate the negative impact that gamers could and have had whilst b) ensuring that Centians who provide original and thoughtful responses are duly compensated. Of course there should be a mechanism created that allows newer Centians to become Centurions as well. A sufficiently decentralized approach could be setting up a hard threshold. Say that if a Centian receives over 100 upvotes across a minimum of at least 5 posts then they are automatically upgraded to Centurion status.

Projects like Cent are paving the way forward towards a very exciting future. The creators behind Cent deserve a lot of praise and all the support they need. Hopefully the proposed improvements I have included may be of some assistance in creating not just a better user experience on Cent, but a better future for everyone around the world.

Politics, Populism, Disappointment, and Hegemony

Politics

A set of dynamic systems, driven by conflict, and by adaptations and counter-adaptation, leading to tactical arms races...

No given mode of politics is historically inviolable.

Political tactics are a dynamic field of forces.


Populism

A type of political logic by which a collection of different identities are knitted together against a common opponent and in search of a new world


Disappointment

Indexes a yearning for a lost future


Hegemony

Ruling by the engineering of consent (according to the dictates of one particular group)

But it is NOT to be identified as a system of domination.

Should be understood as a complex, emergent mode of power, dependent on the ability of groups within society to influence others in much more diffuse ways.

It emerges out of the interactions and practices of a diverse array of groups, agents, and organizations in society. It doesn't flatten difference, but emerges out of the interplay of difference.

~ Antonio Gramsci


All from "Inventing the Future" by Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams

Placeholder

Soon to come

Erotic Algorithms

Erotocism: A thirst for otherness where the "other" is very often a new self...

 ~ Octavio Paz

Algorithm: A methodological set of steps to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions.

~ Yuval Noah Harari

Miguel - Skywalker

Outstanding so I stand out
More babes than a bath house
Top gun I'm like Tom Cruise
I play for keeps and I don't lose
You more than love it cuz I'm cool as a breeze
So pick a poison, yeah I got what you need
Nonchalant got the green on rotation all night
We gonna keep it psychadelic like a cap and stem
Catch a wave on us
Take a shot, make a friend, just enjoy the moment
Luke Skywalkin' on these haters
Celebrate everyday like a birthday
Things come to those who wait up
Don't wait to jump in too long
Don't sleep you gotta stay up
Don't sleep you gotta stay up

The Paradox of Historical Knowledge

Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless.
But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance.
The more data we have and the better we understand history, the quicker it changes.

 ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Off Key

Off key
But she likes me
Arms entwined
But time unwinds
Somehow foreign
But here born in
I'm deep bottled
Her, near tee-totaled

Oatmeal raison
Red velvet cake 'n
Wearin' same shirts 'n

Words left unsaid
But heard in bed
Somehow so different
But of same filiment
Cuddling atop covers
Alarm breaks slumber
But she still likes me
Off key

Too Real

Too real
To the real
Not political
Fuck that

Can't be
But sees
Their needs
Fucks that

Walks a line
What's fine
Or a crime
Fuck it

Most deep
Likes to creep
But weeps
Fucks given

Locked eyes
So high
In her thighs
We fucks

Not binary
More spectrum-ary
Future come early
Fucking to the real

Blockchain, Questions and Responses

So if you know me, you know that for the past year cryptrocurrencies - beginning with ethereum - have been top of mind for me. I imagine that will be the case for many of you reading this as well. If that is the case then you have probably been asked - or told - one or both of the following question: "What is the blockchain[sic]?"

There are a ton of variations on this question, but I think it essentially sums up the mystery and skepticism sorrounding this epoch shifting technology. Below I want to leave you, dear reader, an answer to this question as well as a few responses from a couple of brilliant people that I hope you find useful the next time you start talking crypto with a noob, or a seasoned vet. Xoxo and don't get rekt. Hodl your ish bish.

What are blockchains?

Blockchains are a way to implement a distributed ledger, a record of consensus with a cryptographic audit trail which is maintained and validated by several separate nodes.

Blockchains sit ‘below’ a distributed ledger and act as a way to order and validate the transactions in the ledger. To that end, you can say that blockchains are a way to achieve the consensus necessary for a distributed ledger.

Source: “Blockchains 101” @breitwoman https://medium.com/@kathleenbreit/blockchains-101-654217effe20
copy of his book in my email inbox a few minutes after I sent 0.0162 BTC to David. T

Thoughts from thoughtful people:

Naval Ravikant: "The Four Layers of the Internet Protocol Suite are constantly communicating. The Link Layer puts packets on a wire. The Internet Layer routes them across networks. The Transport Layer persists communication across a given conversation. And the Application Layer delivers entire documents and applications.

Where’s the protocol layer for exchanging value, not just data? Where’s the distributed, anonymous, permission- less system for chatty machines to allocate their scarce resources? Where is the “virtual money” to create this “virtual economy?

Cryptocurrencies are an emergent property of the Internet – almost a 5th protocol in the Internet suite."

Benedict Evans: "The question, then, is not whether something works now but whether it could work - whether you know how to change it. Saying 'it doesn't work, today' has no value, but saying 'yes, but everything didn't work once' also has no value. Rather, do you have a roadmap? Do you know what to do next?
...
First of all, it's quite common, especially in enterprise technology, for something to propose a new way to solve an existing problem. It can't be used to solve the problem in the old way, so 'it doesn't work', and proposes a new way, and so 'no-one will want that'. This is how generational shifts work - first you try to force the new tool to fit the old workflow, and then the new tool creates a new workflow. Both parts are painful and full of denial, but the new model is ultimately much better than the old.
...
One way to solve this problem is to try to separate the fundamental capability that's being proposed from the specific uses. Edison thought that sound recording would be good for sermons, not music, and it’s hard, and perhaps impossible, to tell what people will use the new thing for. But sound recording and one-to-one and one-to-many sound transmission were much more fundamental changes than the ability to listen to a sermon on demand. What mattered was seeing the value of the capability, not predicting any particular applications. The mistake to make in looking at Edison's recording technology would have been to argue about whether people wanted sermons -  the mistake is to look only at the application that this technology is proposed to provide, and not the actual capability that has been created. Sermons might not work, but sound is a big deal."

Future Strategy Planning

Whilst we can't predict the future exactly, we can be ready for it.

Ideas These Days

An idea is something whose time has come, so if I think of something these days it is - at best - something thought of in tandem with someone else.

Chris DeRose,
Bitcoin Uncensored - Episode 62

Precious, Precious Tech

"Yes...but [in those recent job cuts at major tech firms] who are they cutting? [They are] cutting redundancy and adding highly skilled workers [it's] is part of life."

Right, those laid off or made redundant lack those highly specialized skills. Those who are made redundant need different skill sets for the software-defined future that they simply don't have, right?  Of course each position that needs to be filled is a special snowflake that in turn needs its own special snowflake to fill it and be able to unlock those miracles and incredible experiences that makes everyone involved super proud.  Everyone is precious about these things.

And - to be absolutely clear - that is why these companies are great.

Ok, that said, are these companies getting too precious? Are we - you and I - getting too precious about those companies?  Are there any negative externalities caused by so much preciousness? 

I think the arguement can be made that we are subsidizing preciousness too damn much.  If you had the option to increase the size of a bucket - one that is replenished year after year -  that is not only full of the exact snowflakes you are looking floor, but  is actually flown direct to you INSTEAD of having to fill your own bucket up with regular old water, then freeze that bucket into a workable mold before you husk off chunks that basically will get the job done and could be chisled out over time, who the fuck would ever choose the latter? This is what is happening.  We are subsidizing precious companies and their desire to select their precious snowflakes.  

The claim that there is an absolute lack of domestic STEM talent versus actual jobs and forecast jobs is not a tenable arguement to hold. The reality, as the US Bureau of Labor Studies made clear here (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm) is much more nuanced and the reality is that it is frankly impossible to unequivocally assert such a lack exists. The amount of anecdotal evidence relied on - most of which is provided by the groups that would benefit the most by having a bucket of talent pooled exclusively for them - is astounding.  

What the real focus regarding HIRING REFORM should be - because any visa reform would essentially be a reform on hiring practices - should be to monitor real wages amongst other factors of course; I'm not a PhD for faks sakes.  Those sectors/positions that see a quicker rise/spike in real wages obviously would indicate an area where companies - especially smaller companies - may have a need for easier access to easily recruitable talent in order to compete. This would also benefit the larger ecosystem with a diversity of product solutions that would give consumers more choice and expedite future improvements. 

And let's talk about global diversity and a global ecosystem of competing businesses.  Let's say Trump pulled a knee jerk reaction and yanks the whole H1B program, hundreds of thousands of Indians and Eastern Europeans amongst others will have to go home.  They will be pissed, and heartbroken and everything. They will leave behind friends and have to move back to countries with backward ways of doing things. But how much of that backwardness and corruption can be attributed to a comparative lack of competition for better leaders, better business people etc...?? These people would return with global networks, best practices, and a fucking chip on their shoulder bigger than the tumour that took out Steve Jobs...

Jongsam 종삼

In volume one of Go Eun's 1995 autobiographical novel "My Bronze Age," Korea's representative modern poet-essayist depicts Jongsam prostitution, in particular the rooms that the prostitutes worked out of.

"There was a girl whose entire wall was lined with records. Another was behind pulled, pink nylon curtains bringing a man back to his wedding night ecstasy. What was really sad though were the posters with english phrases like 'Sweet Home' and 'Happy' that lined the walls where the girls hung their treasured garments that were constantly being ripped off of them."

Such a realistic picture of a Jongsam room belies the frequent visits that the author must have made to Jongsam.  To be honest, if I had to choose a piece of literature that best captures Jongsam, Go Eun's "Generation" published in the April 1972 version of "1950's Non-fiction: The Literature of Destruction, 16" would be my immediate choice.

The following excerpt describes why men from that generation had to go to Jongsam.

"The alcohol of Myeongdong and the women of Jongsam were the true homes of writers in the wake of the destruction from the 1950s. Drinking cheap alcohol in Myeongdong and running to Jongro 3-ga to get stuck in cheap women allowed us to colourfully escape the dark post-war atmosphere.

The war was over. All the writers and citizens had returned.  The wasted youth and writers of ruin imitated Oscar Wilde and Rimbaud. Since they quickly mimicked the existentialists as well as the fallen house of Heungson Daewongun, the despair, anxiety, irrationality, extreme situations, existence, solitude - the lexicon of the post-war period all became the same.  When the war ended they all had to embrace the feeling of loss together. In the 1950s, a tremendous void was left in their hearts that they had to cover with something.  They hadn't only lost their mothers or their homes.  They didn't just lose books.  That time they climbed up Namsan with their first love, and ran right back down spasming in ecstasy without even hugging her was lost.

They lost their homes. Philosophies were lost.   Everything was lost.  Their beloved Soonhee became a whore the foreigners called Elena.  Houses, destroyed; philosophies, barren.  Those damaged souls had to find a way to deal with such an overwhelming feeling of loss.  And that was [through] alcohol and whores.

..... The Jongsam girls provided deep consolation.  Of course this doesn't mean the girls were cute or had good bodies.  They were destroyed, and like ruin their rotten temperment was without equal. Yet just going there and experiencing such disillusionment was consolation enough.

Let's go! To our hometown, Jongsam!
Let's go! To our eternal lovers! Oh! Oh! My sun, my night!"

~ An original translation of
   Vol. Of Son Jung-mok's
   'The Story of Seoul's City Planning'