I like where you are going with this, but I don't understand how you can ask if institutions have any value. Society and institutions are inextricably linked by definition. Human selfishness, greed, and ignorance have always driven power over institutions. The information age seemed to bring a glimmer of hope for institutional reform until the powerful found out how to usurp social media as a tool for modern-day propaganda. Today, our institutions are failing as we drift into an oligarchical world order. I guess that makes me a sovereign individualist/reformer on your matrix because I truly believe freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are basic human rights.
Very welcome. When Vitalik refers an article, I'm eager to learn more, that's how I stumbled upon your high quality content. I'm deeply interested in learning more. I'll keep an eye out to check out more of your content, and always happy to throw in my 2 cents. Thanks
I suppose Bilaji’s “Network States” is the best contemporary idea for reforming institutions. It’s complex to debate “what’s correct” for society given that the leading techno-optimists ideas consists of a world with ground up societies. Personally, I love the antifragility of societies forming from the ground up. However, this seems far from becoming a reality given the duration of time it will take for mechanisms to be refined to support a society (techno-optimist idealized reformed “Institution”) forming from the ground up (eg. voting mechanisms for decision making..—>One leading idea I’ve seen on this, that seems to have merit: Quadratic voting). A ‘weighting of votes’ done “with math” in a way that increases the likely-hood of making a decision with the “highest quality” has powerful implications for enabling the building of a Network State ie. Techno-optimist idealized reformed Institution.
Prediction: The techno-optimists (disclaimer: I’m a techno-optimist) will prove out their thesis for ground up societies (Network States) over the next 15-20 years. Mechanisms to support such societies will take 5 to 10 years to be refined (this is accounting for adoption ie. Network effects), thus the convergence, and effectiveness of ground up societies, will begin to outcompete traditional institutions, much like churches outcompeted feudal lords around 5 to 700 years ago. ChatGPT like features, and our convergence via utilizing AI to increase productivity will improve human productivity by enabling developers via constructing Modular code bases, thus expediting the creation of underlying mechanisms that allow us to function in trustful (some say “trustless”) ways; the plug in play code alone for constructing various, useful, types of smart contracts will be a major unlock for human coordination, and will increase our ability to contractually interact with each other.
In conclusion:
The quality and effectiveness of our processes in which we utilize to trade with one another, has always reflected in how much a given society prospers. Tragedy of the commons, and game theory, will degrade any institution, overtime, if proper alignment isn’t solved for (or we simply journey closer to proper aligment). If the underlying protocol doesn’t account for these 2nd and 3rd order effects by implementing technology where it’s useful, high levels of stagnation will occur. We have drastically progressed from the days when the churches aimed to muffle the technological breakthroughs printing press, lets not spend too much time muffling the development and implementation of these major technology breakthroughs we are gifted with today.
thank you for that thoughtful comment. i agree that network states does a good job at explaining the "sovereign individual" point of view. I've been meaning to get balaji's take on this interpretation.
Great idea! Although the visualisation is confusing for those who are used to the original political compass. I could not figure out what the visualisation meant until I read the article. I guess if you put axis in the center and remove circles from the axis it will be much less confusing.
I like where you are going with this, but I don't understand how you can ask if institutions have any value. Society and institutions are inextricably linked by definition. Human selfishness, greed, and ignorance have always driven power over institutions. The information age seemed to bring a glimmer of hope for institutional reform until the powerful found out how to usurp social media as a tool for modern-day propaganda. Today, our institutions are failing as we drift into an oligarchical world order. I guess that makes me a sovereign individualist/reformer on your matrix because I truly believe freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are basic human rights.
indeed- it sounds like you’re in the sovereign individual camp!
Very welcome. When Vitalik refers an article, I'm eager to learn more, that's how I stumbled upon your high quality content. I'm deeply interested in learning more. I'll keep an eye out to check out more of your content, and always happy to throw in my 2 cents. Thanks
I suppose Bilaji’s “Network States” is the best contemporary idea for reforming institutions. It’s complex to debate “what’s correct” for society given that the leading techno-optimists ideas consists of a world with ground up societies. Personally, I love the antifragility of societies forming from the ground up. However, this seems far from becoming a reality given the duration of time it will take for mechanisms to be refined to support a society (techno-optimist idealized reformed “Institution”) forming from the ground up (eg. voting mechanisms for decision making..—>One leading idea I’ve seen on this, that seems to have merit: Quadratic voting). A ‘weighting of votes’ done “with math” in a way that increases the likely-hood of making a decision with the “highest quality” has powerful implications for enabling the building of a Network State ie. Techno-optimist idealized reformed Institution.
Prediction: The techno-optimists (disclaimer: I’m a techno-optimist) will prove out their thesis for ground up societies (Network States) over the next 15-20 years. Mechanisms to support such societies will take 5 to 10 years to be refined (this is accounting for adoption ie. Network effects), thus the convergence, and effectiveness of ground up societies, will begin to outcompete traditional institutions, much like churches outcompeted feudal lords around 5 to 700 years ago. ChatGPT like features, and our convergence via utilizing AI to increase productivity will improve human productivity by enabling developers via constructing Modular code bases, thus expediting the creation of underlying mechanisms that allow us to function in trustful (some say “trustless”) ways; the plug in play code alone for constructing various, useful, types of smart contracts will be a major unlock for human coordination, and will increase our ability to contractually interact with each other.
In conclusion:
The quality and effectiveness of our processes in which we utilize to trade with one another, has always reflected in how much a given society prospers. Tragedy of the commons, and game theory, will degrade any institution, overtime, if proper alignment isn’t solved for (or we simply journey closer to proper aligment). If the underlying protocol doesn’t account for these 2nd and 3rd order effects by implementing technology where it’s useful, high levels of stagnation will occur. We have drastically progressed from the days when the churches aimed to muffle the technological breakthroughs printing press, lets not spend too much time muffling the development and implementation of these major technology breakthroughs we are gifted with today.
thank you for that thoughtful comment. i agree that network states does a good job at explaining the "sovereign individual" point of view. I've been meaning to get balaji's take on this interpretation.
Great idea! Although the visualisation is confusing for those who are used to the original political compass. I could not figure out what the visualisation meant until I read the article. I guess if you put axis in the center and remove circles from the axis it will be much less confusing.
I don't understand what tech has to do with this.