alxd

alxd, 21 days ago

Every time I encountered someone pitching a DAO or a Blockchain to an organization, they specifically bundled several things together to make them indistinguishable - the culture with the technology, the way a community is organized with the tools they use. With that, there fewer footholds for any kind of question, insight into what is really happening.

This is what I mean by saying that the technology is transparent and it's not always a good thing, because it makes us unable to discuss it.

alxd, 21 days ago

In my definition of #technology in #solarpunk I do call it the "crystallized community", as a sum of all the decisions, tradition, culture, because the tools arise from the needs and the conscious choice, not the other way around.

Blockchain and DAOs are an anti-thesis of Solarpunk not just because of their carbon footprint, but because they bundle everything together and make choices for you, pretending there was never a choice in how your community could operate.

alxd, 21 days ago

Moreover, Blockchains, with their tokens, enforce financialization of your communities, where the way ledger is implemented does not correspond with any kind of gift economy, with communalism, but with the harshest capitalist market traditions. Whoever has the [money/tokens/votes], rules.

We spent thousands of years working on different law systems, putting transparency, equality before the law at their core, and Blockchain wants to replace them with a web3 engineer being a priest/judge.

alxd, 21 days ago

There's a reason why paper ballots are considered safer than electronic elections: they can be audited, counted by people without extremely specialized skills. You can train someone to count votes in a few days instead of a few years of intense P2P cybersecurity courses, software and hardware expertise.

What Blockchain and DAOs offer you is offloading the responsibility for your processes to a third party, making you forget that you're giving them enough power to become absolute rulers.

alxd, 21 days ago

And for every. single. argument. for Blockchains, DAOs, Web3, there is another open source tool that does the same thing, but better, less energy-intensely, with more fine-tuning for your own needs.

You can dive into IPFS, DAT, Scuttlebutt, Git and GitTorrent, dozens and dozens protocols which can solve your problems.

But none of them come in a sleek, well-marketed package of "solving all of your problems" only a scammer can offer you.

alxd, 21 days ago

Many web3 and DAO advocates will call for a debate, saying that you cannot just dismiss their solutions like a religious zealot. Then they start looking for an edge: are you non-technical enough to be convinced that >this< technology is so far outside of your understanding to solve all of your problems? Are you optimistic enough to be sold on the idea of an Objective Machine which will solve human imperfections?

Then they will use those lines, like good salesmen, completely ignoring your needs.

alxd, 21 days ago

If I could ask the #solarpunk community for one thing regarding the web3, blockchains and DAOs, it will be:

Do not treat them like a technology you just dont understand.

Treat them like a way of thinking which dismisses your and your organization's needs and gives you a sleek solution, asking not to ask too many questions.

Because that's what web3 is: the culture of techno-solutionism, of abandoning hard questions about humanity and community organization.

The exact anti-thesis of Solarpunk.

alxd, 26 days ago

@rysiek @ward capitalism corrupts language like this.

To the point of some languages (not only Polish) missing "sustainability", only having "a balanced growth". Because you cannot not grow.