Locked Out with a Key in Hand

Today, we visited an indoor playground, where Smallsteps met with a friend to run around for a few hours out of the rain and my wife and I got to talk with the father over a cup or two of coffee. It was really nice and definitely the kind of conversation I prefer, where we discussed the various problems facing the world and possibilities on how to improve the conditions for our kids. This isn't always an easy conversation to have, but the guy is very much switched on and open to talking about all manner of things, which we did.

What was interesting is how so many things can be improved through blockchain transparency and crypto, because it helps people take back ownership of their experience in a transparent manner. For a simple line of thought example, we spoke about what to do about the "platforms" out there (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) that take our data and use it to improve their financial performance, increasing their strangle hold over all. In his opinion, he thinks it is about "protecting our data" from them so they cannot leverage it, but in my opinion, it is about devaluing data so that it is available to everyone more equally, not just them.

This doesn't make data valueless, it just distributes the value of it through competition and ties that value to specific usecase values. This disempowers the platforms, because once everyone has access (for example through blockchains), it allows for tens of thousands of companies to compete with the conglomerates in their niche fields, specializing to a greater degree than the behemoth can, essentially bleeding them dry through tiny slices. Something I refer to as a death by a thousand cuts process.

But, this level of transparency is difficult for most people to understand, because they think that it means that they have to share their information with everyone, no matter what it is. But, this is not the case, or at least, this is already happening now, it is just that the "everyone" are those large platform data collectors who use it to bleed us dry. The other thing is that like the guy said today, the reason YouTube is free for him to use, is because they can use that data.

This is a common argument, but it is also not true. YouTube is not free, we are all paying for it, it is just done indirectly. Google make money by operating the service through advertising, which we are paying for through consumer spending. Just because the interface layer access is free to use, it doesn't mean it is actually free and, it doesn't mean there aren't other costs associated with that level of information distribution reach, as we have seen with all kinds of "movements" in the last decade, including the affects it has had on the democratic process.

Which also came up, where it is quite obvious to anyone with half a brain, that 1:1 voting with majority rule, doesn't actually work. It is so fundamentally flawed, that it is amazing that it was ever given the space to breathe at all. The problems with it are numerous, but I think this paragraph that @jagged posted to me in a comment today will suffice to explain.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler

The problem is, humans. We will learn to maximize ourselves quickly, no matter who we are. This maximization will eventually lead to all kinds of issues, especially since we don't worry about the cost to others while we are maximizing ourselves. Not only this, we are also very poorly skilled in so many important areas, that we are unable to make a decision of "best fit" for anything, so we will make blanket decisions for arbitrary reasons, like whether we like the candidate or not, or whether they believe in something we feel strongly about or not. We vote in our best interest, regardless of our competence and these days, it is often, who will give me the most money. But there are other reasons too.

Well, obviously there is a solution to this too, but it doesn't mean it is easy to develop, even if the solution already exists. Essentially, there needs to be staked-based voting systems incorporated, but what gets factored in as relevant stake has to be more than financial position. For instance, educational background, work experience, interests, hobbies, social and community activity and other points of relevance, that are verifiable to some degree. If all of this information was able to be gathered into a unique profile and then through a cross-referencing system, a voting questionnaire would be filled with all of the relevant weightings having an impact, each voter would have an independent say as an individual, but would also have their skills and experience taken into account.

But how to collect that information?

Well, most likely, a lot of that information already exists and is currently being collected, collated and sold for profit from that handful of companies mentioned above, for profit. If the same data they collect was available globally, instead of them building a digital Cupie Doll avatar of us to target with messaging, it could build a dynamic voter profile that grows with us, as our experiences change over time throughout our lives. Should elderly people for example be making decisions that they will never have to experience, but have heavy negative consequences on the future generations? Maybe they should have less weighting in those areas. But, those same people may have greater weighting in other aspects of the vote, because they have experiences that the young do not.

And as you can see, through this very simplified few paragraphs, how much of these things overlap and feed into each other. but, there is more to it than this also, because what is actually required is that rather than the renter mindset that we have been conditioned to have, we need to become owners of our world. The devaluation of our data in the sense of its salability by the data collectors, doesn't make it valueless, quite the opposite. Taking ownership of this data means that we are able to use it in a million ways that lay outside of the platform's self interested decisions, like using it for building stronger social networks, or improving the decisions for localized communities.

And again, there is more to it than just improving economic conditions, because once we are all owners in our world, we start to become collaborators, developers, builders and protectors of the world we are creating. We become reconnected to society, rather than disenfranchised from it. We start to take active roles forcing us to interact, discuss, problem solve and overcome, rather than sitting back passively and saying, there is nothing that can be done. We become gateways to our own future, rather than locked doors without a key.

There are so many aspects to this that I can't come close to listing them all and even touching on their considerations in a single post. However, what I want to get across is that regardless of how difficult things may be currently or how bad they get, there are still options to improve conditions, if we take ownership over our lives, rather than proxying our lives and living vicariously through the authorities. And, that "vicarious life" we are living is not a pleasant one, because we are living as they want us to live, which is as a servant that feeds the master, a cow to be milked, a tool to be used and discarded when broken, sub-human, a number that has no value, other than what we can add to their bottom line, for them to maximize themselves, using our resources.

We aren't locked out of opportunity to change this world.

We are the keys.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]