I can think of a few more reasons for downvotes.
Before writing those, I’d like to say that it’s generally a good thing IMO to post novel things on the forum, even if one doesn’t yet know the right form, and even if people then have a bunch of complaints in the comments.
What does sovereignty for an individual even mean? I suspect that once explained, it becomes a much more complicated and controversial concept than it appears.
It’s very unclear how the mentioned Blockchain technology would bring about those “individual sovereignty”, or even what that technology is.
The view itself seems like a very extreme form of libertarianism—something that has to be supported better if you want it to be convincing, given that only a minority of people here are libertarians.
Quotes like:
Why doesn’t Big Aid trust humans? Trust me, they don’t, and it starts all the way at the top.
I actually agree with the spirit of this quote! But the argument is not supported or explained in any way, but rather deferred to “trust me!”.
I genuinely appreciate the comments and also the notion that this proposal is naive. To many, it likely seems just too simplistic and too vast.
Is Facebook given the same ‘short shrift’ when they ‘offer’ internet to the masses ? We all know that partaking in Facebook’s version of the internet is not going to lead to an empowered populace. Yet, the ability of a protocol, in the form of a Wallet app is not only valid now, but within the hands of individual developers.
Holochain, Cardano, and Polkadot represent a sea-change in friction-free human interaction.
The presence of colonialist attitudes in the UN and the Big Aid organizations that vie for attention, is not a new idea. To quickly witness this, review the training philosophies of institutions where these ‘decision makers’ were educated. If you attend the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative practice camps you will receive ridicule if you bring up the idea that citizens with phones are much more likely to know what they want and need. The ‘logic’ you are faced with, is that “humans can’t be trusted”.
It does have a certain kind of logic, from an entitled perspective. These same organizations conduct follow-up ’studies’ to see why their interventions didn’t work. Over and over. Meanwhile these same organizations recognize that resiliency and self-efficacy are intertwined. They call it a conundrum.. how will humans in need remain compliant with the decisions dropped from on-high? How can people remain dependent but be prosocial and self-motivated? It can’t happen.
Now that “verifiably unique” (blockchain) technology is easily available, the logical conclusion of self-efficacy is now able to be realized. Personal sovereignty is the only real answer to the global problem of how to 1. Understand what people want and have to offer, at-scale. 2. Make decisions as a community for their own reasons and 3. Connect the things people need and have to share.
Telling people what they need does not work long-term. Not asking people to participate in their own recovery is a sure recipe for dependency and it forces trust in governance structures that are not made for the protection and security of the individual. It is an inherently unbalanced and de-humanizing power relationship. When communities are easily able to combine needs and resources, the ‘selfish’ drive to have something encourages shared reporting because group needs are more likely to obtain response in a crisis. After crisis, everyone’s needs ARE different.
The Aid perspective is that ‘we can’t manage everyone’s needs’ let alone trying to deal with resources every human provides. Who will track and connect intangibles like ‘friendship’ or ‘minor’ things like pet-sitting?
We now have the ability to ensure that every input came from an individual.
This same environment would detect patterns related to trying to ‘game the system’ and the result of participating in a lie (easily verified on-chain) would attribute that user a “high relevancy for lying” on-chain—which is sure to be one of the top filters used to exclude having any interaction with that person. This ‘slashing’ respects the human aspect of community interactions. These are people interacting in a physical location. It is very different than being a ‘transaction ID’ in a banking app. But it is critical to examine who will store and manage all these details. As soon as a centralized location is chosen, every participant loses their ability for “self-control” and is subject to the policies and data-use decided by the centralized “service” whether it’s Oxfam or UNOCHA.
The only equitable way to track everything a person does is to let them track themselves. When the individual is able to control what aspects of their life are public, it creates a hugely unsettled feeling for some. Giving up control over the ‘less fortunate’ exposes the shortcomings of our scarcity economy that has given rise to all sorts of mistaken assumptions about human nature.
When anyone says “You can’t do that” isn’t it really because they haven’t imagined a way for it to work yet?
I can leave it at the statistic of how many aid workers with clipboards can collect a representative sample -vs- how many people on earth have a mobile phone, or can get to one within an hour’s walk. My hypothesis is that the mass of humanity is better able to describe what they need and have to offer, than an army of underfunded charities, whose real forte is logistics. This fact is colliding with outdated bureaucratic systems that ~somehow~ keep resulting in citizen disempowerment proportional to the wealth of leadership.
My proposal to this group is that nothing will ever work as well as asking people what they need and assisting their impulse to share talent, skill, and aspirations , to reinforce the actual networks required for thriving in any situation.
For Bona fides, I can describe the settings like HHI where I’ve witnessed the problems being born, I can describe my experiences around the world that specifically expose the disconnect between digital capability and the global aid organizational structure. I have also watched closely from ‘inside the castle’ (IBM) how the lifeblood of human existence is squeezed digitally by an industry that has no care for ‘human’ qualities.
I can think of a few more reasons for downvotes. Before writing those, I’d like to say that it’s generally a good thing IMO to post novel things on the forum, even if one doesn’t yet know the right form, and even if people then have a bunch of complaints in the comments.
What does sovereignty for an individual even mean? I suspect that once explained, it becomes a much more complicated and controversial concept than it appears.
It’s very unclear how the mentioned Blockchain technology would bring about those “individual sovereignty”, or even what that technology is.
The view itself seems like a very extreme form of libertarianism—something that has to be supported better if you want it to be convincing, given that only a minority of people here are libertarians.
Quotes like:
I actually agree with the spirit of this quote! But the argument is not supported or explained in any way, but rather deferred to “trust me!”.
I genuinely appreciate the comments and also the notion that this proposal is naive. To many, it likely seems just too simplistic and too vast.
Is Facebook given the same ‘short shrift’ when they ‘offer’ internet to the masses ? We all know that partaking in Facebook’s version of the internet is not going to lead to an empowered populace. Yet, the ability of a protocol, in the form of a Wallet app is not only valid now, but within the hands of individual developers.
Holochain, Cardano, and Polkadot represent a sea-change in friction-free human interaction.
The presence of colonialist attitudes in the UN and the Big Aid organizations that vie for attention, is not a new idea. To quickly witness this, review the training philosophies of institutions where these ‘decision makers’ were educated. If you attend the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative practice camps you will receive ridicule if you bring up the idea that citizens with phones are much more likely to know what they want and need. The ‘logic’ you are faced with, is that “humans can’t be trusted”.
It does have a certain kind of logic, from an entitled perspective. These same organizations conduct follow-up ’studies’ to see why their interventions didn’t work. Over and over. Meanwhile these same organizations recognize that resiliency and self-efficacy are intertwined. They call it a conundrum.. how will humans in need remain compliant with the decisions dropped from on-high? How can people remain dependent but be prosocial and self-motivated? It can’t happen.
Now that “verifiably unique” (blockchain) technology is easily available, the logical conclusion of self-efficacy is now able to be realized. Personal sovereignty is the only real answer to the global problem of how to 1. Understand what people want and have to offer, at-scale. 2. Make decisions as a community for their own reasons and 3. Connect the things people need and have to share.
Telling people what they need does not work long-term. Not asking people to participate in their own recovery is a sure recipe for dependency and it forces trust in governance structures that are not made for the protection and security of the individual. It is an inherently unbalanced and de-humanizing power relationship. When communities are easily able to combine needs and resources, the ‘selfish’ drive to have something encourages shared reporting because group needs are more likely to obtain response in a crisis. After crisis, everyone’s needs ARE different.
The Aid perspective is that ‘we can’t manage everyone’s needs’ let alone trying to deal with resources every human provides. Who will track and connect intangibles like ‘friendship’ or ‘minor’ things like pet-sitting?
We now have the ability to ensure that every input came from an individual.
This same environment would detect patterns related to trying to ‘game the system’ and the result of participating in a lie (easily verified on-chain) would attribute that user a “high relevancy for lying” on-chain—which is sure to be one of the top filters used to exclude having any interaction with that person. This ‘slashing’ respects the human aspect of community interactions. These are people interacting in a physical location. It is very different than being a ‘transaction ID’ in a banking app. But it is critical to examine who will store and manage all these details. As soon as a centralized location is chosen, every participant loses their ability for “self-control” and is subject to the policies and data-use decided by the centralized “service” whether it’s Oxfam or UNOCHA.
The only equitable way to track everything a person does is to let them track themselves. When the individual is able to control what aspects of their life are public, it creates a hugely unsettled feeling for some. Giving up control over the ‘less fortunate’ exposes the shortcomings of our scarcity economy that has given rise to all sorts of mistaken assumptions about human nature.
When anyone says “You can’t do that” isn’t it really because they haven’t imagined a way for it to work yet?
I can leave it at the statistic of how many aid workers with clipboards can collect a representative sample -vs- how many people on earth have a mobile phone, or can get to one within an hour’s walk. My hypothesis is that the mass of humanity is better able to describe what they need and have to offer, than an army of underfunded charities, whose real forte is logistics. This fact is colliding with outdated bureaucratic systems that ~somehow~ keep resulting in citizen disempowerment proportional to the wealth of leadership.
My proposal to this group is that nothing will ever work as well as asking people what they need and assisting their impulse to share talent, skill, and aspirations , to reinforce the actual networks required for thriving in any situation.
For Bona fides, I can describe the settings like HHI where I’ve witnessed the problems being born, I can describe my experiences around the world that specifically expose the disconnect between digital capability and the global aid organizational structure. I have also watched closely from ‘inside the castle’ (IBM) how the lifeblood of human existence is squeezed digitally by an industry that has no care for ‘human’ qualities.