 In the recently resurfaced debate about #solarpunk (or lunarpunk) aspects of #web3 and #blockchain I'm intrigued by one aspect: Why do we accept being given a solution without outlining the problem in the first place? Why do we listen to #DAO pitches instead of asking ourselves how we want to run our communities, how do we want to make decisions, vote, discuss things? Just stating the problem first would make it very clear that there are multiple technical solutions, not just the Web3. 6 comments
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. |
Gregory's Server
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.