Is Þere a “Web3”?, &
BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-06-22 We
Is There a “Web3”?
Andreesen-Horwitz definitely thinks there is:
a16z crypto: State of Crypto 2022: ‘What is web3?: The first era of the modern internet—roughly 1990–2005—was about open protocols that were decentralized and community-governed. Most of the value accrued to the edges of the network: users and builders. The second era of the internet—roughly 2005–2020—was about siloed, centralized services. Most of the value accrued to a handful of large tech companies. We are now beginning the third era of the internet—what many call web3—which combines the decentralized, community-governed ethos of the first era with the advanced, modern functionality of the second era. This will unlock a new wave of creativity and entrepreneurship…. Layer 1 Blockchains…. Layer 2 Scaling: A layer 2 is a separate blockchain that extends the base layer and inherits its security guarantees…. DeFi: A huge part of the world is underserved by existing financial institutions…. Stablecoins: There are three primary categories of stablecoins, though the lines between them are blurry: Fiat Backed, Crypto Backed, Algorithmic…. NFTs: We’ve seen several categories of NFTs emerge, but it’s still very early days…. Web3 Gaming…. DAOs…. DAOs enable a new, bottom-up way for groups to make decisions…
LINK: <https://a16zcrypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/state-of-crypto-2022_a16z-crypto.pdf>
Lars Doucet definitely thinks there is not:
Lars Doucet: Is Web3 Culture Similar to Amway Culture?: ‘Amway… is/was a massive multi-level marketing operation… in many ways it was the prototype, a sort of platonic ideal, of the whole thing…. One thing web3 and Amway both (allegedly) have in common is talking about eliminating all these middlemen, all the while introducing new ones. Another is turning your friends into wild-eyed fanatics who can’t stop trying to sell you on a convoluted and complicated system that they’re totally gonzo for, but still can’t articulate exactly how it is supposed to work. The best example of this would be Marc Andreesen’s conversation with Tyler Cowen. This clip is so astounding to me because Marc Andreesen is a really smart guy and even he can’t coherently articulate a clear, simple, and credible answer regarding what Web3 is supposed to be for…
LINK:
If I were Marc Andreesen, I would say this:
You, Tyler Cowen, are an example of a person doing a podcast. You are comfortable enough, with several sources of income, and do not care much about monetizing your podcast in a serious way. But in that you are anomalous. Most of the people who in a good future would be making podcasts and so adding value, knowledge, and entertainment to the world will not do so unless they can monetize it in some way. At the moment we are split into two internets. The first is a "Web1" Internet, in which the expectation is for free and so people are strongly resistant to making micro payments and so nobody makes any money. The second is a “Web2” internet, in which big companies have figured out how to do some monetization, and have capitalized on this to create walled gardens—thus greatly disrupting the scope and reach of the network—in which they grab the lion’s share of the money for themselves, thus restricting the number of those who can afford to create: the Facebooks, Googles, Apples, and so forth.
Podcasting is, if things continue as they have, headed for a future in which some get sucked into the walled gardens, in which those podcasters who hit the celebrity-reinforcement loop get rich, in which “Web2” companies profit enormously, and in which a very large chunk of those who in a good world would be members of the long tail making a reasonable living have to drop out, and only those truly driven to communicate or with alternate comfortable means have the freedom to be able to afford to podcast.
We “Web3” people want a different future for podcasting. And at the heart of that will be a web of identity and network connections and trusted payments that is not the property of any single walled-garden entity that is a wannabee monopolist, but is the common creation of the community as a whole.
That is what I would say if I were Marc Andreessen in the video below.
What does this vision of “Web3” that I think Marc Andreessen should have laid out in his conversation with Tyler Cowen tell us about the proper value of BitCoin today?
It says: the proper value of BitCoin today is zero. Ownership of BitCoin today gives you no property rights over the useful BlockChain databases that will underpin the community-owned web of identity and network connections and trusted payments that is the heart of the good Web3 future. Indeed, to imagine that you will be able to grab huge amounts of money from the l BlockChain databases that will underpin the community-owned web of identity and network connections and trusted payments in the good Web3 future is to make a category mistake: it is Web2 thinking. Nothing will give you property rights over the useful BlockChain databases that will underpin the community-owned web of identity and network connections and trusted payments that is the heart of the good Web3 future. If something would, than it would not be the good Web3 future.
Yes, this poses “challenges” for Andreessen-Horwitz’s crypto-Web3 business model. Perhaps that is why he did not say it…
One Video:
One Image:
Very Briefly Noted:
Bill Davidow: Will Low Tech Solve the Jobs Crisis? <https://medium.com/@BillDavidow/will-low-tech-solve-the-jobs-crisis-693c575babed>
Daniel Kuehn: “Ugly, Coarse, & Brutal”: James M. Buchanan on “The Grapes of Wrath” and the Political Economy of Farm Labor Migration <https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/steinbeck/article-abstract/19/1/47/313675/Ugly-coarse-and-brutal-James-M-Buchanan-on-The?redirectedFrom=fulltext>
Christopher Eldred: Report Finds Declines in Accountability Among U.S., Asian Governments Since 2000: ‘UCLA-published Berggruen Governance Index assesses quality of democracy, quality of life measures in 134 nations… <https://www.berggruen.org/news/report-finds-declines-in-accountability-among-u-s-asian-governments-since-2000/>
Will Dunham: Ancient DNA Solves Mystery Over Origin of Medieval Black Deaths: ‘Cemeteries on the old Silk Road… pinpointing an area in northern Kyrgyzstan as the launching point for the Black Death that killed tens of millions of people in the mid–14th century…. Three women buried in a medieval Nestorian Christian community in the Chu Valley near Lake Issyk Kul in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains who perished in 1338–1339… <https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/ancient-dna-solves-mystery-over-origin-medieval-black-death-2022-06-15/>
George Parker & Chris Giles: The Deafening Silence Over Brexit’s Economic Fallout: ‘Economists are starting to quantify the damage caused by the erection of trade barriers with its biggest market, separating the “Brexit effect” from the damage caused by the Covid–19 pandemic. They conclude that the damage is real and it is not over… <https://www.ft.com/content/7a209a34-7d95-47aa-91b0-bf02d4214764?segmentId=961ddc37-6126-040e-9230-fb3e80eb420d>
George Scialabba (2018): Slouching Toward Utopia: ‘The most popular book… in the United States in the nineteenth century was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The next… was Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy… published in 1888… <http://georgescialabba.net/mtgs/2018/03/slouching-toward-utopia.html>
Twitter & ‘Stack:
Cory Doctorow: ‘Provocative framing from DeLong
Micah L. Sifry: The Seven-Minute Abs of Electioneering: ‘Eitan Hersh… one key line… “Anytime a volunteer is talking (or writing) to a stranger, it’s basically a mistake. It’s like a Band-Aid for the lack of actual civic engagement”…
Dan Pfeiffer: A Unified Dem Narrative for 2022
Eric Topol: A Reinfection Red Flag
Rajiv Sethi: The Resilient Society: ‘By Markus Brunnermeier…
Director’s Cut PAID SUBSCRIBER ONLY Content Below:
¶s:
That social power should be in the hands of those who have the wealth, however acquired; and that those who have the wealth are also of the rightful controllers via their lobbying in their megaphones of our collective efforts to shape the distribution of wealth—that has got to be an even weirder doctrine than the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, or the doctrine that the descendants of those who conquered Gaul with Clovis are the natural ruling class:
Cory Doctorow: ‘Provocative framing from DeLong: “These Chicago Boys are all right-wing Marxists. They buy the Marxian proposition that the state is an executive committee for rigging the economy in the interest of the ruling class. ”But they think that that is a good thing as long as the ruling class is based on wealth, however previously acquired. All their objections are to those who use some form of societal power other than wealth to try to rig the economy in their interest. And while there is an argument that a wealth-based ruling class is in general best, it is a weak argument…
LINK:
Inflation is not a big problem. Inflation is a moderate problem for which the odds are 75-25 that it is already on the way to being solved. And inflation is a problem that we should be very grateful to have because the alternative would be the much worse problems that we had back in 2010:
Dan Pfeiffer: A Unified Dem Narrative for 2022: ‘President Obama began every discussion of messaging or meeting about a big speech by saying “Let’s start with what’s true.”… For a 2022 political narrative to be true, it should include the following elements. First, despite historic progress and record job growth, the American people are in a very sour mood about the economy. In a recent Pew Research poll, 93 percent of Americans said that inflation was a big problem…
LINK:
The nut ‘graphs from the other “Slouching Toward Utopia” (note: no final “s”):
George Scialabba (2018): Slouching Toward Utopia: ‘The most popular book… in the United States in the nineteenth century was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The next… was Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy… published in 1888… sold one million copies…. More than 500 Bellamy Clubs were formed…. The book is an extended conversation in which each man explains his society to the other. “How do you manage that?” [time-traveling protagonist] Julian asks incredulously about the new society’s absence of poverty and inequality, its extremely short work week, its freedom of manners, and so on. Dr. Leete explains; Julian observes that such rational and humane arrangements would have seemed to his contemporaries utterly impossible and contrary to human nature; and then it is Dr. Leete’s turn to ask incredulously “But why did you believe that?” This seems like the right way to go about imagining a conversation between the present and the future…. What features of our present moral consensus might we need to alter in order to make a rational and humane future?… All production is social production. The productive assets of every age are the joint product of all preceding ages, and all those born into the present are legitimately joint heirs of those assets. And the same arguments for joint rather than individual inheritance of wealth created in the past apply to the distribution of income in the present. As Doctor Leete tells Julian: “From the moment that men begin to live together and constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as humanity. How could you not see that this necessity of mutual dependence implies the duty and guarantee of mutual support?”… I imagine the 23rd century will ask… “How could you have overlooked… the obvious and elementary principle of fairness: from each according to her abilities, to each according to her need?”…
LINK: <http://georgescialabba.net/mtgs/2018/03/slouching-toward-utopia.html>
I am not sure that this is right. And, while it is not good news, we still have multiple vaccine doses, Paxlovid, and company. Yes, wear masks in crowded indoor settings. Yes, we will probably never again to send into crowded, humid, warm batcaves and sing. But do not panic:
Eric Topol: A Reinfection Red Flag: ‘Findings from >250,000 people with 1 infection. ~39,000 people with 2 or more infections, and nearly 5.4 million uninfected controls…. The comparison of people with reinfections vs those with only 1 infection. Note the doubling of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular, and lung adverse outcomes, 3-fold risk of hospitalization, and impact on other health domains…. Next is the durability of these adverse outcomes… much of the hit was up front, but persistent increased risk was evident for most endpoints throughout the 6 months follow-up…. Finally… with additional episodes of Covid, for every outcome there was a stepwise increased risk… relative… and absolute…. Rinfection was quite rare before the Omicron wave hit, at 1% or less through the Delta variant wave. But now reinfections have become much more common. Why?… The new Omicron subvariants… due to the new spike mutations we are getting exposed to…. Despite lack of warnings by CDC, there should be gearing up with N95/KN95 masks, distancing when possible, attention to ventilation, air filtration, and all of the non-pharmacologic measures that we have at our disposal…. There is simply no excuse for why these vaccines are not being hyper-aggressively pursued…
LINK:
The answer as to how to create a society in which the poor or not imprisoned by the rich collectively monopolize access to the resources that the poor need to survive is and has always been what it was in classical Greece in the -5000: cancel the debts, and redistribute the land. Without an equitable distribution of social power, society cannot be "resilient" because society is, instead, geared to extract labor and value from the poor and give it to the rich, so the rich can live leisured and comfortable lives. You have to give those who would otherwise be poor direct access to and control over resources. And in a market economy, that means pre-distribution—eliminating choke points that make some particular resources have great scarcity value—and redistribution as well. But to say that it is "government" and "market" that must "solve" the problem of "resilience" is, I think, to miss the big point:
Rajiv Sethi: The Resilient Society: ‘By Markus Brunnermeier…. In a resilient society… we can “take more chances and embrace more opportunities—because the shocks will be less detrimental.”… But how might households and firms be induced to take actions that they would otherwise prefer not to take, in order that the system as a whole becomes more resilient? Here, Brunnermeier provides few concrete answers, other than to recognize that the solution involves both markets and government…
LINK:
Pretty sure you meant Andreessen to tell Tyler Cowen he's "anomalous" (true) rather than "anonymous" (not if he can help it)
"That social power should be in the hands of those who have the wealth, however acquired; and that those who have the wealth are also of the rightful controllers via their lobbying in their megaphones of our collective efforts to shape the distribution of wealth—that has got to be an even weirder doctrine than the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, or the doctrine that the descendants of those who conquered Gaul with Clovis are the natural ruling class:"
This did not seem so crazy in the "Glorious Years." Trickle down is not so bad as long as there is enough being poured in at the top. Democrats made sure there was a trickle and Republicans made sure that enough went in at the top. But then came the realization that if you slowed down the trickle. more styed on top as a reward for pouring. [And then that suffiently regressive, tax cuts -- the "Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act of 2017" being the epitome, so far -- could make income trickle up!]
BTW the descendants of Rolo, never agreed about that for France, although they were perfectly happy to apply it, mutatis mutandis, in Britain.