Crypto Report - Discussion on Blockchain + AI

Dr. K's Crypto-Corner

by Dr. Chris Kacher

Riding the Revolutionary Rocket with Cryptotechnologies... Entirely Evolutionary™ 

Hi Chris,

It was my pleasure to speak to you – looking forward to meet you again in Geneva and to continue our discussions!

Regarding your point - my biggest worry here isn’t that oligarchs will take over the control of bitcoin, but that the capitalism will be further amplified by the transition to decentralized economy based on crypto-currencies. In fact, by rational diversification in crypto-currencies - before a global fiat devaluation - savvy investors will protect their assets versus middle and lower class individuals. Currently, the most of regular people faces a major barrier of entry to the crypto world, because of their lack of technology skills and limited risk appetite. Among others, switching to this new paradigm will not solve the usury issue, but will further amplify it privileging large capital holders.  Jointly with higher inequality this could cause a humanitarian disaster.Thinking aloud, I believe that the whole issue of inequality stems from those with power who continue to amass power via wealth/connections/govt leverage have created the most lopsided situation with the top 1% of the world's wealth equating to the bottom 90%. Such an imbalance is another major tipping point.

Decentralized value is far more democratic and equalizing than centrally controlled fiat. Central banks print, fueling the rich while destroying the middle class, as the QE capital finds its way into the tallest standing midgets such as the US stock and bond markets as well as hard assets such as real estate. This explains the massive disparity between the haves and have nots. The structure feeds the rich will impoverishing the middle class, many who are now poverty stricken. 75% of Americans dont have $1000 for emergencies. Same in the UK. 1 out of 6 families in the US are food challenged with 1 out of 6 children not knowing where their next meal will come from.

Meanwhile, bitcoin/blockchain is empowering the third world with bank accounts via mpesa/bitpesa for the first time ever. 3 billion of the world's unbanked and another 1 billion partially banked will be coming online having access to bank accounts via cheap mobile phones to transact goods and services as well as access to the internet. Just as Taiwan leapfrogged over landlines to wireless, third world countries will probably leapfrog over traditional banking to decentralized banking. As one of many examples of how the third world is being elevated toward second and first world platforms, a highly successful Silicon Valley technologist accidentally left a crate of ipads in an African village. The little kids learned how to use them on their own, without instruction. This motivated him to "airdrop" thousands of ipads to impoverished children, and sparked the one laptop per child organization. 

I’m with you that governments went out of control in printing money, sponsoring wars and manipulating economy, however, they still implement basic social mechanisms, guarantying a minimalistic redistribution of wealth and helping regular people to survive (of course the current implementation is inefficient, but works so far). I’m afraid that ethical values of the majority today won’t allow a healthy, truly libertarian society, without public funding to emerge. Of course, I may be wrong and I’m interested to know your opinion. 

The brilliance behind blockchain is that ethical values become automatic by virtue of not needing trust in a third party. Satoshi's whitepaper said this key component will flatten power structures by greatly diminishing corruption that exist within.

I believe that a redistribution of wealth via these decentralized technologies is empowering the individual, not the state, and will have a dramatic impact as billions of new minds come online. Even if one out of a thousand of these third world minds is creative and clever and inventive, it will add to the braintrust of the world. So while it has always made sense to me to focus on the top 0.1% via top institutions of learning for gifted students, I have also seen the deep impact of bringing the bottom 10% of students into the top 10% via programs launched by the Harvard Educational Roundtable on which I have sat since 2009.  The issue in getting these proven programs into the hands of many students has been political. Such programs get blocked by school superintendents. But bitcoin/blockchain decentralizes platforms thus flattens power structures so govopolies, ie, monopolies by government sanction, will greatly diminish. Monero/Dash/Zcash/etc all have big tax revenue implications for governments. Other coins have massive implications for centralized structures including corporations. Without the need for a trusted third party, peer-to-peer will thrive, much as it has with file sharing since the early days of Napster in the mid-1990s. Thus the decentralization of numerous paradigms is the new era toward which humanity is headed.

Bitcoin/blockchain brings together the masses so a truly collaborative effort can be achieved in Gestalt fashion, ie, the sum is greater than the parts. Going forward, collaboration over competition wins the day. We become decentralized like the ants (the most successful species) with tokens being the glucose that fuels humanity's hive mind: https://www.coindesk.com/maidsafe-ceo-david-irvine-talks-nature-ants-decentralization

https://steemit.com/science/@cryptonik/leafcutter-ants-the-first-developers-of-decentralized-systems

With AI evolving at breakneck speeds, humans will have far more leisure time since basic tasks will be done by AI. The universal basic income experiment proved successful in Finland as people could then focus on their strengths and passions without being bogged down by 9 to 5 jobs. I believe the 40-hour work week will dramatically shorten as AI comes online. Of course, the transition between now and that future which is perhaps only a decade or two away, will be volatile and painful as a fraction of people may find themselves out of jobs thus have to retrain to where they can add value. That said, the cross section of adding value and doing one's passion should increase in time. 

In any case, I also believe that we have to move away from the centralized economy based on excessive debt foundations – let’s debate on how it can be done will less harm.

Thus allowing the dynamic, organic "invisible" hand guide the process without third party intervention, ie, governments and corporations aligned with government, should manifest a far more egalitarian society with the individual, on balance, holding more self-sovereign control than ever before. 

Best, Chris

Cheers,

Leonid