Exploring algorithmic reputation and governance. replabs.xyz
Soulbound reputation systems
Glen Weyl and Vitalik recently published a paper introducing what they're calling DeSoc – Decentralized Society. The paper tries to encourage the web 3 community to move beyond DeFi applications, painting a vision of blockchains as a programmable substrate for not just financial, but social value. The technological primitive played with in the article is that of a "Soulbound NFT" – A non-transferable, non-fungible token. These tokens could be used to represent trust or credentials such a...
Soulbound reputation systems
Glen Weyl and Vitalik recently published a paper introducing what they're calling DeSoc – Decentralized Society. The paper tries to encourage the web 3 community to move beyond DeFi applications, painting a vision of blockchains as a programmable substrate for not just financial, but social value. The technological primitive played with in the article is that of a "Soulbound NFT" – A non-transferable, non-fungible token. These tokens could be used to represent trust or credentials such a...
The myth of raw data
"Data is the new oil" is an old saying at this point, referring to how the effectiveness of machine learning models scales with data size. However, this likeness is severely misguided. It views data as a raw resource that can be extracted, traded and used indifferently. It presumes that data is, in its original form, free from bias and distortion. But data is not a resource, it is an observation. Any datapoint is a small descriptor of reality, and just as there is no "raw phenomena", but only...
The myth of raw data
"Data is the new oil" is an old saying at this point, referring to how the effectiveness of machine learning models scales with data size. However, this likeness is severely misguided. It views data as a raw resource that can be extracted, traded and used indifferently. It presumes that data is, in its original form, free from bias and distortion. But data is not a resource, it is an observation. Any datapoint is a small descriptor of reality, and just as there is no "raw phenomena", but only...
Sovereign Individualism
I recently read "The Sovereign Individual", a book cherished by high-ups in the crypto scene like Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Thiel. Thiel wrote the preface to the book, in which he summarizes the current state of tech as an ideological struggle between AI and crypto. On one side, you have CCP and centralized control. On the other, the crypto world inhabited by sovereign individuals. In camp crypto you find web 3 projects ranging from Blockchains to Tim Berner Lee's Solid. "You should ow...
Sovereign Individualism
I recently read "The Sovereign Individual", a book cherished by high-ups in the crypto scene like Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Thiel. Thiel wrote the preface to the book, in which he summarizes the current state of tech as an ideological struggle between AI and crypto. On one side, you have CCP and centralized control. On the other, the crypto world inhabited by sovereign individuals. In camp crypto you find web 3 projects ranging from Blockchains to Tim Berner Lee's Solid. "You should ow...
The legitimacy crisis
If it was not obvious, the Covid crisis made it clear that we are struggling to understand what the fuck is going on. We don't know which people to listen to and which institutions to trust anymore. Even basic binary questions like "do masks work?" or "does the vaccine stop transmission" have been fought over to no end in the social media battlegrounds. Many intellectuals within the liminal web scene frame this failure of understanding as a "sense-making crisis". Daniel Schmachtenberger ...
The legitimacy crisis
If it was not obvious, the Covid crisis made it clear that we are struggling to understand what the fuck is going on. We don't know which people to listen to and which institutions to trust anymore. Even basic binary questions like "do masks work?" or "does the vaccine stop transmission" have been fought over to no end in the social media battlegrounds. Many intellectuals within the liminal web scene frame this failure of understanding as a "sense-making crisis". Daniel Schmachtenberger ...
Bullshit data jobs
II'm a supporter of RadicalXChange and their mission of exploring new ways of structuring society. The concepts within the organization are usually well-thought-out and solid. But one idea seems very off for me: Data as labor. The reasoning behind this idea is roughly:The fourth industrial revolution will render many jobs obsolete.Data is extremely valuable but produced by big-tech users for free.People derive a large degree of their sense of self-worth through their labor.Thus, a way to...
Bullshit data jobs
II'm a supporter of RadicalXChange and their mission of exploring new ways of structuring society. The concepts within the organization are usually well-thought-out and solid. But one idea seems very off for me: Data as labor. The reasoning behind this idea is roughly:The fourth industrial revolution will render many jobs obsolete.Data is extremely valuable but produced by big-tech users for free.People derive a large degree of their sense of self-worth through their labor.Thus, a way to...
