Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD. He was also known as the last of the emperors who reigned during the Pax Romana, a relative golden age for Rome. However, by the time Aurelius was in charge, the cracks in the empire were beginning to spread; strife and contention both within and without the walls of the empire were common during Aurelius's rule, including civil unrest and barbarian violence. His personal life was also marked by hardship including the death of his wife and a troubled relationship with his son.1

Amid these challenging times, Aurelius adopted the ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism. This philosophy claims that the best way to deal with challenges in life is with a calm and rational mind rather than emotional reactivity. It requires one to become mindful of their thoughts and feelings and navigate them accordingly. It was this stoicism that allowed Aurelius to guide and direct his empire with a steady hand.

Fast forward 200 years and those cracks had grown far worse. Rome's leaders were either corrupt bureaucrats or incompetent children, its currency was thoroughly devalued (you can thank Augustus2 for that), its economy was in shambles, its once-mighty military a shadow of its former self, its institutions were crumbling, and its provinces were mercilessly curb-stomped by violent barbarian hordes. Throw plagues, food shortages, and climate change into the mix and you get a pretty bleak picture of Roman life at the time.

It was around this time that a Christian archbishop by the name of St. Augustine of Hippo wrote his autobiography titled Confessions. St. Augustine, like Aurelius, lived in very trying times, but he had a very different way of dealing with challenges in life: Complete devotion to divinity. Augustine's philosophy included a rather strict regime of denying oneself of all worldly pleasures to receive the grace of God and build an intimate relationship with him. 3

Augustine's philosophy wasn't just blind religious faith. Sociologically, religion serves the essential function of social cohesion. Indeed, Augustine's "Conception of Peace" stated that God created all of humanity to live in a "bond of peace". This is one of the reasons why religion has been so successful; when people as a collective share a belief in something bigger than themselves, whether that's a religion, ideology, or political movement, it creates a sense of unity and trust that can make a society more resilient. Augustine's philosophy has had a tremendous influence on Western political theory and has inspired the creation of many democratic societies.

A few decades after St. Augustine's death, the Western Roman Empire collapsed entirely. The Eastern Empire survived and would exist for several more centuries under the banner of Byzantium, but would continue to grow smaller and smaller, eventually reduced to a single city named Constantinople. That city would finally meet its end at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453 AD.4 5

The dream was over. Rome was no more.

I write of Rome not because I'm a massive history geek (which I totally am), but because I'm beginning to see many parallels between the late Roman Empire and our modern world. I grew up in a society marked by turbulence, contention, strife, and confusion. Crises such as climate change, mass shootings, economic inequality, political turmoil, and cultural degradation have only seemed to grow worse and our governmental institutions seem incapable of facing these problems head-on. Many in my generation have become hopeless and nihilistic as a result, doubting that anything in our world will ever get better. Our Rome is falling and there's little else we can do but watch.

I firmly believe that the society in which we live now will cease to exist by the end of this century. Our technology is evolving and progressing far too quickly for the old industrial system to catch up, placing it in a state of paralysis that it can't seem to recover from. Of course, there's every chance that I'm wrong. Perhaps our society will be able to pull itself through this era of turbulence just as it did before. However, I find this outcome unlikely.

Here's the thing about societies that humanity fails to understand: they never last forever. In a way, societies aren't just artificial constructs but also organic ones. Like any biological creature, they have a lifespan: They're born, they grow up, peak during their "prime", become settled and experienced, grow old and feeble, and finally, they die. Of course, this lifespan varies from case to case but generally, all civilizations exhibit the same pattern. Frankly, we are foolish, vain, and arrogant to believe that whatever we build will forever stand the test of time. History teaches us time and time again that this is never the case.

The problem is that humans don't respond well to change and will go to great lengths to put our societies on life support. Instead of accepting the inevitability of societal collapse and diverting our energy toward building a new system, we desperately cling to an outdated system that doesn't work anymore. This refusal to change course is unnecessarily more painful for everyone involved and often results in violent revolutions, civil wars, and economic depressions.

But what if we could build a society that isn't subjected to constant reincarnation? What if we could invent a civilization that is constantly adapting and fluctuating with the times and doesn't have to undergo the messy lifecycle that traditional civilizations are known for? Imagine a world where catastrophic black swan events are no longer required to push humanity forward. Is such a world even possible?

I first jumped down the crypto rabbit hole around the beginning of 2021. In the beginning, I wanted to cash in on the big NFT craze that was going on at the time. Ultimately, this didn't pan out as I planned as no one wanted to buy my artwork. However, by this point, I had become enamored with blockchain technology and the potential it had to give power back to the people. One thing led to another and I started dipping my toes into decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). When I learned what a DAO was, how it operated, and how it could reshape the way people interact and work with one another, I was hooked. Granted, this is only the beginning of my DAO journey and there's so much I have left to learn, but even now, the opportunity I have to work in such an exciting space is too good to pass up.

DAOs are different from traditional organizations in a few key ways; First, it's decentralized which means that not one person or group of people are in charge of the entire structure. While centralized structures are very efficient, they suffer from central points of failure that can disrupt the entire system if something goes wrong. Centralized power can also foster corruption. Humans can't handle power very well without making terrible decisions or harming other people. If built correctly, DAOs buck this trend altogether by denying anyone absolute control. This enables the DAO to be democratic and representative of all the DAO's members and makes it more resilient to disruptive events.

One of the greatest benefits of this decentralization is that it gives its members a voice and allows for open and fair discussion. Decisions in DAOs are no longer made at the very top but are evenly distributed across all members of the organization. This means it doesn't suffer from the bottleneck effect often found in hierarchal structures. Obstacles such as special interests, polarization, and gridlock can therefore be prevented and allow the DAO to thrive.

The transparency inherent in DAOs also serves to cull corruption and dishonesty by holding all parties accountable for their actions. This of course will have to be balanced with the civil right to data privacy, a dilemma that I do not know the answer to, but this environment of honesty and openness could help foster greater trust between members. The automation offered by smart contracts can streamline some of the more mundane and repetitive tasks within the DAO, freeing it from the trappings of bureaucracy and increasing efficiency.

With that said, DAOs are not yet at the stage where they can adequately replace traditional institutions in terms of scale. As a system becomes more complex, the more difficult it is to manage, and DAOs in their current form are not well equipped to deal with this growth. Many talented developers are working to fix this issue. One project I've had my eye on for a while, Orca Protocol, aims to fix this scalability issue by breaking DAOs down into smaller mini-DAOs called "pods". It's a very promising project and I highly recommend checking them out. DAOs also need a better alternative to Discord as it's not the most ideal way of communicating in large collectives. I know there are several projects in the works attempting to build such a platform.

At the time of writing this article, the crypto market is experiencing a brutal sell-off as the global economy falters. To make matters worse, we are still dealing with the fallout of the failed Luna stablecoin which has created a devastating ripple effect (thanks a lot Do Kwon). Even the NFT market is showing some turbulence. The attitude in the DAO space is generally more positive compared to the rest of the blockchain community, but even there the atmosphere is noticeably more muted. Of course, crypto opponents and skeptics have used the bear market as an opportunity to rail on a technology they do not like, let alone adequately understand. For any decentralization advocate, this hostile sentiment is not encouraging.

In this time of downturn and discouragement, I think we can learn a thing or two from philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and develop a bit of grit to get us through the winter. Bear markets never last and hard times build character. For anyone involved in the blockchain scene, it's more important now than ever to put our nose to the grindstone, filter out all the noise, and push forward. This bear market should also motivate the industry to take a closer look at itself in the mirror and be more honest about the direction it's heading. I admit that the crypto sector hasn't been very responsible and it's hurt a lot of people and eroded public trust in the sector. This is our chance to steer this boat in the right direction. Let's make it count.

Stoicism alone however isn't going to be enough. It's also going to take the faith and hope that we can build a better world with this technology. What initially attracted me to the DAO space was the spring of enthusiasm and friendliness that it fosters. I know many brilliant people within the space who are passionate about blockchain technology and who are willing to band together for a common good. Much like the optimism that St. Augustine enjoyed through his relationship with divinity, it's that same passion and comradery that should motivate us to move forward together.

It's that mix of philosophies, the objective resilience of stoicism, and the enthusiasm of faith, that will see us through. The days ahead are going to be tough and there will be many mountains to climb, but it's the hardest of times that often produced the greatest of achievers.

The world we live in now is not the world I want to keep living in. It is not the world I want our future generations to inherit. They deserve better. Every time I become excited about the potential of DAOs, the applications of sociology, or the advances in cryptography and blockchain technology, I'm reminded of why I decided to remain in crypto wonderland. It isn't just to save the world from an impending dystopia, although it often feels like that. It isn't to save humanity when society inevitably buckles in on itself either. It's to live in a world that is far better than it's ever been before.

I must note that I'm not talking about a utopia. I'm not that naive. Humans will never build a utopia because utopia implies a perfect world. Humans are not perfect and will never be perfect. I don't expect the world to be perfect; I just expect it to be better, much better. And despite all of humanity's imperfections, I think we can do it. Who knows? Maybe one day, we'll figure out how to achieve interstellar space travel and live amongst the stars, not just coexisting with nature but living in unity with the natural world.

Rome was a dream, but the future we hope for doesn't have to be. With these new tools at our disposal, we can help make it a reality, a reality that maybe, just maybe, will last forever.

1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

2

https://www.newswars.com/it-didnt-begin-with-fdr-currency-devaluation-in-the-roman-empire/

3

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine/Life-retold

4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire

5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople