The blockchain of facts may lead humanity to the world’s purest water, but it will not make us thirst.
At best, the blockchain for facts will inspire a great and unfounded hope, followed by a great and inevitable disillusionment (and how many more disillusionments can we endure?).
At worst, it will turn cypherpunk liberators into the Orwellian tyrants they’ve spent their lives fighting against. Seeking truth is great — but mingling truth-seeking with ambitions about consensus is one twitch away from the belief that “forcing my truth upon others is a good thing.”
How precarious!
Tag: Mike Elias
Perhaps facts used to be our epistemic currency, but facts may have been a proxy for something more fundamental: Trust.