(2021-11-19) Bartlett Decentralised Tech The Future Of Organising

Richard Bartlett: #9: Decentralised Tech & the Future of Organising. Let me share some more context about what web3 is and what problems it is trying to solve.

Web3 promises a new technical substrate for the internet, with blockchains and cryptography and other inscrutable gadgetry. But more importantly, it promises to rebuild the web with a new set of values: less centralised power, more distributed ownership, more user sovereignty.

Personally, I care a lot about distributed governance and ownership, so I’ve decided to commit a decent chunk of my time, money & attention to supporting the development of this space.

introduce some of the theoretical framing that underpins much of this movement.

Moloch: God of Coordination Failure

In 2014, Scott Alexander published an essay called Meditations on Moloch, an evocative introduction to “coordination failure”. ((2014-07-30) Alexander Meditations On Moloch)

A coordination failure is a class of problems where all participants would be better off if they cooperate, but without a trustworthy framework to coordinate their actions, each individual follows their rational self-interest, leading everyone to an outcome where everybody is worse off. (Prisoner's Dilemma)

Coordination failure is one useful lens to view the interlocking crises we face in modern societies.

So this is one of the reasons for the utopian optimism in web3: perhaps this new technology can help us to solve the global coordination failures that have us racing towards a grim future

The solution to coordination failure is a mix of social conventions & formal rules: think of the social pressure we put on companies to be more ecologically responsible, backed up by a police force that fines polluters.

For now, the best name we have for this new class of virtual institutions is “DAOs”

Here are some of the most compelling interviews & articles that got me excited about web3:

Here’s a sample of some of the web3 projects I am interested in right now:

One way to stay up to date is to subscribe to this Twitter list I’ve curated

We decide what web3 means.