Get your techno-dystopian laser blaster boys, were going to the future
Before I start, let me just give you an idea of my presense in the crypto NFT space, so you can know where im coming from. If you hate crypto: My hands are not clean If you love crypto: I am not criticizing from outside the community I've minted Cellular Automata NFTs on the Tezos blockchain, you can check out the kind of shit I made here. I never told anybody that buying an NFT I made would make them rich, and I sold them for the USD equivalent of about one dollar. Part of why I chose Tezos was that it felt more driven by artists then Etherium. My entry point was hicetnunc. With that out of the way, I would like to talk about my thoughts on web3 as a whole.
The Problem With N F Deez (nutz)
Yes, I have watched the 2 hour mini documentary on youtube. I actually agree with a lot of his criticism. Look, to whoever needs to hear this Buying NFTs is not going to make you rich. Anybody who tells you your progromatically generated picture of a lemon is going to be worth ten grand someday is either a con artist or a fool. Don't believe the hype. As far as I am concerned, with the modern crypto landscape there is ONE and only ONE reason to buy an NFT and that is to support an artist you like. There is a culture around 'going to the moon' that I think is not only emberassing but hugely damaging. People dumping their life savings into ETH so they can buy PNGs for their twitter profile are RUINING THEIR LIVES. That is REAL. Its almost enough to make me feel shame when telling people that I've had any involvment in NFTs or web3 at all. Well, if I had any shame left to give that is.
Something actually interesting
Well, then does crypto and web3 have anything to offer? Is it all hype? Here's the thing. The modern landscape is not the final form of web3. The thing thats interesting about web3 is not that anything can be bought and sold. The thing thats interesting about web3 is not that coins are so volatile that you can get lucky and make 100 grand from nothing betting on memes. The thing thats interesting about web3 is the technological source of truth. The concensus of the blockchain. The transperancy of decentralization. The huge bummer is that people are building the same institutions around crypto. They are building the same world, except this time THEY are the early adopters and THEY will be the ones sipping baby blood in a secret society of billionaires. There really is potential for some serious landscape defining technology here. But people aren't building it. They're building schemes.
What might some interesting technology built on web3 look like then?
If the federal reserve was on a blockchain and you could see directly from the source of truth where all of the government dollars go, it would expose how much money we are taking from poor people and giving to rich people. If the hedge funds and banks were on blockchains it would expose how they are gambling with your money, pocketing the winnings, and shoveling the losses down to you. You could build a DAO for funding union movements. You could build a DAO for charity. You could really put this technology to work for getting rid of poverty in the advanced world. Or you could say fuck making the world a better place and just build tools for elaborate gambling. This is why so many people have become disenchanted with web3.
Whats the point? I dont know. Thanks for coming to my TED talk -Wxly