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The recent snowballing of new decentralized technologies is shaping how we interact with each other in unprecedented ways, and one particular aspect that I am very excited by is it’s role in fairness.
There obviously are many unfair things in the world, most of them revolving around arbitrary rules and permissions granted or denied by centralized parties. A lot of the time we just happen to be born into these systems and have no real say on how they operate.
Although technology is inherently neutral in that it doesn’t care who uses it, this inversely leads to a level of fairness which I think is pretty new to our species.
REAL EQUALITY
Equality is one of those words which gets banded around, and like many other labels in language, gets misused. One persons version of equality may be completely different to someone else - often meaning preferential treatment for their particular group or section of society.
Real equality on the other hand - such as with Bitcoin - adds a whole new dimension to the word. Since the technology is completely neutral, that means there is absolute equality for every single human being who wants to use it. It doesn’t care about your nationality, your race, your gender, how much money you have, what job you have, what your political (or non-political) ideas are, or whether you’re a good or bad person. It only sees you as a potential user. As long as you have access to the network and your private keys to prove ownership, then there is absolutely no-one who can stop anyone interacting with anyone else. Think about those in developing countries who are currently unable to get a bank account. Hell, even in ‘developed’ countries, ordinary people are often denied the ability to transact through the banking system, due to a range of circumstances like nationality, immigration status, employment status, credit history and other arbitrary rules. If you remove the gatekeepers, you level the playing field, in a real tangible way.
NO FORCE INVOLVED
One of the great features of all these types of technologies is that they are completely voluntary. No one is forcing you to use or not use them. They are providing peaceful alternatives to how some of our current systems work. Bitcoin has been the biggest example so far, in that it gives people another option to the often corrupt current financial system which routinely wrecks lives, funds terrorists, makes people poorer through inflation and central planning, and rewards reckless behavior by bankers etc etc.
For example, if a government decides to implement some new drastic economic policies which will effect many people in a negative way, there’s not much anybody can do about it. You could make a fuss, protest on the streets, but 9/10 times nothing changes. If the Bitcoin core developers decided to implement something similar into the Bitcoin protocol, then the users have a choice whether or not to accept these changes. If the majority agree not to use it, then it won’t be implemented, and even if it is, there’s nothing to stop anyone from starting their own cryptocurrency with different rules.
There are lots of other interesting decentralized projects in the works aiming to do that in other areas too, such as fully accountable voting, P2P private police and security services, private alternatives to the internet itself, private contracts and escrow systems that don’t require law professionals and probably tonnes more that have yet to be announced.
TRANSPARENCY
Bad actors often like to hide in the shadows to get away with their dodgy dealings, and they regularly succeed. There are calls for greater transparency from our centralized institutions. There may even be some 'independent’ commissions, but ultimately, again, no real change occurs. Decentralized technology, and specifically blockchain based stuff gives those who are accountable to others, a way to PROVE what they are saying is true with hard evidence which all onlookers can see, whether that be financial transaction trails with Bitcoin, indisputable voting results, immutable and verifiable records of particular events happening, and much more.
We all know that the quickest way to get a correct answer on the internet is to say something incorrect, then wait for the stampede of comments to come. Imagine what happens when those in power say things that can be verified by ANYONE in the world, and you start to see that they will have to be honest and transparent if they want to stay in their positions.
There are generally no secrets at a technical level too, since most of these decentralized projects are completely open source, so any human with the skills to read the code can check it out and decide for themselves whether or not it is safe to use. If errors or potential problems are spotted, they’re usually quickly dealt with by the swarm of tack-sharp minds from around the world who are all following developments.
CONCLUSION
As I always say, this is just the beginning of what’s possible. I hope you can see that these types of technologies will allow for a real fairer society for ALL of humanity - without the empty platitudes and broken promises we’ve grown accustomed to.
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BY CHRIS ROBINSON