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[[File:NyanCat.png|450px|frameless|center]] | [[File:NyanCat.png|450px|frameless|center]] | ||
}}The [[Blockchain]]’s unique selling point is ''[[uniqueness]]'': a single entry on the ledger is there, it is fixed, it is unique for all time and uneditable, without editing every node on the [[distributed ledger]]. Encoded into its design is a uniqueness | }}The [[Blockchain]]’s unique selling point is ''[[uniqueness]]'': a single entry on the ledger is there, it is fixed, it is unique for all time and uneditable, without editing every node on the [[distributed ledger]]. Encoded into its design is a uniqueness quite alien to the engineering of the internet, which is predicated, more or less, on copying as a means of transmission. Where the regular internet not only allows lossless copying, but encourages — is ''predicated'' on — it: that’s at the heart of its [[End-to-end principle|end-to-end]] architecture — it suffers from the conceptual issue that any digital copy of an original digital artefact is, to every intent and purpose, the equal of the original, a ''copy'' of an entry on the distributed ledger is, [[ontologically]], not. By its code, it is unique. Tokens on a blockchain are to documents on the internet as Millenials are to Boomers: digitally native. They exist in, and are of, the digital realm. | ||
In this regard, [[blockchain]] and the regular internet are ''[[incommensurable]]'': non-overlapping magisteria. This is the price you pay for entering the [[distributed ledger]]: you get your uniqueness, but in return you must leave the flawed peer-to-peer world, everything on it, and everything on the flawed analog world underlying that, behind. | In this regard, [[blockchain]] and the regular internet are ''[[incommensurable]]'': non-overlapping magisteria. This is the price you pay for entering the [[distributed ledger]]: you get your uniqueness, but in return you must leave the flawed peer-to-peer world, everything on it, and everything on the flawed analog world underlying that, behind. | ||
You could recreate the regular internet on the blockchain, but it would be — well, ''different''. | You could recreate the regular internet on the [[blockchain]], but it would be — well, ''different''. | ||
Now [[bitcoin]] — say what you like about it, and we have plenty to say [[Bitcoin|elsewhere]] — is “[[blockchain native]]” — it exists in, of and only ''within'' the blockchain. Bitcoins are therefore ''intrinsically, certifiably, unique''. That is about their one true advantage. | Now [[bitcoin]] — say what you like about it, and we have plenty to say [[Bitcoin|elsewhere]] — is “[[blockchain native]]” — it exists in, of and only ''within'' the blockchain. Bitcoins are therefore ''intrinsically, certifiably, unique''. That is about their one true advantage. | ||
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Now if you create your artwork ''on'' the [[blockchain]], you get that same native uniqueness: any facsimiles of the artwork that exist ''off blockchain'' — copies floating around on the internet, hanging in fashionable galleries and so on — are, certifiably, [[ontologically]] ''inferior'' to the one on the ledger. That one is the real deal. | Now if you create your artwork ''on'' the [[blockchain]], you get that same native uniqueness: any facsimiles of the artwork that exist ''off blockchain'' — copies floating around on the internet, hanging in fashionable galleries and so on — are, certifiably, [[ontologically]] ''inferior'' to the one on the ledger. That one is the real deal. | ||
But — and maybe walled-in social media platforms on the internet, structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation|DAO]]s are different; the JC doesn’t yet really understand them — mostly, a blockchain is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system. It is made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''. | But — and maybe walled-in social media platforms on the internet, structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation|DAO]]s are different; the JC doesn’t yet really understand them — mostly, a [[blockchain]] is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system. It is made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''. | ||
Look, it’s one thing for David Hockney to do all his painting on an iPad: quite another to realise your whole ''ouevre'' in an electronic cashbook. The blockchain as it is, is a clunky, slow, costly, inflexible thing with only one advantage: uniqueness. | Look, it’s one thing for David Hockney to do all his painting on an iPad: quite another to realise your whole ''ouevre'' in an electronic cashbook. The blockchain as it is, is a clunky, slow, costly, inflexible thing with only one advantage: uniqueness. | ||
This is great if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, inverting urinals and signing them — or even more so writing music or literature — whose artwork “natively” lives outside a [[distributed ledger]], or whose [[value]] does not subsist in its [[substrate]], but rather in the abstract information the [[substrate]] carries (such as a book or | This is great if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, inverting urinals and signing them — or even more so writing music or literature — whose artwork “natively” lives outside a [[distributed ledger]], or whose [[value]] does not subsist in its [[substrate]], but rather in the abstract information the [[substrate]] carries (such as a book, film or score) — having your artwork encoded on a [[blockchain]], in a unique [[substrate]] doesn’t really help you. | ||
If you import a "canonical" “real world” artwork, then the ''blockchain representation'' is the one that is certifiably, ontologically ''inferior:'' it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | If you import a "canonical" “real world” artwork, then the ''[[blockchain]] representation'' is the one that is certifiably, [[ontologically]] ''inferior:'' it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | ||
Ironically, putting a | Ironically, putting a “real” artwork on [[blockchain]] makes your [[non-fungible token]] ''worse'' than a straight digital copy, because a token definitely isn’t the original. | ||
====Is uniqueness really, er, ''special''?==== | ====Is uniqueness really, er, ''special''?==== | ||
The rampant copy-ability of anything everything in Web 2.0 no doubt prompted the stampede to non-fungibility. ''Authenticity'' is in deep demand: no-one trusts experts anymore. ''Everything'' is ripped off. ''Everything'' is fake. Indubitability — [[certainty]] — is some kind of holy grail.<ref>But see our essay as to why [[doubt]] is no bad thing.</ref> | The rampant copy-ability of anything everything in Web 2.0 no doubt prompted the stampede to non-fungibility. ''Authenticity'' is in deep demand: no-one trusts experts anymore. ''Everything'' is ripped off. ''Everything'' is fake. Indubitability — [[certainty]] — is some kind of holy grail.<ref>But see our essay as to why [[doubt]] is no bad thing.</ref> | ||
But is uniqueness, in the abstract, of intrinsic value, ''in and of itself''? | |||
The [[JC]] has a small commonplace book of poems he composed, as a moleish adolescent.<ref>Adrian Mole-ish, or Wind-in-the-Willows Mole-ish, it doesn’t really make a difference.</ref> It exists in single copy, in fountain pen ink on cartridge paper, rendered in his youthful, spidery left-handed scrawl. Make no mistake: these are some of the worst poems composed in the history of civilisation.<ref>They would give Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings a run for her money.</ref> | We say, “no,” all the above [[Notwithstanding anything to the contrary|notwithstanding]]. The [[JC]] has a small commonplace book of poems he composed, as a moleish adolescent.<ref>Adrian Mole-ish, or Wind-in-the-Willows Mole-ish, it doesn’t really make a difference. Moleish.</ref> It exists in single copy, in fountain pen ink on cartridge paper, rendered in his youthful, spidery left-handed scrawl. Make no mistake: these are some of the worst poems composed in the history of civilisation.<ref>They would give Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings a run for her money.</ref> Not one has been committed to any other format and nor, if the JC has any say in the matter, will they ever be. They are, thus, utterly unique. | ||
Now: do these ghastly poems have a single iota of ''[[value]]''? Outside their very real extortion potential, they do not. Does their critical ''uniqueness'' change this? It does not. | |||
There is great danger of crushing humiliation should they ever get out. So why does he keep them? The JC has wondered about this, and never managed a good answer — beyond the ''thrill'' they generate. The thrill from the singular terror that they ever be found by anyone and leaked to a disinterested world — God forbid, minted on a blockchain: encoded on every node of our future universe, perpetually inerasable part of our canon. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[Distributed ledger]] | *[[Distributed ledger]] |