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Some power structures easier to avoid than others. If you dislike [[cricket]] and despair of cricket administrators, it is little effort to stay away from cricket clubs and all will be well. Not so if you dislike taxation, for example. | Some power structures easier to avoid than others. If you dislike [[cricket]] and despair of cricket administrators, it is little effort to stay away from cricket clubs and all will be well. Not so if you dislike taxation, for example. | ||
Even people who ''complain'' about power structures — at least ones who do in an organised and compelling way — have a power structure. [[Critical theory]] is a power structure, made up of lots of little power structures. Power structures often outgrow their original purpose, because it is not the ''purpose'' but the ''power'' that is exciting. | Even people who ''complain'' about power structures — at least ones who do in an organised and compelling way — have a power structure. [[Critical theory]] ''is'' a power structure, made up of lots of little power structures. Power structures often outgrow their original purpose, because it is not the ''purpose'' but the ''power'' that is exciting. | ||
===“Power” as a pejorative term=== | |||
{{quote|{{power versus strength quote}}}} | |||
Power structures are a feature of [[critical theory]] critiques of — well — the western world, basically, but only when rendered in the “glass-half-empty” terms of the permanently malcontent. One might ask whether {{author|James Carse}}’s distinction<ref>{{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> between “power” and “strength” wouldn’t cast a less Hobbesian light here. Sure, social hierarchies can be pernicious, where operated by those engaged in a fight to the death, but most people are not. Those who who favour any form of communal organisation more developed that flapping around in primordial sludge will concede that social arrangements don’t ''have'' to be destructive: they can be ''con''structive, enabling, levers to prosperity and betterment for everyone who wants it. If we call such a centralised, curated, defended store of knowledge for sharing a “strength structure” it does not sound so ominous. | |||
{{quote|“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish ''as a result of my play with them'', but because I can allow them to do what they wish ''in the course of my play with them''.”}} | |||
===Frontiers, utopian anarchy and why [[this time is different|this time isn’t different]]=== | ===Frontiers, utopian anarchy and why [[this time is different|this time isn’t different]]=== | ||
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It might do the former, but its success at the latter tends to be transitory and distressingly brief. But this is to ignore history and the cold evolutionary logic of the complex adaptive systems that we inhabit. Utopian dreams grow cold. It is better to know this and not be disappointed about it. | It might do the former, but its success at the latter tends to be transitory and distressingly brief. But this is to ignore history and the cold evolutionary logic of the complex adaptive systems that we inhabit. Utopian dreams grow cold. It is better to know this and not be disappointed about it. | ||
America is the archetypal utopian anarchy. It doesn’t The wild west was tamed by the railroad. The pattern has repeated: the telegraph, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, free love, computing, micro-computing, women’s movement, file sharing, the internet the metaverse, the | America is the archetypal utopian anarchy. It doesn’t The wild west was tamed by the railroad. The pattern has repeated: the telegraph, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, free love, computing, micro-computing, women’s movement, file sharing, the internet the metaverse, the cryptoverse. All of these start with a grand narrative: the promise of radical change: the redistribution of wealth and social power. But narratives need direction and the more is at stake, the more quickly will leaders, svengalis, power structures and power brokers emerge. These are the monopolistic forces of scale. Those who acquire power will acquire more of it: wealth begets wealth. The utopian state of equal empowerment is not stable. | ||
===The requirement for faith ... By the punters=== | ===The requirement for faith ... By the punters=== | ||
A core component of any viable paradigm or power structure is unalterable tenets: a set of convictions, devout beliefs or articles of blind faith that must be held by persons in the power structure ''other than those in positions of power''.<ref>indebted to David Rosenthal’s excellent blog post here: https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html?m=1</ref> | A core component of any viable paradigm or power structure is unalterable tenets: a set of convictions, devout beliefs or articles of blind faith that must be held by persons in the power structure ''other than those in positions of power''.<ref>indebted to David Rosenthal’s excellent blog post here: https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html?m=1</ref> | ||
So permissionless blockchain requires a conviction that crypto is going to the moon, to be held by those who buy crypto, but not those by those who sell it for fiat (miners) or make markets in it (intermediaries and brokers). | So permissionless [[blockchain]] requires a conviction that crypto is going to the moon, to be held by those who buy crypto, but not those by those who sell it for fiat (miners) or make markets in it (intermediaries and brokers). | ||
Same goes for financial markets (re issuers and brokers) | Same goes for financial markets (re issuers and brokers) | ||