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[[File:NyanCat.png|450px|frameless|center]] | [[File:NyanCat.png|450px|frameless|center]] | ||
}}The [[Blockchain]]’s unique selling point is ''uniqueness'': an entry on the ledger is fixed, immutable, unalterable and unique for all time. It cannot be changed, without editing every node on the [[distributed ledger]], and it cannot be duplicated. This sense of uniqueness, which is encoded into the design of a [[distributed ledger]], quite alien to the engineering of the internet, which depends on duplication as a means of transmission. | }}The [[Blockchain]]’s unique selling point is ''uniqueness'': an entry on the ledger is fixed, immutable, unalterable and unique for all time. It cannot be changed, without editing every node on the [[distributed ledger]], and it cannot be duplicated. This sense of uniqueness, which is encoded into the design of a [[distributed ledger]], quite alien to the engineering of the internet, which depends on duplication as a means of transmission. | ||
====The internet: duplication by design=== | |||
The internet not only allows, but ''encourages'' lossless copying: that’s the essence of its [[End-to-end principle|end-to-end]] architecture. This brought to a head a conundrum for [[intellectual property]] laws that had been brewing since, arguably the time of the [[Jacquard loom]]. The idea of “intellectual property” was forged in an analog age, where the distinction between an ''original'' and a ''copy'' was clear and [[Ontology|ontologically]] fundamental. Also, the cost of generating copies was non-trivial and did not easily [[scale]]: since intellectual property was necessarily embedded in a physical [[substrate]] — to read a novel you needed a physical book — you could treat [[intellectual property]] as if it ''were'' physical property. To all intents, it ''was''. | The internet not only allows, but ''encourages'' lossless copying: that’s the essence of its [[End-to-end principle|end-to-end]] architecture. This brought to a head a conundrum for [[intellectual property]] laws that had been brewing since, arguably the time of the [[Jacquard loom]]. The idea of “intellectual property” was forged in an analog age, where the distinction between an ''original'' and a ''copy'' was clear and [[Ontology|ontologically]] fundamental. Also, the cost of generating copies was non-trivial and did not easily [[scale]]: since intellectual property was necessarily embedded in a physical [[substrate]] — to read a novel you needed a physical book — you could treat [[intellectual property]] as if it ''were'' physical property. To all intents, it ''was''. | ||
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The Man — and many struggling artistes, content creators and also Metallica — were confronted with deep questions about authenticity and uniqueness, which they weren’t ready for and, to be candid, still haven’t really got to grips with, thirty years later. ''How do I distinguish between my real stuff, and the ripped of guff on the internet''? How do I be ''me''? | The Man — and many struggling artistes, content creators and also Metallica — were confronted with deep questions about authenticity and uniqueness, which they weren’t ready for and, to be candid, still haven’t really got to grips with, thirty years later. ''How do I distinguish between my real stuff, and the ripped of guff on the internet''? How do I be ''me''? | ||
====A new architecture of uniqueness==== | |||
And now, in our heady times,<ref>I mean, [[Bulltard|stark raving ''bonkers'' times]].</ref> we are asked to behold a solution. An alternative network architecture that ''guarantees'' authenticity. Problem solved. The real essence delivered back to the creator. And what is this marvellous thing? | And now, in our heady times,<ref>I mean, [[Bulltard|stark raving ''bonkers'' times]].</ref> we are asked to behold a solution. An alternative network architecture that ''guarantees'' authenticity. Problem solved. The real essence delivered back to the creator. And what is this marvellous thing? | ||
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And 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. | And 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 that is a big ''if''. The price you pay for entering the [[distributed ledger]] and getting your uniqueness back is that you must leave the peer-to-peer world, everything on it, and everything on the even more-flawed analog world underlying it, behind ''forever''. | But that is a big ''if''. The price you pay for entering the [[distributed ledger]] and getting your uniqueness back is that you must leave the peer-to-peer world, everything on it, and everything on the even more-flawed analog world underlying it, behind ''forever''. | ||
Now maybe walled-in media platforms structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation]] | ====The metaverse, the dying analog world, and pixellated pop-tarts==== | ||
Now maybe walled-in media platforms structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation]]s are different, but mostly, a [[blockchain]] is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system: a fancy ownership register, made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''. Great, if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, finding bicycle wheels, 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. It’s one thing for David Hockney to do all his painting on an iPad: but the history of art would have been quite different, and quite a lot less fun, were Caravaggio or Duchamp obliged to restrict themselves to Nyan Cats in a cashbook. | |||
So here’s the irony of the blockchain: if you aren’t quite ready for permanent immersion in the Metaverse: if you are not yet ready let the analogue world go, then not only does the blockchain not help: it makes things worse. To mint a token of a canonical “real world” artwork, is to create a non-fungible ''representation'' of it — a non-copy — the one that is certifiably, [[ontologically]] inferior ''to every other ripped-off copy:'' unlike a digital copy, it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | So here’s the irony of the blockchain: if you aren’t quite ready for permanent immersion in the Metaverse: if you are not yet ready let the analogue world go, then not only does the blockchain not help: it makes things worse. To mint a token of a canonical “real world” artwork, is to create a non-fungible ''representation'' of it — a non-copy — the one that is certifiably, [[ontologically]] inferior ''to every other ripped-off copy:'' unlike a digital copy, it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | ||
==== | ====The JC’s adolescent [[peotry]] as the case against the intrinsic value of uniqueness==== | ||
The rampant copyability 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 copyability 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> | ||
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*[[Non-fungible token]]s | *[[Non-fungible token]]s | ||
{{Ref}} | {{Ref}} | ||