Hey friends - Adam here.
This week I didnāt know what to write about, so I decided that I would chronicle my afternoon of dedicated learning. We can also call this open-source learning.
How will I do it?
By dedicating myself to one task and one task only.
The point of this challenge is to see how much I can learn with focused attention on a paper I have wanted to read to amplify my understanding of cryptoeconomics.
(Cryptoeconomics: a field I am still trying to wrap my head around).
FORMAT?
Today, I will use interstitial journaling for my newsletter formatting.
Interstitial journaling is writing every time you transition from one work project to another.
āInstead of tracking your work with a to-do list, track your work with a journal.ā
I will write a few sentences in this about what action I took. Then a few more sentences about what Iām going to do next. As well as explore and share the ideas that really stuck out to me from what I end up partaking in.
11:20 - LETāS BEGIN.
I am going to try and tackle a read from my weekly reading list. An important thing I wanted to address is that I am working from the couch.
This is an exciting thing. I hope this very transparent way I decide to spend my day, will be helpful for others. The Freelance Graduate Student isnāt a normal thing to be just yet. But itās my hope that it will be, and that an experiment like this can display how to tackle learning online.
Especially as tuition costs keep rising, leaving more schooling to be done online, and increasing your ability to specialize, while also diversifying your knowledge base. Which, letās be honest, isnāt easy with all of the increasingly addictive products there are online.
So here goes nothing.
I am looking at a page I have created in my notes weekly entitled āWeekly Reading Planā as I want to set some time aside to really hone in on my curated reading selections.
(Which by the way, these are readings that I chip away at overtime, it isnāt expected that I am going to finish these ALL this week.)
The two papers Iām thinking about reading & learning from today is:
I read Vitalik Buterinās response to Schneiderās writing last week āOn Nathan Schneider on the limits of cryptoeconomicsā last week, and felt it could be cool to read the initial paper that initiated the conversation.
Followed by another paper:
āA DAO is a panopticon?ā that has been popping back into mind on a weekly basis after adding it to my reading plan 7 weeks ago.
11:37 - COIN FLIP
Okay, so all of this led to me not actually starting to read one of these papers until 11:37. So letās do a coin flip to decide which one to read.
In regards to a coin flip. I donāt have a coin because itās 2021.
So I found this random website.
Letās flip a coin on here.
Heads for āCryptoeconomics as a Limitation on Governanceā
Tails for āA DAO is a panopticon?ā
Okay. Heads it is. āCryptoeconomics as a Limitation on Governanceā is the only article I will allow myself to read today (until this one is finished).
WARNING: This article is 34 pages long. May take up a decent chunk of the afternoon.
11:45 - LETāS READ.
NOTES
As a reminder.
āCryptoeconomicsāthe use of economic incentives to guide user behavior, in tandem with cryptographic technology.ā
I made a flashcard (using Anki) on this.
āAfter a little more than a decade, Nakamotoās creation has swelled the lexicon
of human self-governance to elevate once obscure or nonexistent terms such
as proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, off-chain, on-chain, self-sovereign identity,
holographic consensus, smart contracts, bonding curves, optimistic consensus,
quadratic voting, governance tokens, and more.ā
All of these terms a year ago would have looked like gibberish to me, but I will make a Roam page for each of them to see if I have definitions.
Could be quite the lift to make definitions of all of them. But if I have previous definitions - Iāll keep it.
I found the concept of distributed ledger technologies as a āconfidence machineā intriguing and will make an Anki card asking:
What technology can be referred to as a confidence machine?
Distributed Ledger Technology!
I was tripped out on pg.3 when I saw the (Luhmann 2000) citation.
I wondered was this the same Luhmann as the guy who invented the Zettelkasten?
It turns out it is. Zettelkasten is German for slip box and/or card index. It turns out Niklas Luhmann was one of the first individuals to use a networked way of thinking, creating an elaborate way, yet analog way of making connections between ideas using flashcards. Resulting in a high amount of papers being published by him in his career as an academic.
Getting slowed up on the term āneo-liberalā I should probably look this up and make an Anki card.
Neoliberalism according to Wikipedia: is a term used to describe the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism
This is a term that is associated with free-market capitalism and the resurgence of 19th-century ideas?
Neoliberalism.
Kind of a vague definition, but itāll do for now.
I liked the definition of the political provided in this article.
The ascent of the economic means the decline of the what?
This is the space for collective determinations of the common good and the means of getting there. What do we call this?
the political
I know Iāve seen the name Friedrich Hayek around before. In this article it says he is a godfather of Neoliberalism, this term I am only beginning to understand.
He is a part of the Austrian School for economists and referred to as a godfather of neoliberalism?
Friedrich Hayek.
SIDE NOTE: I checked out my Spotify Wrapped playlist. Whoops.
12:40 - On Page 5 of what seems like a very deep academic text. But I will hop back on the horse and get to it.
The article is now talking about how cryptoeconomics can resemble the opposite of the commonsā¦ which can be called ? The Enclosure.
āThis is when what was once held in common becomes subdivided into ownable and tradable assets.ā The Enclosure is created.
āThe argument entails that it is not enough to produce confidence machines without undertaking the forever uncertain work of cultivating trust.ā
12:50 - The Cryptoeconomic Explosion
Starting at end of Pg. 6.
The concept āSchelling pointā was brought up. I think Iāve made a flashcard for it before, but the definition isnāt immediately jumping out to me. Iāll grab this definition and put it into my Anki to study.
What is the conclusion that participants think other participants will independently choose?
Schelling Point!
A prediction market was brought up, a term I have also studied but would like further clarification on.
āThe prediction market itself was premised on the supposition that
people make better forecasts when they stand to gain or lose the equivalent
of money in the processā
This was founded upon the supposition that people make better forecasts when they stand to gain or lose the equivalent of money in the process?
A prediction market
13:07 - starting to get on a roll now on pg.11.
43% battery on my computer. will have to get to a charger soon.
I came across the paper: āLiberal Radicalism: A Flexible Design for Philanthropic Matching Fundsā which sounds quite interesting.
Here is the link.
Iāll add it to my reading plan for next week. [[Weekly Reading Plan for December 6th, 2021]].
a quote that stuck out to me āa DAO is closer to a country than to a corporationā.
^I donāt know if I necessarily agree with this. Perhaps this is something I could write further about?
I found a really good song. Had to add to my classical & a piano playlist while studying.
āJoint-stock companies conventionally operate on plutocratic governanceāmore shares equals more votes.ā
These types of companies conventionally operate on plutocratic governance?
Meaning more shares = more votes.
Joint-stock companies!
āas long as governance is reducible to economics, it will be difficult to prevent
the feedback loops between wealth and power from spiraling into plutocratic
outcomes.ā
stab at understanding plutocracy = more tokens, more voting power within DAOs similar to Joint-Stock companies.
13:37 - on the bottom of pg.16. pushing through!
āThe environmental costs are classic externalitiesāinvisible to the feedback
loops that the system understands and that communicate to its users as incentives.ā
āJulia Rosenberg and Maria P. Gomez Gelvez of Orca Protocol have noticed
a phenomenon that the cryptoeconomic confidence machines were supposed
to do away with: the emergence of āprotocol politiciansā who gain outsized
power through delegated tokensā
Reflection: The emergence of the ability to be a protocol politician as individuals can choose to delegate their voting power elsewhere.. is creating a politics that is quite similar to the politics of countries currently.
These individuals can gain outsized power through delegated tokens?
Protocol Politicians
ācounteracting plutocracy with mass participation and making visible the externalities that markets might otherwise fail to see.ā
What role do oracles play in this, making visible the externalities that markets do not see?
As a reminder oracles are a way for a blockchain or smart contract to interact with external data. Okay, yeah, Iāll make a flashcard for this too.
āETHDenver, a conference that attracts international Ethereum developers and investors.ā
Side note: I was actually on the website for ETHDenver this morning looking into the ways in which I can meet some fellow crypto nerds, as well as visit some homies of mine (s/o to Matt & Collin).
14:01 -
On Page 22. CPU is down to 20%. Time to move to my desk & charge.
Only 3 more pages left of āCryptoeconomics as a Limitation on Governanceā, as I noticed the end notes start on Page 26.
NOTES CONTINUEDā¦
āMore recently, a series of manifestos have called for ādistributed cooperative organizations,ā or DisCOs, integrating distributed ledgers and cooperative values, as well as feminist commitments to reward the care work and public goods that markets often fail to recognize (Troncoso and Utratel 2020).ā
Did someone say Disco? Iāll make this a review term as well.
These integrate distributed ledgers and cooperative values, as well as feminist commitments to reward the care work and public goods that markets often fail to recognize?
Distributed Cooperative Organizations (DisCOs)
āLong-term incentives are not intrinsically better than short-term ones.ā
This quote stuck out to me, as it makes me reflect on the reality of what I choose to do with my day on a consistent basis. Choosing to read this and include my thought processes show how the long-term incentive or better yet, long-term decision shaped my daily decision of writing about what Iām learning about in real time.
āfor cryptoeconomics to achieve the institutional scope its advocates hope for, it needs to make space for less-economic forms of governance.ā
Moving away from token weighted-voting and making room for soft skills in cryptoā¦ i.e, politics.
āCrypto is the ultimate training zone: if you can build something that
can survive in this environment at scale, it can probably also survive in the
bigger world as well.ā - Vitalik Buterin.
āAs this training zone develops, participants should be attentive not only to how their systems succeed and fail in cryptoeconomic terms, but also to what aspects of human flourishing they do not yet take into account.ā
14:25 - I finished reading the paper!
Learning and reflecting. These terms that I have written down as new flashcards while be studied using spaced repetition. Meaning, Iāll be studying these terms incrementally for the next few months and Iāll be eager to see how my understanding develops overtime.
This is the same method for learning I take for diving into pretty much any topic. However, writing and sharing these notes is something I have never done before. If the topic of cryptoeconomics intrigues you and you have more questions on where to start some dedicated learning, let me know!
It is my hope to write a very similar article to this, chronicling the creative process involved in developing oneās unique sound in music.
Dedicated learning towards any topic is a superpower, and I would love for you to try partaking in this exercise yourself.
Cheers to lifelong learning,
Adam Bartley
PARTING NOTE
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Thanks yaāll šš»