While I’ve been playing with Ethereum since 2016 it was only in 2019-20 that I really started to ‘get’ the potential of it as a coordination tool. Then in quick succession (not sure which was first) I read a Bankless article on Moloch (and then the Slate Star Codex article that it references) and the book Ministry for The Future, in which one of the key components in saving the biosphere from global warming is a complete overhaul of the financial world through a crypto currency called Carbon Coin. Great book, go read it.
From that point on this idea that Ethereum was just an interesting tech project to learn about or a valuable investment seemed almost quaint. I’ve been enthralled by projects like Gitcoin, Klima, and now Optimism. The concept of Ethereum’s Phoenix, using the incentive structures of retroactive public goods funding to encourage behaviours with positive externalities seems completely revolutionary, it might well be what we need to overcome the Great Filter of climate change that we are barreling towards, and even if it’s not then it will almost certainly be the Schelling point around which the people who do develop even better mechanisms converge. I want to be as involved as I can.
My view on the Optimistic Vision : We have seen in the legacy world that relying on charity and altruism is not sufficient to tackle the biggest problems we face as a species. By flipping the incentives to reward actions that contribute to public goods the Optimistic Vision changes the game from one where freeloading and exploiting the commons benefits the individual more than the shared community cost effects them, to a system where finding the ways to produce the most positive effect with your capital will end up being the most financially rewarding choice.
Starting with public goods in Optimism and the broader Ethereum ecosystem is like ensuring your own oxygen mask and your family’s are fitted first when an aircraft cabin loses pressure. In the long run though, my optimistic view is that we get to the cabin and take over from the unconscious pilot in time to avoid crashing to a fiery doom.
My view on the first three articles of the Working Constitution: Articles 1 and 3 seem almost obvious at this stage of the collective. The first for exactly the reasons described in the constitution document itself and the third as a necessity for any governance organization in it’s infancy. It is entirely understandable that the roles taken on by the Foundation are not feasible to be managed by the Token and Citizen houses initially. It seems unlikely that the undefined ‘Take other actions that are conducive to its stewardship role’ will be exploited to, for example, buy Ben Jones a yacht…!
Article 2 is or course the most exciting part of the Optimism Collective’s Working Constitution. I am extremely interested to see how the creation of Citizens will take place and how Sybil resistance will be maintained, however the idea of having part of the governance control based on permanent members with long term incentives, rather than having all the power effectively purchasable through token trading is very appealing. I think that it is becoming increasingly well recognized that airdropped token governance is inadequate on it’s own. It is good to reward active participants in a project, but when many (most) airdrops get sold and governance power is then available to whoever can pay for it it is inevitable that we will recreate the plutocracy of the legacy world. By balancing this with OP citizens, issued with a single soulbound voting token the possibility for long term decision making seems much improved.
My skills and areas of expertise:My main educational background is in physics and astrophysics, with a side of environmental decision making. While the specifics of planetary atmospheres and deceleration of spacecraft isn’t directly useful to crypto governance, the general skills of objective analysis and investigating problems that are beyond the current frontier of human knowledge seems to have a lot of crossover with what we’re building and discovering in this new field of coordination structures.
As a secondary interest I have worked on projects trying to understand and improve community resistance to manipulation in Web 2, assisting investigative journalists analysing Russian influence campaigns, constructing the ‘Web of Lies’ map of Cambridge Analytica’s spin-offs, funders, clients etc and building the Trollfare wiki of research on disinformation. If you check my Twitter you will see almost nothing crypto related – for that my social media of choice is Reddit, usually trying to answer questions and correct misunderstandings in r/ethereum and learning from the wise minds in r/ethfinance.
My favorite Web3 projects:
Curve (for the 90’s style UI), Sign In With Ethereum (can’t wait for it to be the norm online), and GreenPill (what do you mean a podcast and a Telegram group isn’t Web 3…).
