Beyond Virtue Signaling – Panel Discussion

don't move the chairs this is a very important part of this session on transforming the world first do not move the chairs right is everybody ready for us to begin and sound in the audience great I'm Shira Frank and I'm going to be moderating this conversation I think before we get started and I introduce our panelists and we dive into this conversation I'd like to invite you all to take a moment I promise it's not going to be a full minute but maybe 30 seconds and if you don't mind just closing your eyes and really recognizing that this conversation if we're gonna do it right is gonna be a bit difficult there are real tensions in this space in any space where a change is being asked for where what we believe and what we actually do are very different the things we want to have happen and the systems that we're confronting are also completely at odds and that can create a lot of tension in our own bodies and our own families and so if we're really gonna engineer and re-engineer the rules of the game when it comes to money in this society we're probably going to be having difficult interactions and difficult conversations and I think it would be great if you asked yourself well what happens when you're in that difficult place do you become super clear about what the answer is do you get really tense and kind of self-righteous and sure of what to do or can you maybe take a step back and at least for the 35 minutes were together in this room wonder what would happen if you added some doubt to your sense of what the right answer was or what the right approach was and I know that all of our panelists are incredibly passionate and experienced and have been working really hard from the orientation they hold about how to make change in the world and I'm gonna invite them to doubt themselves and to doubt each other and so that we can really have a meaningful conversation all right so let's get started we'll go down the row really glad to have everyone here with me we have Ann Connolly from singularity University one of the few universities offering a really profound and robust blockchain program so she teaches global leaders all around the world about how to use this technology next to her we have neon babalola and he is the founder of pan Walla which is a decentralized foundation for aetherium following that we have grace today yes she's the executive director of blockchain for Humanity which is really redefining kind of entire business frames for the space after that Kevin with his awesome hat and his great cup of tea or whatever that's Kevin a whacky founder of get coin which as many of you know probably know is expanding and growing the open source ecosystem and finally simona pop looking very nice at the end with a chief engagement officer for OST and formerly with the Bounty's network we're probably a lot of you know her alright so let's start with definitions I'm Jewish we like to talk about words words have meaning what are we talking about virtue signaling impact public good what do these things mean so let's start with public good Kevin give us a beginning working definition and Simona if you'll share your mic what is public good me it just means a good that is non-rival s and non-excludable so basically the air that we're breathing in this room is a public good because it's not excludable you can't stop some consuming consuming that good and it's not a rival of us which means that you know the fact that someone across the room is consuming it doesn't stop me from consuming it so there's lots of different public goods in the world there's clean air clean water journalism could be considered a public good I'm focused on open source software maintaining the public good that is open source software that allows us to walk into an etherium hackathon and build something that would have taken a bank 20 million dollars in four years to do yeah I think you had a little feedback there we just hopefully we heard you well we'll come back a few both questions okay public goods are good Wow so easy awesome and then what about this term impact Simone Oh what do we mean by impact so I think with social impact in particularly in this space I think we always talk about social impact and block change for social impact people just sick very far far away somewhere that isn't relevant to us or is them very immediate responsible but actually if you just refer to in fact it is the effective thing you can have on someone or something and that becomes something incredibly powerful and incredibly meaningful where it can affect anybody anywhere and can actually have benefits or anybody anywhere so let's maybe start focusing so much on looking at you know oh it's something that doesn't affect me it's something that I don't understand and look at how could I make an impact in my immediate community region vertical whatever so impact is being alive and effecting change wherever you go got it cool and virtru signalling I mean there's a lot of definitions but essentially saying one thing and doing another and usually saying something that kind of gives you the moral high ground which might give you some power in a social situation or kind of gain you social status I think probably we've all seen a lot of that in this space and lots of other spaces um so we want to go beyond that today we're not gonna try to talk about how cool we are how much impact we've had or why we're so awesome we're gonna try to dig into the harder questions so let's start with you grace um I when I worked in Middle East peace we would always talk about how human-made problems can be human unmade but where do you begin right all the worst issues we're dealing with have been made by people so where do we start kick us off what's the first place we should focus I am sorry that I when you actually started I could sure so internally tonight there are ways to think about what there's a lot of problems in the world that mouthwash chain might be able to help with that's one place you could start you could also say God how do we need to act or who do we need to be or who needs to be in the room such that we could even solve those problems arrive internal focus versus beginning with the external or maybe hybrid how would you address so it's easy to focus on the external focus right cuz they're they're obvious they're there we want to enable impact we want to show what impact we enable but what is not so easy is what is internally what is mean internalized and I find that impact overall it's not only what you do externally but how you internally are addressing well how are you living those values and it's funny enough that we are always willing to say we should do this and this is the right thing to do but it's very difficult to actually do it and be the model of that and what we are looking forward here and I hope that this conversation takes us there it's about leadership where we can demonstrate internally what we have in that effect that in effect brings some very positive impact around us as well does anyone else want to touch on that question before we move on about kind of if we are gonna look internally what are the things either as individuals or within our own companies we need to be asking before we can go solve these problems out there I might jump in a little bit and I think you know we talk a lot about blockchain and the technology we work on as being this revolution in society and the Revolution and the way that we operate and we govern and we organize ourselves and one of my greatest concerns about what I've seen and a lot of the community and this is you know blockchain as a greater than just aetherium piece is are we just replacing the old guard with a new guard that is exactly the same or fundamentally is the revolution we've all been fighting for just a coup and so I think for us it's really important to particularly stop and think okay if we are rebuilding all these systems for Society of the future who are we incorporating into that process and what does that look like what are we actually doing differently to break down the power structures of before and not just replace the people at the top with new people what would be a new power structure well so when you look at dows for example and that type of thing and we've heard a lot from Meadow cartel and from the Lao and that this weekend and I think that's great but if you've got a Dao that is 100% white males have you changed the system or have you just replicated it with new cooler technology I think one problem with the way that we approach this issue is that if you if this was a technical problem if someone was deploying a network and said hey there's gonna be this these outcomes from the network we'd say well what are the incentives what incentives actually produced the outcome and then when we say oh we're gonna decentralize everything there's gonna be this new order where power is distributed well where the incentives does your company make money if power actually gets distributed and if it doesn't you're probably not gonna change anything that's probably is gonna be the same thing over and over again so if we actually want to achieve the sort of shift that people talk about we probably have to find an incentive structure that's actually going to drive us to do that at the end of the day people want to make money all right this leads me to another question so you guys can either dive into what was happening here or answer this question so I was gonna turn to you first Simona but Kevin you guys decide so can we actually I know this is the theory of social enterprise but let's actually pause and wonder about it can we maximize profit and still serve the public good can you do those two things at the same time are there real trade-offs between justice and profit and if so what are they as you're seeing them emerge in this space or as you've looked at history come on Kevin you know you want to talked about whether you can maximize profit and do good it's a great question your kids are gonna be asking this daddy what did you do yeah thanks for the layup sure there's this thing called the Matthew effect which is the cumulative the cumulative the cumulative effect of a cumulative capital and it's basically how a system of humans will basically consolidate in power over time if you don't shake the foundations of it and so basically this is by according to the Wikipedia page this is this is why oligarchies emerges because once you have accumulated gains in a political system then you're able to use those gains to get more gains and to basically create an oligarchy and and so you have to reverse the Matthew effect when you're building an economic system or at least find ways to stub it and that's why I think that what we're doing with quadratic funding is really interesting because with quadratic funding you can't your vote only counts it measures the breadth of contributions not the depth of what the whales want so it optimizes for the poor and the many and not the and not the the the rich in the few and so I think that I would encourage people to look up the Matthew effect after this panel it sounds like it's it's an accepted fact of of game theory that the capital accumulates and there's a cumulative effect over time so I think if we try to find the design systems that push power to the edges then that's that's a good a good starting point and just following on from that and I did a talk on Thursday at get point sustained with three conference right here at the Sports Castle and drawing the parallel between natural ecosystems and the monetary system what we have right now very much promotes and encourages hoarding and taking of capital as opposed to letting it flow and this is what we have with the monetary monoculture and perpetuating that leads to all of these pools of power leads to this centralized control where as the natural flow of resource is to actually flow to get you into an optimum window of liability that is right in the middle between diversity and efficiency right now everything that we are doing as you know a global economy is focusing so much on this deficiency that the system is brittle it is not sustainable it isn't serving the FASTA majority or the people who participate in the ecosystem and I think evolving that and building it with that in mind like let's return to nature a little bit because it might have one or two good ideas like we all got here and if all of that way think so let me get back in tune with that and potentially both of that I would love to say something here so this one is really my my passion my subject and this is the one that from blotching for Humanity perspective we try to you know really increase awareness and move it forward so we have a system that is broken and that's a fact and there's nothing wrong with making money forget sakes I want everyone to make as much money as they want that's right right capitalism but we need to have a conscious capitalism we need to be absolutely certain and unconscious and and provide the means to be able to make those no profit to make that revenue but also to bring some purpose that so when you talk about social enterprise I think sometimes we get confused about it but maybe nonprofit they shouldn't be making money he'll now make a lot of money but make money responsibly and what we're looking here is for leaders that will say ok yes I'm gonna be responsible I'm gonna make money for my shareholders but I'm also going to prioritize my stakeholders and that's beyond what we have as shareholders and companies and employees it's a whole ecosystem around us and that's where we want to drill down and I think that that's the call to action and if there's anything that that I would want anyone to leave this wrong with this room with is actually that awareness because I said we have to disagree I'm gonna somewhat disagree just to help the conversation move forward so what is money right there's lots of ways we can talk about it I've been thinking about it lately as concentrated choice making capacity right people with a lot of money just have a lot of choices they can make a lot more than people with less of it in our society I don't really think that massively concentrated choice making capacity in one or two people's hands is great I think it's kind of explosive I think it's like electricity or energy and it's like concentrated and it doesn't do well it doesn't do well for the people that have a lot of wealth I can't I came from fund raising from millionaires and billionaires and I'm not seeing incredible happiness or beautiful ecosystems flowing from that so I think that it doesn't mean profit is against social good I don't think it's that simplistic but I also don't think it's as simple as they can both coexist beautifully together and create magical babies I think there are real issues so what are some of those issues that maybe are on your minds who wants to speak it on do you want to speak and oh you haven't spoken sure so I think one of the the problems that leads to this accumulation of wealth of capital is that it's so hard for people to organize themselves we depend on basically other people organizing resources and people to achieve the goals that we want to achieve in life whether it's production I just want to I just want a meal so some capitalists it's organized the production of that meal or whether it's politics where I want a certain policy and some political party has organized the nation's resources to use it in a certain regard it is hard to do that and very few people do that and where I think the opportunity is is not necessarily to decentralize each and every decision that's made but to give everybody an easy way to opt out of whatever is already there to be able to organize themselves their resources their community to achieve the goals that they want because once you can easily organize yourselves you it it limits what people can extract from you and from your community it's not necessarily that you're going to take that ability and say oh I'm gonna organize myself but once you have that option once you have that app that lets you hit a button and say me and my friends are gonna start it out to accomplish our goals instead then everybody knows that you have that opt-out ability and they change their behavior I think less wealth gets accumulated in that kind of system thank you it sounds like someone wants to jump in here from there I would say that redefining the way we organize ourselves immediately prompts the need to redefine how value flows and how people tap into that value that flux because right now it doesn't look it goes it's here and then it's here and then it's here and how you connect those things is incredibly arduous which is why people don't have access to resources but we have the tools to potentially potentially again this is where at the very beginning and a lot of experiments still need to be made but we have the means to potentially create that flow and enable it and create it in a way that benefits the participants versus the creators because again one thing that we need to remember with money right now it is all created by private banks and debt all money that we hear with is dead and so may be redefined how we organize re-engineering that with how we create some complementary currencies redefine how people access it and so on I think I am with you and dad and I think that on top of it we have to have the right incentives we have a we've been living with a system that has as an incentive you know make as much money as you can extract as much as you can because that's the definition of success right so that's where we start I will say and with the right incentives alright so we're gonna stay in the dark just one more question and then I promise we're gonna get to hope and and concrete but we talked a lot about risks in engineering systems and in science right what are the risks of the systems how do we mitigate those risks I sit around and I feel like I don't think as an ecosystem we're asking what are the social ethical risks of this technology at scale and I think there's some definite visionaries in the spacesuit who are asking that you can hear amber ball they asked that a lot and people who were around when the internet was founded saying huh yeah we really didn't see who our corporate overlords were gonna be like guess we should think about that today you know who are going to be the overlords of tomorrow if those arise if we have all these intentions of incredible new systems of organizing new definitions of success new ways of thinking of the equilibrium between diversity and efficiency I mean new frameworks for business all of these abstract incredibly important building blocks and yet what are the risks that are maybe embedded within this technology as it scales socially what things do you maybe teach about or think about yeah I mean I Snowden says it best when he says the hope is that everything will be traceable and trackable the question is whether it will be voluntary and that's where I think we're at a bit of a tipping point right now we're starting to see government's come on board and get on top of blockchain and get the president of China a couple months ago said they absolutely had to get on board with this and if we're not fast enough with pushing out high quality infrastructure and applications on fully decentralized fully open platforms everyone's gonna be on the latest you know Canadian blockchain that tracks everything American blockchain that tracks everything and privacy will just be gone and that's my greatest worry about all of this is we're building the technology that can be used by governments for surveillance on a massive scale we've never seen to me that's kind of the default outcome like a lot of people assume that this technology is gonna make everything butterflies and rainbows I kind of assume that it's it's kind of suck I mean that not that it's gonna be worse than today necessarily but that like the again if there's no actual incentive for things to work in a different way than they currently do then powers gonna concentrate somewhere the same with that Internet example where people are like hey we have this peer-to-peer network there's gonna be distributed power the masses are gonna get it and then it did not happen I think we're gonna do that same thing and I don't think it's the worst thing in the world it's like it's a ways to be quiet about your feelings just to say it we want to hear what you think if we end up replicating the current system on top of decentralized technologies I'm not gonna be terribly disappointed because that's what I expect but what I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do is find the incentive system that does not lead to that but I think the default thing that we're doing in this community just trying to build decentralized protocols and hope it works oh I don't believe in that thank you thank you for sharing I I think the risk is dehumanizing it right it's a it's too much technology thank you I have a fan I think you have a lot of fans it's a it's not about technology it's really about mindset and and I think that that's probably one of the biggest risk I am definitely with Ann and the whole privacy and I think but you know because we see that risk right now I think it's a great time to start looking at things in the way that we could change that right and if you want to speak to that any kind of particular mitigation that you're focused on or that you think people would actually notice because I'm leaving and I shared this already in a meet-up I am based in Switzerland and in the canton where I live they want to change the constitution so that we will include in the constitution digital integrity which is really what Snowden has been talking about and how everything that happens right now where is collecting data from us will be criminal will be actually an act of crime and therefore you know we are aware and this is like countries like Switzerland are actually taking steps on it so I believe that at least we are making that you know we're raising their awareness and we can do something about it but the humanizing overall I think is the biggest risk phenomenal I'm gonna just add to this question as we go down because I think the mitigation arenas you mentioned government when I think of the internet and what we could have done sure it could have been making it illegal to mine our data in a particular way or have the ad model that was created at Google or it could be a business concept it could be like a design framework like human centered design right there's different mitigations that could be internal to the business community it could be technological mitigation it could be government regulation there's a lot of different it could be social so just if there's any mitigation strategies that you guys are thinking of or starting to think of I'd love to hear those so I think an interesting thing that I've always been fascinated with in just the work that I've done is we have asked societies and individuals operating in society we've kind of been loved into this non active participation right things are decided there's nothing I can do there are no means for me to get involved this is just the way it is so unlearning that or creating the frameworks that people can then tap into to actively participate in things and get value for their participation and rewarded for the participation really is about this whole thing that we don't just switch things that we have a full revolution but people actually go holy [ __ ] this is something that I can now participate in and a very simple example is this thing that we just get paid for this one very specific set of skills that a job is decides that that is the only thing that is worthy to you know get paid for when in fact we're 360 degree humans we participate in things we do things we have interest we have passions we have a lot of things to share and we should get rewarded for all of that and that's what I mean by the flows and potentially the flow of of resource and potentially that is the way we make sure we don't repeat the same thing blindly where we all just follow and things happen here we have no idea very paradigmatic shifts Kevin I wanted to get to you about hope before we open up to the audience for questions but if you want to touch on this subject as well go go for it yeah so I think that we're in a tough spot right now and I I think that you know it didn't sort of like staring into the pit of my existential dread a little bit over the last year or two with Simona and and have sort of like worked out that I think that we're in this spot well by the way the the stakes are high for me like I have two kids now and you know I look at them and I think what's the world gonna look like in 2040 when and when they're my age and oh wait I'm not good at math but but but the point is that we're in this like sort of uncanny valley where we're starting to all lose faith in our industrial age institutions ability to coordinate human activity we're moving from a world that's based around the nation-state to a global a global sort of economic political system and we're in this transition between the Industrial Age and the information age and I'm so tired of trying to support public goods by arguing with people about whether or not taxation is theft and I'd rather create new information age institutions that can solve these problems in a way that's native to the internet and native to the 21st century instead of trying to cludes together and another [ __ ] spit ball and duct tape system that's its uses PayPal or it uses an industrial age age mechanism and aetherium for me is a shelling point for the hopeful it's a gathering point where we can design these these institutions together and I think that that's what gives me a new hope for open-source sustainability and for my kid and for that we can build a better world Thank You anyone else want to speak to hope before I ask the audience yeah so I totally agree with that like I feel like right now we're in a moment where it's kind of fashionable to be pessimistic like there's a lot of doom and gloom and the more you analyze the doom and gloom the cooler you are and I like being cool but I can't do it because I'm optimistic like any time people want to bet against humanity I'm gonna take the other side of that bet every single time it's especially like weekend's like this when I talk to people like you and I knowing that there's so many people working to try to find the solutions to the problems that we have like I'm not worried y'all shouldn't be worried either because we have each other and it's gonna be great awesome but you're still allowed to ask a question about the dangers because I'm all about the dangers so raise your hand and actually can we give someone a mic and they can bring it we don't have any okay just speak up Nick yes in the front I know you so I can con you we really want to hear your voice not just our own I promise go ahead so I like what you're saying about like not betting against humanity and so I like what you're saying about not betting against humanity and I understand that that is like a position that we pretty much should all take as we go forward to achieve that like Star Trek style future where we're all interested in science and an exploration but some of the things that I've come across that I I'm sure you guys have seen similar patterns has been like beggin against humanity is not what any of us are really doing when the cynicism happens we're not paying against humanity we're actually we're still betting on humanity that there are people who are going to you know use that other side that not optimistic side to extract value from communities and stuff so I guess where I'm coming from is what you are kind of talking about designing these systems how do we how do we bring out the best side of humanity when we're deciding systems because we talk about making money as great capitalism is is great but and we also want to be ethical that's a really hard thing to do when you have one part of great I think yeah people ready to answer that it's a complex question but go for it and as a start most people want to do the right thing like if you think about television in the early days we were all watching on these screens and people wanted to watch TV when they wanted to watch it and so they started pirating everything I save a and so they could watch the shows when they want and but the thing was a lot of people would be willing to pay for that service if it was available they just needed the tool to do it and that's Netflix came around was very successful etcetera etcetera so I think if we can ensure that the right tools are available and usable for ordinary citizens I think most people will make the right choice I feel like your question though is about the oppositional forces that are not really interested in the good of all sea crabs or go ahead Kevin if you just read a book by NC stickler called this could be our future and it introduces this idea of bento ism which it talks about the incentive structure of why people make decisions and the I'll save you guys the 200 pages of the book the the basic TL DR is that we are all optimizing for now me how can I increase the position of now me and then but if you look at it if you take that now me and you make it into future me and then you also make it into now us in future us so you've got four things you're optimizing for now us we're sorry now me now us future me future us and you optimize for those things I think that you know that's that's sort of like the the optimization game that we want to build into things and like the problem comes when I don't think it's as simple with all due respect to like making the right choice like I think that sometimes you make a decision that is optimal for now me and and you're shorting now us or future us by doing that and we just have to build a way to price in those those negative externalities by making everyone responsible for for the US portion of things and I think the way you do that like the Niki case has this amazing game about how you build trust in an online community and it's basically you create a community where there's those win-wins available where there is repeat interactions so like the same reason you'll flick someone off in traffic but like you won't do it here at East Enders cuz you'll see them again and then there's low miscommunication in the system and like you know from first principles that sounds a lot like a local community to me so I want to take what's working in a local community and scale it up to to globalism great sure real quick and then the real audience come in as an example of that just something very practical and I was doing the some work on a project with the WWF we were trying to get this off the ground how do you incentivize hunters we were working in Romania how do you incentivize hunters to not hunt and kill but to track the populations of bison in the Carpathians how do you change a behavior that is negative to that so what we were devising was a system of micro incentives for the individuals and then a bigger incentive for the community at set intervals and doing that for a longer period of time so that you have long term behavior shift and again you have the me and us I can see that my action benefits not just me but it benefits my community and also I would say that just against it and it's the fact that we work on interest and the monetary system works on interest its short-term vision it is the long-term vision replace that love it go ahead and Nick I know I was trying to get to you first go ahead hey guys uh it's a two-part question one is just like current state versus future state I think from a social and cultural standpoint from last year to this year it seems like you know what's different what's changed from lock change with impact as kind of a buzzword a philosophical an academic and then really let's just end there Nick let's just so we make sure you get it in so how has the conversation on social impact and you you guys have been in this conversation for years what was different last year from this year are we having the same damn conversation or is something shifting defy we're cutting out the banks and there's a billion dollars in detail I think we have some really valid use cases out there that are demonstrating that we can use the technology for good so I think from a year I we have advanced on that side the use case validations are clear we have the killer app for me is that cryptocurrency whatever that currency is and being able to exchange that value so that is a killer app and and it has proven to be part of many of the models that we are building right now so it hasn't gone as fast as we want it and the adoption has been really slow so those are the kind of downside to that on the negative side not to be a debbie downer like their their trends and I think you can see even in the etherium community that reminds me a lot of what happened to the Bitcoin community over time where over time people throw out their values for whatever makes the number go up and I think we're at a real risk of just you know finding some sort of cause that makes the number go up and during all our efforts into that and forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place there's a good Vitalik butyrin quote that I like to quote it's changed the incentives change the world and if we haven't changed the incentives then we're just gonna repeat everything over and over again till the end of time great other questions from the back from the side one more question so in this world we see a lot of if you know the quote from Mussolini we know that leads to passage one thing I've seen in the arteries here is what are the steps that we can technologically today that we can learn to hug our neighbor that is vastly different than intimacy how do we incentivize intimacy connection whatever you want to take it so I think again this oh my god this is so much louder so I think this whole being able to reward people and get people into this dynamic of every contribution matters or there is a level of connection that not only intensifies our human connections now that we're becoming more and more decentralized more and more widespread like who everybody communicates over text maybe some zoom calls whatever to get back to that definition of community and being helpful to each other and being able to exist by doing that is again a redefinition of incentives how resources flow having potentially community tokens that run in parallel with the national currencies and and so on really again play with those dynamics that that connect us through that and maybe that is the new type of digital community thank you seminary of Grayson and I just wanted to add that this is very related to kind of the the collective impact and collisions for good we need to have common goals and that's what will unite us to a common goal and get together there and I think that's probably how I would try to reach out to my net to my neighbor right find something that we can both achieve together thank you and I think you know the digital communities are great but we do need to come out behind our anonymous Twitter avatars and you know meet each other and recognize that yeah your neighbor is a good human that you just didn't know them before and and there's some blockchain projects that aren't doing that I mean there's funds out of Toronto is incentivizing community engagement and community building and I think there's many others and I think that's just something we need to keep at the core and at the heart of everything that we built I mean um is anyone on the panel feel like they didn't get to share something that they really wanted the audience to hear or a question they wanted to offer I want to add and another response of the question you asked about like how there are people who are actively trying to extract value from people from communities etc that that's gonna keep happening like my optimism doesn't come from a sense that people are gonna suddenly become good and stop trying to extract value from people my optimism comes from ideas like Simona's where it's about changing literally the currency that people use to cooperate with one another it's it's not about convincing people to be good it's about the fact that we have new tools to create new systems by which we organize and if we can find a way where it doesn't make sense for people to extract anymore that's where my hope comes from now that's not guaranteed that that might not exist but that's where my hope comes from and if it doesn't pan out then we'll just repeat what we already beautiful thing about justice as the Jews have said and we'll end here it's something you pursue it's not ever something you arrive at they say justice justice justice till you seek and that's kind of what we're doing we're being conscious of what we're actually feeling and thinking how we're interacting with people and we're seeking justice I don't think justice is a place we arrive I think it's something we're constantly pursuing so thank you all for pursuing this conversation and for joining us and meet with all of them after they all have wonderful projects they'd love to share with you as well thank you sure [Music] you