“The Internet can move almost any financial instrument as easily as it moves texts and emails. We just need consensus on how this should happen.” — Cade Metz, “The Plan to Unite Bitcoin With All Other Online Currencies”
Of course, needing consensus is a huge obstacle. Arguably, needing consensus is civilization’s defining problem. Complete agreement isn’t necessary, but you need enough to stave off revolution. A sufficiently powerful autocrat can obviate the need for consensus, but only for a limited amount of time — decades, perhaps, but not even a half-century. True cultural shifts depend on majority opinion, and they inch forward like glaciers: slow but unstoppable. The United States wouldn’t have women’s suffrage or civil rights without something approaching mass consensus.
Artwork by Christopher Dombres.
The other day I chatted with Samio Quijote about internalized capitalism. For example: if I’m not “productive”, I feel worthless. Economic systems reinforce particular values, which is not bad — it just is. A type of societal consensus emerges from capitalism, or at least it’s an effect of the market. Without a sort of consensus surrounding supply-demand dynamics, there are no prices and commerce must cease. Seeking decentralized consensus, not dependent on explicit agreement but on behavior incentivized by a certain system, is easy. You just set up conditions and see how people react.
