Ethereum update: Anyone else think about how much these decentralized technologies could change the world? A movement where people become their own banks – distributing power from the corporations back to the people. That is why I fell in love with this space. For what it has the chance to become……
I am at the airport waiting for my plane, and I just wanted to write up a little something. Reasons on why I love this space. A personal writing for me. And maybe you will agree with some of it, and maybe not. I just wanted to write it because I love this community and sometimes it’s important to look at the end result of where we are trying to go with all of this.
What I love about this community is that it is inclusive. And not only that, but it is comprised of people who really just want to make the world a better place. And I credit Vitalik a lot for creating that kind of culture. We really do not see that with any other project going on at the moment. Not to this extent. But let’s go deeper…
The more I began to immerse myself with these decentralized technologies, the more I realized just how (much I don’t actually know). But also, after a while, just how revolutionary this whole “movement” could become. And perhaps even just as important. How resilient this technology is.
We live in a society where we know corruption is present, but because it’s expected and we think there is nothing we can do to change it – we accept it. Sometimes there are mini fireworks of action (i.e. the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal). But every time, the storm passes and the sea settles down and things go back to the status quo. Why? Because we feel as though there is truly nothing we can really do to change it.
When countries control the money supply, they control everything. This is how they have control of us. Whether we want to believe that or not. And that trickles down.
That trickles down to the banks. These are places that get money from the Central Banks and lend it to us with interest rates. These are places where we keep our money. No one trusts the banks – but we subside to them because we feel we have no other choice. No one trusts the banks, yet we keep our money with them because we are told to trust them. And we are told that recessions like the one in 2008 are due to economic cycles – and not the greed of these banks. “We can’t let these banks go under. It would be detrimental to the economy.” And that is true. But that does not make it right. We are told to trust banks, but they do not look out for our interests and they were the ones that destroyed our economy in 2008, and it will happen again. Yet time after time, it is the people that bail them out. Why? Because we feel as though we have no other choice.
This trickles down even more. Us citizens do not trust Facebook. Nor do we trust Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat, Bank of America, JPMorgan, etc. We do not trust these companies, but we use them because we feel as though we have no other choice. And for the most part, that is true. But that does not make it right.
We live in a society where if you care deeply about privacy you are considered crazy and a kook. A conspiracy theorist.
We live in a society where people think places like the United States and the United Kingdom are somehow more democratic than a country like Russia. More transparent and open. Yet, our country wants to put people like Edward Snowden in jail for life. And the same for Julian Assange. All for giving us people the tools to learn the truth. A truth to things we felt inside us all along, but now could see with our own eyes. The US and UK are no better than Russia. Nor are they more democratic. They just do a better job of hiding it.
We live in a society where we have so few options for Internet providers and phone service providers that you start to realize just how centralized it all really is. Companies that not only control our communication through the phone and internet- but through our TV as well. AT&T owns CNN. Comcast owns CNBC. Disney owns Hulu, ABC, Fox News. How in the world is this a good thing? Net neutrality was repealed last month – yet no one seemed to even know. Why? Because all of the companies lobbying for it and paying money into politics control the news stations. And when they control the news stations, they control what we see. While these stations were talking about Trump for 12 hours, net neutrality was being repealed and less than 24 hours later AT&T bought Time Warner – the biggest merger in industry history. In doing so, sucking the life dry for all possible competition in the future. And yet, no one seems to know.
We live in a society where there is becoming less and less competition. The world is becoming more and more centralized. And in the last 15-20 years or so, we have really started to see a fusion between government and big tech companies. And right now it’s at the point where the big tech companies REALLY ARE the government. The government agencies just use these companies as tools to execute their own agendas (Apple, Facebook, Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, the list could go on and on) The line between government and corporations has began to blur. We see this centralization in our economy first – and then our governments. (i.e US border/UK refugees/Germany refugees, etc.) And this problem will only get worse.
BUT THERE’S HOPE.
It is these aspects of life and society that get me so excited when thinking about cryptocurrencies and decentralized systems, like Ethereum. The more I began to learn about this technology – the more I said to myself, “holy shit, this could change everything.”
Inside of us, we have always known the fact that we do not trust the Banks, Facebook, AT&T, Amazon, Verizon, Comcast, Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. But we have always been submissive to them because we felt as though there were no other options.
Thank you Vitalik. And thank you Satoshi. And thank you to all the developers out there who are way smarter than me working on these technologies I am studying to understand. And thank you to the whole Ethereum community. People may not realize it yet. But we are changing EVERYTHING. Not only in the US – but everywhere. And it is just beginning.
I think there will come a day in the near future when there is going to be serious backlash from the agencies and corporations listed about. Facebook will realize there can live a social media just like it on a blockchain whose user’s data is kept private and not exploited and sold off to governments and ad agencies. YouTube (Google) will realize that there will be a platform just like it on a blockchain – one where ad revenue goes directly to the makers who are creating content. And those content creators won’t have to pay so much money to YouTube, or worry about their videos being demonetized.
There will come a day when musicians realize they can create music for their peers and not be subject to the fees of Spotify and Apple Music. And in turn, only being paid a small fraction of what they are making for these companies.
There will come a day when AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast will realize the same fate. That one day, there will be a blockchain based cell phone – and we will start to see the rise of mesh networks. And in these mesh networks, people will be able to use free and public WiFi. While still having full privacy of their data and have it be totally encrypted. They will be able to open up an app and go to the marketplace and buy internet access from someone else in the mesh network by the mb. And that person selling internet to them will get paid with each mb through a tethered payment channel. I will be able to send fully encrypted text messages and phone calls to my friends and family in the network. And they will be able to do the same. They will be routed and sent through the other nodes present in the mesh. And people will finally realize that they don’t NEED AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast. That it doesn’t matter if they have “nothing to hide.” Privacy is a human right, and not one subject to exploitation for corporate profit in the name of “public safety”
We will be certain in our government and democratic process. We will know for sure that the results of elections are completely fair and accurate.
We will fight corruption. Gone are the days where audits of the Central Bank are done, only to find that billions of dollars are nowhere to be accounted for, and then it all just gets swept under the rug. Gone are the days where corporations and special interest groups infiltrate our democracy with lobbying and paying to play. Gone are the days where millions of dollars are sent to developing countries in aid relief – only to find out a small fraction of it was actually spent.
There is coming a day where I think everyone will begin to realize that we DO have a choice. We will realize and create TRUE peer to peer platforms. Not fake ones like Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Uber, and Airbnb that are not really peer to peer at all. We will start to realize that we don’t need those companies to be in the middle and intermediate for “trust” purposes, only to charge fees and stash our data for exploitation. We will start to realize that we can just trust each other. Because of the technology in place embedded in all of these decentralized systems.
We will slowly distribute power from the centralized giants that control our economy, and thus control our world. We will bank ourselves, create a truly global economy, and bring power back to the people.
And it’s gonna be one hell of a ride. Thanks for reading.
About Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference.
Author: padpad-
Score: 43
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