To Be Governed by the Blockchain

Clearly our governments in both the West and the East can no longer govern. Their methods, debates, tools and tactics are backwards – from the American Congress – to the EU – the post-Arab Spring Middle East, autocratic Russia and China, and the list goes on. But what if this was a good thing?

In Fracis Fukuyama’s now era-defining book The End of History and the Last Man he explains in a rather common sense way how our different forms of government came about because of particular interest groups—democracy being one possible outcome of a rising bourgeoisie who wanted to preserve their property via the rule of law.

Now, the methods of democracy—enticing political speech, the secret paper ballot, representative government are all totally deprecated in one way or another being held in place by a rapidly aging population born in the 1950s and before.

We have the means—now—to create peer-to-peer networks where we can vote on everything—create consensus—and, through the Blockchain ensure the rigorous recording of all votes and transactions to combat corruption in all spheres of political economy.

I was involved in the last Canadian federal elections on the IT side (as I write this they are going to the polls on September 20th, 2021), and could not believe how totally bankrupt the process is: not one word about actual issues—debating endlessly in email threads about one silly tweet.

Is this what we pay our representatives for? We should, in fact, probably get rid of most career politicians completely and have the non-professional citizenry participate and steer a lot of these decision-making functions using new technology – all governed by peer-to-peer Blockchain-like technology.

These are not anarchist or libertarian ideas but simply the inevitable evolution of what is now eminently possible: and that, which I said in the preface, can be a good thing.