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Michael J. Casey is Chair of the CoinDesk Advisory Board and Senior Consultant for blockchain research at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.
Let's talk about bitcoin, toxicity and inclusion.
(Boy, my Twitter feed is going to be fun in the next few days.)
To begin, let me take a stand: I stand beside these people, especially women, who have recently been denouncing the abuse of members of the Bitcoin community and cite gross and abusive behavior as evidence of the lack of inclusion of this community. These are people who believe in the potential of cryptocurrency technology, but who are discouraged to believe that they belong to the dominant male-white subculture of the community. For this technology to fulfill its global potential, the community associated with it must face this problem.
But the real purpose of this article is not to defend these critics. This is to dispel one of the most common positions adopted by those who dispute their complaints, especially on Twitter. In doing so, I hope to point out how much the concepts of "community" and "culture" are important for the sound development of cryptographic technology and the ecosystem that grows around it.
Hammer culture?
The line that comes up most often on those who call incivilities is that bitcoin is nothing more than a technology, a tool and that it makes no sense to attach value judgments to human behavior. Bitcoin is amoral, apolitical and cultural, argue it and, like any technology, it is used by the good and the bad.
These experts, warning that freedom of expression is threatened by a correct political decision, will then advise the aggrieved party to complain directly to the wrong actors, but to refrain from campaigning for a change in the law. Community scale.
A perfect example of this kind came from the lawyer Frank Preston Byrne.
Smart, yes. But this is extremely useless because the examples given do not share the same terms of reference.
Byrne's "hammer" refers only to steel tools used by traders. On the other hand, people who complain about "bitcoin" clearly use the word in a much broader context than in a simple reference to the code, the ones and zeros that make up the bitcoin protocol. They speak intrinsically about the ecosystem and the community at large, gathered around the idea of bitcoin.
So, let's equalize the terms, are we going? We can turn each of these names into a modifier of the word "community".
Talking about a "community of hammers" may sound silly, but there may also be groups of hammer-obsessed souls who discuss design issues and ease of use during meetings and meetings. online discussions. If that's the case, I guess that community would probably be male-dominated as well.
But the real problem is that such a community of hammers will be much less important for the future design and evolution of hammer technology than the Bitcoin community. I am not an expert, but I do not see many changes in hammer technology over the centuries and I am not sure that people expect much in the future. As such, we do not see many disadvantages among users to ensure that hammer upgrade proposals are implemented and standardized according to their preferred design.
On the other hand, the open-source technology of Bitcoin is constantly evolving. It is, by definition, under development, which is why we are talking about the engineers who work there as "developers", not "gatekeepers". As such, there is a constant battle of interests over who can change the code. Exhibit A: The debate on block size.
Counteract the fact that those who do not like the process can simply insert the code, as did the big blockers, and create their own community, do not let me. Bitcoin is the brand that matters. Any newcomer will have trouble getting the same network effects. Secession is simply not viable for those who love its current design but do not like the way its future is defined.
In addition, is there a "hammer ecosystem?" Maybe. But beyond the producers of nails and perhaps steel, rubber or wood, it is difficult to speak of a complex ecosystem.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, claims to reinvent the global monetary system, has attracted a wide range of technology providers, all with different interests in how they are designed, managed and marketed. I'm not just talking about enterprise applications built on this product, but also developers of encryption systems, payment channels, smart contracts, and other vitally important technologies, which are themselves constant evolution.
(I guess the hammer convention showrooms do not have the same offer as cryptocurrency events such as Consensus.)
To say that Bitcoin is just a tool is like saying that music is nothing more than a system for controlling different sound tones.
Money = community
When Paul Vigna and I wrote The Age of Cryptourrency, we spent a lot of time outlining the emergence of the community around bitcoin, which we thought was fundamental to its success. We were struck by the fact that the concept of bitcoin community was so important – the word "c" was always conveyed – because bitcoin embodied a deep and radical social idea. He proposed nothing less than a reinvention of money, a revolution in the whole system of coordinating exchanges of human values.
Money only works to the extent that there is a widespread belief in it, that people adhere to its fundamental myth. Money, says Felix Martin, is a social technology, which means that its functionality and user-friendliness depend much less on the physical qualities of the token that represents it than the collective agreement among the large communities of people that their tokens capture, represent and communicate a transferable value. That's right, whether it's gold, dollar bills, bank account entries or cryptocurrency.
By extension, therefore, for any form of money to succeed, it is necessary to maintain a dynamic and growing community.
Communities = culture
The problem of communities is that they inevitably develop cultures. By defining their membership boundaries themselves, they develop shared ways of seeing and language – which seems like a sort of social protocol – that regulates (in a very unofficial and somewhat unconscious way) the behavior of their members.
As they evolve, cultures can become more or less open, more or less inclusive, more or less abrasive in their treatment of foreigners. And inevitably, these cultural characteristics will encourage or hinder the growth of the community.
All this should hardly be a revelation. Anthropology, the study of culture, is a widespread and influential field (an area that is now turning appropriately towards cryptocurrency communities).
Studies of American culture, from Alexis de Tocqueville to now, have rightly emphasized the inclusive nature of the founding fathers' ideas as an essential engine of its economic expansion. In fact, American culture is undoubtedly the most important ingredient of its success, a social manifestation of Joseph Nye's notion of the "soft power" of the United States.
So, yes, bitcoin culture really matters, really. If the compelling ideas behind exchanging without permission, peer-to-peer exchanges and censorship-resistant money that attract people of all stripes are designed to keep the interest of those people and gain influence, the Bitcoin community must develop a more inclusive culture.
The only way to do this is to spark the kind of open debate that has always guided the progress of human culture – those that have changed the norms and customs to the point that it has become unacceptable to own slaves, spit in public or jump tail.
So, listen, bitcoin. It's time to confront your toxicity.
Image of dangerous battery via Shutterstock
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