Re: [NetBehaviour] Blockchain & Bureaucracy

2016-07-24 Thread Rob Myers 
On 23/07/16 07:21 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
> On 22/07/16 23:26, Rob Myers wrote:
>>  
>> Yes there's a gulf between the world-changing rhetoric and the
>> money-grubbing behaviour that is sadly familiar from past developments
>> in tech.
> WOW that's a thought!
> When I remember the utopian verve with which I embraced the early
> development of the WWW...

Yes. I think that the comparison to the early web is pretty much perfect.

The difference being that more people at least played critically with
the web.

> I had thought that the skepticism that Blockchain arouses within me was
> to do with the fact that it converts every exchange into a transaction
> as part of a global market. But you are probably correct- this is pretty
> much business as usual.

Under neoliberalism, every exchange is a transaction in the global
market, Bitcoin just reifies that.

Discuss. ;-)

I have some lovely little Bitcoin badges that say "Free The Markets,
Free The World." I think people genuinely believe that. But as Nick Land
says, the idea of an "individual" in those markets in Bitcoin is the
same as in classical economic liberalism. You are an individual, and so
am I, and so is any corporation that has a Bitcoin address...

>> Possibly a cognitively necessary one.
> What, really, why?

Oh for the people working on writing systems for banks while talking
about freeing society from third party intermediaries. :-)

>> What's new this time around is the full-stack entitlement to passive
>> income and return-on-investment.
>>  
> Yes!

And it feeds into the scams. Oh, the scams. We need to hold a seance to
summon the ghost of Charles Mackay, as it's a shame they missed this.

http://altcoins.com/scamcoins

>> "Financial inclusion" is a strong driver in conventional
>> cryptocurrency - won't someone think of the unbanked?
>>  
> Brett Scott wrote about this here http://www.unrisd.org/brett-scott

Oh I must read that. So many whitepapers, so little time. :-)

There's a digital humanities project to be had in the study of the
language, rhetoric and imaginary of cryptocurrency whitepapers...

>> Recuperation is the fate of any technology under capitalism. What's
>> extraordinary about this particular technology is that it turns so
>> many of its critics into technological determinists.
> I think that this is a function of its inaccessibility too.

Yes that's a very good point.

> Unlike the
> early WWW we (the mass of amateur experimental tech adventurers- of many
> ages and values) can't so easily get our hands on the code. In the early
> 90s I could take a piece of simple html, upload it to a computer and
> then share it around the world we can't mess with BC software in the
> same way...

I simply hadn't considered it in these terms (although I have often made
this comparison for inaccessible *web* technologies). o_O

> OR CAN WE?!
> 
> Rob- perhaps you know of some cut-and-paste DIY resources that we could
> play with together.

Hmm I'm not sure what a good mapping from HTML to the Blockchain is.

Here's the wrong answer to hopefully inspire an objection that can lead
to the right one :-) :

Things Everyone Can Just Do
---

Get a wallet, e.g. -

https://www.bitgo.com/wallet

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet=en

https://itunes.apple.com/app/breadwallet/id885251393

Accept Bitcoin:

http://gary-rowe.com/agilestack/2012/01/09/how-to-accept-bitcoins-on-your-blog-with-no-code/


Get Familiar With How Things Work
-

Watch transactions and blocks in real time and analyse them:

https://blockchain.info/

Play with various Bitcoin features in the browser (addresses, units, etc.):

https://bitcore.io/playground/


Learning the Coding Side


Play with generating Bitcoin wallets of various kinds in the browser:

https://www.bitaddress.org/

Play with Bitcoin transaction scripts in the browser:

http://www.crmarsh.com/script-playground/

Play with Ethereum contracts in the browser:

https://ethereum.github.io/browser-solidity

Learn how to set up automatic Bitcoin charge/payment systems with 21
(possibly the most interesting but most complex of these):

https://21.co/learn/intro-to-21/


- Rob.




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Re: [NetBehaviour] Blockchain & Bureaucracy

2016-07-23 Thread ruth catlow 

On 22/07/16 23:26, Rob Myers wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jul 2016, at 08:28 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
Another informative blog here from Max. 
http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/2016/07/12/%C2%ADblockchain-bureaucracy/ 

It certainly reflects many of my encounters with blockchain-engaged 
types in London so far.
It's hard to overstate the extremities and contradictions that we've 
encountered in this area
Yes there's a gulf between the world-changing rhetoric and the 
money-grubbing behaviour that is sadly familiar from past developments 
in tech.

WOW that's a thought!
When I remember the utopian verve with which I embraced the early 
development of the WWW...


I had thought that the skepticism that Blockchain arouses within me was 
to do with the fact that it converts every exchange into a transaction 
as part of a global market. But you are probably correct- this is pretty 
much business as usual.

Possibly a cognitively necessary one.

What, really, why?
What's new this time around is the full-stack entitlement to passive 
income and return-on-investment.

Yes!

The threat of this
"The inability to imagine alternative use cases for p2p distributed 
networks to enable greater financial inclusion, citizen empowerment 
or civil organization will lead to the inevitable commercialization 
and privatization of blockchain, and bankers will fondly remember 
Bitcoin as the greatest gift the hackers ever made."


is a strong motivation for Furtherfield's work in this territory.
"Financial inclusion" is a strong driver in conventional 
cryptocurrency - won't someone think of the unbanked?

Brett Scott wrote about this here http://www.unrisd.org/brett-scott
Recuperation is the fate of any technology under capitalism. What's 
extraordinary about this particular technology is that it turns so 
many of its critics into technological determinists.
I think that this is a function of its inaccessibility too. Unlike the 
early WWW we (the mass of amateur experimental tech adventurers- of many 
ages and values) can't so easily get our hands on the code. In the early 
90s I could take a piece of simple html, upload it to a computer and 
then share it around the world we can't mess with BC software in the 
same way...


OR CAN WE?!

Rob- perhaps you know of some cut-and-paste DIY resources that we could 
play with together.


cheers!

Ruth


That's fortunately not the case here.



- Rob.


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Re: [NetBehaviour] Blockchain & Bureaucracy

2016-07-22 Thread Rob Myers 
On Fri, 22 Jul 2016, at 08:28 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
> Another informative blog here from Max.
> http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/2016/07/12/%C2%ADblockchain-bureaucracy/
>
>  It certainly reflects many of my encounters with blockchain-engaged
>  types in London so far.
>  It's hard to overstate the extremities and contradictions that we've
>  encountered in this area
 
Yes there's a gulf between the world-changing rhetoric and the money-
grubbing behaviour that is sadly familiar from past developments in
tech. Possibly a cognitively necessary one. What's new this time around
is the full-stack entitlement to passive income and return-on-
investment.
 
>
>  The threat of this
> "The inability to imagine alternative use cases for p2p distributed
> networks to enable greater financial inclusion, citizen empowerment or
> civil organization will lead to the inevitable commercialization and
> privatization of blockchain, and bankers will fondly remember Bitcoin
> as the greatest gift the hackers ever made."
>
> is a strong motivation for Furtherfield's work in this territory.
 
"Financial inclusion" is a strong driver in conventional cryptocurrency
- won't someone think of the unbanked?
 
Recuperation is the fate of any technology under capitalism. What's
extraordinary about this particular technology is that it turns so many
of its critics into technological determinists. That's fortunately not
the case here.
 
- Rob.
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Blockchain & Bureaucracy

2016-07-22 Thread ruth catlow 
Another informative blog here from Max. 
http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/2016/07/12/%C2%ADblockchain-bureaucracy/ 



It certainly reflects many of my encounters with blockchain-engaged 
types in London so far.
It's hard to overstate the extremities and contradictions that we've 
encountered in this area


The threat of this
"The inability to imagine alternative use cases for p2p distributed 
networks to enable greater financial inclusion, citizen empowerment or 
civil organization will lead to the inevitable commercialization and 
privatization of blockchain, and bankers will fondly remember Bitcoin as 
the greatest gift the hackers ever made."


is a strong motivation for Furtherfield's work in this territory.

Look out for our upcoming Paper DAO workshops for artists and upstarts- 
planned for the autumn


And our open call for submissions to a new book Artists Re:thinking the 
Blockchain. (Deadline 1st October)

http://furtherfield.org/programmes/event/open-call-artists-rethinking-blockchain

Thanks Max!

Cheers
Ruth

On 13/07/16 14:41, Max Dovey wrote:
///The inability to imagine alternative use cases for p2p distributed 
networks to enable greater financial inclusion, citizen empowerment or 
civil organization will lead to the inevitable commercialization and 
privatization of blockchain and bankers will fondly remember Bitcoin 
as the greatest gift the hackers ever made.


/http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/2016/07/12/%C2%ADblockchain-bureaucracy/ 



Report from ‘blockchain for social good 
‘ 
workshop at European Commission in June 2016/

/
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 | 2 - 4 September 2016
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12 September 2016


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--
Co-founder Co-director
Furtherfield

www.furtherfield.org

+44 (0) 77370 02879

Unicorn hunter

Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i

Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & 
debates

around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997

Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, 
Tally Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
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