Hermeneutics, as a philosophy of interpretation, offers a powerful lens through which we can examine the interplay of ideas, values, and practices within the Cardano community. It invites us to explore how we interpret and make meaning of the technologies, governance structures, and social dynamics at play.
Complex ideas are the bedrock of innovation. Writing about these ideas provides a unique opportunity to deconstruct and understand them, breaking down abstract concepts into manageable parts. This process encourages critical thinking and clarity, which are vital for progress.
The act of writing about complex ideas forces us to articulate our thoughts clearly, often revealing new perspectives and fostering a culture of continuous learning. This intellectual engagement not only enriches individual understanding but also collectively drives the community forward, ensuring that Cardano remains at the forefront of blockchain innovation.
Lets talk Civics. What are civics anyway? As we can see colloquial definition depends on the concept of a citizen:
We believe this is due “pro-social behavior” and “merit” being a type and a token at the same time, a hyperobject, an aspect of The Real - the domain of reality that resists symbolization by definition.
It makes sense try and re-imagine the narrative through the perspectives of different stakeholders, does it not?
How do you self-identify as a stakeholder?
What do you see as pro-social behavior?
What rights stand out as important, inaccessible or desired?
What duties stand out as most annoying, hard to get done, least valuable?
As a Morton’s hyperobject, merit could be seen as a complex, distributed, and interconnected system that transcends individual entities, exerting a profound influence on social and cultural dynamics, yet remaining elusive and difficult to fully grasp. In a Lacanian framework, merit might be viewed as a manifestation of The Real, an unrepresentable and unsymbolizable aspect of reality that disrupts the symbolic order, revealing the inherent contradictions and ambiguities of our value systems and the ways in which they shape our relationships and perceptions. The concept of Typ-Ken, with its undifferentiated amalgam of type and token, could offer a new lens through which to examine merit, suggesting that its meaning and significance are constantly negotiated and reconfigured through the interplay between abstract, universal principles (type) and particular, contextualized instances (token), ultimately revealing the intricate, self-referential dynamics that underlie our understanding of merit.
Gunji et al., “Typ-Ken (an Amalgam of Type and Token) Drives Infosphere.”
I read Morton’s book a couple years ago and I must admit I had a hard time grasping its full significance and implications. While the idea of an hyperobject as something transcending the usual category of objectivity due to its size, multiple dimensions, “viscosity”, etc. is somewhat intuitively meaningful, I found the concept of “system” as introduced by eg. Donella Meadows and others, and the “System Thinking” approach to match better my intuition and experience.
In this series I emphasize terms that come from philosophy rather than science to highlight metaphysical aspects of a blockchain ecosystem, which I believe are underrepresented in the infospace.
“Systems” is the approach that from my perspective comes from Dynamical Systems and Chaos which were developed in the works of Mandelbrot, Lorenz and others. The other way people usually describe it is “holistic” as opposed to “reductionist”;
In discussion of civics, in particular in context of Cardano, we over rely on hard science and this in itself introduces biases in our thinking. For example I’d argue crypto maxis do not discuss technological detemenism, the belief in technology as a key governing force in society. Now I do not argue for truth value of that statement: technology indeed looks like a governing force; I just want to emphasize that it’s not the only one.
While I agree Systemics is linked to Chaos theory and related mathematical works, I think Systems thinking go over and beyond the mathematical and “hard science” framework to provide some “tools” to think about complexity, reinforcement loops, homeostasis, evolution, etc.
From a systems thinking perspective, merit is not solely an individual trait, but rather an emergent property of complex systems, where the interactions and feedback loops between individuals, institutions, and societal structures give rise to opportunities for growth and development. The “Origins of Wealth” theory suggests that merit is fostered in systems that allow for differentiation, selection, and amplification of innovative ideas and behaviors, while the “Why Nations Fail” argument implies that merit is more likely to thrive in nations with inclusive institutions that provide equal access to education, resources, and opportunities. Ultimately, a systems thinking approach reveals that merit is not just a product of individual talent or effort, but also of the systemic conditions that enable or constrain the realization of human potential, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between individual agency and structural factors.
I am confused why you are confused by a term that you just introduced. It is not found in the text above.
And here again, the term “merit” doesn’t appear in the answer of the mechanical bullshitter (which, by the way, to me seems like a very shallow collection of toxic positivity).
Coming back to the original question of what is “civics” – what are the rights and duties of “citizens”, the first important question is what a cryptocurrency ecosystem, what Cardano even is. To me, it is just a technological and financial tool – something akin to and in between e-mail, the blogosphere of the 2010s, or SEPA maybe, not something that should strive to be a “society” in an allegedly deeper sense.
It won’t solve the problems of the world, it can just manage assets (and to a very limited extent metadata). It might well fail completely and descent into irrelevance either together with the whole cryptocurrency space including Bitcoin or as one of the projects that didn’t make it, while others still might. And that’s kind of okay if you think of it as a tool.
In this light, the rights and duties are rather mundane and limited at first: just develop and maintain this tool – in a rather neutral/agnostic way – to facilitate diverse applications on top of it that might be successful or not, might make sense or not.
These applications might also be malicious and the assessment if they are might differ based on the values of the observer. The continuum between failed projects and rug pulls, between the typical overpromising marketing and outright lies is too often rather blurred.
But, given that this is also a financial tool and some people invest considerable shares of their belongings into this, some ethical considerations come into play: “the ecosystem”, people onboarding to it, have an obligation to honestly warn and educate about the risks of cryptocurrency, Cardano, and the projects building on Cardano … a lot … time and again.
I hold a moderately small amount of ADA and some underperforming native tokens. And I invested (too) much time in thinking about and understanding the technology of Cardano (and sometimes its societal implications – especially, but not exclusively in situations where crypto communities are weaponised for partisan politics, cf. the ideological indoctrination YouTube sessions by Supreme Leader Hoskinson).
So, I hope that I can, at some point, sell those ADA for a moderate profit, but not if it means to sacrifice honesty. If considering the future development, it deserves to crash and burn and the only way to exit would be telling people shilling lies, then it should rather crash and burn (and I would advise every “citizen” to plan for that scenario – developers and other employees demand proper payment in fiat and acquire skills and qualifications that are useful outside of crypto, users only invest what you are fully okay losing completely).
I think I would outright reject the idea that “pro-social behaviour”, especially in the sense that the A“I” fleshed out above, is a worthwhile goal for the ecosystem as a whole. A basic infrastructure such as a cryptocurrency ecosystem has to work with and for a diverse population who do not necessarily like, trust, or respect each other. As far as I understand it, that was even one of the founding ideas of cryptocurrencies exemplified in slogans like “Don’t trust! Verify!”, “Code is law!”, … Still not clear how far these ideas really carry and how far they are just pipe dreams. Solving human problems with technology is often futile. But providing an infrastructure with a very limited purpose can work.
Important goals for the basic ecosystem that are at the same time rights (that other people pursue them) and duties (that we also have to pursue them) for me would (as already hinted at above) be neutrality and honesty.
Neutrality: The ecosystem has to stay as permissionless as possible. Funding of the treasury should only be used for basic infrastructure – nodes, libraries, wallet apps – for which there is a need to be as freely available as possible. Individual projects and their marketing should not be financed from the treasury and not be shilled by entities perceived as “officially” talking for Cardano as a whole.
Honesty: The abilities and limits of the ecosystem always have to be clearly and transparently communicated. Future developments should not be oversold on when they will be available and what they will be able to achieve. We cannot prohibit (because permissionlessness) individual projects to play this ridiculous crypto game of promising a world revolution for every small and questionable achievement, but it should not be done by entities and persons representing the whole ecosystem and should not be financed by our treasury ADA.
Thanks! What I like to point out is that the article mentions luck and network effects as sources of merit, somewhere in my notes it says "merit represents a barrier to entry, the answer to the question “why is Alice successful in OSS project X and Bob is not?”
what if Cardano is a Digital Public Good?
To me Cardano is an technological impact network, people who want to make the world a better place with crypto and see Cardano as the best crypto for their goal.
While the engineering mindset is essential for building a solid technological foundation, a user-centric approach is crucial for creating a tool that truly adds value to people’s lives. This approach is characteristic of a neutral or agnostic mindset, where the emphasis is on ensuring the technical viability and flexibility of the tool, rather than on the potential social, economic, or cultural impact it may have.
The assumption is that the tool will be used in various ways, some of which may be beneficial, while others may not, but the responsibility of the developers is to provide a reliable and functional technology, rather than to dictate how it should be used.
Civics are about incentivising pro-social behaviors!
