Summary Today we discuss how smart contracts can rearrange the more default organizations that make up our world. Those who have started companies know that there is a pretty small menu of choices when it comes to setting up a new organization: for profit, non-profit, recently b-corps. Through smart contracts and DAOs we can attempt… Continue reading DAOs: DAOstack, Decentraland, SifChain, ResearchHub, VitaDAO
Summary Today we hear from Zooko Wilcox of Zcash and Howard Wu of Aleo about Zero-Knowledge Proofs, cryptographic techniques that can be (and are) employed to bring provable privacy and scalability to the many cryptocommercial and governance technologies the group has been discussing. This meeting is part of the Intelligent Cooperation Group and accompanying book… Continue reading Zero-knowledge-enabled Cooperation: Halo 2 & Aleo | Zooko Wilcox, ECC, Howard Wu, Aleo
Summary When we discuss smart contracts and their applications, it seems like we’re trying to automate all the things right away, with less focus on what the steps we can take to get there are. Over time, we will be able to develop better and better smart contracts as folks templatize and test, but we… Continue reading Split Contracts, Comp. Law & Decentralized Arbitration | Chip Morningstar, Meng Weng, Federico Ast
Summary There are many things that we all would like to see realized, but no individual has an incentive to contribute to. Assurance Contracts have a novel payoff structure. We pre-commit to take an action —such as giving x amount of $/BTC/other cryptocurrency to the longevity/journalism/open source project of our choice— if and only if… Continue reading Dominant Assurance Contracts | Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University
Summary Glen Weyl presents his ideas around Social Technology (tools and tech for cooperation and governance, that help the public to be a good public). He discusses when capitalism works, when it doesn’t, and what other methods might look like that can serve us well when existing capital systems don’t. He showcases Quadratic Funding, an… Continue reading Glen Weyl, RadicalxChange | Social Technology for a Political Economy of Increasing Returns
Summary Arthur Breitman is here to discuss what governance is, how it has been attempted in regard to blockchain systems and crypto-economic networks, and what is coming down the road in how to create decentralized governance protocols that actually work. Marc Stiegler will be discussing his science fiction book series The Digital Path, which showcases… Continue reading Arthur Breitman, Tezos: Blockchain Governance | Marc Stiegler: The Digital Path
Summary Today we are particularly investigating tools for openness. Audrey Tang is Taiwan’s Digital Minister in charge of social innovation, open governance and youth engagement. Audrey is known for civic hacking and use of technology for governance and is an active contributor to G0V, a community for innovation in government. This meeting is part of… Continue reading Audrey Tang, Taiwan Digital Minister: Tools for Openness: Asia & Beyond
Summary Today we’re joined by Tyler Cowen, economist at George Mason University. Noticing progress is the first step if we want to accelerate it or keep it going. Education and life expectancy are increasing while poverty and hunger decrease. Tyler compares this progress with a crusonia plant, a mythical crop that generates more output every… Continue reading Tyler Cowen, George Mason University | Stubborn Attachments
Summary Balaji has turned his attention to the creation a Network State, in particular a polis with a transhumanist mission “which starts with a virtual university, bootstraps a digital economy, and can be forked to create new opt-in polities.” Such “cloud cities” allow their members to collectively negotiate with existing jurisdictions and crowdfund territory in… Continue reading Balaji S. Srinivasan: The Network State
