Re: <nettime> Josh Hall: Blockchain could reshape our world

Am 23/02/2018, 13:11, Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl> schrieb:

Some connex pbs have caused my post to be send unedited. Here's the
correct version (fingers X-ed)

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Original to:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/23/blockchain-reshape-world-far-right-ahead-crypto-technology

Blockchain could reshape our world – and the far right is one step ahead
Crypto technology is coming to a crossroads. Those who want to use it to
radically redistribute wealth must take urgent action

By Josh Hall
Fri 23 Feb 2018

Alice Weidel is the co-leader of Alternative für Deutschland.’
Photograph: Axel Schmidt/Reuters

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain reads the title of a 2017 book. From
currency speculation through to verifying the provenance of food,
blockchain technology is eking out space in a vast range of fields.

For most people, blockchain technologies are inseparable from bitcoin,
the cryptocurrency that has been particularly visible in the news
recently thanks to its hyper-volatility. Crypto-entrepreneurs have made
and lost millions, and many people have parlayed their trading into a
full-time job. But blockchain technology, which allows for immutable
records of activities, stored on a ledger that is held not just in one
place but massively distributed, has applications in every conceivable
area in commerce and beyond. Soon, there will be blockchains everywhere
that transactions happen.

While the focus has so far been on currencies such as bitcoin, what’s
less well known is the large and growing community of blockchain
developers and evangelists, many of whom believe that the technology
could herald radical changes in the ways our economies and societies are
structured. But there’s a big question at the heart of that community:
what might a world built with the help of blockchain technology look
like?

Unchain, a large bitcoin and blockchain convention based in Hamburg,
seems to have a potential answer. Along with speakers from blockchain
startups, cryptocurrency exchanges and a company that purports to offer
“privately managed cities as a business”, the conference programme also
features Alice Weidel, listed on the site as an “economist and bitcoin
entrepreneur”.

In fact, Weidel is the co-leader of Alternative für Deutschland, which
recently became the third largest party in Germany’s Bundestag. Weidel’s
election campaign in 2017 was the party’s breakthrough moment, and what
many have seen as a watershed in German politics – the return of
far-right, populist ethno-nationalism to the federal parliament.

Since 2015 the AfD leadership has adopted increasingly hard lines on
borders, migration, Islam and Europe. The party has also attempted to
recuperate language associated with historic Nazism; in 2016, the AfD’s
then chair, Frauke Petry, called for the rehabilitation of the word
“völkisch”, which is seen to be inextricably linked with National
Socialism.

Weidel is thought to represent the more “moderate” wing of the AfD, in
comparison with her colleague in the Bundestag Alexander Gauland, who
has pushed for Angela Merkel to close Germany’s borders and to deliver
ways by which immigrants can be repatriated. But the tension between the
“moderate” and extreme wings of the AfD has been seen as a conscious
tactic, in which Gauland pushes taboo subjects which Weidel then makes
more palatable. Weidel herself, though, has also previously appeared to
describe German Arabs as “culturally foreign” and to encourage a return
to the paranoiac xenophobia of the Third Reich by describing Merkel’s
government as “pigs” who are “puppets of the victorious powers” from the
second world war.

The rise of the AfD has caused deep soul-searching in Germany. But
outside of the country’s borders, Weidel’s invitation to the Unchain
summit also poses questions for the nascent blockchain community. On one
side are those who believe that crypto technologies should be used to
divert power away from states (particularly social democratic states)
and into the hands of a righteous vanguard of rightwing libertarian
hackers.

Some of these people are now in positions of significant power: Mick
Mulvaney, the director of the US Office of Management and Budget, is a
staunch bitcoin advocate and his appointment was warmly received by some
crypto news publications. Mulvaney has previously addressed the John
Birch Society, an extreme rightwing pressure group that was formed to
root out communists during the cold war but that now specialises in part
in Federal Reserve conspiracy theories – a popular theme on some bitcoin
forums. In June, the John Birch Society demanded that the Russia
investigation be dropped; their “speakers bureau” offers talking heads
on subjects including why the US must leave the UN, “the Trojan horse
called immigration”, and “the global warming hoax”.

But there is another tendency: one that believes blockchain tech should
be used as part of a liberatory political project, one that can
redistribute wealth and help to fund and safely connect participants in
radical left activities. There is already significant overlap between
the crypto community and those active in “platform cooperatives” – that
is, organisations that are attempting to build alternatives to platform
companies such as Uber and Deliveroo, with power and ownership in the
hands of the workforce. Similarly, The New Inquiry magazine recently
launched Bail Bloc, a system that leverages participants’ unused
computing power to mine cryptocurrency to pay bail bonds in New York.

Despite the wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency valuations, it seems
clear now that blockchain tech is here to stay. In their book Blockchain
Revolution, Don and Alex Tapscott insist that blockchains could
revolutionise everything from business to government.

But we are at a dangerous point for the adoption of crypto technologies.
Alice Weidel’s invitation shows one potential route forward: the
diverting of more power into the hands of the authoritarian right. Even
crypto-sceptics must acknowledge this danger, and should be working with
the crypto community to develop alternatives. Blockchain technology has
the potential to help us build a better world – but we need to take
action to ensure that it doesn’t lead us down the path preferred by
Weidel and her companions.

• Josh Hall is a writer and editor based between London and Berlin.
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