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Problem is complexity demanding meaningful governance is growing far faster than capacity to actually do it. “Bigger government” is relative to historical size trend, but “weaker government” is relative to current demand for governance.
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At first glance Web3 holds promise to increase both size and power of governance. Millions of DAOs on Discord, yay. But look closer and again size is increasing but power not so much. Demand for governance is showing up, supply not somuch. Despite tools that stretch capacity.
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“Decentralized” and “leaderless” are shorthand for quietly acknowledged lack of capacity for governance that casual observers mistake for appetite for anarchism. Nope. Anarchy remains a highly unpopular thing. It’s not what we want but what we get when nobody wants to govern 🤣
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Why us big plus weak bad if rich societies work that way? Because poor societies work even more that way and that’s how you go from rich to poor. Aka what sone are starting to call brazilification in the US
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Replying to @vgr
what's wrong with big and weak governments if lots of rich societies are so governed?
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Hypothesis: anarchism is often the right question, but never the right answer. Humans just have too much desire to be governed. Governance is about reducing the complexity of life. Via lots of defaults. Hopefully sensible, but we’ll accept senseless defaults over no defaults.
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This stuff is on my mind because tomorrow the will be releasing an early draft of a paper on online governance, at our second annual meeting. We’ve been grappling with these issues for 18 months now, as have most other such communities.
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Replying to
What people want is benevolent, nurturing environments. What they get if they stay in society (voice) is benign neglect at best, oppressive exploitation at worst except if close cronies are in power. If they leave (exit) they get anarchy.
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Not the nice Ursula Le Guin kind, like Annares in The Dispossessed, with beautiful, functional mutualism among responsible adults, but the “hey where do I find this link on this discord” kind 🤣
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I'm bullish about what Web3 (the technology) can do in principle, but bearish and pragmatic about what Web3 (the people) will do with it in practice.
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tldr of this thread… Web3 is shaping up to be a major macrotrade for me in terms of time investment, but my expectations are not simple.
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The best macro trades combine boundless optimism about technological progress with bottomless cynicism about human nature.
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