An Ideological Primer to the Metaverse
For some parallels between the power struggles of the past and present and using technology to bypass over-centralisation, the awakening of modern humanism, and the role of crypto in the transition to a more neutral and satisfying digital existence.
This is part 1 in a series of essays about the metaverse, please go back to the enjoyment guide or the overall index to explore further.
Index:
LEVEL 1: RECRUIT
Power Dynamics Throughout the Past: has any of this happened before?
Humanism and Early Autonomous Agents: what did this mean for the citizens?
The Rise of the Nation-State and Big Tech: who's the captain now?
LEVEL 2: HARDENED
New Tech: scope for new coordination?
Rebundling: why decentralisation?
Power Dynamics Throughout the Past:
Some perspective before we get to the framework for a humanistic metaverse infused with property rights and privacy primitives.
Much of Part 1 (and certain sections of Part 2) were written as a primer for a more unfamiliar and formal audience (my profs thought I was smoking crack), so whilst it was helpful for me to explain fundamentals, if you don’t want another rehash of why we are here, please skip on to a) if you would rather get to the power dynamics of now, b) if you are already familiar with the current power set-up and want to read about the shiny new tech, c) if you are already familiar with cryptos unique value prop in escaping this dynamic I would head straight to Part 2.
Has any of this happened before?
There is a history of power dynamic swings of a similar conflict appearing under different guises: permissioned vs sovereign, top-down vs bottom-up, and centralisation vs decentralisation. The current status quo, with the rise of nation-states and corporate aggregation, and our current digital lives, begets parallels between the lives of those in other historical periods.
These power shifts have pronounced effects on the citizens within those structures. Broadly, overly oppressive structures lead to identity conformity and restriction, whereas more decentralised structures can incubate expression and experimentation. The Middle Ages and the ensuing Renaissance illustrate this historical pendulum swing from predominantly aggregated to less so along two intersecting avenues: value and information.
Regarding value, land ownership (primary wealth) was static and mainly distributed between Monarchs, lesser nobility, and the Church (∼1/3 of all land). Although land could technically be bought and sold, property rights were centralised and required permission from monarchs, feudal lords, and the Church. All subject to manipulation with little to no legal recourse. The remaining options, agricultural (subject to landowners' wishes) and finance (subject to strict usury laws) were limited.
Regarding information, it was centralised as a more guarded monopoly. Political and religious entities made mutually reinforcing limited documents commissioned to the scribal class by centralised institutions (universities, monasteries, and nunneries), written in languages few could read, fewer could understand (Latin = 12th-century javascript), and impossible to access. Even if you had the right to view these scarce documents, access was granted through corrupt legal systems in the pockets of the aggregators. Culture was also permissioned; expression primarily through hierarchically endorsed media to dictate societal norms on behaviour, thought, and expression and censorship was rife.
Due to these constructs, a day in the life of an average citizen was incredibly permissioned. Hindering innovation, creativity, and growth alongside suppressing dissent and diversity; encouraging societal stasis and a lack of adverse opinions. The aggregation of information and land also reinforced that even if you aspired to break the mould, riots or hazardous sentiments were swiftly extinguished.
What changed?
Two decentralised and permissionless coordination technologies gave rise to change after a millennium of stasis. The printing press (1436) and double-entry bookkeeping (1494) broke aggregation in value and information, paving the way for the economic and intellectual advancements of the Renaissance.
Double-entry bookkeeping, a popularised ledger-based technology, removed the reliance on centralised accounting and exponentially increased the leverage, velocity, granularity, and composability of money – giving rise to greater independence, credit systems, and many other financial derivatives we rely on today. Merchants could invest in, expand and globalise their trade, creating early expressive proto-capitalism.
The printing press shattered the monopoly on information as it enabled the transmission of bottom-up ideas at an affordable and exponential scale using common tongues and images. Access was also permissionless, despite initial attempts at state and church regulation, meaning that radical ideas of dissonance positioned to question existing norms could proliferate. Regarding religious dissent, sola scriptura > the prescriptive Catholic Church encouraged many to explore their own lanes (open-source and forkable).
Truth was best found through a community of brethren rather than given.
“Secularism is Christianity’s gift to the world.” - Larry Siedentop
This is not the first time that forms of individualism were revered, and as outlined above, the seeds were planted well before. It was the founding idea of the Church - that all humans were equal, which led to its unravelling. Regardless of the origin, the technologically propelled renaissance resulted in seismic transformations towards decentralisation across European power structures.
Politically, the degradation of the feudal order and the Catholic Church and the emergence of new governance methods, quasi-nation states with monarchs and bureaucracies, and representative governance with parliaments and city councils.
Economically, the rise of capitalism and the emergence of the modern market economy, with a move towards individualism, self-interest, and clustering of individuals (joint-stock, banks, and stock), as well as artisanal production and guilds.
Culturally, came the re-availability and rediscovery of many classical texts and ideas emphasising humanism and the importance of education, reason, and individualism, facilitating new waves in modern science and the explosion of contemporary culture.
Humanism and Early Autonomous Agents:
What did this mean for the citizens?
The shift towards humanism meant that people became active agents rather than passive subjects within aggregated power structures.
This new being, the “Renaissance Man”, became the epitome of free will, making moves as autonomous agents, now at the centre of their universe. Importantly, not alone. They did so as clusters of individuals, combining and enhancing their freedom of expression around shared values as part of smaller, decentralised, sometimes permissionless groups and movements:
Political: city-states (Venice, Milan, and Florence), civic humanism (emphasising civic engagement), republicanism, anabaptists, and various prominent families (Medici, Borgia, and Sforza).
Philosophical: Humanism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism and Scepticism.
Artistic Guilds: Guild of St Luke, Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Arte della Lana.
Religious Movements: Lutheranism, Calvinism, and various confraternities.
Scientific Societies: Accademia’s del Cimento & dei Lincei, Royal Society.
These institutions did not solely exert coercive control but were predominantly optional and mutually beneficial; they were free to ‘fork’ if better incentive systems could be devised and leave if they wished to forgo a particular system altogether.
But unbundling wasn’t all roses; the Renaissance had equal amounts of chaos to creative expression. Da Vinci designed weapons, the Prince a handbook for delightful tyrants, and mass executions commonplace.
The unlock showed us whilst that enabling autonomy has many benefits; not everything needs breaking, and consensual rebundling should occur to avoid excessive chaos.
The Rise of the Nation-State and Big Tech:
Who's in charge now?
Centuries later, we exist in another period defined by the aggregation of power, although drastically different, within nation-states and corporations. The fusion of nation (cultural layer) and state (administrative layer) was likely an unintended consequence, rather than orchestrated design, of several factors: war, colonialism, capitalism, declines in feudalism, international law, and the emergence of nationalism. Regardless, nation-states now exercise sovereignty over defined territories, consolidate and accumulate power, centralise administrative functions, aim to unite (once) strong national identities (ideological equity) and have significant control over their economies. Combined with nation-state hegemony, there has been an aggregation of power among large corporations due to various constructs:
Shaping government policy (limited liability) and legal protections (IP).
Ease of mergers and acquisitions and cooperative antitrust law.
Nascent technology increasing global dominance in network societies. The interconnectedness of global economies made cross-border regulation difficult and assisted with the ease of global regulatory arbitrage.
Declines in labour protection and bargaining rights.
Media ownership shaping favourable public opinion.
Stymied regulation due to polarisation and constant upheaval.
A general push for economic liberalism.
As a subset of corporate aggregation, in more recent years, there has been an unprecedented and broadly covered concentration of power within the broader technology industry and related digital realm, especially in the application layer, where so much consumer-facing architecture has been built. Control over this network society in various ‘walled gardens’ has given corporations unprecedented power (information and wealth) over the citizens within them. Although there are many different defined types of power, there is a common distinction between power as coercive (use of force or threat to achieve aims) and persuasive (use of argument and communication to achieve aims). State power is often seen as coercive, whereas corporate power is more persuasive.
However, they are not strictly exclusive, as states can aggregate persuasive power (media influence), and corporations can aggregate coercive power (using network effects and economic dominance to shape policy).
New boss = old boss?
The differences between today and the Medieval Age can make the comparison seem rather stretched; as such, rhyme > repetition.
As mentioned above, you can't easily separate state and corporate power so easily, nor are they necessarily in conflict. Power is less overtly centralised, and negative externalities are equally subversive and sneaky.
Science, nanny state, academia (Stockholm syndrome) > Church.
Rising mistrust between both state → citizen = increased surveillance, T&Cs on life getting increasingly lengthy, presumption of guilt > innocence. Citizen → state = general apathy.
More specifically, now that a significant amount of value and information is primarily coordinated through digital means, there has been a reaggregation and, as a byproduct, an increase in the permissioned nature of both. On the road to scaling trust for coordination, we have taken some wrong steps:
Regarding value: a lack of digital ownership has been detrimental. Despite massive advances in overall productivity and access, there has been an aggregation of digital value control (commoditisation and control in permissioned platforms). A significant amount of value created by the internet has accrued to digital overlords rather than its contributors or the community (reversion to feudalism). Enabled by a lack of digital ownership → high take rates on top of snowballing network effects. Good in the short term, but now there is limited innovation.
Regarding information: a lack of privacy is becoming detrimental. Despite massive advances in access (less guarded than it once was), there has been an aggregation of control over information, leading to an exponential rise of surveillance and subsequent externalities (censorship, subtle manipulation, and more overt control).
New boss > old boss?
We cannot look back with a holistically warm and biased lens simply because many of those issues resolved themselves over centuries; it wasn't all roses, and we weren't there.
Although one can relate to 9th-century ancestors through dubious science or ancient memes and hating on nation-states is becoming the norm, today’s liberal democracies (the current sum of all past mistakes) and the emergence of several centralised institutions are undoubtedly an upgrade from the Middle Ages or the Renaissance (see rising tides of basic human development and access to healthcare) in many ways.
The compromise between the rule of law and individual rights has become relatively balanced, with essential (and not overly encroaching in many instances) rules demarcating broad and expressive cultural, political, and economic sandboxes where many luxuries of the past have become necessities of the present.
Room for an alternative coordination layer?
But self-criticism has always been the lifeblood of Liberal Democracies, not for the sake of it, but as a tool to encourage improvement. Despite the comparative progress, the soft spots within these erodible laws are often exploited in the digital realm, and the conclusion of the current trajectory of power accrual and erosion of rights is relatively bleak. As such, there is significant room for improvement in the digital, where such rights have yet to be widely adopted.
Due to the upgrade, there is less to burn or unbundle in legacy systems. But we can still experiment with replacements for key institutions, laws, norms and rebundling. As such, the next century will feature a constant stress test of many institutions; we will see which can evolve or become redundant (private > state UX). Fortunately, a meatspace adjacent layer has been built that offers an alternative mode of coordination that will integrate frequently with the old rule of law.
Building better things > burning old ones down.
RECRUIT → HARDENED
New Tech:
Scope for novel coordination?
The internet (information) and crypto (value), the modern-day equivalents of the printing press and double-entry booking, can disrupt today's aggregators, but they have yet to reach their more impactful state. The initial hope for many was that the internet would democratise information, enhance freedom, and create a borderless prairie, allowing permissionless innovation across the cybersphere. Despite some initial inroads, that vision went quickly awry.
“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.” - Barlow, 1996.
then…
“Data is the new oil” - Humby, 2006.
then…
“We imagined ourselves as samurai sword VR pirate pioneers, but it turns out we’re pointless argument vegetables growing in walled gardens, harvested for the benefit of robots that serve us ads.” – Lovecraft, 2022.
The evolution of the internet and its convergence with crypto can also be analysed by what it meant for its users; there are several overlaps and exclusions, but this serves as a basic and non-exhaustive description of the landscape, primarily in the application layer.
The implications for average citizens are outlined below and follow a pattern of increasing autonomy for the average user from one to three.
Web 1.0 (read): democratising and disseminating information. Content was static, and interaction was primarily one-way; consume. Websites created by web developers require technical expertise. Non-commercial, built as untrusted networks, economic incentives, and payment absent. Relatively decentralised with no central authority controlling information flow or censorship (net neutrality). Invigoration of open source and free software movements.
Average Person: able to consume.
Web 2.0 (read, write): primarily democratising access to publish. Content is static and dynamic (videos/podcasts, etc.), and interaction is two-way: create and consume. Websites became platforms and the rise of e-commerce and social media. More accessible to non-technical users through various content management systems, replacing open protocols as the main access point to the web as most activity occurred in the application layer. The lack of economic incentives meant trusted private platforms leveraged advertising (causing mass growth and several negative externalities). Several large corporations reap content and innovation. Centralised flow of information, censorship, privacy concerns, and little to no true ownership. Initially beneficial with a drive towards less trust, more permission and authority and less innovation over time.
Average Person: able to consume, create, and be consumed.
Enter blockchains (trust and ownership): Global consensus layers of trust; what happened, where, and by whom; solving multi-party contention without legacy intermediaries, facilitating what happens next.
Web 3.0 (read, write, own, control, execute): consists of decentralised applications and platforms plumbed by blockchains, incentivised by cryptoassets (fungible and non), and serviced by smart contracts. Resurgence of open source ethos. Community-owned and governed platforms. Content owned by users and cross-portable. Networks bootstrapped through tokens. The flow of information and data ownership is decentralised. Currently less accessible to non-technical users.
Average Person: able to consume, create, own, govern, and contribute.
There is a much longer history before the rosy connotations of Web3.
More recently, around the time of advances in public key evolutions, there were various perspectives from the AOTFK anarchists, high-tech hayekians, gonzo denizens, and pirates. All keen for a socio-economic revolution focused on freedoms in the digital age to combat the unprecedented levels of permissioning.
There are inevitable disagreements as to the extent of change required, but there are relatively shared and often repeated ideals (also on a spectrum):
Decentralisation: distribution of power among individuals or many groups leading to a more expressive and robust system.
Privacy: protection of autonomy.
Trustlessness: protected peer-to-peer interactions (financial and social) without centralised intermediaries.
Open and permissionless: transparent (in parts) and wholly accessible (open source), allowing for continual and enhanced innovation without the need to appeal to a higher authority.
Censorship resistance: freedom to express, share information and transact value.
Although these are bandied around frequently, and whilst their digital-native terminology (in some cases) would suggest a novel fad - these principles can be found throughout history in different guises (e.g., sanctity → privacy).
In general terms, the name of the game is to replace individual freedom in areas usurped by centralised authorities, replacing sovereigns with self-sovereignty whereby decentralised trust becomes the core commodity for global coordination.
Will everyone do this?
Like any value system or shared goal, the destination is non-binary, and total agreement on the best route is unlikely. Some are traditionally libertarian, others prefer a shared security model, and others offer heavy state rights with importance on independence. It is more an attempt to reset some errors with hard-coded agreements that leave some room for hard-fought and widely agreed amendments where viability is consistently tested in second-time blocks.
Because of the wide choice, optionality over the venue and the fractionalisation and extent of usage is critical.
Pragmatism > Maximalism?
General maximalism can often cause aversive reactions as a lack of pragmatism and humility can detract from the purpose. The absolutes: bitcoin>all state money, code as law>all governments, the metaverse>most physical experiences are all a bit much, to put it lightly.
Decentralisation is not a rabbit-out-the-hat buzzword rebuttal to every counter. It is:
Varied across several axioms (architectural, political, or logical).
Temporal cannot be achieved at once (usually requires a staggered route).
Contextual the extent of its necessity depends on the circumstance.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation." - Herbert Spencer
Despite differences in public perceptions and media coverage around crypto landing at extremes of 'futility of deluded hackers tugging at the non-existent deep state' (left) to 'pioneers of digital freedom' (right). There are, of course, middle grounds, and if you look past the prices or grabby headlines, you will likely find something that alters your worldview.
Much like the move to protocapitalism and socio-political pluralism in the Renaissance, you can take as much or as little as you want, and ultimately, if they are better, they will replace more of what exists now. While these movements may start more ideological, they often morph into more technology-focused flywheels (e.g., Richard Stallman → Linus and Linux).
Rebundling:
Why decentralisation?
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead
Whilst highly libertarian systems are traditionally associated with chaos. When a bunch of anarchists walk into a bar, agree on certain principles, and devise networks that simultaneously incentivise and safeguard individuals against each other… sounds like bundling to me.
Decentralised infrastructure affords a unique opportunity to choose between or adopt a hybrid of the traditional rule of law and Lex Cryptographia. Where written and communal laws become replaced by code, the onus on upholding these rights (without physical force) is transferred from centralised institutions to its citizens through incentivised coordination mechanisms (public blockchains). Citizens are offered a choice to maintain a dual existence between legacy and lex (reduced barriers to exit in the cloud), but the extent of their exit (fork or emigration) results in positive feedback loops in the system they left behind (amplification of voice). Every contagious interaction using the alternative system expresses that exit (e.g., immediate and absolute value transfer > phoning the bank explaining for 30 mins) makes it harder not to see inadequacies in the existing system.
The severity of exit (instead of voicing protest against its inefficiency) from the rule of law depends on the nature of integration with the physical world and the relevant domicile. Interaction involving a change in the physical world will create complications as digitally codified rules are best applied natively rather than in meatspace, but regulatory arbitrage will lessen the friction. Within this exit, people can choose between legacy ways of ensuring fundamental rights (contestable) and alternatives (limitless and absolute). For example, in certain instances, no compensation can be offered for damages inflicted by a third-party user (e.g., getting scammed with little to no recourse < phoning the bank explaining for 30 mins), makes it harder not to see inadequacies in the alternative system. In several instances thus far, decentralisation has been used as a mask to avoid true accountability rather than beneficial change; there are still many bugs to work out.
Moreover, the extent to which change is impactful depends on meatspace circumstances (Argentina > US for permissionless finance or Vietnam > Canada for surveillance).
But why bother?
Well… for many reasons across different contexts for different people.
For me, a general rule of thumb… in systems with highly aggregated power, there is an increased capacity for greater subversive and coercive abuse and ossification trending into eventual collapse. Alternatively, in specific contexts, various spectrums of individual, local, and decentralised empowerment can lead to more dynamic and adaptive systems that are comparatively fulfilling for individuals (decentralisation go up = autonomy go up), more productive, and compartmentalise inevitable mistakes into more robust structures that become stronger with every stress test.
But hierarchies and order are still needed to function effectively; the aim is to balance individual autonomy and coordinated social structures. The extremes of centralisation (global federation) and decentralisation (free-floating atoms) are not ideal or likely. In many cases, decentralised systems have more tradeoffs than merits, and whilst better tooling may help in the future, some may only exist as excellent hedges in case everything else goes wrong.
In the systems where more decentralisation makes sense, the question becomes a) how to best and b) to what extent do you recentralise with safeguards against over-centralisation into systems that enable either a) more empowering governance or b) governance-minimised hyperstructures. While avoiding a chaotic, destabilised power vacuum (characterised by parallel actors or informal groups) and maintaining non-coercive and consensual participation.
Whilst tricky, optimal progression isn't indefinitely linear as slightly incorrect paths can be reversed or forked. Digital rebundling will likely occur into (highly) aligned communities competing for members (autonomous agents) alongside the voluntary right to enter and reduced barriers to exit. But it won't be immediate, and it won't be (initially) en masse.
There will be (and have been) many failures and valid criticisms, as is common in the history of decentralisation. There is no fully fleshed and functional prescriptive model of the ideal organisation yet. Still, there is the promise of an alternative and the chance to shape the mouldable design space within the sandboxes of experimentation. In the long run, the truth tends to win (whatever that is). The internet was, on balance, a good thing, and the same will likely be true for crypto (in whatever format).
Now that the choices are more apparent, you can see what the battleground will look like in a more humanistic metaverse and how that choice may play out regarding property rights and exploration or surveillance and control.