After the publication of my first article related to Blockchain I had the opportunity to discuss with some colleagues and some friends. I have not managed to convince any of them but the discussion was interesting and I leave you in these brief lines.
The first major confusion that muddles the debate is to understand that Blockchain is the same as crypto currencies.
Let's do an abstraction exercise: Blockchain is a tool on which to implement processes of exchange of value between peers. These pairs form a network and each element of it can be related to the rest, through safe, clear and auditable processes.
And now let's do a concrete exercise: I commented above that Blockchain is a technology that operates in peer networks. How are these networks formed in the real world? Well, sometimes peers relate collaboratively with some confidence, such as when there is a customer/supplier relationship. In others, this relationship does not occur. The elements could even become competition. If we look for a case in the real world, this relationship occurs for example in business associations. All of them understand that individually they should earn the maximum benefit, but that if they associate they can establish relationships that defend the sector on which they operate.
And how does Blockchain apply to all this?
There are still very few case studies where you can empirically verify the improvement or advantages that Blockchain offers to form stronger human networks. But, I commented in my previous article, that modern society has a crisis of confidence. This deteriorates the quality of the relationships that occur in the groups, leaving the members in an individualistic and annihilating solitude. And this justifies that, at least, there are initiatives that analyze possible solutions from different perspectives.
Blockchain in my opinion is not, by far, the philosopher's stone on which to solve the challenges of the future. Human issues are not solved by applying technology, it is just the opposite, when humans realize that we have a problem, we create technology to try to solve them.
But what case studies do we have about Blockchain?
I also analyzed it in my previous article (for more detail in this answer go to the Introduction to Hyperledger course).
Few people imagined in the 60s, that we were going to have devices that fit in a pocket with which to contact by using color video with people on the other side of the globe in a matter of seconds and live. Or that we were going to be able to count on this huge amount of data to form and inform ourselves about everything that happens in the world. Or about the harmful phenomena that this causes such as "infoxication", "fake news" or the crisis of attention and dependence on the immediate.
Well, this technology is still "in diapers". It has not exploited its full potential. Some people imagine that when the Internet emerged everything was smooth but it was not. Today there are already companies that are applying on the supply chain, to guarantee the origin of the raw material of their products, or applying it to the educational processes to offer traceability and transparency on the acquired skills. Also for aid to third parties, so that donations, both material and monetary, reach the destination and are applied on the intended objectives.
And when the processes fail, who is responsible?
This doubt is one of the most interesting. It implies a paradigm shift in people's consciousness. Of course, the organization of social issues, supported by the great individual leaderships, have their advantages. That it is easy to assign all the responsibility to a single person, physical or legal, and that it is this who assumes the consequences of a bad practice and if it is not solved we go to higher order institutions such as states or judicial powers.
But here we have to ask ourselves if this way of relating is the most appropriate for all cases. Where should we put the focus? On the trust generated by the great leaders or the big brands? Or do we put the focus on the processes that must be followed to consolidate that trust? If I had to answer, I would choose the second option because we have to improve the processes that are carried out in the different human relationships. And it is not about eliminating intermediaries, states or breaking with central authorities such as banks. What is involved is to provide mechanisms so that these institutions can better perform their work based on safe, auditable and traceable technologies. It is not about replacing humans with technology in resolving their conflicts, it is about addressing problems with new tools, but first we must recognize that we have those problems. . . . cast . . . That is not so clear.
Yes all very well, but Blockchain is expensive and there are already technologies that could have solved this much sooner.
Bruce Schneier (a security expert) comments in this article, that this technology does not bring anything new and that what it brings makes it much worse. For from these modest lines I would like to repeat that this technology is in the embryonic phase, that there is a very important effort in the standardization of technological mechanisms for the construction of “distributed trust” in value exchanges between humans and that, in reality , this is a matter of the priorities that as a globalized society we manage to give ourselves.
Scheneir's approaches are very interesting but his discussion may be made later.
In the meantime I will continue to turn the question around: Will it be possible for societies to develop methods of building trust in a distributed way or is it more comfortable and useful to rest that weight on the individualist leaderships we know today?
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