-Zations at War

There is a war coming.

Some think it is East vs West, others Left vs Right, Black vs White and all the other nonsense... This is the battle now and will be for the foreseeable future:

Centralization versus Decentralization

One thing that all the instigators of wars in the past can agree on is, people shouldn't be able to control their own lives. No matter what political system is currently in place, all are centralized, and even the best-functioning of them, is increasingly failing to meet the needs of those they rule over. This happens for many reasons, but the main one being is that the more complex a system gets, the less capable one point of decision making is able to evaluate and cater for the needs of the entire system. It is like a body requiring active decisions to be made for every breath, heartbeat and cell replication.

If you had to remember to take each breath, how much energy can you spend on maintaining the heart? How much attention do you have left to live a life, watch a movie, love a partner and hug your child? It just doesn't work, which is why even in this single body of ours, tasks are decentralized and pushed out to various systems to ensure that each part of us functions - We operate as a single unit and act on a coordinated (usually) manner, but all that goes on barely scratches the surface of our consciousness. It doesn't always work well and systems fail, especially when we don't look after ourselves or feed ourselves properly, but on average, we live 80-odd years.

Society is much the same as a body, many moving parts that work together when they need to, but are largely unaware of what is going on at the micro level. However, governance systems have convinced us that the only way to manage it all, is through centralized guidance. The argument isn't about whether there is another way, it is about which centralized way is the best - even though all are fundamentally broken, because they are just unable to flex to the changing needs. By design, they have to be inflexible though, because they rely on consistent systems, so they engineer society to suit, pushing us into narrow boxes, even if our limbs don't fit.

For a very long time, this has been relatively acceptable though, as there really wasn't a better way to manage ourselves at the scale that society was operating and especially in the early days of globalization. However now, through those very same processes, new weaknesses have been created too, with things like tax legislation on corporations unable to keep up with creative accounting practices, which is again, by design.

Systems protect themselves and the centralized core will create processes and benefits to maintain its power at all cost, including that of the people it is charged with protecting and empowering. It is a fundamental flaw in the system, because no matter intention, self-interest and preservation trumps that of the group. And, we have built a society where a corporation and a government can serve its own self-interests.

For example, a corporation has a tax liability (with many ways to circumvent it) and it is actually considered a person, an entity that can own possessions. However, unlike you and I, it is lifeless and eternal for the cycle of the business. While we work for 40-odd years and at the end of life pass what we have collected on, a corporate entity never has to transfer its wealth to another, leaving it to collect endlessly. Governments are the same and even though the current admins of the government change, there is a longevity in them that allows them to build power endlessly.

But, questions are being raised and the market forces are changing, moving toward the empowerment of individuals to generate wealth outside of the legislated systems, outside of the borders. To use it locally requires connecting to the legacy, but in time, this will shift too, where people will want to have more say in just how the wealth they own and control is used.

Business models are going to continually spring up that leverage the gaps in the centralized economy and governance, to bring value to a userbase that owns and operates it, people who are incentivized to solve the problems of those left behind by the legacy systems and in so doing, worth their way up the ladder. We can see this in crypto now, where the people it really empowers the most and get the greatest percentage benefits from it, are those who are in the poorest parts of the world where economies are failing and governments are corrupt.

All governments are corrupt.

It is not necessarily the politician's fault, it is just the way centralized systems work and have done since the start. The core is rotten before anyone makes a decision, because it is not designed to be able to evaluate and govern the system it is being applied to. It is like having a toddler run operate heavy machinery, it doesn't have the mental or physical skills to do the job.

As said though, the inevitable war is coming, because the centralized seats of power can do nothing but protect themselves from threats. It doesn't matter if the people they are meant to improve living standards for can enjoy a higher standard of living, be happier and healthier - if it isn't provided by the state or corporation, it isn't acceptable.

This is going to encompass more than crypto however, it is just that crypto is the future currency of decentralized governance systems with interoperability to work like the nervous system of a body. There is going to be pushback in many ways and as economies pitted against each other rise and fall, the disruption to the centralized system is going to be immense, which means all of us are going to be affected.

Centralized systems are not designed to cope with this level of disruption and it doesn't have the attention needed to take care of all it must, including the various attacks on its own processes. Using the body analogy,

it is like having to think about breathing each breath and pumping each heartbeat, while being chased by a lion toward a crocodile infested river.

There is only so much it can handle before it breaks, but expect that the way it handles things under pressure is going to be heavy-handed and largely inappropriate, favoring its own survival over that of anything else.

I don't know how each part is going to pan out, but in the mid-range view of things, it is going to get very uncomfortable in many ways, but hopefully one day, we will come out the other side better off for having run the gauntlet.

Ultimately, it is going to be either that decentralization creates a better world, or centralization kills us all, one way or the other.

It will be easier for many to take the blue pill and live easy now and poorly later, but for me, I prefer to work toward the positive outcome, even if unlikely. I think that even in failure, it is a better life lived, to have tried.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]