#3 Smart Contracts, Direct Democracy & the Rule of Law

On the relevance of blockchain and smart contracts to the big questions of political philosophy, alternative voting mechanisms on the blockchain and tensions within the space between democracy and technocracy.

GUEST BIO:

Joshua Dávila (@theblockchainsocialist.com & youtube.com/@theblockchainsocialist), host of the Blockchain Socialist Podcast, author of 2023’s “Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It” and co-founder of Breadchain Cooperative.

(00:00) Introduction
(04:00) Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Prediction for 2029
(08:25) AI vs. Crypto: Centralization & Decentralization
(10:20) "World Computers" Old and New: Capital vs. Blockchain
(17:56) Peer-to-Peer Technology explained by Analogy to Torrenting
(26:40) Smart Contracts Explained
(34:43) Smart Contracts & AI: LLMs and Beyond
(40:28) Algocracy, the Chinese Social Credit System and AGI
(41:57) "Code is Law": Technocracy vs Democracy in Automation
(46:57) Scaling Challenges: Technical vs. Social
(47:33) The Meaning Crisis, Techno-pessimism & Rise of the Far Right
(49:01) The Ironic Shortcomings of the Left and Right
(50:22) Grounded, Rational Sources for Hope in Technology
(52:46) Strengths & Weaknesses of Online Forms of Organization (e.g., DAOs and DAPPs)
(56:59) Intergenerational Knowledge Gaps and Hyperspecialization as Symptoms of Late Capitalism
(57:44) Elitism, Information Siloing & Niche Interests in the Age of Information
(59:26) Alternative Voting Mechanisms on the Blockchain
(1:02:50) Example #1: Quadratic Voting
(1:06:23) Example #2: Conviction Voting
(1:07:45) Example #3: Quadratic and Conviction Voting as Complementary Opposites
(1:10:05) Example #4: Liquid Democracy
(1:13:35) Breadchain Co-operative as Dual Power in Action
(1:24:48) Invitation to Join the Breadchain Community and Crypto Leftists Discord
(1:26:03) Reconsidering the Big Picture
(1:27:46) Neoliberalism as Threat to the Rule of Law
(1:30:18) Escaping the Intergenerational Divide by Uniting in Defense of the Rule of Law
(1:32:56) Smart Contracts and the Rule of Law Crisis
(1:34:31) Left-Liberal Alliances that Learn from History
(1:38:46) Puritanism vs Prioritization in Defining Progressive Goals
(1:40:36) Hierarchy & Coercion: the Historic Scaling Advantage of the Right
(1:41:01) Moral High Ground Vacated by the Right
(1:42:08) The Right has No Conservative Answers
(1:43:31) Preserving the Rule of Law from the Threat of Technocracy
(1:44:31) Self-Sacrificial Virtues: the Left contra Christianity
(1:45:58) Concluding Remarks
(1:47:51) Overtime Segment (Excerpt from my essay on the Chinese Social Credit System)

The companion podcast to The Long Count YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@thelongcount). 🌖 New podcasts every Equinox and Solstice! 🌖