Good vs Evil - The Daily Gwei #405
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
One of the original goals of crypto was to “bank the unbanked” aka provide financial services to those who don’t have access to them in poorer parts of the world. Obviously we’re not doing this today as the technology is still not ready for a variety of reasons - it’s too expensive, the UX hurdles are large, the network effect isn’t there and the supporting infrastructure is still in its infancy.
I’ll admit that my tweet above is quite aggressive and is missing a significant amount of nuance. Obviously Jack does more than just spread bullshit on Twitter as he has provided a lot of value for people and has made the world a better place by creating Twitter & Square. He’s also truly trying to spread more economic freedom throughout the world via the work he’s doing in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Though unfortunately Jack is watering down these good deeds by lashing out against non-Bitcoin decentralized technologies such as Ethereum and web3. He may actually believe that these technologies aren’t going to empower people and will just lead to more centralization ergo he would believe that the actions he has taken so far are the “right” ones.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is one of my favorite quotes because it so perfectly describes how the concepts of “good” and “evil” are just human creations and as a result are very subjective. A person or group can truly believe that what they are doing is “right” or “good” or “well intentioned” but in the end of all their actions can actually make the world a worse off place for others. One of the best examples of this is all of the people working on true artificial intelligence - sure, many of their intentions may be “good” (use AI to advance humanity, cure deadly illnesses etc), but their work could easily lead to humanity being enslaved or eradicated by machines (Terminator, anyone?). So in the end it doesn’t really matter if one believes that their intentions are good - what ultimately matters are the resulting consequences of the actions taken and whether those consequences are good or bad for the ones experiencing them.
I think all of this is also why there is such strong tribalism within the crypto ecosystem. Each group believes that they are building decentralized technologies the “right way” and that the other attempts are all either not virtuous enough or just an outright scam. And again, this is all dependent on the individual and their beliefs and what they actually care to see play out in the world. Of course, people’s beliefs in crypto are often dictated by their portfolio holdings, but there are plenty of people who are trying to make the world a better place by using crypto/web3 technology to empower those less fortunate.
For as long as humans have different values, beliefs, morals and motivations, we will always be fighting with each-other in one way or another. The best we can hope for is that enough people come to consensus on what is considered “good” and “bad” so that we can continue to have orderly societies both in the real world and also in the emerging online “metaverse” world.
Because after all, in the absence of order there is only chaos.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.