Web3
Web3 is the next generation of the internet. It’s associated with cryptocurrencies and NFTs (cryptographically unique digital objects), and built with blockchain-based computer networks. Together, these tools allow networks to store and transfer data and value in a so-called ‘decentralised’ way - i.e. with reduced need for centralised bureaucracies.
Blockchain is unique among digital systems in its ability to automate the management of both data and financial exchanges. This unique combination makes it possible to design systems that facilitate and incentivise cooperation among transnational networks. In that sense, it’s a networking system that could be used to increase individual agency and to help address the harms and inequities of the current ‘Web2’ model based on corporate exploitation and surveillance capitalism. But as with any technology, it can only do these things if it’s developed in an inclusive, equitable way that respects the needs of all those affected by its use.
In that regard, our existing government and corporate systems, including the internet in its current structure, are failing us catastrophically, driving humanity off a cliff of climate collapse, nationalist militarism, and ecological vandalism. We urgently need to transform our social norms, politics, and institutions towards more just and equitable goals and a greater distribution of power. While new technologies will not do those things for us, they are tools that can be harnessed in that direction. But doing that depends on first developing an equitable consensus among humans.
All new technologies bring significant risks and ruptures, whether from technical or human failure, or hype, speculation, and fraud. Blockchain and Web3 are no exception, as the crimes of executives at firms like FTX and Terraform Labs showed in 2022-23. But while it is important to be mindful of the legitimate concerns and risks associated with blockchain systems, we cannot afford to let them obscure the technology’s potential to support urgently needed social and political innovation.
Just as we couldn’t imagine the bicycle before the wheel was invented, blockchain makes it possible to imagine institutional designs and governance mechanisms that were literally unimaginable before, because the technology needed to imagine them didn’t exist. Web3 technologies and mechanisms deserve greater consideration as potentially transformative governance tools from the local to the global levels.
Blockchain and nuclear disarmament
Nuclear weapons threaten humanity and divert tens of billions of dollars a year from global challenges like climate change and pandemics. Mutually-verified disarmament can help reduce the likelihood of nuclear war and free up resources for other global priorities. Blockchain could help us move in that direction.