Hi, I’ve been doing similar research summaries on Medium on the philosophy and social/cultural studies of blockchain. I was wondering if a category on philosophy and cultural research of blockchain would be useful here, something along the lines of this: Social Science Literature Summaries on Money, Crypto, and Blockchain (Part 1) | by Ann Brody | Purple Rhizome | Medium.
This is something we’ve been wrestling with internally for months now. The mandate of the forum is to connect industry with researchers, build bridges between academia and engineers, etc. To get started, we’ve focused heavily on ‘hard’ science categories like cryptography and game theory.
The problem is that (I personally think) some of the most important things happening in the space are at the overlap between human coordination and immutable rule sets. Governance, culture, incentive and mechanism designs that support our better natures are equally important but far trickier concepts to define and measure.
Part of our challenge has been finding people that have the insight into these lines of reasoning who can help us out. Crypto is largely enamored with technical solutions, far harder to find people excited about ‘human’ solutions.
And perhaps the most tricky part: how can we host that content and have conversations that have some manner of empirical supporting evidence? Can we do it without creating drama and contention?
Where would be a good place to start answering these questions? What cultural blockchain research should we get familiar with?
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@Rich If it helps, I am wildly excited about human solutions and hoping to add a lot of that perspective to the research you have here. Connecting the technical with the humanities.
The framework for engagement you have here is a great foundation. The forum could add that posts concerning social and cultural topics needs to have X amount of references and/or empirical evidence cited…and without it cannot be accepted…in a similar vein to what we see in quality social science research today. A small “lesson” on engaging without drama/contention and inline with rational, logical thinking could be helpful too.
I.e., an inappropriate post might talk too much about current politics, current news, or use sensationalized language, but an appropriate post pulls from history, current cultural sentiment and/or philosophy (old & new).
@Anthropunk I’d be interested in collaborating on anything you have thoughts about. I too am concerned with the social and cultural implications of blockchain technology.
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