Democratizaton and Decentralization are not the same thing
The advent of Bitcoin and Blockchain has opened up a whole world of possibilities about how people make decisions. Blockchain can let people vote easier and without fraud, or so the story goes.
Because of this, people talk about Blockchain decentralizing networks and "democratizing" things that were previously subject to more unilateral decision making. Think of the difference in business model between user content focused networks like social media and top down production of typical industrial corporations.
The increased accessibility of everybody to make decisions is almost universally heralded as a net positive, but is it? There is a whole argument to be made that decisions are better off left to select people, but I'm neither arguing for it or going to explain it. This spectrum of who is making decisions is seemingly the big question for all of the history of government. Is it going to be one person, a small group of people, everybody, everybody except (insert X demographic)?
The supposed problem of past governments is that decision making power was not equitably distributed. Kings and Queens, Czars, Emperors, dictators of all stripes, this is ostensibly the problem in government - that too few people have a say in the decisions that are made.
This is America's biggest "sin" from the beginning. The prevailing narrative throughout the American history is (not necessarily incorrectly) the struggle of oppressed groups (blacks, women, etc.) to gain a political voice.
The main meta-political question throughout history is "who is making the decisions?" It is also much less important than the second question I'm going to introduce: "who is impacted by these decisions?" This is the far more important question that is never asked.
This is the difference between democratization and decentralization. Increased democratization means more people are able to participate in the decision making process. True increased decentralization means decreasing the magnitude of impact that each political decision makes.
Excellent insight. While democratization and decentralization are not the same thing, they are also not mutually exclusive concepts. Decentralization I feel may be able to mitigate the negative impacts from the second question you ask, “Who is this impacting?” When power is more equally shared, the system is forced to work more in the interests of the collective, even if anybody votes in some sort Ayn Randian self-interest. I look forward to see this technology’s impact on governance and any unforeseen consequences its application may have.
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