On
this heady morning we begin gently in the cheekily named Satoshi conference room (in honour of Bitcoin's still-unidentified creator)
at the Royal National Hotel, with a little lecture from Eli Sklar
about the possible future of a moneyless society with almost
limitless basic resources. Hopefully this isn't going to end up in
ideas extracted from The Communist Manifesto, but
I don't think so. He discusses economic changes over time and the
shift away from traditional labor toward an information economy,
borderless both physically and financially. He sees Bitcoin as a key
cog in this, of course, because it eliminates financial borders.
On
the overhead projector comes a mini history lesson depicting the
advancement of our economy from an agrarian,
intensive-manual-labor-based society 200+ years ago, through
mechanization and industrialization in the late 19th
century, through modern infotech and agribusiness nowadays. The
headline is “Increased Productivity”. The production of food has
risen almost 250% in less than sixty years. “Not only do we produce
a lot more with the same amount of work as we needed to do sixty
years ago, but we produce more than we actually need.” - Eli
Sklar.
In
the absence of monetary incentives (because, presumably, the cost of
living is so low), Sklar says we can extract value from social
interactions and convert gaming activities into productivity. But the
moneyless society will be an evolution rather than an overnight
revolution. This is for me still an idealistic vision but in
principle we should have the tools to move in this general direction;
we just have to believe in the future and shape it accordingly?
Next
it's Caleb James DeLisle, on for a discussion about “the
sociopolitical effects of network protocols”, i.e. the Internet,
security issues, service providers, intellectual property
philosophies, and so on. Now he fires up the Internet on his
Linux-equipped (kudos) laptop and gives a brief demonstration of
IPv6. I guess this truly is the future: eat your heart out, Marty
McFly! :)
Then
we are blessed with Mike Hearn for a lecture specifically recommended
by the organizer (it's thus one of “Amir's Picks”). Mike is
discussing practical applications and improvements of Bitcoin to
improve the efficiency and security of transactions, ideas he says
are implementable now by
sufficiently determined and capable programmers, not hypothetically n
years ahead. A lot of this
focuses on escrow and trust between parties, which is critical
because regular two-party bitcoin transactions are cash-like and
irreversible.
A
particularly interesting idea is “smart property”, in which
physical items can be computer-linked to Bitcoin thus permitting
loans and some level of electronic recourse by the lessor in the
event of default. Also, there's the idea of creating a Bitcoin bond
market. It sounds all eminently doable... eventually.
Now,
people are asking questions to the speakers and soon it's time for
lunch and hopefully some coffee. The afternoon lecture No
Privacy – No Freedom by
Icelandic MP (?) Birgitta Jónsdóttir sounds slightly mouthwatering.
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