so I'm laying I'm a core developer on
the e azam team and as you can imagine
as a court developer I love technology
very much but you know what I like
people a lot too and I'm gonna here I'm
here to talk to you guys about people
today and in particular sort of the role
that aetherium has to play and that we
all in this community have to play in
the world at large since I sort of got
involved in the etherium and community
about a year ago
and I've been kind of exploring this
ecosystem I've sort of found that the
role that makes the most sense for me is
asking the hard questions so these are
questions like you know if your name is
great the technology is great but like
what's your deep why right why are we
all here what exactly are we building
who is it serving right what's the
purpose what gets you out of bed in the
morning and as I've kind of searched for
a framework that's helped me understand
in a broader context what we're trying
to do with etherium I've found this
thing called social scalability which
has been the framework that's helped me
understand the big picture what we're
doing right beyond the currency aspect
beyond even the technology aspect
there's a so and you know I want to
start with a confession as when I first
elaborated or you know kind of described
this talk and had a vision for this talk
and wrote down the the title of it
towards a socially scalable etherion
future I initially wanted to talk to you
guys about scaling aetherium right
because if their aims great and there's
a lot of like really smart people
working on scaling the technological
side of aetherium there's all kinds of
talks here at DEFCON on that topic but
we're hearing less about the social side
of it you know overcoming challenges
like UX and you know speaking a language
the world can understand and of course
governance which is big social challenge
but as I went deeper and began preparing
this talk I had a realization which is
that to ask this question right what
what can we all do for aetherium is
actually not the right way to frame it
so let me try to explain imagine that
this is all the human beings in the
world okay
all seven point whatever billion of us
how many lives do you guys think
aetherium has touched up to now in some
capacity how many people have you know
coded for aetherium or have used it or
even care about it or no but it exists
can anyone anyone see up there which one
is a little different let me help you
out it's you know whether it's ten
thousand or a hundred thousand or a
million or ten million like it actually
doesn't matter because there's so many
people on the planet it's like we're not
at one percent we're not even at one
tenth of one percent yet okay and this
is why I'm saying to ask this question
right what can we all do for aetherium
is really selfish because no one cares
about aetherium yet right the question
we should be asking is the opposite
question which is what can we do for the
world so I want to lead here with a
quote from president john f theorem and
so my fellow in theory ins asking god
what the world can do for aetherium ask
what aetherium can do for the world my
fellow citizens of the world ask not
what etherium will do for you but what
together we can do for the freedom of
men so obviously this is a really
powerful talk and a really powerful
quote and i really didn't understand it
until i saw it in this context so I want
to turn the question around and ask what
we can do for the world I have the next
twenty-one minutes to do three things
the first is try to explain social
scalability the second is to try to
somehow explain this etherion concept
which I think we've all seen this word
here and there but I'm gonna make an
attempt to go a bit deeper today and the
third is as if those things were not
exciting enough I have a couple of
fairly big exciting announcements that I
want to share at the end so let's dive
right in
what is social scalability well before
we talk about social scalability let's
start with the question what is
scalability right in brief something
that is scalable is something that
actually gets stronger as it grows
bigger and I think Devcon is a great
example of this you know they asked me
four slides a week ago and I kind of
said yeah sorry because this is I
literally added the slide ten minutes
ago like things move fast in this
community right and as I was sitting in
the main stage downstairs a few minutes
ago I had this realization you know
DEFCON has more than doubled we went
from 1500
last year two more than three thousand
this year and I don't know what do you
guys think is DEFCON worse or is it
better than last year better right so
okay so first of all kudos to the people
who organized the event because they're
incredible and we have more than doubled
this event in one year and it's scaling
okay so again this is an example of
scaling that I think we all have near
and dear to our hearts so let's talk
about social scaling this is a concept
that was introduced by a computer
scientist named Nick Szabo and it turns
out that primates including human beings
have cognitive limits and there's this
magic number which I'm sure many of
you've heard before Dunbar's number
which is something on the order of about
a hundred and fifty for humans this is
the the number of people that you can
you know kind of think about as knowing
on a first-name basis or or trusting
it's all kind of boils down to trust and
there's a reason that tribes tend to be
smaller than 150 people now that's all
well and good right but there's a
there's a limit to how much we can
accomplish in a group of 150 people
right what sort of technologies we can
build and what happened is that
throughout human history humans have
developed a series of technologies to
scale the size of the society what is
the technology the definition of a
technology is something which allows us
to do more with less
simply put right we can achieve more
wealth more output we can do more with
the same amount of let's say cognitive
input and so a great example early
example of this is language and writing
if every tribe has its own language then
we can't transact or interact with
people down the road in the next tribe
the language has allowed us to scale and
there's a reason that there's a power
law distribution and we have languages
today that have hundreds of millions of
speakers because it's a it's a powerful
social scaling tool of course writing in
books and the printing press took that
even further and of course another
example is money if you hand me cash
right I don't need to trust you I don't
need to know who you are I don't need to
know where you're from this is a great
example of a technology that scales
society and scales the number of people
we can transact with it's completely
trustless
theory Adam Smith actually wrote about
social scalability almost 300 years ago
right and what he wrote about was
clothing something as simple as a single
garment a single simple shirt or jacket
does anyone in this room think that they
could create a piece of clothing from
scratch like truly from the raw
materials ok I'm super impressed you
guys have to show me how to do that
later he wrote about so Adam Smith wrote
about the hundreds or thousands of
people even in the 18th century who were
involved in creating and transporting
and creating a market for a simple
garment right from the shepherd who
tends the sheep to the person who shears
the sheep to the person who cards the
wool and dyes it and creates the garment
to the enormous supply chain again even
hundreds of years ago the shipbuilders
and the sailors and the merchants that
were involved in bringing these garments
to market the definition of social
scalability is how little we all need to
understand about the world because
that's the point of society I don't need
to know how to create a t-shirt because
I trust it's about trust right I trust
that I can go down the road to a shop
and buy a shirt it'll be there it'll fit
it'll work right and again this was the
case hundreds of years ago now let's
bring to the modern era right if it's
that complex for a shirt
300 years ago it's just mind-blowing
truly mind-blowing to think about the
number of people involved in a
technology as complex as a jetliner
which of course brought many our most of
us here to Prague tens hundreds of
thousands of people involved in the
design the manufacture the the operation
of things like airplanes and Airlines
and so this is testament to the power of
social scalability not only is there no
one person there's not even one
organization that could do this on their
own of course another great example is
law in particular contract law right I
don't need to know who you are to
transact with you in the modern world
because I trust that if you do something
wrong I can take you to court and I can
fix the problem I think the ultimate
example of a social scaling to
ecology is the nation state so this
image is sort of of the the piste of the
peace of westphalia average so we're now
in the middle of the 17th century it's
the end of the warring States period
there were you know 8090 years of war of
these these kingdoms that had been at
war over things like religion and they
came together and over a period of years
and a series of treaties they hammered
out this thing which has today become
the international system right the
concept of a sovereign state the idea
that states can can communicate with
each other and treat with each other and
again this is the epitome today of
social scaling we have countries with
over a billion people in them just try
to imagine that like a single system
that you know I mean ok they're not
perfect right but they've actually kind
of worked and they scaled reasonably
well up to now does anyone recognize
this guy Thank You this is Alexi de
Tocqueville right so he is a Frenchman
who travelled in the United States in in
the 18th century I'm sorry the 19th
century and he wrote a book called
democracy in America and he commented on
the fact that America was unique in the
world at that time
because of the level of civil engagement
and the fact that democracy had deep
roots in American society and you know
so I want to apologize for the very kind
of America centric nature of these
photos I'm from the United States I'm
gonna own that right now but you know we
have this version of the story which
says that we have the civic engagement
right we have these town hall meetings
that happen in every local municipality
we have people who come together and
debate the issues on their merits and we
have this lively participation which is
what the Tocqueville was describing but
as an American today and maybe many of
you feel what I feel right democracy
doesn't feel like this today it feels
more like this you know it's it's it's
angry entitled white men who feel that
the system which has benefited them us
obviously I'm part of this right I'm not
angry for a very long time is beginning
to change and they're beginning to lose
some privilege and
this is a huge topic right I could stand
up here for the next hour and describe
to you the rise of populism and
demagoguery and you know the the wealth
gap getting worse and the rich getting
richer and the poor getting poorer and
the the lack of civil engagement and
apathy on the part of voters the only
point I want to make is that the
nation-state is a technology and it's
not that old okay it's it's less than
four hundred years old and I intended to
have my phone in my pocket I left it
over there but you know I have this
whatever this is a I don't want a
clicker right so I went to the store and
I bought this to serve a specific
function right it's a piece of
technology I can use it to move around
and use a laser pointer and stuff five
years from now this may be obsolete
maybe this one but my phone will be
right it'll be too slow the apps won't
work it won't have enough storage so
what do we do when a technology is
outdated we upgrade okay and the point
I'm trying to make is that the
nation-state is a technology like any
other and that that technology is
beginning to show its age and we should
be having this dialogue about how we can
do better this is the Galactic Senate
from Star Wars I had to throw a nerd
reference in here right I used to have a
vision that the future of humanity would
look something like this you know that
this is sort of the UN scaled by a
couple of orders of magnitude you know
you have all these groups of whatever
humanoids from around the world or
around the galaxy who come together in
this gigantic centralized forum to like
debate their issues but you know the
nation-states kind of not working the UN
is definitely not working and this is no
longer how I conceive the future of
humanity to me it looks more like this
right we have these like autonomous
groups of people who have these
divergent interests at the local or
municipal or in some cases the national
level and you know maybe the solution is
not a single centralized system maybe
the solution looks something more like I
don't know blockchain maybe we have a
role to play in all this so ten years
ago today right this this thing entered
the world you know Bitcoin exists and I
guess the question I'm asking is what
role does the blockchain those things
like Bitcoin and aetherium have to play
in the future and and what can they do
to
change the narrative here there are
projects that are actually doing this
today right so there's many projects
that are building governance high santi
governance on the blockchain for
blockchain projects which is great
that's very important but there's at
least one project that is trying to
build governance of actual real human
institutions like meat space flesh and
blood human institutions using things
like aetherium using tools like
quadratic voting and liquid democracy so
kudos to democracy earth project if
you're not familiar with it check it out
I think that we all can learn a lot from
that project all right now let's talk
about this etherion idea over the past
week I've had incredible conversations
about the technology behind etherium in
Berlin and now in Prague here at DEFCON
but more than that I've had a lot of
conversations about the non-technical
stuff in etherium so this is a gentleman
named Harry Halpin who spoke at the web
3 summit about the mistakes of web 2 and
lessons we can learn about like avoiding
corporate capture for example of the
technologies this is the de central node
which was literally a conference within
a conference at the web 3 summit that
had three full days of non-stop
programming including this talk on
decentralized governance this is an
event called the philosophers salon
sorry the philosophers salon the
etherium philosophers salon that was
organized by Andy from status and
several other incredible people this
happened here in Prague a few days ago
and it was an extremely moving you know
personal conversation right people
really opening their hearts and asking
deep difficult questions like why are we
all here what are we building how do we
build a system for humans everywhere
this is a town hall that the status team
ran also a few days ago here in Prague
and this particular this was not about
technology that's the point I'm trying
to make right this was about like
vulnerability this is about embracing
our failure and how that can make us
better people and lead to better
projects this is a workshop I
participated in yesterday here on
diversity and inclusion with an
incredibly diverse group of people
having a very deep open conversation
about recruiting users and and builders
from diverse walks of life
I had the great fortune last night at
dinner to meet this individual Eduardo
and what are you here somewhere
maybe Eduardo is a true revolutionary
okay this this gentleman has been living
exclusively on cryptocurrency for years
in Venezuela and he just escaped
Venezuela a month ago to Argentina and
he's here with us today and it was let's
get a round of applause that's an
incredible accomplishment and you know
we all opened this morning in the main
room singing Kumbaya effectively and
coming together as a community and
embracing you know rainbows and unicorns
and you know just goodwill so the point
I'm trying to make is that it's time
that we like
face the facts right etherium is about
technology but it's about so much more
than technology if you ask me this looks
I don't know what it looks like it's a
social movement it's a political
movement it's like that Town Hall image
I showed you a little while ago right
it's it's the people coming together to
have these deep honest conversations
about why we're all here and what we're
doing I had a conversation with my
father recently and he kind of asked me
what are you are you a Democrat are you
a Republican
are you liberal are you conservative and
you know in the world that he grew up in
people fit into these neat boxes I don't
know if this is true for anyone else
here I suspect maybe it is right I don't
really strongly identify with any of
these labels there's things I appreciate
and hate about Democrats and Republicans
about liberals and conservatives you
know another question am I an American
or a citizen of the world you know I I'm
patriotic I love my country I'm standing
here before you as an example of the
American dream my father is an immigrant
he arrived in the United States with no
money and no education and Here I am
standing in front of you today at the
same time I don't believe Americans
deserve any special privilege over you
know there's billions of people in the
world as I said before right so again
it's not either of these specifically
you know I fought further am i I'm
definitely I believe in the future I'm
optimistic I believe in the power of
technology and you know identity is a
very complex multifaceted thing when I
really paused and reflect
asked myself honestly like what do I
what is my identity I'm American I'm a
technologist I'm a New Yorker the thing
that I identified with the most strongly
is all of you right I'm an etherion and
I don't know what this means right
again I don't is this this is a social
movement it's a technology is it's not
really a political party it's kind of
all these things and sort of none of
them at the same time and all whatever
this is is is just what we as a
community create going forward in a
collective decentralized fashion so if
you guys feel comfortable using this
word I'm gonna stand up here now proudly
and say I'm an etherion and I you know I
shared this identity with many of you
all right
I said I was going to make a couple of
announcements but I'm gonna do that so
the first is in order to kind of kick
off this conversation of you know
understanding what is you know what does
it theory and mean I've launched a
website called etherion org this is live
you can check it out right now it's just
a discourse forum okay so you can go you
can sign up I posted a couple of topics
that we can start talking about some of
the things I've spoken about today like
the nation state and if this is
something that's interesting to you
please check it out join this
conversation right as I said I don't
it's not up to me and I'm not standing
here I'm not trying to lead a movement
right I'm just trying to what's the word
I'm trying to steward something into
existence I'm trying to recognize the
reality on the ground which is that this
is about a lot more than technology and
you know very inspired by things like
radical markets and the work that
democracy earth and many other projects
are doing and I'm hoping this can become
a forum for that maybe a year from now
you know we can have an etherion
breakout session here at Def Con or
something like that and the second thing
is I've been extremely inspired by the
work that Eric Posner in Clinton Weill
did in the radical markets book radical
markets is if you haven't read this yet
please like go home after Def Con
decompress read this book it's very
powerful it's not just radical ideas as
it says for uprooting capitalism and
democracy for a just society it's
actually it paints a picture
right it actually has these hypothetical
narratives these anecdotes of what a
future world might look like I think the
single most important thing that we as a
community can do aside from building the
technology itself is attempting to
engage with the real world attempting to
develop a dialogue that makes sense and
and you know growing the impact of
aetherium and let's say a theory uh
including a theory ins to more than you
know what we are today which is less
than one tenth of one percent and I
think a great way to do that is it's by
writing a book so the working title is
move slow and fix things and I'm sure
many of you could help me come up with a
better title but I'm gonna work this
next year on on writing a book and
trying to explain to the world what
we're doing and what we're all about and
and the impact that these ideas can have
I'm happy to do this in a very open
source fashion right we can have that
conversation on the etherion org website
and I really hope that a year from now I
can stand on this stage and I can share
maybe a first draft of that book and
that many of you can contribute to it so
you know so I want to say one thing
first the move slow part here right this
this is in recognition of the fact that
we're not looking for a revolution we're
looking for evolution okay we're looking
to incremental e improve things and
that's I'm calling that the youthful ooh
see on here the last thing I want to
leave you with is that over the next you
know today tomorrow and the following
day the next three days you're going to
hear a lot of really incredible talks
from a lot of very brilliant people and
what I'd like you to have in the back of
your mind the overarching question is
what is this serve right how do these
technologies make the world a better
place and what role do we have to do in
getting there thank you
I think it's a really fascinating idea
what do you think of sort of this whole
idea of blockchain maximalism and things
like that because branding out sort of
etherion i guess in a way blocks out
other block chains and other ideas
potentially so I don't the short answer
so sorry the question was like what do
you think about blockchain maximalism
and you know I guess the implied
question is are you in a theory and
maximalist ins that does that sort of
cancel out other ideas the short answer
is I don't believe in isms I don't
believe in maximalism and no isms right
it's not about etherium at the end of
the day that's the point I was trying to
make in the beginning I it doesn't
matter whether aetherium succeeds or
fails in the in the in the long run and
in the grand scheme of things right what
matters is that we move forward as a
society and that the ideas and the
values and the principles that we're
doing this for you know they say you
can't uninvent Bitcoin right you can't
uninvent etherium you can't you you can
you know you can the technology may not
scale and you know you can you can spam
the blockchain but like we're not going
anywhere as a community and you know
some other technology will come along
and pick up that same flag and keep the
progress moving forward so I am
absolutely not a nationalist one
question I have is how do you envision
underrepresented groups getting more
involved because I was at the etherium
2.0 workday on Monday and I was one of
three women out of like 75 men which is
atrocious like as a software engineer
that's like the worst ratio I've ever
seen
so yeah how do you envision more
underrepresented groups get involved and
this collective feature awesome that's
such a big topic and this thing says 29
seconds so I'm gonna I'm gonna give you
a super high-level overview and then
let's keep the conversation going
because it's important number one
diversity inclusion is freaking super
important okay so Kelvin Victor gave a
talk yesterday at the diversity
inclusion breakout session he made this
case much better than I could so if you
weren't there check out the video one of
the points he made is that even if you
sort of on the surface don't care about
diversity you should anyway even if you
only are in it for the economics because
diverse systems are more anti fragile
and better and you know the economics
will be a lot better if we can bring
more diversity into the picture number
two I don't have the answers I don't
claim to have the answer is right this
is
the whole point of what I'm saying here
is that this is a platform for us to
have more dialogue about this and to
learn from each other and you know we
need to engage with the rest of the
world right we in this room it's very
hubristic of us to think that we can
kind of build a system for all of humans
the last thought I want to share is you
know we we have a lot of focus about
putting butts in seats which is
important like I wish that you know 50%
of the people in this room were female
and that is important but I think that
there's an upstream question here right
so we need to talk about like you know
going all the way back right how do we
raise our kids and how do we instill men
and women with different values and how
to way from a you know very early point
going back to let's say grade school get
you know women more excited about
technology and things like that and it
will take a lot of time I think to get
to the point where we are now with
engage people sitting in chairs and
events like this again thank you guys
very very much
grab me pause for lame
[Applause]
you