noun
(in ancient Greece) a public open space used for assemblies and markets.
An Introduction
Something has happened since the genesis of Bitcoin that is truly unique to the world.
A new digital space has formed that lives outside of the social frameworks that we have constructed over eons of human development.
It is orthogonal to the nation state. It is not geographically bounded, nor is it bounded by the norms that have emerged within them. But it does exist and we have to deal with that now.
It exists and will continue to grow based on its usage. It is a tangential plane of existence that is purely digital, but increasingly will influence the real world as participants partially, or fully, exit their nation state defined personhood to adopt a new persona in this new digital space.
And it is… for everyone, which is achieved through the notion of permissionlessness.
This article explores this idea by framing this new space as an Agora, a digital commons that is truly for everyone.
Blockchains as an Agora
Blockchains have created an Agora.
A public place that can be used by anyone. No gated entrance. No checks. No identification required. No questions asked.
This Agora is perfectly global.
Anyone on planet Earth can use it. It does not care for your nationality, race, location, or any personal characteristic of any kind. It doesn’t even care if you’re human.
This Agora is digital.
This Agora is non-corporeal. It exists in a digital plane of existence that facilitates instant access by anyone anywhere instantaneously. You can use this public place to exchange value digitally between other parties on the Agora and literally no one can stop you.
This Agora is sustainable.
Agora like this have historically fallen to the tragedy of the commons problem. That is, open and free to use public spaces tend to get abused by a subset of the participants, which then triggers an avalanche of abuse, decimating the commons until it unusable.
To avoid this problem, this Agora, isn’t completely free. It costs some of the native currency to use, often not much of it, in fact it’s often very very cheap indeed, but when the Agora is in demand the price of transit increases dependent on demand. This stops frivolous use and has thus far avoided the Agora falling completely for the Tragedy of the Commons.
This Agora is unstoppable.
Built with the tacit knowledge that some people, somewhere don’t like humans to have an Agora with free exchange of value, the Agora is built with fortress like defences.
Although anyone can use it. It does have rules, strict ones. These are designed to provide a resistance to attack by interested parties.
This Agora is growing
The Agora gets bigger the more demand for its use there is. The desire for access to its native currency makes maintaining the Agora a profitable enterprise. The more users of the Agora, the more profitable it becomes and the more resources committed to maintaining its existence, creating a positive feedback loop for it’s growth.
This growth will follow technology adoption curves, the typical Sigmoid (S-curve) line shape, which tops out at every person ever that will want to use it. For this case of this Agora that’s some huge majority of the population of the planet.
This Agora has a complex economy
The Agora began with a native currency; Bitcoin, which sits at the base layer of its existence. Everything above with few exceptions, will boom, bloom, collapse and renew with the same periodic complex dynamics we see in the natural world.
Within this economy people can set up shop on the Agora. In fact, the Agora; because of it’s permissionless, programmable and digital nature facilitates a new kind of business model. Not just classic dark market shenanigans, but new forms of organisation, new innovation.
The Agora has its own culture
Inhabitants of this digital world can reify new identities, build new personalities, become hugely influential.
There is an emerging lexicon and a strong memetic discourse. It has its own lore, religious fanatics, tribal dynamics and sub-cultures. It even has its own art market.
The result is a tangible cultural dynamic that is truly global, diverse and anthropologically interesting.
The Agora is Organising
Until recently this space has been an almost pure anarchy. This is changing with DAOs.
DAOs are the organisational primitives for this digital plane of existence. The equivalent of the LTD company, or LLC, emerged directly from the Agora itself.
This is a new digitally native paradigm of organisation and will significantly influence the real world, but it will be forged in the heart of free and open culture and trade.
The Fairness of the Agora
The blockchain Agora is free speech absolutist. There is no notion of morality. It processes transactions, that’s what it does. The rigidity of its rules prohibits even the most moderate changes to its nature. It cares not for the complexities of human taste.
Consequently, you can be the most despicable, or virtuous of characters and the Agora will treat you equally.
The Agora is brutally fair.
The affordances of the technological substrate to the Agora mean that it will be used by the worlds worst people. It will challenge our moral, ethical and legal structures at their most fundamental level.
It will be the most important conversation of our age.
Coping with the Agora
Whether you think this Agora is a good idea or not is now largely irrelevant, it’s here now and it’s unstoppable. It is already the case that vast proportions of nation state citizens are participating in its activities.
Now we must move into a phase where we accept its presence and move into an understanding of how best to synthesise with it and leverage it to benefit our civilisation.
A war with the Agora will fail
The Agora is decentralised. Even if aspects of the technologies and enterprises emerging in its spaces have centralised points of failure, the space as a whole is already too multi-faceted and complex to understand, let alone control.
The lowest layers of this space (Bitcoin and Ethereum) are profoundly decentralised and could be considered practically unstoppable by even the most powerful actors.
Aggressive attacks will lead to more robust decentralisation and an acceleration of privacy technology, with Zero Knowledge technology already maturing at great pace.
Attempting to stop the Agora from existing, will be costly, futile and criminalise millions of innocent people.
Permissionlessness Comes at a Cost
There is no costless transformation and the undesirable activity that we see here, even at it’s worst, is no comparison to even the moderate actions carried out by centralised power. At least all people lose here is money.
Rather than put our heads in the sand and pretend the world isn’t changing. We should have real conversations about what we do now, with these new capabilities.
The question is not how do we fight the inevitable; to stop the unstoppable, but decide what we should do with our new powers.
The Agora is a Natural Evolution of the Internet
In reality this Agora has been emerging since the dawn of the internet and the new Blockchain Agora can be conceived of as a natural evolution of the internet itself, which has been co-opted by centralised power.
The internet is healing itself, re-injecting humanity back into its nature. A place where culture and free thought can exist without prejudice.
The internet makes us more connected, more together, more creative, but centralisation does not, it profits from driving a wedge between us.
A decentralised internet is good for humanity.
Towards a Synthesis of Digital Practice
A reorganisation of attitudes and practices are required to allow humans to flourish on the internet, allowing them to bring the value they acquire back to their economies and real world communities.
A vast global economy will be created and the opportunity is vast for everyone in the world, nation states included. New technology, new culture and new knowledge will be created. We must discover the ways that the two worlds can play together in harmony. We have no choice.
In Summary
The Athenian idea of the Agora has returned. A place that was the birthplace of democracy for a reason. It was an open place of culture, performance, trade and discourse.
The world needs all of those things right now.
Inhabitants of this new digital Agora are no one’s enemy. There are bad people here, just as in the real world, but that does not mean that the Agora itself is bad.
This is what true inclusivity looks like.
“ The internet is healing itself, re-injecting humanity back into its nature. A place where culture and free thought can exist without prejudice.” ~ beautiful!
Agoraphobes BTFO