Post #22: NYC Exemplifies The Power of Decentralization
Post #22: NYC Exemplifies The Power of Decentralization
New York City is a project that started in the first half of the 17th century, with millions of people having chosen to contribute to it over the past 350 or so years. Whether they contributed by constructing new buildings, creating businesses, improving the city’s government, or just choosing to call NYC home, the energy from millions of people have made the project successful.
What makes NYC a decentralized project is how many people are able to contribute to its development. People were able to show up with a contribution in mind and get to work. It’s still generally the case, although there’s some more red tape than there used to be.
Imagine if NYC had gone another direction and the original Dutch colonists in 1624, or the Algonquian Native Americans who used the land before them, succeeded at creating a highly centralized organization to manage NYC. What if this hypothetical “NYC Corporation” was responsible for all decisions related to the development of the city?
While it could have worked as a centralized project with the right leadership, it would have been low probability that the leader[s] possessed anywhere as much creativity and energy as a “decentralized development team.”
Inviting as many people as possible to contribute to a project, ideally every human (and bot once AI is able to contribute autonomously), increases the odds that the project will be amazing. It does that because it lets the best people self-select to be part of the project with their own intrinsic motivation.
The trick with a maximally decentralized project is it can be difficult to set up a project environment that lets anyone who wants to contribute while maintaining the project’s direction and overall integrity.
New York City is a great example of a project that’s conducive to decentralization. Since there is a fixed amount of land that comprises New York City, it’s clear to would-be contributors where they need to do their work. And then some types of work that need doing are also clear, like constructing more buildings of various kinds- housing, offices, industrial, retail, hotels- to let more people live in the city and have access to the types of buildings they need to do whatever types of projects they want to do.
As we look to the future and aim to create a better civilization, a question we’re faced with in this first half of the 21st century is: can we create a digital platform that enables our progress? Is there a project that anyone with an internet connection could contribute to that would push humanity forward?
Maybe we’ve already started that project and it’s called the internet? Is it a blockchain project like Ethereum that lets developers build smart contract based applications? It is a “metaverse” project? Is it a large language model that anyone can contribute to just by chatting with it? Or have we yet to imagine the type of digital project that will enable humanity to flourish over the next few hundred or more years?
RelevanceDAO is interested in answering that question.
Hope all is well with you :).
Michael
As I continue researching and talking with folks in the crypto space, I’m maintaining a public notion page with a running list of product ideas. Your feedback would help on these since it will dictate the first thing that gets built. Any thoughts are helpful as even the smallest note can help push my thinking forward. Notion page: https://fragrant-yacht-c32.notion.site/RelevanceDAO-Product-Ideas-8df8e3847a004efd9012a5f05d65b18b