Institutions, blockchain, and Libertarianism — these three sets of ideas have captured my intellectual fascination over as many decades.
Why? Perhaps because they are ideas that are built on logic and truth, they are elegant and efficient in terms of the ratio of core ideas relative to power to change the world, and they would seem to have much potential to be harnessed for good in bettering the lot of humankind in the future. As an entrepreneur with a strong sense of justice and desire to help humanity progress, these are the kinds of ideas that I have been thirsty for over the years.
I’ve been a blockchain entrepreneur and seed investor since 2013, and was first attracted to the technology for its potential to enforce private property rights and I could immediately see an application to unleashing human prosperity in developing countries with dysfunctional and corrupt governments.
My involvement with institutional theory comes from my time studying at Stanford University under the tutelage of Douglass North, Woodie Powell, and W. Richard Scott — three of the great institutional scholars of the late 20th and early 21st century. I was not enrolled as a social science major — I was an engineering major with minors in accounting and business — but upon stumbling into these ideas I was so intellectually-impressed that I stayed on for a doctoral degree with these wise men.
As I’ve come through my 30’s and early 40’s, I’ve become very much aware of the limitations of the nation-state as an organizing concept for humanity, and increasingly I’ve connected with the hope and promise of the Libertarian philosophy.
However, at the same time, I’ve also felt frustrated at the lack of a practical manifestation of Libertarianism with which to guide and live out my own life and I can’t really opt-out of the nation-state model, yet.
As I look to the future, I believe that we are in the early innings of an evolution towards a fully digital economy, and blockchain holds the potential to also evolve new institutions of political-economy and for the delivery of public goods and services consistent with Libertarian ideals to support what I will refer to throughout this blog as “Humanity 3.0”.
This digital transformation that I am imagining goes way beyond e-commerce, social media, and remote working.
The progress towards Humanity 3.0 could be one of the most important areas of progress we make as a human species in my lifetime, and as a humanist, this is profoundly exciting and where I am drawn to focus my energy and creativity.
I am blogging about these ideas publicly, as I believe that the agenda for this transition to new political and economic institutions and governance models for the delivery of public goods will involve scores and scores of builders over the next two or three decades, and it needs to be a larger conversation within the blockchain community and global society at large.
Also, as a mildly-autistic early blockchain contributor who has relationships with many of the founders of many of the key projects, I am generally familiar with the current state of the blockchain technology frontier and can project forward in a very realistic way (and not as a sci-fi author or dreamer would do) what can and will be built atop the new Layer 1 blockchain platforms, e.g. Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana, Cosmos, Avalanche, Terra, Celo.
Also, as previously noted, I am well-versed in the institutional theory that has been used by leading social scientists over the past century to describe and compare the relative performance, efficiency, and resiliency of various economic and political architectures, and I want to bring this lens of analysis into the discussion.
By crystalizing these ideas (which will be a blend of Libertarian political philosophy and a product/engineering roadmap of sorts via this blog) I hope that my intuition about what is possible for humanity on top of the new blockchain technology-frontier can excite others and inspire philosophers to push forward the philosophy, builders to build new tools and platforms that are now possible, and so on and so forth.
If I am successful with this blog, within a year there will be a community of people actively discussing the concept of Humanity 3.0, and there will be several blockchain start-ups actively building the tools needed to fill the gaps necessary to bring the Humanity 3.0 vision to life. I am hopeful that I can interact with some of these teams, and I am open to investing in early-stage companies that share the Humanity 3.0 vision.
In embarking on this project, I am hopeful to make a minor contribution to carrying the lantern a bit further ahead into the darkness to light the way for our human species. If you are a journeyer who shares a thirst to help humanity to progress beyond the brokenness of the status quo nation-state-premised-on-violence model, I hope we can connect, discuss, and begin to imagine how our collective future can be improved by creating new social, economic, and political institutions within this new technology frontier.
If you you find yourself picking up the torch of Humanity 3.0 to carry it further as a builder with a new protocol or dApp project that can further this important cause, I would love to consider being your seed investor, please do reach out.
Humanity 3.0 