Blockchain or Blockprison?

The concept of blockchain took the computing world by storm. The hype was brief; but its importance still lurks in the background, quietly. Too quietly. For if we’re not careful, and if we don't pay attention, the blockchain could turn out to be a blockprison.

With the advent of the cryptographic record-keeping system called “Blockchain” in 2008, the basis for the invention of cryptocurrency was realised. And only a year later, the now world-renowned digital currency Bitcoin was created. I for one found them both intriguing and, in principle, very appealing.

The essential premise of these inventions is the desire for decentralization, i.e. a system whereby activities of a certain kind (or of a certain people) are self-regulated. In the case of blockchain, this is largely achieved by the peer-to-peer networking of critical data, meaning that the information is held collectively by all the members of the system—not by a central authority.

Clearly, the inventions of blockchain and cryptocurrency are cogent to the modern age, in which the progressive increase of digital sophistication is a prominent trend.

Of the two, cryptocurrency has by far received the most attention over the last decade, due to the fact that people use it directly. Blockchain, being the abstract principle that underlies crypto, took a while to come to attention, which it did in 2018.

The hype over blockchain was, however, short-lived, in that blockchain just doesn’t get mentioned that often anymore. But the “hype” was justified, because blockchain technology is set to impact society in profound ways.

For me, there’s no doubt about the premise that blockchain can be used to serve the progressive needs of society in a way that’s genuinely beneficial to all. Far more than a more liberating and secure form of commerce, blockchain is perfectly suited to the enhancement of information systems in all spheres of life, thereby enhancing the organization of life in general.

However, these benefits are only potential, in that they ultimately depend on how blockchain is implemented. Moreover, the fact that the media buzz over blockchain has been brief means, essentially, that this implementation is being planned – if not taking place – without notice. And this, I feel, effectively invites the abuse of the potential benefits made possible by blockchain.

As a prime example of this abuse, take individual privacy and rights—by which is meant: take them away. Could that happen? How?

For a start, the idea of the ‘cashless society’ has been well ingrained into the social consciousness; and more importantly, its eventual manifestation can hardly be doubted at this point. In principle, this is a good thing—in principle. The conveniences and suitability of a cashless system in this interconnected and digitalized world is undeniable.

As I mentioned earlier, a cashless system will necessarily be based on the blockchain technology that underlies cryptocurrencies (unless we somehow revert to a commodity currency, which I can only imagine in a cartoon version of today’s world).

But (and this is the 64,000 dollar bitcoin question), what are the potential ramifications of the integration of blockchain technology into society? And furthermore, shouldn’t we collectively be asking this question now (a point I’ll come back to later)?

The basis of the blockchain ledger system is that it records every single activity of every single user within its system. So in a cashless society, this means that every transaction you make is recorded and stored indefinitely.

Now, although blockchain systems use cryptographic keys for transactional privacy, the possibility for this system to be usurped by powerful organizations (never mind opportunist hackers) actually seems like an inevitability: Be it a giant corporation or an interfering regime of government, it’s difficult to see how blockchain won’t go from decentralized to “decentralized”.

Considering that the usurpation of liberating technology has already happened in the online world – i.e. with the corporate and state (unofficially, of course) tracking, analysis, and use of computerized data now being normalized – I don’t think it’s a stretch to expect an equivalent practise to arise within systems of digital currency—particularly in light of the Snowden revelations concerning the scope of global surveillance, from which the world learned of how the GPS, cameras, and microphones within our own devices are considered fair game for authorities’ perusal.

So ultimately, then, a cashless society spells the end of transactional privacy, as all transactions will be recorded and thus available for inspection, if not analytics.

More importantly, the implications for economic privacy are only just the beginning: If you examine the potential ramifications of blockchain a little deeper, you’ll see that a cashless society opens the door to a world of pervasive ledgering—in other words, a system of control.

The most perilous road I see for the abuse of blockchain in the Western world is its integration with a social credit system, which to me seems like a logical step in the evolution of a cashless society.

While in the traditional cash-based society, credit ratings are in fact tied to our personal lives and social status, a social rating system would harness the near omnipresent technologies that are able to track the activities of human beings in various ways—a threat which seems implicit in such a system.

In China, a social rating system has already been implemented. Over there, citizens’ activities and behaviour are tracked continuously, the data from which is used to rate their status as a citizen, which then determines their level of access to the various forms of privileges in society. This even includes mundane actions like jaywalking, which are detected and recorded by surveillance cameras, the evidence from which is used to penalize (and publicly shame!) citizens via their social credit score.

As disturbingly dystopian as the details of the Chinese social credit system sound, it’s difficult to see this reflected in reports, as citizens are typically shown to be in approval of it. This, no doubt, is at least in part due to the fact that criticizing the social credit system risks being penalized by it—meaning that, to one extent or another, it will cost you to disapprove.

Alternatively, a social credit system society has been foreseen in the West in the form of fictionalized depictions of it. Most notably, the episode Nosedive (2016) of the series Black Mirror does a good job of illustrating how a social credit system (administered via an app) creates a fa?ade society of credit-score motivated pretence, beneath which lurks the dehumanizing effects of anxiety and artificiality. And in particular, the focus of the episode is the protagonist’s tragic (or is it?) demise from being on the cusp of a crucial rating milestone, only to be caught in a whirlpool of unfortunate occurrences that leaves her rock bottom of the social ladder.

I would say that a watch of Nosedive is more suggestive of where we could be heading than news reports of China’s social credit system, because that fictionalized projection illustrates the principles of the system as occurring within our own Western culture. Additionally, the episode App Development and Condiments (2014) of the series Community is essentially a comedic version of this theme, in which an app “MeowMeowBeenz” is invented and trialled—and very soon a dystopian caste-system is formed simply out of the mere presence of the social rating app.

Now, if we consider the fact that London is the third most surveilled city in the world, behind the cities Wuxi and Taiyuan in China, we can see that the West is similarly equipped for extreme systems of control. And so, if powers in the West – official or commercial – ever decide to increase their control over individual rights, blockchain technology can serve as the perfect facilitator of systems to do this.

If blockchain is integrated into a social credit system, this essentially affords governments and corporations the opportunity to extrapolate data of human activities to an unprecedented degree.

Initially, this looks set to begin with a cashless system. Soon enough, I expect, this will lead to a credit system, thereby opening the door to the incremental expansion of parameters regarding the tracking and use of personal data—which at this point will be micropersonal “big data”.

In other words, this invites a slippery slope towards a world of microfines and micromanagement of citizens—which might be culturally acceptable in China; but goes directly against our principles of democracy in the West. Cross a road in a non designated area, litter in a public place, go over the speeding limit, or even say something on a social network which violates a law, and you could get automatically fined. No written request to pay such said fine, just simply taken from your digital wallet without warning.

We may find that the promise of liberation from old forms of interaction actually leads to the unfair penalization of certain people. For example, the implementation of blockchain in the health care system offers great potential for new levels of efficiency that helps and saves lives. But by the same token, the system in which it’s implemented can quite easily be one in which those who live in low socioeconomic environments are penalized based on the very poor behaviour that such environments engender.

With regards to the expansion of the parameters of personal data, the application of blockchain into our systems of technology could lead to a society in which our activities are governed based on the integrated analytics of our micropersonal data. Thus, in a quite disturbingly literal way, a digital version of each and every person would be generated and “grown” by the system, thereby (inconspicuously) reducing people to a form of digital pet. I’m sure all will agree that this would be a demoralizing and dehumanizing fruition of our technological and societal progress.

Since blockchain has lost its brief moment of media buzz, the questions of its use are that much more needed right now. And so, as I see it, there are two paths before us now: one is the humanly beneficial use of blockchain—the other is its dystopian abuse into a blockprison.

And all that’s needed to ensure that it is actually used for “the greater good” – not just in Orwellian doublespeak – is for each of us to pay close attention to the implementation of blockchain, and to generally be aware of technological developments that pose major implications to the fundamentals principles of our way of life.

Written by Simeon G Howard

CO-Founder, Coin Market Manager

https://www.coinmarketman.com