Out of all the readings, I liked Protocol and the Bitcoin stuff the best so I’ll comment on those.

Protocol addresses a lot of misconceptions I had about the web and also taught me a lot about it works as well.

‘How would control exist after decentralization?’

• It was interesting to read about the history of control in societies, about how there was a shift from disciplinary societies to control societies.

‘World Wide Web is a network within the internet –> HTML and CSS’

• This may sound stupid/silly, but if World Wide Web is a network within the internet…then what other networks are there and how do I find them?

‘Nearly all web traffic must submit to a hierarchical structure (DNS) to gain access to the anarchic and radically horizaontal structure of the internet’

• I still have trouble wrapping my head around how DNS is decentralized. Its hierarchical nature makes it seem like the weak link in this idea of decentralization, but the author doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. I was confused when given the example about how we can just shut off an entire country from the internet pretty easily. Am I missing something?

‘Next-hop strategy means that no single node on the internet knows definitively where a destination is, but each node does know the exact location of every node it is connected to.’

• This concept is super interesting, I feel like I learned some cool combinatorial theory that goes along with how this works in university. It’s amazing to understand that it can get to a very specific end point without knowing exactly where that end point is at every step in its journey. I guess if each and every step is absolutely ‘closer’ (I wonder how it knows what is closer?) then I guess it makes sense that it will eventually end up in the correct end point based on some optimzation algorithm or something.

Before reading this, I didn’t really know what Bitcoin was, even though I’ve heard it mentioned a lot lately. It was fun to learn more.

‘Bitcoin is an electrical payment system based on a mathematical proof’

• OMG MATH, I need to dig into this in more detail (nerd moment)! I’m really interested in the specifics of how it works!

‘Bitcoin as a global payment system anyone can use from anywhere at any time can be a powerful catalyst to extend the benefits of the modern economic system to virtually everyone on the planet.’

• This seems great at first glance, but knowing the little that I know about bitcoin, you need technology to access it. What about those people that don’t have access to technology like we do? The article mentioned that bitcoin could be beneficial to impoverished countries and the poor, but how will they even get access to it?

Bitcoin basically seems like a no bullshit way to perform transactions. It hides just enough but also gives us just enough. Right now, I’m liking bitcoin, but I know I still have a lot to learn about how it really works.

After today’s discussion, I realize that there are still a lot of political, social, economical issues that can and do arise from bitcoin use that I need to dive into more. I did agree with Jonas’s point though, that just because people are misusing it, doesn’t mean it can’t be considered a nice idea.

Check out the readings for this week:
Protocol: Alexander Galloway
21 Technologies That Will Decentralize the World
The Tyranny of Structurelessness: Jo Freeman
Why Bitcoin Matters: March Andreesen
Bitcoin is the offshore tax haven of the future: Aaron Sankin