https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/09/16/vitalik-buterins-philosophical-essays-theyre-not-good/ Skip to content Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Blockchain and cryptocurrency news and analysis by David Gerard * About the author * Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: The Book * Book extras * Business bafflegab, but on the Blockchain * Buterin's quantum quest * Dogecoin * Ethereum smart contracts in practice * ICOs: magic beans and bubble machines * Imogen Heap: "Tiny Human". 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[ NASAA; NASAA] As well as leading the Ethereum project, Vitalik Buterin writes essays of his thoughts on the future of society -- as powered by Ethereum. Some around the Ethereum project actively market Buterin's blog as important reading from a great thinker, that you should be keeping up with. [Fortune] With the Merge having gone through successfully, I've got journalists asking me if there's anything to these essays. They're ... odd. The short answer is: no, it's not worth treating Buterin's essays as saying anything useful. Far be it from me to say that people shouldn't post any brainfart they feel like to a blog. I have a Twitter, after all. But. [ethereum-promo] I must be understanding it wrong Ethereum is best understood as a tech startup that succeeded wildly and made a bundle for everyone involved. Mostly Joe Lubin of ConsenSys, but the others too. Vitalik was Joe's front man -- he was, and is, marketed as a magical boy wizard you can't expect social skills from, beyond any mortal understanding. We're talking about a wealthy 28-year-old technocrat here, to be clear. For a worked example, look at this bilge from Wired in 2016: "The Uncanny Mind That Built Ethereum." Buterin as mysterious infantilised child genius. [Wired] Buterin blogs extensive essays full of great thoughts on how to reorganise the world, and how Ethereum will be the basis for this once they add amazing new functionalities that will only require solving P=NP. [vitalik.ca] With Buterin's tech startup having elevated itself to being one of the two main cryptocurrencies, onlookers think: perhaps his other ideas might be worth a look! Buterin comes from a long tradition of Silicon Valley special smart boys, who have had it hammered into them that domain expertise -- i.e., actually knowing stuff -- pales into insignificance compared to pulling ideas out of your backside by virtue of your superior intelligence and upbringing and social position. He was taught this by other Silicon Valley special smart boys. Peter Thiel literally paid Buterin not to go to college any more, based on this theory -- that one special smart boy reasoning from first principles will surely beat the accumulated experience and wisdom of mere humanity. There are a million of these guys, and they all have long and wordy blogs. Buterin has spent his life being told he's smart and has important ideas. But I am deeply unconvinced any of the ideas in Buterin's essays are worth anything -- because they're concocted without reference to anything that people who aren't weird cryptocurrency anarchocapitalists want. People read Buterin's social essays, then they have to bridge the gap between the assumption that all of this must make coherent sense because it was written by an acknowledged genius wonder boy, and the undeniable fact that the stuff in front of you looks ... stupid. The fancy promises, the essays, the wild ideas that sound like they're stupid but must have something to them, surely ... it's all marketing for Ethereum. Ethereum makes more sense if you first assume it never mattered if the fancy promises ever worked out -- even if Buterin believed they were supposed to. The purpose was to sell you their ether. And it worked. *taps the sign again* [bitcoin-it-cant-be-that-stupid] The Torment Nexus as a Service Buterin is an interesting writer, and his essays are amazing science fictional ideas -- but they're nerdbait, not applicable programmes for society. Remember that Buterin spent years working on a sharding plan for Ethereum that, had he done Intro to Theory of Computation, he might have realised was probably impossible. Buterin's essays posit Ethereum as the technological foundation of all our lives. This will never happen, because blockchains don't scale. He touts decentralized governance -- based on Ethereum -- because he's spent his entire life steeped in anarchocapitalism, first from his parents and then from his venture capitalist friends, and thinks of it as normal, and not as the bizarre conspiracy theory economics that it is. Buterin's essays have slightly less redigested LessWrong these days -- the people who worry that an artificial intelligence will turn into Roko's Basilisk, so you should give them money -- so that's good. His pet cranks are no longer embarrassing mathematical cranks who think they can simulate a quantum computer on a classical computer fast enough to hack bitcoin mining. Buterin's pet cranks are now social cranks -- e.g., Glen Weyl, with his Radical Markets theory, which is more or less Georgism with a concussion. Everything is a land tax, you set the price of your house, and anyone who's rich enough can buy your house out from under you at any time, whether you like it or not! Everyone wants that, right? Weyl and Buterin's latest hit is their Soulbound Tokens essay. Being weird ancaps, they don't trust governments to do identity -- so you'll have your social credit score tracked on a blockchain. It's an implementation of the "Fifteen Million Merits" episode of Black Mirror -- except they think this is a desirable state of being, and not a horrifying dystopia. They also crib from Vitalik's Dark Enlightenment friend Balaji Srinivasan on "cancel culture." [SSRN, PDF] Weyl and Buterin's stuff is crank economics and crank social theories straight from the Californian Ideology, with little to no reference to anything actual people think or want. The best source for the current thinking of the Silicon Valley rich ancap cluster on "decentralised governance" is Balaji Srinivasan's recent book on the subject: The Network State (US, UK). It's bloody awful, and you need a decoder ring to understand the buzzwords and euphemisms. Fortunately, I wrote about Balaji's ineffable genius previously, and I helped Elizabeth Sandifer write Neoreaction a Basilisk, so I can save you the effort on this one: 1. what if seasteading 2. on the blockchain 3. also we're all neoreactionaries and race-and-IQ theorists, and we want our blockchain seasteads to have Kings. Here's Vitalik's review. He describes Balaji's loud and explicit reactionary politics as any variety whatsoever of "liberal." This is not a writer who knows what words mean. [vitalik.ca] They're mapping out tech dystopias and thinking they're architecting heaven. They are not. The job should surely not be to propose new iterations of the Torment Nexus and say they're a good idea. Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus -- Alex Blechman (@AlexBlechman) November 8, 2021 Memento stultus Buterin's essays are science fiction advocating a particular politics. This is not about technology. It never was. Even Ethereum was never about technology. Blockchain tech isn't that complicated. The fancy stuff is financial engineering, not software engineering. If it works as a platform for penny stock scams, all is right with the crypto world. There's no reason for anyone to put any store by Buterin's other ideas, and there never was. Ethereum is a successful tech startup with really dubious politics attached. And none of that matters -- because Buterin and the Ethereum crew are set up for life after the stupendously successful tech startup called Ethereum, and are much richer than you or I are. But I would suggest that financial success is not a reason to take any of the essays seriously. Smart people need the ghost of Socrates to follow them around as a Memento Stultus. "Remember: you too are a dumbass." Become a Patron! Your subscriptions keep this site going. Sign up today! Share this: * Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) * Click to share on Hacker News (Opens in new window) * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) * Taggedbalaji srinivasanethereumglen weyljoe lubinvitalik buterin Post navigation Previous Article Crypto collapse: Celsius, Voyager, SkyBridge -- the liabilities are real, the assets are fake 5 Comments on "Vitalik Buterin's philosophical essays: they're not good" 1. [bf8fab] David says: 16th September 2022 at 10:10 pm David Gerard: https://decrypt.co/6234/curry-with-david-gerard Reply 1. [61f10e] David Gerard says: 16th September 2022 at 10:23 pm it is true that when I was younger, I wore a short skirt and stockings and nice boots better than Buterin. Reply 1. [3e0cce] Dan says: 16th September 2022 at 10:43 pm Bitch, you looked FABULOUS. Reply 2. [3e0cce] Dan says: 16th September 2022 at 10:36 pm Look I know it's wrong to judge a book by its cover, but Buterin has the face of the insufferable, snarky nerd who got punched a lot in the high school toilets. Reply 3. [cf6192] Martin Walker says: 16th September 2022 at 10:40 pm David at least you are not labelled for life as a "train enthusiast". Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. All comments are moderated. Required fields are marked * [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Comment * [ ] Name * [ ] Email * [ ] Website [ ] [ ] Notify me of follow-up comments by email. 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Excerpts from Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Table of Contents * The conspiracy theory economics of Bitcoin * Dogecoin * Buterin's quantum quest * ICOs: magic beans and bubble machines * Ethereum smart contracts in practice * The DAO: the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code * Business bafflegab, but on the Blockchain * Imogen Heap: "Tiny Human". Total sales: $133.20 Index About [libra-shrugged-paperback-225] * Press coverage for Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain * Press coverage for Libra Shrugged * My cryptocurrency and blockchain press commentary and writing * Twitter @davidgerard * Facebook author page * About the author * Contact --------------------------------------------------------------------- The content of this site is journalism and personal opinion. Nothing contained on this site is, or should be construed as providing or offering, investment, legal, accounting, tax or other advice. Do not act on any opinion expressed here without consulting a qualified professional. 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