It’s a distributed future. Beneath all the hype about global warming and other boogie monsters, people are working from the bottom up to to build a new world.
Distributed Green Power
WePower is one startup that connects producers of green power with consumers in a global marketplace to increase the use of green power using blockchain technology (the trustless digital ledger technology behind Bitcoin).
Whoa, What Else can Bitcoin Do?
If blockchain tech can do this, what else can it do? An interesting article I found on LinkedIn had these suggestions:
- secure, auditable voting;
- networking the Internet of Things (IOT – smart light switches, internet-connected blenders, etc.) so your smart home can be autonomous – think Terminator but instead of shotguns and motorcycles, it’s sneaky garbage disposals and lighting fixtures that turn on when you’re sleeping — just to assert their dominance;
- gun tracking, which could make it well-nigh impossible for bad folks to get guns; and
- the automatization of temp recruitment. RIP Human Resources!
WALL-E World?
I’m skeptical that people will hand over power to automated, distributed systems like Ethereum smart contracts. It’s too irreversible, and it makes me think of that spaceship on WALL-E where nobody can walk anymore.
How Will We Pass the Time??
What the heck are we going to do with ourselves when literally everything is being run by smart machines?
FaceSnap all day long while we Uber from our Airbnb to the latest EatWith startup? Gosh, that sounds boring. I need some manual labor to feel like a man, damnit!
What do you think?
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.