Not Utopia But Much Better Than What Was Before

It is easy to believe that blockchain will solve all the world's problem and create the Utopia humanity has been looking for over thousands of years.

Sadly, blockchain and cryptocurrency is not the holy grail that people are looking for.

That said, while Utopia is still going to be out of reach, it is going to improve things tremendously for all of humanity.

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To further this point, I will use the Internet as a guide. The parallels between the two technologies are ideal in the sense that both are complete game changers. Personally, I believe blockchain will have a greater impact on society than the Internet which is saying something.

For those who remember (or read about it), the Internet was originally thought of as the mechanism to bring about Utopia. Many of those who were involved in the early stages saw the opportunity to decentralize everything and envisioned a technological world where the Internet solved most problems.

Obviously, this is not what happened. The Internet, today, is not decentralized, rather, a very centralized mechanism. People have few choices when it comes to basic components that make the system work. ISP options are limited, search is dominated by Google, while Facebook and Amazon completely control their markets.

In spite of this, I think we all agree that the Internet, while not achieving Utopia, has been of great benefit to society. Yes, we are overrun with porn, spam, pop up ads, and data mining. To say there are not any negatives is foolish.

However, we cannot over look the fact the Internet provides us the opportunity to communicate with anyone online, anywhere in the world, for FREE. This is a major advantage. Essentially, it brought humanity closer together.

It also drove down the price of entertainment. Music and video is much less expensive than it use to be. There was a time when we purchased or rented these items on an individual basis. Now, with streaming, we can have as much as we want for a low monthly fee. That is thanks to the Internet.

Collaboration is much easier. We can work in groups spread all over the world. File and document sharing is simple along with instant, real-time messenging. We can even video conference like they did in the Jetsons thanks to this technology.

People are aware of censorship thanks to the Internet. A few decades back, all our information came from either Ted, Dan, or Peter on the Nightly News or from one of the mainstream newspapers. For the most part, people were not even aware that they were receiving censored information. Today, anyone with a blog (or a Steem account) can post their views.

This goes along with having access to a lot more information. We can price compare, check out specials, and access information on most any product. Decades ago, we were at the mercy of the salesperson we were dealing with.

It is easy to dwell upon the negatives that a technology brings while overlooking the benefits. There is no doubt the Internet was a great development for the human race in spite of its imperfections.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are going to be the same way. There are going to be challenges with it. Things are not going to be perfect. There will be aspects that are upsetting to people. That is a fact of life.

In other words, there will still be plenty to complain about.

The positive to all this is that, when these technologies are mainstream, we will see how much better off society it. Institutions are going to operate with a greater amount of transparency. This will cut down on the dirty tactics and fraudulent behavior that is so common in business today. Governments are going to have to operate differently since the standards of conduct are going to change. People are already seeing options they did not have before.

Having the ability to create money as opposed to that being reserved for the few elites is a total game changer. The ability to generate an income while also increasing one's wealth for doing what one always did is a benefit that cannot be overstated. We will see the ability to fund things get easier. Thus, research and other vital projects can receive the money necessary to do their work for the benefit of humanity.

Will there be bad players? For the next couple of generations that will be. To put it bluntly, often the only way to change the mindset of the masses is for enough of them to die off. There are many who were reared in the old energy, in a system of scarcity. This is something that many will carry with them. They operate on fear not realizing the paradigm changed. Until that is fully internalized, one is going to behave like he or she always did.

We are moving into the Age of Abundance yet it is a process. There is not a line in the sand that we suddenly cross and, presto, here we are. It is going to take a while for the majority to see it. On an individual basis, most of us, even though involved in crypto already, still have a foot left in the old system. Conditions are such that we much engage in the slave behavior to draw the proverbial paycheck. I am one of those people.

That being said, I can see what is coming. The last year really saw the evolution of what I foresee a few years back when getting into this industry. The compounding effect across the industry, that comes from many different factors, is starting to take root. Even while mired in the crypto-Winter with the bear raging, we see the value of the entire spectrum increasing. Marketcaps might not reflect but the development and usage does.

We are seeing a major economic transformation taking place. The present system is facing some major challenges that many do not believe can be overcome. I will leave that debate to others. What I will say about that, no matter what happens there, we are constructing an alternative that is, in my view, a lot more attractive than what that one offers.

Thus, over the next decade, we will see the maturation of these technologies. There will be a lot of experimentation which means many projects will fail. With each one, hopefully we learn some lessons and apply them moving forward.

Over time, this will not create Utopia but it will make things a lot better than the pre-blockchain days.

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