Linking the Future with Blockchain (Sndbox Summer Camp Quest - Task 2)

This term Sndbox Summer Camp Quest is interesting with the topic circles around philosophy, psychology, and sociology. I would like to share my personal view and see whether I could earn a place in the next @sndbox cohort too :) Great appreciation to @guyfawkes4-20, @anomadsoul, and @sndbox for providing such great opportunity for the little guy to share some thoughts and have a chance to win some perks!

Here is the link to the announcement for the quest and here are the rules for the quest.

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This is my 2nd quest submission whereby I share my thoughts on some related subjects of my area of expertise to discuss the correlation of blockchain application.

What I like to share on this quest is to further discuss the possible future from the application of blockchain. Previously, it is a comparison between real life and the user experience within Steemit. Now, I would like to bring in a much wider perspective on this matter which is the future lifestyle and future city.

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Still, I would like to discuss on how blockchain could impact the future city life. In an advanced future city, there are several critical factors that needed the help of blockchain technology to solve.

1. Traceability
2. Transparency
3. Privacy
4. Platform based future city

Let me go through these factors one by one.

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Why it traceability so important?

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It is about trust. When we are able to trace the source of the products, we tend to have more trust for the product. For example, how can we solve the trust issue of the genuineness of the medicine sold on the shelves at pharmacies? We need to be sure that there is no changing of the genuine medicine into a counterfeit one along the process of logistics from the manufacturer, to the middleman and to the end users. The labor cost to trace all these bottles of medicine from the start to the end is too much and illogical to be done. That is the situation now and this is the same to our food materials like processed food.

The way to go about this is by using blockchain, we can create a specific block for the specific bottle of medicine after sealed. Once a dozen of bottles being sealed in a box, the box will then have a block that contains all the reference blocks for all the bottles in it. With that, the computer is able to check whether there is an alteration to the bottles during the transportation of the medicine from the source to the end consumer. The end consumer can also verify the all the parties that were involved in manufacturing, transporting and selling the medicine.

With that traceability, the authority no longer needs to spend a lot of money to fight counterfeit drugs and food materials. People will also get to spend their hard earn money on the real deal. The merchants will also have more trust when they are buying in bulk as they might also be the victim of being conned. Ultimately, the application of blockchain will drastically improve our quality of life.

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How transparency impact our life?

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During the pre-internet era, we have little transparency as information cannot spread as efficient as now. One of the cons for such level of transparency is that a lot of deals like business transaction and method of employment may not be fair and needed to pay up for some hidden cost. However, when we all get to access the internet, everything accelerated in an unimaginable speed and we had Moore’s Law to prove how fast we can go in terms of technology advancement (with the help of the internet).
Now, we can search and share whatever information we want (nearly all kind of information). With such convenience, we may end up ‘oversharing’ our personal information to the public. In a way, this helps to boost our personal credibility as people can get verification and understand a person quite easily nowadays. Worst case is that some malicious people may duplicate our information and pretend to be someone to carry out crimes.

This could be solved through connecting our personal information to blockchain. All the information we fed to the internet will be made into blocks and traceable back to our real account. Any similar information that is duplicated not by the real account will not be recognized. This is somewhat like how Steemit works. All the contents created by an account will be recorded forever and cannot be deleted by any person. Imagine that all the accounts will be linked with real identities, everyone will be able to hold liable for all their contents created. On the other hand, this could protect anyone’s identity being duplicated too!

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Does our privacy worth anything?

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When we talked about privacy, we tend to get defensive and emphasizing the importance of it. On the other hand, we had been using different platforms’ services like Google, Facebook, Youtube, Alibaba, Wechat and so on while giving away our personal information and also real-time data usage feed. All these companies had gained a lot by analyzing and utilizing our data. Targeting marketing like how Cambridge Analytica played it had shown the power of utilizing the data collected from the platforms.
Psychological speaking, why are we willing to give out so many information about ourselves while consciously knowing about it? It is because these platforms had provided us with the accessibility to different kind of useful resources. Google provides access to a large volume of information, Netflix provides access to entertainment, Facebook provides accessibility to the newsfeed from our friends in real time.

All the products are designed to be so convenient and so accessible. However, we do not get to ‘profit’ from our service to provide our personal information. While enjoying the cheap service or FOC service from the platforms, we are giving away our personal privacy to these companies to generate even larger profits!

In 2016 3rd quarter alone, Facebook’s profit hit 23 billion USD merely from the advertising fee that the company collected! Not even a nickel from the 23 billion USD is given back to the users. Well, of course, we are the cows of the platform as we willingly let Facebook milk us every single day.
While on Steemit, the system incentivizes our contribution to the platform. Through sharing our personal life, photos, videos, products, and thoughts on the platform, we can get rewarded if done correctly. This is a better version of social media in comparison to the existing one as the users get to earn something from their contribution. Our privacy should worth more than just free.

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Is freedom means free?

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What is freedom meant for us? Does anarchy really work? Does a country without rules and regulations can exist?

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Personally, I think freedom comes at a cost. Freedom without a framework of rules and regulation is chaos. Anything can happen, and people will lose the sense of security that is part of the lowest need by humans under Maslow’s Law. Without secureness, we will end up worrying about the bad guys as there will be no consequences for any wrongdoings. In order to gain freedom, we need to bear the cost by setting up government, build our own police and military force and establish legislation system to run the country. Without these, we will be living like a caveman.

Once we have a stable environment, then we can freely enjoy the ‘freedom’ created under this environment. At least, we do not need to worry about robbing, thieving and all those bad deeds but focus on innovation and life enjoyment.

What I see on Steemit is that there may be some voices supporting anarchy and want to create a world without the ‘oppression’ of government. What if Steemit is a platform that has no rules at all and people just abuse the system and raping the reward pool. Naturally, the platform will not last and things will just collapse in a blink of an eye. Fortunately, there are witnesses and users with high reputation and stakes to set up several rules and overseeing the system to create a sustainable system for the platform. Without these frameworks, I don’t think Steemit will survive from the greed of human and I myself will definitely leave the platform as plankton will have zero chance of survival.

With the strong enforcement of the rules and regulations, it creates a stable environment for us to express and contribute more. That’s the freedom that I am hoping to see and this can be a place that mutually benefits all of us! To me, this is how to define freedom.

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How can a platform based future city works?

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I would like to imagine how our future living environment could be, especially the challenges to live in a city. Plus, I am living in one and livability in the city is tough for the young generation without much access to resources. None of the city I had known is perfect and each of them had their own problem to deal with. Issues like food security, waste management, fresh water supply, energy source, job opportunities, infrastructure readiness and so on are always the major problems for the city to solve in order to become an attractive one.

A future city should be friendlier, less pollution, more efficient, lower living cost, and better livability. This is a future city description under the Quayside project in Toronto under the lead of Alphabet. In addition to that, the future city module should be duplicable and applicable to all nations. With my understanding, infrastructure like roads, waste management system, power grid system, the telecommunication system and other basic components could be duplicable but definitely not cultural components.

Imagine the city as a platform with comprehensive infrastructure, ready for the citizens to utilize them. The city will also fill with sensors and automated driving vehicles. When we have automated driving vehicles, we can build narrower roads and lesser vehicle parking. All the spaces could be turn into habitable and better use space like pedestrian path, cycling path, more retail space, larger front yard with green turf and so much more!

This could mean the reduction of living cost as citizens are able to save on the vehicle cost involving buying cost, maintenance cost and also petrol. That would allow the people to use the money on other usages like self-improvement and investment. I could imagine that the life of many can be drastically improved in terms of quality. Moreover, the platform based city planning will be able to take in information of the city operation in real time that will adapt to the fluctuation of human activities time to time to create an efficient flow of traffic and energy usage throughout the city. Logistic and waste management can be all operated underground by the machines. All the above ground activities could be clean and lively.

These are all features that could be done through the cloud technology that is available at our time. On the other hand, I would like to add in the application of blockchain under this future city planning. What if the citizens' identities are recoreded under the blockchain system for the city. With that, all the contribution done by the citizens can be recorded. Here are some examples:

1. Recycling waste materials
2. Create products that could improve others life
3. Involved in communal activities
4. Volunteer work in charity
5. Involved in high impact research and development initiatives

and so on.

Then, there can be a merit system that rewards the citizens with tokens that enable them to access to more resources that could further improve their lives and increase their credibility as well. To me, this could be a city that gamifies our lives and creates different ranking and milestones for us to strive higher for the city and also our own sake. Isn't this a fun future city to be in?

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All of these above are my personal opinions from a combinative of reading sources. Through the understanding of different fields and concepts, this could widen my perspective to see this world and identify opportunities to improve the world into a better place to be. As an architect, one my passion is to contribute to the improvement of our future city and this is one my method of moving towards that direction.

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