DECENTRALIZATION MEETS UNCERTAINTY

in #steemit6 years ago (edited)

The 11 secrets of ALDI's success can be summed up in a single keyword: Simplicity. Simplicity at all levels and in all areas, not just in terms of product range and space. This external simplicity of the ALDI stores is not a sales psychology measure, as has often been assumed, but an expression of the corporate culture, which is also consistently implemented and lived internally. ALDI does not use staff positions, controlling departments, management consulting, annual planning, market analyses, customer surveys, advertising agencies, condition systems for suppliers, highly complicated technology and calculation methods. Even managers are selected according to character traits such as simplicity and modesty...

I have chosen this example from economy because I like the idea of simplicity also attached to the decentralization idea.

Now listen to my recording and reflections upon the topic of "Decentralization":

Technical information:
This is my very first video which I produced with an audio device. It took about three hours to upload it. As I am not familiar with the other apps like d-tube (from which I am not convinced performance wise) and I somehow worked myself through the software "Garageband" in converting an audio into a video through I-movie I am happy that the thing made it online. I'd have appreciated another solution as this is way too time consuming - my laptop almost got a fever from overheating and the fan barely was able to catch up and made a noise like an old ferry, but is actually brand new.

I am most certain that I used the technology not in it's best way, so if someone has a recommendation for converting mp3 files into a video format, please let me know.

The video still is actually also a motif of I-movie, it provides a small selection of background images, so I'm lucky to have found something suitable for the topic of decentralization. I was not able to drag and drop a photograph from my hard-drive resp. the Internet.

Length:
Listen to 23 Minutes of reflection.


Motivation for the recording:

To revive an older habit. I practice free speech. I train my English and what it is like to speak freely in a foreign language and let the mind run its course.
To do something other than writing.
To get used to other technologies.


Decentralization is big, especially here on Steemit,

but also outside in the world. Many people are working on it and thinking about how to meet the local needs of people in a global world.

At the moment a picture is opening up for me which I cannot overlook in its entirety ( but in which I have trust). As far as I can see, there is a large variation of decisions here.

Organic growth?

It remains to be seen how Steemit will change and whether the multitude of communities will be preserved or whether we will become a pure economy in this ecology. The fact that groups form in such a large space is not only natural but also good. It'll show how much diversity and opportunities for development there are for groups that found something of their own. Whether the many swarms will then fly to the largest butterfly gatherings, which care about complementarity and which even do not push their self-preservation so far that changes cannot flourish (make it rigid). Keeping a healthy balance in a virtual ecology is probably as difficult as it is in a world that we share with plants and animals and which is therefore much more complex.

Rules

One problem, I think, is definition. Every definition is by its very nature excluding.
Once words appear solid and immutable and a law is set, all other definitions fall down. Therefore, if I formulate rules that are rigid, I do not leave enough room for morphological modification of rules. Unwritten rules always work very well because they are unwritten. But if I have something lawful, there are two consequences: Punishment and Reward Mechanisms. The measuring instrument is always only as good or as bad as it is flexible and allows variations. So how many parameters does my measuring instrument have to contain in order to map as many variants as possible? How much energy is used (by what or whom) for punishment and how much for reward? What time periods do I include? At the end of the day I only ever come up with a quantitative result. Quality, on the other hand, is something that is experienced and determined on a more personal level.

Consequences of code

We can already see how the sheer number of rules and laws is crushing us. What is actually the consequence of this, if we oppose this numerological superiority with one that has no problem with both speed and numbers? Could it not also be that a further - even exponential - increase of rules and laws is promoted, since we then have the method via AI to meet any mass, no matter how far it still condenses? How capable are we of acting as humans, but above all do we trust ourselves as humans when we need reinsurance for every action?

In this way, what is supposed to liberate us can also become an even narrower prison. In fact, wanting to keep up is not necessarily the only motivation or wanted solution.

If decentralization is based on a group dynamic that relies also on changing - unwritten - laws that respond more flexibly to change, what technological means should a group use that functions by means of an AI or code? Where do we humans need real time?

Self-awareness and exchange in the groups is therefore important and would Steemit have first gone online, for example, with the announcement and functionality that certain preconceived rules exist for group building: wouldn't that simply have been a centralized method and we wouldn't be in the many dilemmas we have here on the blockchain? So having a dilemma and wanting to deal with it is something good, because revealing a process and making processes visible is sometimes very enriching.

In order to mature people have to be left to their own devices.

Beyond Steemit

But this is only one aspect of decentralisation. It becomes interesting to ask what the individual peer groups do, for example, when they reach a wider readership - and at the same time, as a result, more content producers? Where does the transfer to the tangible world take place?

Decentralization lab

However, I am interested in systems and how the respective systems make their decisions. As I see it, Steemit is an example - actually a laboratory - of how groups form and what dynamics they develop to reach consensus and decide on rules. It is like a field of experimentation that we seem to be considering for future scenarios. How much code do we want and use in relation to common sense the ethics each and every one of us carries already?

Experiencing along the road

I have seen some consensus-building efforts here and have been involved myself in debates. The methods and parameters that are devised and created along the way are often quite hot topics for discussion. This is basically the strength of decentralisation. People are realising very clearly - maybe even for the first time - how difficult it can be to reach agreement. The tenacious experiences and the struggle for consensus are very valuable and I think that those with more responsibility than others can perhaps imagine how one feels as a politician or as a leader team of a company. Sometimes I think that the tools which are so enthusiastically developed actually are not needed so much in the end, as the debate itself about the tools brought so much experience and knowledge.

It's like creating an elaborate a cheat aid that you don't even need after all.
In trial and error and making it not too complex there lays great strength.


Quotation sources of the recording:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

Quote source from ALDI corporation:
http://www.weka.de/oldmediadb/000003621.pdf (translated from German)

Sort:  

You have a lovely voice Erika! It makes for a very pleasant listening. Unfortunately, I am writing to you after listening only half of your recording (I shall allocate time for the remaining part later). But, am already looking forward to hearing how you are going to explore our "need for an entity to protect and guide us" in the decentralized world of the internet!

This is a very interesting topic to explore, decentralization - a buzz word at the moment. I have limited knowledge about it, though; still, at least the people I have had the chance to discuss it with, appear to have a rather romantic view of it all.

Much love :*

Hey Abi, so good to see you here!

Thanks for the compliment. I intend to give listeners a kind of soothing experience, too :)

I actually do have more questions than answers on this topic as I find it highly complex. Only to see the wiki entry is a universe of itself. I was not surprised though to find the systemic approach in there:) my favorite thing to talk about.

I agree, people do have a romantic, even a view that decentralization is somehow connected to give a finger towards "authorities". There are so many different realms in which decentralization plays a role that one can get lost in the whole research.

Receive some love, too :)

Your voice is beautiful, and it is a pleasure to listen to your "post". I'm considering to run it on endless, while I'm painting... although I know, it does take a lot of my attention to understand at least some of what you are saying.

That thingy collecting everything already exists. They call it facebook. Not sure it is an entity meant to protect us though 😜

My favorite part is where you talk about rules. Actually had to laugh out loud, when you said your willingness to follow a rule depends on your mood. Hahaha... so far, I have only seen you in the "do not follow" mood (giggle)

I do like the recording idea a lot. Sorry, it gave you such a bad time... what about soundcloud? Haven't you used that before?

:)) The eternal rules. Without them it is boring and with them it is also boring. As I replied to Bananafish earlier, it takes a scheme to leave the scheme. I love the unwritten law much more than the written. Anyone who disqualifies me because I've used more than X words to tell a story will have to do so if they have to. LOL.

My voice often makes me fall asleep. When I have heard the Internet empty, I listen to myself. It's my favorite activity anyway. HaHa, no I am only joking! Although: Conducting self-talks is sometimes also good for something.

Erika: Why? Are you upset right now?
Me: You're right. I don't have to do that.
Erika: Right.
Me: then everything is fine.
Erika: Thank you.

No, no. The knowledge I am talking about cannot be captured, cannot be defined, cannot be expressed in language and quantitative code. The best language that can be said to touch you is completely new and different from anything you have heard. It is often found in art anyway. In my opinion, poetry is also a great art. It is a compressed universe. Like a black hole, where everything becomes so badly compressed that it has an almost unbelievable mass. And yet you could hold it in your hand in size.

That's how art sometimes works on me. That's why I like artists. You too, of course.

Whenever you say: "Oh, I already know that, then you won't listen anymore. That's why the Zen master hands you the knife with the blade first.

Knowledge is everything. Knowledge is nothing.


ah, good that you ask! The technical stuff is solved!
My man came yesterday and presented me a CODE (!) from which I now can convert audio files into video files within seconds! Miraculously this little program works its magic and I think I must now take everything away from above I've just said a few seconds ago!

I use the software "Terminal" and type the code-words in and voilà, there it goes. mp3 = mp4

Such a lovely voice, I agree, it's curious that, although English is not your native language, you pronounce the words quite well, it has been harder for me to understand native English speakers.

Decentralization is only about transferring power from one to many.

An example of this could be the merely economic, socialism for example, is a centralized economy, the State decides the prices of things, decides the salaries of people, even in a perfect socialism the State decides the work of the people, in capitalism, on the contrary, it is a decentralized economy, since no central entity such as the State directs the economy, but instead is the free market, that is, the market regulated itsellf, people choose what they want to work for, how much they want to be paid for their services, and how much they want to pay for the services of others, in turn, other people choose to give or not work, choose to pay or not that amount for such services, or choose to accept or not such amount as payment for their services, and thus, through impersonal mechanisms will reach a consensus.

The problem that arises to reach a consensus is solved by the impersonal consensus that occurs in the actions of people. In a centralized economy the central entity chooses the price of bread, but in a decentralized economy the buyer and the seller make such a choice, and it is not necessary for the baker to discuss with his customers the price at which he wishes to sell the bread, but by supply and demand reach an impersonal consensus on what the price should be.

Both the successes and the failures of a centralized system are due to the central entity, and both the successes and the failures of a decentralized system are due to all those that make up that system, or again exemplified, if a socialist system were successful it should be solely to the State, if on the contrary a capitalist system were successful, it was due to all the people that make up the society. The centralization is typical of people who want less responsibility as well as less power, decentralization is typical of people who want more responsibilities as well as more power.

It is true the oxymoron of which you speak when saying that in a certain sense digital decentralization can lead to create precisely a central entity, this is because such a central entity is not a construct and exists whenever two people are associated, either in its materialized form (as laws) or in its ideal form (as moral, unwritten rules), such a central entity will never be eliminated, and decentralization will only reduce the power of such entity in such a way that the people participating in it can have more power.

I think that in the end it is as you say, it is a matter of trust, since the more you trust others, the more you want people and not a central entity to have power, and the more you distrust people, the more you will want to take away the power from these and relegate it to a central entity (understand central entity as one or few people). I don't think one option is better than the other always, but because of its usefulness and due to the circumstances, sometimes it is better one more than the other, and sometimes the opposite, it is about how capable and how willing are people to accept such responsibilities and such powers.

As always, good post, and as always many questions, and again as always, I extended too trying to answer just a couple. Regards!

Hey my friend,

thank you for giving your thoughts.

Maybe I should make recordings more often. I like how the English feels to my tongue and the difference in pronouncing. Spanish also is a beautiful language (is it your mother tongue or is it Portuguese?). In fact, I like all languages which are not mine - it's my mathematics in trying to understand the world:)

You give some valuable food to the topic. I like that you provide first the simple definition: Power from one to many.

Yes, the thing is you always find both elements in the systems. I cannot think of a system right now which is either the one or the other. There is always an ongoing shift and it's hard to tell whether the influences are for the good or the bad. ... especially when you consider long time and delayed effects.

Which is one reason why people aim at a central intelligence to get rid of the uncertainty of whether a decision has predominantly positive or predominantly negative consequences.

... At such mental experiments I get a knot in my head, because in principle I need real events. And then, to be exemplary, they would have to be drastic. In the physical world there are events that cannot be predicted, such as natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, storms, droughts. In the online world, these are price collapses on the financial market, hacker attacks on central systems, and so on.

At the interfaces where both systems meet, the biggest unrest and unpredictable events occur. For example, companies that are discredited by any act and trigger a shit storm can rapidly affect the sales of their products, at least that's what economic analysts say (or popularity of a political party). It is easy to boycott products that are not needed for pure existence. However, it becomes difficult to boycott a company that penetrates almost all areas of people, as is assumed (or is a fact) by large corporations. Companies, for example, which are simultaneously active in the energy sector and in food production, and at the same time act as banks. They seem to be out of range by the single human. ...

The impersonal consensus is something which I find fascinating, thanks for bringing this term up. It doesn't come so much straightforward through the front door.

It is true that the field of contradiction you speak of, when you say that digital decentralization in a sense can lead to the creation of exactly one central unit, because such a central unit is not a construct and exists when two persons are connected, either in its materialized form (as laws) or in its ideal form (as moral, unwritten rules), such a central unit will never be eliminated, and decentralization will only reduce the power of such a unit so that the persons involved in it can have more power.

How aptly you express that.
My concern in this context is speed. If we increase the speed of the instruments by which we make decisions, we inevitably also increase the requirement on us humans to be responsive to act in the physical world.
However, I can also imagine that when an artificial intelligence is questioned, for example whether all nuclear power stations should be shut down, it will tillt. The computing power of such a machine would have to include the indirect consensus and I ask myself: How can it do this without becoming entangled in contradictions? But of course this is my individual human perspective from which I ask myself this question. On another level, one could become philosophical or metaphysical and ask: can a machine be breathed on by the human mind?

Haha, my mother tongue is Spanish, and although I must definitely learn Portuguese, I don't speak it.

I think that the problem you are referring to is not typical of decentralization, although it is related to a group of people who ask for decentralization (but not all).

The desire to give power to machines, rather than decentralization, has to do with misanthropy, that is, the hatred and distrust that a sector of the population presents towards humans in general, and therefore, seek to take away the power of the hands to the people, and give it to the machines.

The scenario you propose is not the one desired by many people who seek decentralization per se, but the one desired by people who specifically hate the current central entity.

But as you say, it is common for you to put a knot in your head with such an atypical scenario, you would have to make many assumptions, therefore, we would only be discussing an imaginary scenario, which may or may not even be possible to become.

Yes, you are right. I was looking at the term from the perspective of the buzz and the meaning attached to it.

One could think a little deeper what the people do with the power once its in their hands and how they get used to handle responsibility in a way that is consensus driven.

Hate and anxiety are actually supporting centralization without a human much being aware that that is so. It's the desire to shift power from one central agent to another one, perceived as "better" or "advanced".

I find it a good learning process to step into the imaginary scenario in order to find a point where I indeed come to the thought that it may or may be not possible to come. The very realization is a form of reflection I like to practice. That sometimes opens searching results which I haven't known of so far. It leaves me with the notion that I myself at least should know about my responsibilities and ethics.

I prefer to trust myself and others:) - though it's not always easy.

I have finally listened to your audio. Yes, the other comments on here are correct--you should read poetry. I think that would be delightful for your audience. But to get to the substance of your tape:
It reveals a mind that makes connections freely between related and not-so-related ideas. This is the essence of creativity. You do not tightly control the stream of thought but allow it to flow. This actually leads to a more comprehensive view of everything. It comes together, sort of, in the end, because you are always searching. You're a little like the orchestra conductor who puts down her wand and declares, OK--let us see what we can do together.
As for the technical aspect of recording and uploading--whew! It is a frontier I have not attempted. Perhaps now your example will shame me into developing a new skill. I don't know--machines and I don't get along well.

Thank you ag, I will take your recommendation to heart and decided on reading some poetry or fiction. Why not? It will be fun, I guess. As I finally solved the problem with converting (actually my man solved it for me), I am confident to become more skilled in it.

Problem is which sources I can use without hurting any copyright. I could take my own stories but then this is limiting and I would like also to read the works of other people. I am going to ask some of the steemit writers. If you got something you want me to read, please, tell me (your own or others).

A year ago I did many recordings where I just let my mind flow, not having a script. Thank you to appreciate this as creative. I too had the feeling it did me good.

Right now I am imagining to do little readings and afterwards maybe giving my interpretation of that. Would you like it to enjoy with your morning coffee? :)

Yes, I would! Yesterday's reading accompanied a gentle exercise routine (mostly pacing). This made the exercise go much more quickly because I was engaged by your voice. Thank you!

Edit: And there was your man, coming to the rescue :) I would have to call my son or daughter if I couldn't get it right. My husband, I'm afraid, turns to me with computer matters, and I know nothing.

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