©Fernando Caracena 2018
Cryptocosm is a term coined by the author George Gilder, in his book, "Life After Google". In various videos the author describes the thoughts expressed in his book. Try watching some of them in the following suggested order: video1, video2 and video3. The first video is motivational, the second, intellectual, and the third, in a more popular format.
George Gilder identifies a mistake in much of the thinking by central planners of the past--a critical mistake that was glaringly behind Marxism. This mistake is identified as Bill Buckley's "eschaton", which means a final thing. The idea is that we have seen all the progress that will ever be. That we have run out of any significant innovation. Now, the main task of society, under this assumption, would be the equitable distribution of goods rendered by progress that led up to the eschaton. The truth is that the human spirit is full of innovation; and innovation will always be a surprise. The effects of that surprise will be change, progress and growth. The big growth of the economy will be driven by innovation. George Gilder suggests that the next big surprising thing that will drive innovation for the next few years is block chain technology.
Currently you may have heard about cryptocurrencies, which operate off block chain.
A new Internet is driven by the block chain ledger system then will allow a decentralization of internet traffic, which will reduce the importance of centralized information companies that we now see operating in social media. Block chain technology has reintroduced privacy into digital money transactions through cryptocoin, the same technology can both introduce privacy and micropayments into internet transactions. The result can be to allow anonymous Internet cruising and to reward the generator of Internet information through automatic micropayments. The result can be more independently run, decentralized, and independently financed information media.
George Gilder's predictions jibe with what I described in a previous post, "What is left for Humans Part 2", under the subtitle, "Who are the owners of the Future". A portion of that part of the post is quoted here for the convenience of the reader:
Jaron Lanier recently wrote a book called, "Who Owns the Future?", in which he confronts various issues related to the loss in the economic position of the common citizen. He takes the view that people own their own information, and currently big business are making a lot of money by outright stealing it. If the courts would take this position, then private property laws would not only protect peoples privacy, but would provide individuals with a means of livelihood even in the approach of the singularity. People could authorize the use of some of their own private information for a fee.
In that post, I outlined what needs to be done to be fair to the individual. So far the computer has been used as a giant skimming device that takes most of the generation of wealth and puts it in the hands of the new "elite", who are the privilege class of money changers. These people have become the financially obese. What George Gilder predicts will correct some of these excesses of Internet data handling, which will return most of the gains in productivity back to individuals and reward the innovators.