Why Blockchain is Central to Social Change
Blockchain is not just a financial technology though it will revolutionise the way we bank and transact and even think about money. Blockchain is an industrial revolution that is going to change the face of our planet and the way we live our lives. But in order for us to understand even a fraction of the transformative power of blockchain technology, we have to start thinking of it as belonging to the category of technologies that sparked industrial revolutions; consider coal, oil, electricity and the internet.
Consider how the discovery of coal and oil, changed our world and what electricity did to the way we live, and what the internet brought to our world that we had never previously imagined. And if we consider how each of them completely transformed our world, each even more dramatically than the last, then we begin to appreciate how incredibly world-changing this new technology truly is.
This is not just about Bitcoin, this is certainly not about the tribalism of one cryptocurrency over another, and you can’t even consider these cryptocurrencies as if they were company stocks that rise and fall according to public sentiment or even according to company fundamentals. To think of cryptocurrencies like company stocks would be like thinking of electricity as something similar to coal; they both kind of do some of the same things, but they are still worlds apart as far as their capacity.
Think of the revolution of the internet as having been simply humanity laying the cabling down for a globally connected brain, and blockchain technology as finally flicking the switch on and allowing that brain to communicate and transfer information freely and with full trust.
Blockchain allows us to share and irrefutably verify one of the most valuable resources of the information age; data. Blockchain allows us to transact and even loan funds to people on the other side of the planet without central banks, and without even having to know them. Blockchain allows us to maintain global ledgers of transactions which reduces corruption in finance, in elections and even in relation to academic transcripts. Blockchain allows for decentralised networks of data storage that reduces latency, ensures data security, and even facilitates the transfer of sensitive data between unknown stakeholders.
Consider how autonomous cars will need to communicate which each other and everything around them, and how the integrity of that data is crucial to the safety of everyone on the roads. Think of how every episode of your favourite show comes from central servers, and how blockchain will allow for decentralised storage of information.
Think about how the encrypted and decentralised storage of global health records and medical histories would change patient care and improve health outcomes. Think about how ending the reign of central banks and their printing trillions of dollars of money will improve the lives and livelihoods of almost the entirety of the planet. Imagine giving billions of people not only access to personal banking, which they previously never had, but also sovereignty and control of their own money.
Imagine if aircraft maintenance details, flight data and even weather inputs could be shared in real-time as well as verified on a decentralised database, to increase flight safety and aircraft integrity. Think about how supply chain verification aided by blockchain technology will allow us to know exactly how, when and by whom a product was made and every step along the way of its transportation.
Imagine social media giants no longer being able to maintain stores of personal data about you and your habits, and imagine if you wanted you could actually profit from selling that personal data to them should you choose. Try if you can to understand the implications of using a currency that is not constantly being devalued through the printing of more money, and there was only ever a stable amount of currency flowing in the system.
Our lives will never be the same again, once we begin applying blockchain technology for the betterment of the world, and the implications and applications of this new technology will take years if not decades for us to fully realise.
Imagine how the lives of everyone on our planet would benefit from a globally recognised currency that is not owned or manipulated by any single nation and their reserve bank. A currency that does not require continual increases in GDP in order for it to maintain its value over other currencies, and a currency that cannot constantly be printed by the government whenever they so wish that dilutes the value of your savings, your wages and your lives work.
For now, I want you to be excited by this, I want you to be happy about the possibilities this brings closer to us, and I want you to continue reading and researching and learning as much as you can about how this technology can be applied for social justice.
This technology is not here to make a few meme coin holders rich, it has been brought into existence from the very consciousness of this planet through hundreds of thousands of pioneering individuals with the intellect and capacity to bring it into being, and now it is time for us to imagine and implement the possibilities for which it was created.
Erfan Daliri
About the Author
Erfan Daliri is a social change author, educator and consultant with a Masters Degree in Communication for Social Change from the University of Queensland. He has worked for 20 years in a diverse range of areas, including participatory community development, social justice advocacy, cross-cultural communication, youth engagement and empowerment, refugee and migrant settlement services, sustainability and systems thinking for social change.
He is the founding director of Newkind Social Justice Conference, programme coordinator of the National Unity in Diversity Conference, and consults and advises on communication and project design for organisations such as Amnesty International and the Australian Red Cross.
Erfan is passionate about empowering organisations and communities to address issues of social, environmental and economic justice and to help them build a more inclusive, cohesive, sustainable and equitable society.
His most recent book Raising Humanity discusses the underlying causes of socio-economic injustice and covers the themes of ecology and economy, resilience, resistance and what it takes to be an effective changemaker.
Continue Reading
The idea that unconscious bias exists in all of us is no longer a question to be asked but rather a scientific matter of fact. And because it is costing the business world $64B dollars annually in the rehiring process alone means that companies are finally ready to talk about it and understand how their human resources and diversity & inclusion staff can mitigate its impact. The true cost of unconscious bias includes the human resources to rehire, decreased productivity due to low employee satisfaction, as well as the loss of potential talent unwilling to even apply to work for employers with negative diversity and inclusion reports. Beyond these business indicators, the social and emotional cost of unconscious bias on our world is far too great to even hypothesise at this stage.