Biomimicry, Blockchain, DAOs, NFTs.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. — T.S. Elliot
This is the dawn of a new era. The unfolding of Web3, the genesis of real time decentralisation, democratisation of access, distributive, indigenous economies and collectivist systems of governance. Big words that make it sound like a brave new world is upon us, when all this technology is inspired by what is within us, surrounds us and continues to coevolve with us. Nature’s design continually inspires us, yet we have the hubris to deny its role in our current countenance, our evolutionary and biological narrative, and by extension, all that we give rise to.
Corals have been building vertical structures long before we gave rise to skyscrapers. Beech leaves have accordion pleated their form from a singular focal point, radiating in V-shaped arrangements millennia before we created the hand fan. Butterfly wings have utilised origami to unfurl from cocoons, and flowers from buds centuries before astronautics employed similar folding mechanisms to store solar panels, telescope mirrors, thermal shields and solar sails. The web of life pre-dates the world wide web, yet we believe we can learn more from a search result than from being outdoors. Disturbingly and repetitively, we consider ourselves apart from nature, not a part of it.
Our epistemic arrogance continues to take credit for the intuitively obvious, and organically prevalent under the banner of the semantic web. DAOs, blockchain, NFTs, metaverse, AI and ML, all proclaimed “novel concepts” and entirely attributed to mankind’s genius, when they are merely a rebrand of the abundance of network intelligence found intrinsically and exhaustively all around us. After all, we can only give rise to systems previously known to us, and by us.
We re-create that which we have within us and can observe all around us. Nothing emerges from nowhere and without context, unless it stems from human hubris, which is frequently blindsided by its own limited understanding of the whole, forever suspended in ignorance, as a part that cannot cognise that which it is not, whole! A part thus inevitably introduces blind spots and data gaps to the whole, as it decanters its initial hypothesis or belief through a homogeneous cohort’s cognitive bias, which is fortified by confirmation bias, enabled by projected bias, and eventually released as a Black Swan upon the unsuspecting collective. Fractionalized entities can never hope to comprehend or execute toward unified integrity.
Another mainstream hurdle inhibiting self-actualisation at an individual, group and institutional level is the obvious lack of equity, which means nothing we produce is whole enough to be truly representative of all its parts. Civil society is gender, race and ableism skewed in favour of the privileged, self-aggrandising white male, who feels entitled to opportunities, and considers the profuse expression of their demographic normative. The celebrated and standardised manifestation of industry, technology, financial structures, political institutions and economic modalities is also lopsided, destructive, and exploitative. Just as the prioritised and avariciously capitalistic seek to own all the successes of the current system, they must take credit for all the failures too. The monopoly they hold over positions of power and wealth undeniably atrophies the social and environmental resilience of the world. As they pass on the costs and repercussions of their consumptive choices to the subjugated and silenced, ever widening the unconscionable gap between the narcissistic best and the victimised rest.
Philanthropist billionaires who have consciously participated in the intentional and insidious agglomeration of capital under their name can only feign to care about what they acquisitively plunder and loot. They are in it to conquer, not to liberate, and the notion of giving back is simply one more way for their egos to make headlines and achieve notoriety. Similarly an economic configuration that advocates for the predominant ableist, race and gender profile would seldom be able to account for other profiles, and it is essential that we acknowledge this critical limitation. Strumming the same old, fragmented tune under a hip new banner of buzz words, does not disrupt anything, rather, it offers a cover for the same players to continue playing the same game for the same goals and outcomes. For instance, most startup funding goes to the prevailing social profile highlighted here, enabling their limited understanding of the world to be the absolute truth of our times. Recent reports divulge 90% of startups funded by the top VCs were male, of which seventy-two percent were white (founders). This means the problems we strive to solve for completely fail to represent every other gender, race, variance in ability, and expression of diversity in species and ecosystems.
The new age of Web 3 has thus been no different than every age that preceded it, as it conveniently perpetuates the same underlying mechanisms of assimilation and concentration of resources and information, in the care of those who have always had priority of access to both. Its privilege is not only palpable in the exclusionary language it is packaged in and created by, but in its architectural purpose. The new era cares more for a machine run cerebral, empirical reality than the unglamorous one faced by countless human beings whose basic, physical and psychological needs have yet to be met. We claim to have generated something new without ever striving to account for the perspectives, solutions and insights of all the minorities who together comprise the disenfranchised “masses,” that have once again been left out of the narrative.
Migratory Paths, by Asher Jay The world is composed of paths walked, sprinted, swum, soared, hovered, fluttered, inched, crawled, slithered, circulated, wriggled and twitched by living beings of all sizes and shapes, in flocks, packs, herds, communities and as individuals. A world in motion is one that is thriving in a state of dynamic symphonic flow. Cessation to the fluid routes evolution has given rise to within this inimitable biosphere results in pockets of colourless stagnancy, breath and being greyed out by death and decay. Vitality is expressed in the state of migration, for both human or wild. Migrations promote resiliency through the assimilation of diversity. The pulsating whole cannot embrace a future when only some parts are afforded the privilege of movement in the present. In a world where many are stranded, curated, confined and restricted, the inertia of immobility results in fatalities. To preserve the integrity of the whole means to preserve the space and pathways needed by every living system and being in toto. Perhaps something to contemplate with every step you take, starting now.
Now these mostly white, almost always male, affluent technologists, who have only paved the way for more of their own and thus exemplify the patriarchy, feel called to be the benefactor to the masses and the planet, bringing decentralised, distributive databases, open source protocols and utopian metaverses as the most expedient recourse to equity. The irony and arrogance of trying to impart the state of expression intrinsically abundant in nature, in life, and in humanity as a collective, through what should be self evident as a centralised lens, is entertaining. This is akin to someone claiming they can grant freedom to another, for the very act of bequeathing it upon another instantly strips both of its premise. It is plain as day to anyone with common sense that we wouldn’t need such databases or protocols if all the prosperous white men worldwide stepped down from their decision-making posts and left a true void that can then be occupied in a decentralised, distributive way through holistic representation. Perhaps if they could be silenced for a beat, the perspectives, ideas and cultural wisdom of all others, as well as the earth, can be afforded support, funding and a chance to shift from surviving to thriving. We cannot solve for that which are incapable of evidencing in reality through technology, as the latter is merely a conduit and tool that gets manipulated and populated by our fractured awareness. This is why blockchains devolved from Proof of Work, to Proof of Stake to Proof of Stake Authority, which centralised that which was invented to be decentralised.
In order for us to be able to emulate the whole, we need to stop playing a part and begin prioritising the “we” above the “me” in our every day lives, and transcend our identities long enough to perceive our underlying unity. Our egos need to be relinquished to hold space for all life equally and equitably. We cannot conceive of a system that stands for something we are not capable of championing both individually and collectively, in every aspect of our lives. We need to show up as self-regulated, autonomous, self aware beings in flow state ready to be conduits that enable and empower instead of dams that wall off, contain, control and curate the flow of existence. From global systems of wind patterns and ocean currents, to localised movement of molecular chemical processes, the planet flows with ease, so why are we unable to espouse such effortlessness? Our sense of separateness trumps our sense of connection, so we seldom surrender that which keeps us apart to that which we are a part of. All-encompassing belonging escapes us, because for that we need to set aside our identities. I question whether we would even need blockchain if we each honoured one another and the world we belonged to with integrity, honesty and presence.
Would we need smart contracts if we kept our word and followed through with our actions? Let me save you the strained consideration, and confirm that we wouldn’t. In fact, we would not need any technology greater than the act of truly being present, if we were capable of it. However, since the true renaissance of awakened consciousness eludes us, we need to invent half baked external expressions of that which is already omnipresent, in the form of neural networks, robots, devices, blockchain, metaverses, NFTs, AI, ML. Endless distractions that help us shirk our personal agency and accountability, so we can embrace an onslaught of excuses in the form of external crutches and interventions that can do for us what we seem incapable of doing for our own selves, let alone for the world around.
I personally find the most secure, expansive, efficient, accessible expression of blockchain is the biosphere. Our take on it resulted in simulating the most extractive process virtually, i.e. mining, which had an equally appalling energy footprint in the real world as well.
AI generated images for mining, created by community members. (If you are the creator, please DM me and I will gladly credit you!)
What is a DAO? When I prompted two AI generators (Midjourney and Dalle) to explore the query visually, I discerned the first response to the acronym was fortunately in vein with my own understanding. I received either the eponymous goddess of creation, or abstract interpretations to Tao, which is the way of the universe.
Images generated by prompts I gave AI on MidJourney. Final image in sequence from Ethereum.org
A DAO stands for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. What is more all encompassing, localised in efficiency and sovereignty, yet effortlessly integrated at any scale of operation, and capable of systemic checks and balances at every level than the planet? Except the biosphere is not an organisation. Nor are we. We, humans, are organisms, so the construct of an organisation is both unfamiliar and unintuitive to us. Perhaps this is why it fails, no matter the format it assumes. This Nasa footage underscores the Gaia hypothesis, which posits the earth itself as a living super-organism, a theory that would better explain the repetition of energy efficient patterns across the planet, whether in an ecosystem or organism. From how the earth cracks open with the same demand for hydration as poorly moisturised skin, to how rivers fan into deltas and coalesce from glaciers like our branching vasculature that delivers and drains blood from our hearts, the endless similarities would suggest that the living planet is a “blanket being” that contains all living beings within its symbiotic, braided architecture.
Let’s probe what a DAO embodies, by each letter of the acronym: Decentralised: controlled locally, pluralistic, democratic, inclusive. Autonomous: possess the freedom to govern one’s own self or control one’s own affairs, i.e. to possess the sovereignty to evidence agency. Organisation: group of people with a specific shared purpose
Riddle me this, what is more multifarious, capable of proliferating more organisms with localised autonomy that can still interact interdependently at scale in perfect harmony with the entire system than the earth? To me, nature is DAOs nested in DAOs, all functioning seamlessly and symbiotically. Even the best cooperative models we give rise to entail a pecking order instead of direct stakeholdership. Think of Cooperatives (Co-Ops), often cited as an example of DAOs in the real world. Co-Ops still embrace a stratified flow of command but since they loop the power structure they do come close to a DAO, however they still do not result in real time, simultaneous, impartial distribution of sovereign jurisdiction to all members of an ecosystem. Nature does that, and a DAO that is structured to mimic nature would be able to achieve the same complexity simply. However, this means our current binary voting mechanisms and dualistic thinking will not be feasible in a real DAO, yet DAOs to date have observed these dissonant, hackneyed procedures. The only way to be truly decentralised is to learn to co-exist, which involves knowing when and how to hold space for another. How are we going to simulate that which we have yet to evidence in everyday, tangible reality? This paradisal fiction of a context where real time participation will be any different than it has been through the ages is comical. It’s no wonder so many DAOs have failed to date, their core construction and the processes it was aligned by were fundamentally flawed.
Decentralisation’s other central condition is homeostasis, the capacity of each individual entity as well as the network of symbiotic entities as a whole, to be self-regulating, self sufficient, self determining, and in harmonious balance both internally and externally. Every entity in nature is adaptive, capable of reacting in real time to stimuli, reproducing its best aspects for evolutionary advantage (not insipidly replicating vulnerable clones) and both growing as well as transforming both its whole and parts synergistically. Nature has this figured out. We just find new ways to replay our pyramidal constructs.
Images generated by prompts I gave AI on MidJourney and Dalle.
The human mind can never account for the whole, as it is defined by identities which are predisposed to biases. We cannot talk about Web3 without getting existential, stay with me and you will quickly reason why. Web3 in its utopian framing promises that which we were born with, a tabula rasa of endless possibilities, the chance to shape every aspect of existence simply by coming into being. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. The void you can feel behind closed eyes can take you back to an instant of nothingness that contains everything within it, reconciling duality into singularity. Now open your eyes, what they bring into focus is the reality you are participating in validating, in other words a Jenga stack of dualistic frameworks. As an identity, as personhood, you can only ever be a part that never knows what it means to be whole, but as presence, you are the pristine ubiquitous canvas.
There is an ancient text, an Isha Upanishad on wholeness that reads: “Purnam adah: that origin of all things is Whole; purnam idam: this entire creation that has come from that origin of all things is also Whole; purnat purnam udachyate: from that Whole this whole has come; purnasya purnam adaya: having taken away this Whole from that Whole; purnam evavasisyate: the Whole still remains unaffected.”
I honestly think everyone should meditate and stay with their breath until this omnipresent truth becomes self-evident. Remain with self in stillness, silence, and most significantly surrender, before giving rise to the next, so-called ground breaking innovation of our times. Creation burgeoned from the inclusive awareness meditation cultivates could not form a part that fails to seamlessly integrate with the whole, nor would it destroy the whole to its own detriment, unless such an act of destruction was in the best interest of the whole.
Nature has an extraordinary way of being reductive in scale without compromising complexity. The planet is just as whole, as the human form, everything is in dynamic exchange, prolific, fecund and intrinsically interdependent. In failing to acknowledge this, we have invoked nothing but chain reactions of denudation that have come to compromise our own wellbeing, making it paramount to ask the right and most critical question now. How are we not tired of repeating ourselves ad nauseam? We perpetuate the same linear flows of ignorant inputs, only to be surprised by their catastrophic outputs, now isn’t that the surest sign of insanity?
In a quick survey of the room, a few in the audience raised hands when asked if they were crypto native, and the majority raised their hands when asked if they felt alienated and confused by anything to do with crypto and Web3. The sheer volume of proprietary assets, instances of ownership privilege, purchasing power fuelled elitism and exclusionary access that all this hyped dialogue around decentralisation, distributive, democratic technology has resulted in should make any mindful person’s stomach churn.
I do not deny that technology can be a tool that can effect positive change in the world, but it comes down to the purpose it serves, the why that informs its necessity, the how that leverages its power and functionality, and most significantly the who that defines its boundaries of operation and wields it in the world. Humanity is quick to blame and denounce the very tools we go to great lengths to take sole credit for creating, which reflects poorly on our ability to truly assume responsibility.
While there is immense skepticism around NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens), given their early and ongoing expression as the myopic offspring of membership economies and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) culture, it is important to separate farce from their true function. Just because an innovation has been deployed at its most frivolous state does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather, it is time to evolve past the technology’s inchoate smoke and mirrors iteration, and explore its practical applications in alleviating the prevailing concerns of today.
What is an NFT?
A Non Fungible Token. What an unnecessary mouthful. Under the guise of Keep It Simple Stupid, I’d qualify an NFT as individuality derived from divergence. Where can this be found? Oh I don’t know, everywhere on this planet! Life on earth finds expression as uniquely identifiable beings and things daily! The tapestry of existence is rich in inimitable signature imprints. From snowflakes, and sand, to every living species since life first spawned. No two tigers are like, demarcated by their distinct stripe patterns, just as no two humans are like, attenuated by our unique fingerprints, amongst countless other genetic and aesthetic differences that distinguish one member of a species from another. What is a smart contract in this context, but genetic and molecular sequences encoded with instructions that stipulate conditions which must be met for specific outcomes to catalyse? Hilariously preposterous that we believe we are breaking ground by flexing our technological muscle on this assertion.
An early classification of snowflakes by Israel Perkins Warren
Video Caption: Thumbs Up For Tigers Campaign I created for WWF x Whiskas partnership to promote doubling tiger numbers in the wild. Technology should be used to ground us back in models of coexistence and conscious participation
NFTs are a uniquely useful, cryptographically secure, digital product class that offers us the opportunity to duplicate that which nature does already. Why not deploy this technology to promote the preservation of nature itself then? Our commoditised global commons deserves to be appraised for both intrinsic and extrinsic value, not just quantitatively but qualitatively too. By creating a global taxonomic archive of biodiversity counts, the cost of their declining numbers, the value of their extant tallies, and the delta between talk and action over time and across various industry sectors, we could begin to make a dent in preserving what remains instead of blowing resources on bringing back the wooly mammoth or creating fantasy games that can neither feed nor quench the thirst of millions of lives. We need to consolidate what is already working well with the accountability and transparency offered by blockchain. We could thread through all the monitoring, sharing and protection mechanisms already enabled on open source protocols in a singular stakeholder framework. This is what I am passionate about enabling in our world. Talk to me about how technology can give back to people and planet, and I will have a thousand insights for you.
Metaverses could be educational, spatially insightful time capsules of real world environments, animating the relationships and organisms lost to us through our exploits so we can model and map their expression to understand them better both for their own sake but also for the niche they occupied and services they rendered. This could help us value the species that remain more interdependently and beyond their relationship to us. It is important we don’t study other species or perform our activities from a solely anthropocentric view, and maybe we could have AI encourage us to expand out of parochial egocentrism. We need to stop meeting in committees and operating in swim lanes, instead think laterally and apply ourselves associatively. Let’s take a page from nature and model our companies, investments and solutions around an ecosystem approach. We could mint various species as NFTs to monitor health, resilience and interaction instances, have oracles feed real time data into smart contracts to create time and context stamped milestones and markers in both environmental and social measures. We could conduct risk and threat analysis to reintroductions on metaverses using NFTs, increasing monetary value to their living expression, while disincentivising mercenaries who believe extinction is bankable. For those not in the know, all studies have proven that fauna and flora are worth more alive. I could get behind such mindful, integrated use cases. The virtual world cannot exist without the tangible world thus it makes no sense for it to function in denial of its context.
Since we draw from nature to create our technology, it is only right that it is deployed to protect nature. That is the only responsible, ethical, and fair use, I feel comfortable enabling. And doing good should not be an afterthought or even qualified, it should be implicit, as that is the only healthy way forward. This is why I am using blockchain and NFTs to deliver on impact initiatives with accountability and transparency. My perspectives on AI, NFTs, DAOs, and Blockchain is not as a crypto native nor as a technocrat ailed by a saviour complex — I certainly do not worship at the altar of Silicon Valley — to the contrary I prefer and value the tangible, blue green marble and the universe it is buoyantly suspended within. There isn’t a day that goes by when I am not in awe of the life’s virtuosity and the unbelievable magic the earth and the starlit universe harbours.
I regard human consciousness as infinitely more significant than any artificial intelligence, and only turn to technology when it enhances my ability to scale, document, relay, collate, model or evidence the realisation of positive humanitarian and planetary impacts in the world. My ongoing affinity for blockchain, NFTs, smart contracts, and AI is not sparked by the collectibles frenzy, avatars, gameverses and machine centric realities, rather by the biomimicry and bioengineering brilliance apparent in its design. These technologies possess the same illuminating blueprint and building blocks as the natural world, and can thus be used to copy, restore and recover the intelligence, integrity and inclusiveness observed across our wild earth, where the divergence of form still reconciles through convergence.
Given the tenacity of nature, in how it finds a way no matter what adversity or constraints it is subjected to, at times I ponder if nature has iterated through technological progress to make its innate wisdom more accessible to us, as a last ditch effort to save its self, through the digital frontier. Perhaps by infusing technology with humanity and ecology, we can make DAOS, blockchain, NFTs, metaverses and AI a living practice, instead of a jargon-entrenched virtual escape, and in doing so we can finally uncover the fundamental unifying reality encoded into our cells and the cosmos.
Maybe just maybe we will save ourselves from ourselves…
