# Jon Husband (Wirearchy inventor) and Vinay Gupta discuss blockchains, governance, (part 2 of 2)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [279], part 2 of 2. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: video, 2016-06-13 (YouTube upload date), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA. Text: automatic captions, partly corrected
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015), before the law step (Mattereum, 2017).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): States the need to define explicit material minimums, the aim behind life support at zero budget.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine (2014): His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe eight machines everyone on earth should... (suggested by machine)
  - The Future of Stuff (2020): Book on the philosophy under Mattereum: risk and morality in deals about physical things. (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - RMI to spiral: Resource economics, from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the spiral economy. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - environment / green capitalism: Green economics: from oil efficiency to markets for facts about products. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - standard SKUs: A survival kit built only from standard, mass-produced parts. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: Property, NFTs & real-estate transactions (17%); Open government & anti-corruption (17%); blockchain / global / internet (10%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: oracles (5 here; 10 sources in all, earliest dated 2016); The DAO (4 here; 13 sources in all, earliest dated 2016); DAO (4 here; 23 sources in all, earliest dated 2014); social order (1 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); basic income (2 here; 21 sources in all, earliest dated 2014); global democracy (1 here; 12 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Spiral (1 here; 17 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); VICE (1 here; 19 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 2 undated); standards (3 here; 87 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated); rule of law (1 here; 21 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 2 undated)
- Importance: core-text score 0.23 (1.00 is the top), number 329 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [572] [How To Address Climate Change: Diplomacy, Politics,... (2022)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/572.md): close in content (cosine 0.95)
  - [747] [Startup Societies Podcast - Episode 34 - Vinay Gupta (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/747.md): close in content (cosine 0.95)
- On the same works, just before: [863] [Vinay Gupta - Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/863.md); [282] [Wales 1 (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/282.md); [283] [Digital Bauhaus 2016 backup camera footage (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/283.md)
- On the same works, just after: [278] [Thoughts on the DAO (1) - it takes a lot of people to... (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/278.md); [734] [Blockchain: Beyond Bitcoin by Vinay Gupta @leashless... (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/734.md); [277] [a thesis: hexayurt guy capital partners? (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/277.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Jon Husband (Wirearchy inventor) and Vinay Gupta discuss blockchains, governance,, video, 2016-06-13, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [279], https://guptaoption.com/texts/279.md.

Other speakers' passages are removed, so there can be gaps.

## Passages, part 2 of 2
[39:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2346s) the what's been sold to people for the last 50 years under neoliberalism a rising tide lifts all boats well this was the welfare State's original model the problem is that the welfare state never explicitly defined its minimums didn't Define its minimums and it deregulated anyone going for the gusta basically and this is the world that we're in which has turned in my lifetime I'm old enough to and and I'm quite idealistic I remember you know demonstrating against the Vietnam War and I've always been um probably more liberal than most people would appreciate um the world in my opinion in many ways not all ways has turned pretty Savage pretty quickly well I mean I think that this is the Cold War right that when the cold war ends with the Soviets losing the balance of powers that had kept both sides of reasonably well behaved was withdrawn and frankly the Americans went nuts after 911 and become you know very very rapacious yeah it's there what's that famous phrase by Donald rumel we're going to create the reality that uh I forget what it is we or we have we have the means to create reality so we're going to Yes um and you know that's starting to blow up in their faces very Hoban very hubsan indeed and we have not seen the walk and you know response right because what you should have seen arguably It's Beginning what you should have seen is the United Nations yes but the United States will never allow that to happen because they've always underfunded the United Nations they don't want a world government now the question is do we need or will we need in the future a world government I think we probably will well I mean the story that I've been telling a lot recently is that blockchains enable global democracy yeah and that doesn't have to mean you know that you then appoint a ruler of the world but if you could discover with you know good statistical certainty that Global public opinion wanted some things and didn't want others with a really high degree confidence on the data I think we could begin to start talking about we've had the global poll we understand Global public opinion on this matter we encourage countries to comply with global public opinion because if we don't build those kind of mechanisms I don't see how we're going to get any laage on climate I don't see how we get nanotech I don't see how we get so there

[41:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2484s) we're back to this notion of this second Super power being the opinion uh and I'll I'll come back to you know my definition of wichy as is just a madeup word as an organizing principle because knowledge trust credibility focus on results and a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority that means that it's not all top down sorry it's a good checklist yeah well I think so I thought about it for a while like for about 35 years before the internet came along but um there are always actors in This definition it's a dynamic two-way flow it's not just the citizen as a passive recipient Y and it's not just the rulers as benevolent dictators because you're expecting separation of powers to emerge the trust The credibility these these in the interfaces in the Dynamics in the self- regulation in the laws uh in the standards that are applied yeah and the two FL two exchange of power is fascinating because I mean this is very so in in the uh blockchain systems a lot of power resides in things that we call oracles I don't know about that um so an oracle is something that tells you what the current temperature is in Iowa City okay right it's some interface the external world that registers a set of facts into the blockchain so that your contracts can make decisions and there's always been a question about how centralized will the oracles be and will they turn into points of control or can you make sure the oracles St de centralized but the notion that the oracles and the miners are fundamentally different right the oracles the miners the people making the software you know you've got a kind of tripartite system there and of specialized technical capabilities that are hard to replicate right um that are likely to therefore remain separate as Powers now is is there would there be for those those points of power would there be some equivalent of a hypocritic oath that they are there to serve well well I mean if they're Anonymous who watches the Watchman right on the other hand if you've got you know 50,000 that's a scenario so for some pretty interesting Sci-Fi movies well yes which we're going to wind up living quite soon yeah but if you've got $50,000 of somebody's Capital tied up in a set of smart contracts where if they lie you can take their money the prospect is that you could hold people to account in a very granular way yeah um and the notion that you've got a kind of democratic Pudo

[43:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2634s) Democratic capability to hold people to account resulting in Fair Play you know

[44:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2641s) in a lot of ways I think if we asked Vitalik about this he'd say basically it's hs's World model and walks goals that's a nice way of putting it um if you if you have a strong enough technical architect you can take the competitive structure of nature R into well that would be the utopian theoretical uh statement of purpose but it's also how mining works right so mining produces a fair Level Playing Field field through Relentless ruthless competition to obtain results the whole cryptoeconomic breakthrough at the heart of these systems which of D is such a master of expressing uh and building on is that if you correctly architect the competitive games and give the correct incentives the competition for resources results in a Level Playing Field for everybody I wonder if it's time for a reread of Steven Johnson's book emerence The connected lives of um brains ants and cities well indeed cuz he cuz he posits in that that the connected life that we're begin and that was a book that was written 10 12 15 years ago um really only needs just like from Good Game Theory two or three Simple Rules y that's interesting certainly in this domain the notion that you can take relatively simple patterns of behavior with the right incentive structures and produce very complex emerging behavior is a big part of it you know the mining systems are very very simple compared to the complexity of the transactional systems that they facilitate for example right um and that notion that the ruthless competition at the hsian level is the underpinning support for the loan level that our our Justice and our democracy of the blockchain is fair and it records history accurately is secured by the competition to M quickly I think that we might discover that you know that was the aspiration of the free market but but the corruption of the human systems that provided control through things like revolving door between corporations and government and courts you know if you think of this as being essentially free market economics minus the revolving doors maybe we're in a position where it's a technical nudge towards Justice and it's just enough to work that sounds

[46:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2775s) very very interesting I'm I'm I'm also conscious of you know bringing this back to the average Jane and Joe in the street in a suburb who are still you know they've got a smartphone and they use they know about the web and they have Facebook and they browse for the weather and their stock prices and and so on and so forth um but you know the blockchain will be something alien to them and so on and and we know that we're also facing significant amounts of automation algorithms robots etc etc we we' we've had a very rapid rise in the notion of guaranteed annual incomes or Universal basic incomes with predicted you know business people on the right saying this is never going to work it's administratively too problematic the recent referendum in Switzerland which was roundly defeated but I don't see a way around having to have some of that because there are millions of people that will be just wandering around dazed by this whole techno technoeconomic tsunami that's about to land yes including me frankly and me I'm I'm old enough to I'm going to go off into the woods in a couple more years so number one job in the US is driver it's the single most common job which could disappear in the next five years self driving everything you know heavy Freight particularly you know all the interest R well I've I've seen avatars with AI that you know you you will not need particularly if married with the blockchain but notaries paralal maybe even most lawyers arguably a fair number of professors for for you know basic courses um I said lawyers I think doc GPS yep I've seen some really smart avatars that are really good at questioning patients and the answers go into databases and there's cameras focused on the emotions of the of the patients responding to the clients and you know another 10 years a lot of this will be in place one of the things I think would be worth trying is doing basic income on blockchains but not setting a value for the basic income so if we set up a system in the UK of giving everybody a th000 tokens a month right Mar blockchain but we didn't set a market value for the tokens I wonder how long it would take for them to establish a market value and become tradable and or maybe even many smaller markets in communities yes because the other question we haven't really touched on about energy is If energy systems and Logistics the way we understand them today break whether

[48:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2925s) electric or um oilbased we will have to be able to go to local proximity based economies pretty quickly and that is a much bigger kind of worms than we have time for but we are doing a bit of work on it um we have a project called cotric okay which is renewable energy on blockchains and I think it's the beginning of quite a big transformation in those FS I think I read something about citricity I think I passed it on to someone but yeah John's doing that so um thank you

[49:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzB9qG0sJA&t=2956s) wly

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End of [279] Jon Husband (Wirearchy inventor) and Vinay Gupta discuss blockchains, governance,, part 2 of 2. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.
Read next: next on the same works, [278](https://guptaoption.com/texts/278.md) Thoughts on the DAO (1) - it takes a lot of people to... (2016); the most closely related, [572](https://guptaoption.com/texts/572.md) How To Address Climate Change: Diplomacy, Politics,... (2022); his whole career in one file, https://guptaoption.com/story.md.