The Blockchain Socialist

In this episode I spoke to Jarrad Hope, founder of Logos, and Peter Ludlow, philosopher and research advisor at the University of Hong Kong, and co-authors of the new book 'Farewell to Westphalia.' In the book they detail the historical trajectory of nation states and what they perceive to be their failures as well as propose an alternative to Network States through Blockchain Communities.We discuss critiques of traditional nation states, the potential of blockchain for decentralized governance, and the importance of transparency and privacy. This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

Dr. Christoph Sorg is  a social scientist at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He researches theories of capitalism and post-capitalism and the new debate on economic planning in times of digitalization and the climate crisis.During the interview we spoke about his work around understanding economic planning and his recent publication Finance as a form of economic planning. His work shows how even in the free market capitalism we live in today, there is actually a significant amount of planning, it's just that the planning is for facilitating capitalist economies, the neoliberal paradox.As the co-founder of projects like Bread Cooperative where we are trying to build out apps that facilitate post-capitalist economic relations, I think it's important for us to properly understand the current state of capitalism so that we know the kind of meaningful interventions we could make.  This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit.Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

I spoke to Cade Diehm,  Head of Research at the World Ethical Data Foundation and founder of New Design Congress, an independent research group confronting the gap between what is said to be happening and what is actually happening in digital societies. His career also involves working at Deloitte Australia, as leading design for CoinJar, the largest crypto exchange in Australia and Tactical Tech.I had him on to talk about his work on Weaponised Design (when an interface or system harms its users whilst performing entirely within its expected behaviour), his recent alarming research on the brittleness of digital identity and his experience with crypto.This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit.Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

I spoke to Leuts.eth, CEO of Aragon, a DAO tooling protocol that gives organizations the tools to build, govern, and accrue value effectively onchain. Aragon was probably the first organization I became interested when I got into crypto since they were the first to take seriously the potential for DAOs and onchain governance,We spoke about the history of Aragon, their latest feature enabling private voting and whether Nepal is actually a DAO now.This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit.Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

It's feeling like we're living in a very strange moment in time where liberal norms of openness have been shattered by the same class of tech industry titans who expressed these values just a decade ago. In this episode I spoke to Nick Houde and Severin Matusek from co-matter, a research and strategy studio based in Berlin, who recently published an incredible memo that is chock full of incredible analysis and insight into our current moment."New World Order: The Return of Hard Power and Soft Beliefs is a 35-page research memo about what happens when power, infrastructure and ideology collide.A manual for anyone trying to make sense of the present, New World Order contains ideas, context and language to participate in shaping the world that emerges in front of our eyes."The memo is chock full of useful and powerful concepts that help explain this moment. You can order a copy of the memo on Metalabel here. (I've already got my copy!) Lots of great quotes like "Yesterday's moral stance is tomorrow's liability" and "Whoever controls the infrastructure controls reality itself."This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit.Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.