Internet Computer

It was September 22nd in London when a group of Englishmen met together in a dark office to discuss business.  The men were mostly notable businessmen and government officials, including, perhaps controversially, the mayor of London.  The conversation was contentious and debate raged, but the men were all aligned to a common goal: to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  That common goal, greed if you will, was enough to align their interests enough such that by the end of the night each man there would invest an incredible sum of money to their new endeavor.  On that night a new business was formed, one that would monopolize an entire industry and make each of those men and their descendants incredibly wealthy.They didn’t know it at the time, but those men would usher in a new era of mankind and kick off economic and technological growth to a degree that humans had never seen before.  The year was 1599 and the company was called the East Indian Company.  The success of those men and the fairly unique way they formed their company, called a joint venture company, would radically change how humans organize, affecting first business, but expanding to all areas of life including government, religion and civic institutions.<h4>I believe we are at the start of the next radical change in human organization; one that will impact society far more than past organizational changes; one that will completely change authority, trust and collaboration.  And society will never be the same.</h4>Human OrganizationHave you ever considered why humans are the dominant species on our planet?  We possess very little in terms of physical advantages over other species.  Our babies are unable to survive on their own for the first couple years.  We don’t have large birth capacity and are ill-equipped to survive without tools in most parts of the world.  Yet humans have dominated the world.  Why is that?  What truly separates humans from animals?Go deeper… why do some societies and civilizations thrive while others falter?  How was it that Europeans, a continent that was falling behind in technology and influence in the 1200s, was able to control almost the entire world by the 1800s?  What separates countries and states today between those that thrive and those that struggle?Yuval Noah Harari argues in his book Sapiens that what separates humans from other species is the ability to organize themselves around abstract ideas and for a common purpose.  He also argues that what separates societies/states/communities between those that thrive and those that struggle is the existence of higher-level beliefs that enables those people to organize, coordinate and share resources and that those benefits compound over time. Basically, if you can trust someone (or, even better, remove the need for trust) you both are more likely to be efficient... now multiply that across an entire society or community.When you consider societal advancement through that lens, you can understand how impactful the joint venture business was when the idea was proven out.  The joint venture company allowed multiple people (in the case of the East India Company the founding membership grew to 218 prior to the official charter) to pool resources, distribute risk and coordinate skills towards a common endeavor.  Prior to the joint venture, it was only monarchs, pharaohs and rulers who chartered and financed massive expeditions and construction and provided legitimacy to the projects.  After the creation of the joint venture company, massive projects became possible by individuals, albeit only wealthy individuals and were no longer limited by the blessing of a few central decision-makers.  All of a sudden, the number of massive projects being undertaken by humans expanded significantly, and perhaps more importantly, the creativity of those projects expanded.  I believe it’s not too far of a stretch to say that the joint venture company was the creation that allowed Europeans to begin their domination of global trade.The joint venture was the start of the third era in human organization.  We are currently entering the fourth era… the era of self-sovereignty.This is the start of a multiple post series in which I hope to explain how fundamentally things are changing as a result of blockchain technology.  My hope is that the average reader will be able to see the signal of human progress amongst the noise of all the crypto buzzwords.  Words like DAO and tokenization have become jargon, but they contain the technology for the next wave of human organization.  Something is happening and it will alter the way humans interact not just online or with their software, but also how they interact with authority and amongst their peers.By Kyle Langham, Director of Data &amp; Analytics &#64; DFINITY Foundation

Human Organization 4.0, part one

Internet_Computer

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