Personally, if I compare existing development code to a kind of firmware, then blockchain is like a semiconductor.
The reason is precisely the smart contract.
The image that comes to mind with blockchain is that block and block are connected with chains.. everyone holds the same data.. they prove things to each other.. which is accurate, but this is a description too limited to development — that is, to implementation. Surely the original creator had a purpose. At the very least, if the related knowledge in society has risen to an appropriate level, it's now time to think more carefully not about implementation but about its uses and roles. Only then can it be grafted onto reality, and only then does it avoid ending as "a thing of its time."
First, at the very least, a blockchain smart contract == a function is not the case.
To give a real-world example, VAT filing is also a tax, and withholding is also a tax, but the two have different natures. One is where a citizen sees the bill and voluntarily pays; the other is automatically paid without my involvement. The automatic payment here is different from the kind an individual requests from a card company or bank of their own will — this is involuntary automatic payment. However, the "involuntary" here is premised on an implicit agreement as a member of the nation.
A blockchain smart contract is just like this. In the end, it's a kind of function made up of commands for specific conditions written in code, but its meaning and use have the same subtle — perhaps obvious — difference as the real-world example above.
If we give a code-based example, it's perhaps closer to the role (not the code) of something like package.json.. or, more strictly.. .gitignore.
That's why some shout "Wow!" while others grumble, "It's just a function.. and that kind of data structure is as old as Agile, which is getting renewed attention.." (//Step aside for a second.. Agile itself has a lot to say, plenty of gripes. The Agile that uncles and elder brothers speak of from back in the day seems to have been in a somewhat different environment from now.. Back then, the organization's BM, culture, R&R, and even the basic collaborative work tools were different, so realistically it probably wasn't an environment where it was easy to apply Agile consistently.. I surmise. Culture that proceeds with the guidance of some evangelist or professional Agile coach versus culture and environments where every individual participates — those definitely feel different.)
Personally, it's "Wow." The reason is that it's code.. no, it's the same language, but whereas in the past it dealt with rules between machines, the blockchain methodology contains policies about those who operate the machines and those who use the services derived from them. And those policies are written in withholding-style code so that they can't be fudged and shrugged off in the real world, and moreover the structure and method for defending these policies from distortion and manipulation is approached not as tech but in a way similar to society's decision-making structures.
And this smart contract, I think, will be a very good match with cooperatives — which in the real world have good intentions, purpose, and vision but always hit practical limits (individuals' self-interest, political interests, securing economic monopolies, etc.) and get frustrated.
feat. The Singularity Is Near
In the opening of The Singularity Is Near, the following line is cited (Edsger Wybe Dijkstra).
(p88) Just as astronomy is not about telescopes, computer science is no longer about computers.
Personally, I think blockchain is not greatly different from the above either. And the author, before this, mentioned the following.
(p68) In summary, evolution increases order. However, complexity may or may not increase (though usually it does). Whether in living things or in technology, the main reason the pace of evolution accelerates is that it builds on ever-increasing order. Because the techniques for recording and manipulating information become ever more sophisticated. Innovations produced by evolution promote and enable faster evolution. In the case of life's evolution, the most important early example was DNA. By allowing life's blueprint to be safely recorded, DNA enabled more enterprising experiments. In the case of technological evolution, as methods of recording information continuously improved, they promoted further technological development.
Yes. Isn't it exciting? This is the singularity. It's a new way of thinking about recording information. Just as the techniques for recording and manipulating information — developing through books, records, CDs, DISKs, etc. — actually lowered complexity, and thanks to that lowered entropy, new growth once again became possible. Of course... we must remember that an idea itself is not an invention, and an invention itself is not a product or a good.. So let's share. Let's share, collaborate, and create synergy through that. That is, if we don't yet have a sponsor who will silently support us through the long haul.
For reference, the author describes the S-curve of the book (publishing) as it appears in life cycles in the passage below, and here — the part to pay attention to in the process of introducing (deploying, applying) blockchain into practice (the real market), not the language itself — I think is the complexity of writing systems.
(p85) From Goatskin to Download
Where does the book sit in the technology life cycle? Precursors to the book include clay tablets of Mesopotamia and papyrus scrolls of Egypt. ...
Three major advances influenced the development and maturation of the book. Printing, first attempted in the 8th century by the Chinese using raised-relief woodblocks, allowed books to be mass-produced, and the reading public expanded beyond government officials and religious leaders to ordinary people.
In fact, movable type, attempted around the 11th century in China and Korea, was a far more significant invention, but because of the complexity of Asian writing systems, these early attempts were not very successful. In the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg benefited from the relative simplicity of the Roman alphabet. Gutenberg printed the Bible in 1455, which was the first large-scale printing job using movable type.
While there have been continuous evolutionary improvements in mechanical and electromechanical printing, you could say there was no qualitative leap in publishing technology until about twenty years ago, when computer typesetting retired movable type.
Today, letterpress printing is regarded as a part of digital image processing work.
