I’m baaaack! NOT by popular demand! I’ve been absent over the last month as I’ve taken a break from the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry almost entirely. GASP! Not that I’ve given up on my plans for involvement within the blockchain industry, but in my initiating Imagine Collective Consciousness larger and vastly more complicated topics have come to the forefront revolving around community engagement, collective impact, social change, and economic empowerment. Mostly, I have realized that developing new applications or currencies are not going to get us out of our current socio-economic rut; In order to make progress technosocially, we must reevaluate the process through which we develop, market, understand, and adopt technologies past and present to ensure we are making proper use of them within our communities and daily lives.
Returning to the blockchain industry has been a struggle, as the price of bitcoin skyrockets it seems the blockchain industry inches closer and closer to oblivion. Bitcoin wasn’t created to make an assload of cash, it was created to change the status quo. Falling into the deep abyss of cryptocurrencies and digital coins on the current market it seems blockchain has become a circle-jerk of ICOs and empty promises for roads to nowhere. No longer do we talk about the ability to use bitcoin in emerging countries or developing economies, the societal and economic impact in existing societies; Instead, we are talking about blockchain 3-4-5-6.0 when blockchain is still at stage 0 in the scope of awareness or adoption.
In order for Blockchain or any other technology to reach technosocial adoption, there must be some major benefit to the members of society or businesses- there must be some reason to promote and adopt it. Right now, cryptocurrency is setup to benefit nobody. Bitcoin cannot even fulfill its goals, as outlined in the 2008 whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto, after 8 years of hype. If we would like cryptocurrencies to stand only as scams and skeevy venture capitalist initatives, Bitcoin has done a great job: the amount of hype created has thrown the cryptocurrency into a neverending state of inertia. Sure, the price continues to go up but the coin itself remains useless.
The big takeaway? Technological innovation alone does nothing to our social or economic benefit. We have seen supposedly revolutionary technologies emerge many times over the last 20 years, and it can be argued that adopting these technologies has made our social and economic lives worse. Steve Jobs himself limited the amount of exposure his children had to apple products. Why? Because the companies that develop our technology today have no interest in socio-economic culture or empowerment. They aren't researching social and community issues. They create products for profit, not solutions for empowerment. They don't work with community outreach to educate users on their latest developments, the public has very little to do with technological innovation what-so-ever; Meaning that most of us are walking around using technology in some of the most intimate ways, without any understanding of how our tech products work, what they are capable of doing, and what affects they will have on ourselves and our environment.
Starting Imagine Conscious Collective-- which I originally made to be a blockchain specific collective impact initiative-- has been a rollercoaster in terms of research and planning: consciousness, technology, socio-economics, and community impact most of my study sessions are 98+ tabs all on a variety of different topics that need to be brought together to make our collective work . Taking a break from blockchain gave me the opportunity to find the resources we needed to expand our collective scope. Our vision now spans across all emerging and existing technologies to provide a platform for conscious use of technology to empower communities and benefit our greater socio-economic culture as a whole.
Now that I am getting back into the swing of things, hopefully I can start to build better relationships on Steemit and within my local community too. I am hoping to meet other individuals who feel a change is needed and that are looking for opportunities to collaborate with others to create a big shift in our socio-economic culture. If Imagine Conscious Collective piques your interest, and you’d like to learn more or get involved you can contact me at zamara.bennett17@gmail.com, please write ICC or Imagine Conscious Collective somewhere in the subject line so I don’t accidentally delete it. You can also join us here on Slack.
As always leave a comment and let me know what your thoughts are. Always love interacting with my fellow Steemians!
I agree how some tech do not really benefit us because the companies are out for profit. But that being said, we just have to be a bit more creative in using tech for other things, especially education. Great post btw.