Blockchain and the Synaptic Post Google Internet
Many are heralding blockchain as an innovation that will bring about as much or more change than the Internet. Most emerging non-currency applications of blockchain are for existing or planned coins for banking and payments, supply chain management, insurance, ride sharing, charity, voting, government, healthcare, energy management, music, retail, real estate, and more.
In this post, we will discuss two innovations that build upon the blockchain that enable the Post Google Internet. One is a new category of technology called Wisdom Tech and another is the Synaptic Web. But first, let’s talk about what the Post Google Internet might look like.
A Blockchain-Anchored Post Google Internet
Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies such as Hashgraph and Holochain will anchor the Post Google Internet. These technologies will provide the Post Google Internet a foundation for consensus, trustless transactions, security, transparency, privacy, and micropayments.
In a Blockchain-anchored Post Google Internet, people will gravitate to generative communities and networks where
- Participants are rewarded in tokens for the value they create
- Personal data is not exploited
- Participants get paid if they choose to enable ads and/or make their data available to companies
- There is a social purpose.
People will also gravitate towards asset-backed cryptocurrencies — Gold-backed crypto will become the new gold standard, trustless transactions mediated by smart contracts, and mesh-based networks powered by cell phones.
One of the most exciting developments will be a smart contract-enabled, token-based identity that is wholly owned and controlled by the individual, and information can be divulged on a need to know basis. In addition to – or possibly even more so than – DAOs (Distributed Autonomous Organizations), there will be DANs (Distributed Advisory Networks) and DAMNs (Distributed Asset Management Networks) that enable geographically-distributed participants to contribute to aspects of an organization’s direction and operations.
To the extent that Bitcoin is accepted in retail, it will be mainly for larger purchases with other coins used for smaller transactions. Security will always be an issue; criminals will increasingly relieve careless people of their tokens, and there will be an evolving set of solutions to reduce vulnerabilities on all levels.
More people will be making a living on the net and in healthier ways – think less spam, less SEO, and less bad content.
Oh yeah, and there be less searching and more finding.
Wisdom Tech
Wisdom Tech will emerge as a new blockchain-enabled category of technological innovation. It will help people come to greater clarity and to trust in their ability to discern truth from fiction and make decisions based on what they know. People will begin having long term conversations and solving real problems together on the web. There will be the online equivalents of citizens deliberative councils and citizens juries, which will give people input into issues and decisions that affect them. Direct democracy will emerge at the very least on an advisory level with votes being used to understand how a proposed action aligns with the community.
xR (extended reality) headsets will become another way of viewing and working with complex information. Knowledge workers using xR and/or traditional web interfaces will emerge as a new vocation that helps create, curate, and clarify information; resolve contradictions and identify patterns; and bring people to consensus in a fair and transparent way.
An early Wisdom Tech application will be the Synaptic Web.
The Synaptic Web
Neurologists believe that the density and flexibility of the connections between neurons – rather than the neurons themselves – is the root of intelligence. These neurochemical connections are called synapses.
Even though brain cells, or neurons, diminish in adulthood, our ability to generate new connections between neurons and between different parts of the brain persists throughout life. This “plasticity” of the brain, like other muscles, increases with exercise.
The synapse – the link between one neuron and another – is where neural connections create pathways that, when used, are reinforced with additional connections and, when unused, are “pruned” to make way for more useful pathways. These chemical bridges define the patterns of communication that, at any given time, shape our cognitive capacity.
This evolving view of neural science has been used as an apt metaphor for a Synaptic Web in that the connections between objects are more important than the objects themselves.
In the Synaptic Web, the connections are made as contributors build them and grow in strength based on the extent to which others use and value them. Stronger links rise to the top making them easier to find. Connections that are incorrect or not useful to the network are pruned over time.
Network theory says networks that are more dense with connections have greater potential value. The Synaptic Web will easily grow to be 10-100 times denser than today’s Internet. Some documents, like a long PDF report on a hot topic, will likely have thousands of links, notes, and comments over time and ultimately many more readers.
All toll, the Synaptic Web will catalyze a paradigm shift from “Search” to “Find.” Google indexes only 0.04% of online information, including a lot of useless content. The Synaptic Web could index 100% of the content people find useful including in foreign languages and even the dark web.
Links between content elements will be smart, granular, and crowd-generated. There will be content filtering mechanisms and jobs (e.g., validation, endorsement, verification, troll tracking, bot busting) to reduce the amount of fake and incorrect information. The Synaptic Web will effectively transform the web from a noisy, sparse network to a rich, high signal-to-noise network.
The Synaptic Web will be implemented as browser and browser plugins that overlay context relevant information about links and notes on web pages. Web overlays themselves will emerge as important way of linking and augmenting the information on and across web pages.
Rest assured, a Blockchain-anchored Synaptic Post Google Internet is on the way.
I can hear her breathing.
About the Author
Dave Room’s most important identifier is Melia’s Papa. His teenage daughter Melia is his joy and inspiration. Since receiving a B.S. and M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University, Room has had leadership roles in startups, nonprofits, and social enterprises in a variety of emergent fields. As a shift shaper, his work creates pathways for collective shifts in consciousness. As an inventor, his current focus is augmented reality books; distributed ledger systems for social innovation, specifically the organization and curation of knowledge, collective decision making; and collective asset management. Room co-founded BALANCE Edutainment and is an author of Pacha’s Pajamas: A Story Written By Nature. Dave is an Active Dreaming teacher, a SoulCollage® Facilitator and a Green For All fellow. Check out his blog at MeliasPapa.com. Twitter: @meliaspapa.
