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+*Note: this article discusses web 3.0 in the context I originally
+understood it, which I now understand was coined by [Gavin
+Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3). I have no understanding of,
+or interest in Tim Berners-Lee's concept of the
+[Semantic Web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web)*
+
+## We are all Satoshi
+
+Satoshi Nakamoto committed the first block to a blockchain with: "The
+Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." A
+technology born in global financial crisis, known only among a group of
+people who liked to call themselves the "cypherpunks, Bitcoin--and the
+blockchain concept on which is was based--was a technology born from
+political turmoil and couldn't be anything but a political statement.
+
+What was that statement exactly?
+
+If you read the Bitcoin white paper, and I highly recommend you do since
+it's probably one of the best-written research papers in recent memory,
+the impression you get is somewhere between utilitarianism and utopia.
+Freedom and psuedonymity achieved through the mathematically perfect
+organization of cryptography.
+
+Without trying to re-write the white paper, the core concept can be
+described very simply. Say you have a network of random schmoes with
+computers (some people call this the "Internet," but let's not get hung
+up on jargon). You can organize these people into three main camps:
+miners, nodes, and buyers. The nodes all keep a record of all
+transactions ever made on the Bitcoin network. The miners, using
+cryptography (and therefore CPU power), check these nodes to make sure
+they're all accurate and up to date. The first miner that checks a full
+set of transactions wins the Bitcoin. The people with the Bitcoin serve
+kind of like a mint, distributing the currency to user's wallets in
+exchange for pizza, illegal drugs, but most usually: cash. The buyers
+ultimately provide the value of Bitcoin and make transactions with it
+for the nodes to update, the miners to check and so on.
+
+The best part of all this, is that unlike traditional digital payment
+like credit cards or Paypal: no corporation needs to do the bookeeping.
+Instead, any volunteer with an internet connection can store and serve
+their own copy of the book, the record of transactions Satoshi calls a
+blockchain. The idea comes directly from torrenting, where anyone with
+a link to the torrent can download a file from potentially thousands of
+others who are also serving (or seeding) the file.
+
+There is a world that Bitcoin needs for all this to operate in a neat
+way. Bitcoin demands a society of volunteers for it's book-keeping, a
+gathering of self-starters for it's mining and maintenance (preferably
+ones that don't track or scam people), and something like a national
+myth--a belief that you have *something*, and that *something* has worth.
+
+But the world that's come out of it, seems far off from that ideal to
+me.
+
+## We are the Web 3.0 people
+
+I imagine anyone reading this who happens to be part of crypto start up
+is either seething with rage at how little detail I went into or is
+completely unaware of any of that history. They also might snipe that
+Bitcoin is irrelevant nowadays. Bitcoin is becoming something
+of a "boomer" cryptocurrency now that some feel has seen better days in
+spite of the booming price. But that's all it is--an imperfect software
+hijacked into a get-rich-quick-scheme. Prophetically they hint that
+something bigger is coming.
+
+If Web 1.0 was a littering of static content left by bored users and
+Web 2.0 made the pictures move with your mouse to lull us all into
+surveillance capitalism, Web 3.0, to it's proponents, is the light at
+the end of the tunnel that will replace all those tyrannical centralized
+software corps with user-owned and user-operated *de*centralized means
+of communicating and commerce. To the libertarian: it's the end of the
+Fed, the end of big government crony capitalism, and something like the
+start of *Wealth of Nations*. To the marxist: it's the working class
+owning entirely the means of commerce on the Internet organized
+bureaucratically as open-source projects tend to become.
+
+Gavin Wood, the coiner of the term Web 3.0 as I understand it, had this
+to say back in 2014:
+
+```
+WIRED: What's your handy elevator definition of Web3?
+
+“Less trust, more truth.”
+
+WIRED: What does “less trust” mean?
+
+I have a particular meaning of trust that’s essentially faith. It's the
+belief that something will happen, that the world will work in a certain
+way, without any real evidence or rational arguments as to why it will
+do that. So we want less of that, and we want more truth--which what I
+really mean is a greater reason to believe that our expectations will be
+met.
+
+WIRED: It sounds like you're saying "less blind faith, more credible
+trustworthiness."
+
+Yes and no. I think trust in itself is actually just a bad thing all
+around. Trust implies that you are you're placing some sort of authority
+in somebody else, or in some organization, and they will be able to use
+this authority in some arbitrary way. As soon as it becomes credible
+trust, it's not really trust anymore. There is a mechanism, a
+rationale, an argument, a logical mechanism--whatever--but in my mind,
+it's not trust.
+```
+
+On the surface there's no way this doesn't seem wonderful. There are few
+people I imagine who would argue that blind-faith in authority is a good
+thing. And to our inner anarchist: should *anyone* really rule over us
+anyway.
+
+But I don't question the idealism of the Web 3.0 people, or that they
+really believe they are making the world a freer more efficient place.
+What I question is: does blockchain technology, as described by
+Nakamoto and as expanded on by many others, actually achieve these
+ends? And will the people at large, who ultimately are left the task to
+run this Web 3.0 as volunteers, actually fall in line with the ideal the
+software developers see so clearly expressed in code.
+
+## We do not forgive. We do not forget.
+
+### China's Social Credit System
+
+### The digital dollar
+
+### A data mining society
+
+Many of the Web 3.0 people would agree with the often quoted point
+against social media companies: "we own our data so they should pay
+us." The sentiment fits perfectly into the Web 3.0 agenda. Enter
+steemit, a crypto-powered Twitter/Facebook like web front where you can
+write articles, make articles, like other's work, and get paid for it
+all! ...
+
+Brave is attempting a similar kind of project with their Basic Attention
+Token (BAT), which rewards users of the browser for watching sponsored
+ads. ...
+
+## We would like you to play
+
+At the core of the ideology of Web 3.0, I can't help but feel a strong
+urge--particularly from software-minded people--to gamify society. Write
+the article to get your coins. Read the book to gain XP. Gain XP to get
+more visibility for your articles, and get even more coins.
+
+## We will all be Satoshi
+
+The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, a name intentionally chosen since it
+is parallel to the English "John Doe," is still unknown as of this
+writing. But Wikipedia has a surprisingly complete set of references on
+what we *do* know.
+
+...
+
+Most interesting to me is the case of Len Sassaman, which I caught in
+earlier revisions of the article, but was removed due to lack of a
+source.
+
+## Do we want this?
+
+## References
+
+1. https://www.wired.com/story/web3-gavin-wood-interview/
+2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Possible_identities