Distroid Issue 42
A newsletter for curated findings, actionable knowledge, and noteworthy developments from the forefront of innovation, governance, research, and technology (i.e., the frontier).
Introduction
Welcome to this week’s edition of Distroid, a newsletter for curated findings, actionable knowledge, and noteworthy developments from the forefront of innovation, governance, research, and technology (i.e., the frontier).
In this issue:
Digest
News
FTC loses appeals court bid to temporarily block Microsoft-Activision deal
An update on Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training
I Was Wrong About Mastodon
Rethinking Legitimacy in DAOs
A new way to look at data privacy
Web3 Funding Plummets As AI Steals The Show
Cyber-visions of altruism
A Friendly Introduction to Zero Knowledge
The Decentralization Dilemma: The Tally Newsletter, Issue 103
It’s time to move crypto from chaos to order
Anyone for metascience?
Disrupting the Disruptors: Fare.Coop/Local Driver Co-op Federation Halts Robotaxi Rollout in San Francisco
Kevin Kelly: Daddy Issues
ON #176: RWA Mega Issue 🌍 💥
Books
Better Work Together
Tools
EXO DAO Swarm Search
Videos & Podcasts
Spatial computing with Yiliu Shen-Burke
the proto-DAO episode feat. stefen @ govrn || DT interview #41
🎙️ S5 E4 | DESIGNING DIVERSE TEAMS W/KAITLYN SMITH
Episode 063 - Creating More Value for More Stakeholders with Tools for Collective Decision-Making with Camille Canon of Apiary.xyz
Episode 062 - Building an Equitable Ownership Economy: Insights from Dr. Corey Rosen on Employee Ownership and ESOPs
Episode 061 - Why DAOs (and crypto) need a Policy Platform more than ever, with Nathan Schneider
Tweets
Thank you for reading Distroid!
Support Distroid
Digest
News
FTC loses appeals court bid to temporarily block Microsoft-Activision deal
Jordan Novet
CNBC
News
2023-07-14
An appeals court denied a motion for injunctive relief from the Federal Trade Commission, which has opposed Microsoft’s acquisition of game publisher Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft is still working with regulators in the United Kingdom to resolve issues.
The companies want to close their deal by July 18.
An update on Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training
Alex Ivanovs
Stack Diary
News
2023-07-17
If you haven't yet read my original article, "The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training", I recommend that you do so (it includes a reply from Brave, too) because you will need the context to understand why I am publishing an update. I also want to apologize for wasting people's time and using Wikipedia as an example because clearly, Wikipedia has a lenient license that Brave can get around by giving "attribution".
I also want to apologize for assuming that Brave gives you rights to copyrighted data; in the original article, I did not explain that when an AI model is being trained, you don't attribute any data because if you did - this is what your ChatGPT experience would look like for every single query:
I Was Wrong About Mastodon
Marcus Hutchins
EscapingTech
News
2022-11-30
A few weeks ago, I made a tweet about how I thought Mastodon wouldn’t scale due to moderation issues. The tweet is since deleted (not because I deleted it individually, but because I later made the decision to purge my account and move to Mastodon).
Mastodon is not a single social media platform, it is a federation. Think of it as a cross between email and Twitter. You can sign up for an email account with GMail, Yahoo, or Outlook. No matter what provider you choose, you can still email with people who are using a different provider. Mastodon applies this model to Twitter. There are lots of different Twitters, and anyone can set up their own Twitter, but they’re all connected so users can communicate with people outside their provider, just like with email.
Rethinking Legitimacy in DAOs
Philh.P2P.Eth
Mangrove Dao
News
2023-07-11
For societies, legitimacy is like the air we breathe. We take it for granted. We don’t notice it. But if it disappears, everything can collapse. This is why it is so important to understand how legitimacy is established in DAOs.
A new way to look at data privacy
Adam Zewe
MIT News
News
2023-07-14
MIT researchers created a new data privacy metric, Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) Privacy, and built an algorithm based on this metric that can automatically determine the minimal amount of randomness that needs to be added to a machine-learning model to protect sensitive data, like sensitive lung scan images, from an adversary.
Web3 Funding Plummets As AI Steals The Show
Chris Metinko
Crunchbase News
News
2023-07-18
Venture funding to Web3 startups in the second quarter plummeted 76% from last year, as big funding deals slowed to a crawl, Crunchbase data shows.
While seemingly all sectors are seeing a slowdown in venture capital, Web3 — defined here as cryptocurrency and blockchain startups — has been hit hardest as investors retreat to both AI and more traditional sectors.
Cyber-visions of altruism
Andi Argast
Dripline
News
2023-03-01
The concept of ‘public goods’ arises often in more altruistic conversations about Web3, but it’s hard to pin down the term in this decentralized and free-floating space. Does it simply mean supporting open source development projects? Or is there a larger and more diverse ‘public’ out there in cyberspace awaiting their piece of funding for shared goods? In this short essay, I offer some definitions of public goods in the context of open source development projects before connecting this older discourse to the more recent Web3 + public good conversations. I also raise three challenges to this recent conceptualization of public goods by asking who or what is the ‘public’ in a decentralized ecosystem; consider the lessons Web 2.0 can offer about co-opting commons-related language; and suggest some of the (unintended) effects of a technocentric approach to public goods. I conclude by suggesting that participation in public goods projects is one place where co-operatives might consider becoming more active.
A Friendly Introduction to Zero Knowledge
oskarth
zkintro
News
2023-07-01
Magic technology, advancing civilization, short letters, privacy, and a future that's already here. That's Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) in a nutshell. What's going on?
In the last century, computers and the Internet have taken over the world. These technologies are everywhere, in everything we do, for better or worse. On top of these, we build platforms, companies, empires. These are things like your MAMAA (Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon). Then there's the belly of the beast - your payment networks, governmental services, and the plethora of B2B applications that silently run the world. Finally, there's a long tail of other things - your cute filter image app, language learning platform, or online community.
You expect to achieve a specific goal when you input data into yet another online service. It might be a small goal, like reaching out to a friend, distracting yourself from work, or something big like applying for a mortgage. But what happens to all this data? This includes the data you consciously know about and the iceberg of hidden data you are unaware of. Will what you are trying to achieve actually happen, or will there be some problem, either straight away or a year from now?
Who actually understands these systems and the consequences of how we use them? And how they, in turn, use us? While some people might understand some systems better than others, no one understands all of them, and even less how they interact together to create unforeseen consequences.
What's a human to do? Trust. But who do you trust? And why?
This is a hard problem. Our human brains have not evolved to think about this. The Internet, great as it is in connecting us and making things easier, has created a bit of a mess in this regard. In the past, when you had a private conversation with someone, the wind would blow away the sounds you made. When you were locked out of your house, you could get a locksmith, or break the lock yourself. Who do you talk to when you are locked out of your Google account and stare at an "Access denied" screen? No one, you are standing in front of an invisible and impenetrable castle.
ZKPs can help. Perhaps not for everything, everywhere, or at this precise moment. But it applies to numerous things, in various places, and increasingly so. In the rest of this article, I'll try to convince you why and how. Let's follow the magic.
The Decentralization Dilemma: The Tally Newsletter, Issue 103
Coolhorsegirl
The Tally Newsletter
News
2023-06-27
Welcome back to the Tally Newsletter, your weekly source for DAO governance insights. I'm coolhorsegirl and I’m so stoked to be here. 🟣
Haven’t we agreed to leave the CEO and executive board back in TradFi? Well, maybe not. Officialized leadership teams in DAOs may be a necessary compromise or they may be a one-way ticket to centralization. This week, we’re unpacking the implications of the recent ApeCoin DAO election on decentralization.
Got a few proposals for you, too, including Compound’s quarterly payment to OpenZeppelin and proposals for some physibles-of-sorts and sponsorship of the world’s 20th-best tennis player. Let’s get into it 👇
It’s time to move crypto from chaos to order
Miles Jennings, Brian Quintenz
Fortune Crypto
News
2023-07-15
Many believe blockchains and crypto are a groundbreaking technology that enable creativity and entrepreneurship, and some regard these tools as just another internet fad.
Regardless of where you stand, it’s indisputable that the consumers and entrepreneurs alike in the burgeoning crypto and web3 sector face tremendous regulatory uncertainty, which holds the legitimate industry back and allows bad actors to flourish.
This tension was on full display as a federal district court just issued a much-anticipated summary judgment in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs and two of its founders.
The ruling deems Ripple’s direct sales of their digital asset XRP to institutional investors to be securities offerings—which is in line with previous cases applying securities laws to initial coin offerings (ICOs) that dominated the industry in its early years. But in a blow to the SEC, the ruling did not extend the application of securities laws to Ripple’s—and its founders’—sales of XRP to individuals via certain digital asset exchange platforms.
While this is a potentially significant win for crypto, and a rebuff to the SEC’s ongoing war against it, the ruling results in a confusing set of outcomes which highlights the long standing uncertainty plaguing an industry clamoring for stability.
What are entrepreneurs to make of the decision? On the one hand, the ruling is not the definitive word on the issue and may be appealed. This means entrepreneurs may choose to continue current industry practices, where digital asset issuers mostly rely on the SEC’s helpful, but incomplete, decentralization framework from 2019—a process that mitigates many of the risks digital assets pose to consumers. But even some members of the SEC have tried to distance themselves from that framework and it has proven to not be sufficiently clear or robust enough to be effective.
On the other hand, the ruling opens an entirely different pathway for digital asset issuers, as it establishes that digital assets sales on exchange platforms are not governed by securities laws. But the ruling is also directly at odds with the SEC’s very recent actions against several major digital asset exchanges, including Coinbase.Ultimately, what the Ripple ruling makes obvious is that the rules are anything but clear. And without clear rules, the SEC’s current regulation-by-enforcement posture toward crypto is hurting, not helping American innovation.
This uncertainty has already long acted as a drag on the pace of innovation and a feeding ground for bad actors. Responsible actors have been subject to dubious U.S. regulatory enforcement actions, while ill-intentioned firms launch products that flagrantly violate long standing rules – often beyond the reach of U.S. authorities until it is too late.
Unfortunately, this is likely to get worse before it gets better. Unless Congress acts quickly.
Anyone for metascience?
Tom Stafford
Reasonable People
News
2023-07-18
The research ecosystem is a form of collective reasoning. And one that, just like individual reasoning, it is possible to study. That, and the fact that I’m spending increasing amounts of time doing research on research, is my justification for including some of this work here.
But first, just what is metascience, and is it different from other fields which study research, such as science and technology studies (STS)?
Mark Rubin has a great post summarising some thoughts on this topic from Felipe Romero. His argument, as I understand it, is that metascience is defined by the overlap of three areas:
the open research / research transparency movement
research reform activists
traditional science of science (which I think includes STS)
It is the activism - the desire to not just study but reform the research ecosystem - which makes what is now called metascience unique.From Peterson and Panofsky (2023): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09490-3
For what it is worth, I prefer metaresearch as a term, since the purview is wider than mere metascience, but maybe that ship of nomenclature has sailed.
If this sounds like it might be of interest, read on for some interesting metaresearch which caught my eye recently… In the future I’ll probably restrict metaresearch updates to the METASERV listserv. Join here: jiscmail.ac.uk/METASERV
That’s right, social media is over, and we’re partying like it is 1994 with a new academic mailing list for sharing and discussion of metaresearch. Load up on email subscriptions and bring your friends!
Disrupting the Disruptors: Fare.Coop/Local Driver Co-op Federation Halts Robotaxi Rollout in San Francisco
Yahoo Finance
News
2023-07-13
Toronto, Ontario, July 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Edward Escobar, CEO of Fare.Coop/Local Driver Co-op Federation and the founder of #DriversUnite/The Alliance for Independent Workers, has led a successful protest coalition against the rapid introduction of autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. The Local Driver Co-op Federation, a cooperative championing the rights and welfare of drivers and gig workers in the face of increasing automation, has supported postponement of the deployment of Cruise and Waymo's round-the-clock Robotaxi services on San Francisco streets. With mounting public pressure, led by Drivers, the state regulator CPUC has rescheduled the hearing twice already which favors the goals of the protest coalition, whose mission is to guard against the potentially devastating impact of automation on millions of drivers' jobs.
Kevin Kelly: Daddy Issues
Yana Sosnovskaya, Aaron Gonsher
Zine
News
2023-07-19
Kevin Kelly wants us to embrace the future, and he has always led by example. The former publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review and the co-founder of WIRED magazine, he’s a peripatetic intellectual whose journey started in New Jersey, meandered through Asia, transfigured in Jerusalem, and was transformed, over and over again, through technology. Kelly’s exploratory spirit has led him down multiple paths of expression, each impactful in its own way. But his pursuits are all unified by a relentless engagement with the potential of new tools to reshape our lives and society at large.
It all began when Kelly encountered the Whole Earth Catalog as an impressionable teenager somewhere around the turn of the 1970s. Launched by Stewart Brand through the nonprofit Portola Institute out of Menlo Park in 1968 and released in various editions throughout the 70s, the Catalog rode a cresting wave of California counterculture to provide readers with “access to tools” and information outside of traditional, mainstream thought systems. It was at once a nostalgic throwback to American mail orders from Sears and a wholesale reinvention of the form for the hippie heyday, encompassing product reviews, tips, suggestions, how-to guides, and brief commentary on everything from cybernetics and engineering design to auto repair and creative glassblowing.
Sourcing selections in part from subscribers, the Catalog championed self-sufficiency, educational autonomy, and holistic self-improvement in a manner that anticipated what Kelly has referred to as the “informed enthusiasm” of modern blogging—and with a techno-optimism tempered by a pastoral bent. It was a dispatch on how things were, with the foresight to imagine what they could be.
Above all, the Catalog was a galvanizing instruction manual for marching to the beat of your own drum, and Kelly dutifully listened. Following its ethos of self-reliance and lifelong learning, Kelly dropped out of his first and only year of college in 1971 and led a nomadic lifestyle for an extended period, wandering around Asia as a freelance photographer and travel writer. After having a conversion experience while sleeping on the supposed spot of Jesus’ crucifixion in 1979, he returned home to temporarily live with his parents, then worked in a biology lab at the University of Georgia. Eventually, he connected with Brand online, through the nascent Electronic Information Exchange System. In 1984, Brand enlisted Kelly to edit the final issue of his CoEvolution Quarterly journal, which merged with another Catalog spin-off in 1985 to become the Whole Earth Review, with a renewed emphasis on software and computer tech.
ON #176: RWA Mega Issue 🌍 💥
Spencer Noon
Ournetwork
News
2023-07-21
Coverage on Tokenized US Treasuries, Institutional Adoption, and more.
Books
Better Work Together
Anthony Cabraal,Susan Basterfield,Richard D. Bartlett,Douglas Rushkoff,Kate Beecroft,Lucy Carter,Sandra Chemin,Charley Davenport,John Gieryn,Alanna Irving,Nick Laurence,Sandra Otto,Francesca Pick,Gina Rembe-Stevens,Chelsea Robinson,Damian Sligo-Green,Hannah Smith,Lucas Tauil De Freitas,Phoebe Tickell,Joshua Vial,Doris Zurr
Enspiral Foundation Limited
Books
2018
Better Work Together exists to share practical resources from the frontiers of collaboration and organisation building. You’ll find innovative tools and methods for supporting people, running teams and building high performing mission driven organisations.
Tools
EXO DAO Swarm Search
EXOdao Network Association
Tools
A 100% open source search, where instead of advertising, the focus is on access to information and the community.
Videos & Podcasts
Spatial computing with Yiliu Shen-Burke
Adam Wiggins,Mark Mcgranaghan
Metamuse
Videos & Podcasts
2023-07-13
Is virtual reality useful for productivity software? Yiliu is the founder of Softspace, a VR/AR tool for thought. He joins Mark and Adam to discuss the human brain and body as inherently spatial systems; the question of whether information is fundamentally 2D; and why social comfort is the biggest challenge facing VR today. Plus: how to avoid a dystopian future.
the proto-DAO episode feat. stefen @ govrn || DT interview #41
Tally
Dao Talk
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-20
wtf is a proto-DAO? proto-DAOs fall in that sweet spot between casual organization & full onchain decentralization: aka where the magic happens.
this week tommy chats with Stefen: head of growth @ Govrn, president of the Caribbean Blockchain Alliance, resident DAO ecologist, & proto-DAO expert.
sound like a lot? that's because it is. stefen is an elite operator & storyteller; in this episode he takes us through his background, what Govrn is & how it plays a role in the broader DAO ecosystem, and of course, proto-DAOs.
welcome to DAO talk.
links:
join the DAO talk proto-DAO: https://govrn.app/#/dao/211Aaron Soskin @ Govrn DT interview:
...
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🎙️ S5 E4 | DESIGNING DIVERSE TEAMS W/KAITLYN SMITH
Diana Chen
Rehash: A Web3 Podcast
Videos & Podcasts
2023-07-13
On this episode of Rehash, we speak with Kaitlyn Smith, Chief Strategy Officer of Bankless, about common mistakes web3 teams make in hiring, the business case for building diverse teams, human centered design, and much more. Bankless is a crypto media organization that’s trying to help the next billion people go bankless.
Episode 063 - Creating More Value for More Stakeholders with Tools for Collective Decision-Making with Camille Canon of Apiary.xyz
Jahed Momand,Martin Smith
The Ownership Economy
Videos & Podcasts
2023-07-20
In episode 063, Jahed sat down with Camille Canon, founder of Apiary.xyz, and previously founder of Purpose Trust. Camille pioneered the Purpose Trust, a trust built for non-charitable purposes, that creates alternatives for SMEs looking to exit their business whose only option before was PE. Camille talks us through insights learned in the legal engineering of purpose trusts, and how she backed into the real problem—governance and decision-making. We round out the pod by covering a case study of Apiary in action with Radicle DAO, using their tools to help Radicle understand their stakeholders and radically change their decision-making structure for more alignment and quick execution.
Episode 062 - Building an Equitable Ownership Economy: Insights from Dr. Corey Rosen on Employee Ownership and ESOPs
Jahed Momand, Martin Smith
The Ownership Economy
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-30
In this episode of the Ownership Economy podcast, we welcome Dr. Corey Rosen, a champion of employee ownership. Dr. Rosen dives into the shortcomings of the current ownership model, marked by opaque practices and short-term horizons. The conversation shifts to Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), outlining their benefits, limitations, and reasons for their non-dominant representation in the economy. Dr. Rosen discusses strategies to increase employee ownership, such as contractual preferences, taking companies private through ESOPs, and leveraging policy ideas like the Employee Equity Investment Act. This episode is a concise guide to understanding and fostering an equitable ownership economy.
Episode 061 - Why DAOs (and crypto) need a Policy Platform more than ever, with Nathan Schneider
Jahed Momand,Martin Smith
The Ownership Economy
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-15
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin welcome back Nathan Schneider, a thought leader who enlightened us on the intricacies of platform cooperatives, DAOs, and the burgeoning Ownership Economy in our 2021 conversation. In this episode, we catch up with Nathan to understand the remarkable transformations that have swept these spaces over the last two years, and how these shifts have influenced his perspective. Together, we dissect Nathan's profound assertion about the dire need for democratic financial mechanisms analogous to venture capital and a supporting software stack for enhancing democratic governance. We further analyze Nathan's provocative piece on creating a robust policy platform for DAOs, its crucial importance, and how Section 230 has shaped the digital world. This discussion delves into the unique features of network-native organizations, and issues of transparency, sufficient decentralization, and participant control within the DAO space. Our conversation culminates with an exploration of Nathan's vision for DAOs: a tool to pivot the online economy away from digital feudalism towards shared ownership, fostering a culture of effective self-governance in our communities and governments. Join us for this riveting conversation as we journey through the evolving contours of the digital economy and governance.
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