By lesswrong.com on November 21, 2021
5 years ago, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote an important but little-known blog post that deserves more visibility, so I'm posting it here. This way, it'll also cross-post to The Nonlinear Library, where it'll be available in podcast form. Inspired by Vitalik, I just set up an X-risk + Crypto Discord - let's cross-pollinate together! Also inspired by Vitalik, I'm putting out a $100 bounty for any post on the EA Forum/Alignment Forum/LW that cross-applies ideas from crypto/web3 to x-risk that gets at least 25 upvotes, subject to my discretion. Alternatively, you can email me at emersonspartz@nonlinear.org and if your ideas are interesting enough I'll still pay out the bounty. Semi-unrelated, but if you're interested in this kind of stuff, Anna Riedl and I set up a Telegram for EAs into Complexity and Systems Science. We think this is another valuable interdisciplinary combination. --- Why Cryptoeconomics and X-Risk Researchers Should Listen to Each Other More Vitalik Buterin Jul 4, 2016·6 min read Special thanks to Jaan Tallinn for early feedback and comments. There has recently been a small but growing number of signs of interest in blockchains and cryptoeconomic systems from a community that has traditionally associated itself with artificial intelligence and various forms of futuristic existential risk research. Ralph Merkle, inventor of the now famous cryptographic technology which underpins Ethereum’s light client protocol, has expressed interest in DAO governance. Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn proposed researching blockchain technology as a way to create mechanisms to solve global coordination problems. Prediction market advocates, who have long understood the potential of prediction markets as governance mechanisms, are now looking at Augur. Is there anything interesting here? Is this simply a situation of computer geeks who were previously attracted to computer-geek-friendly topic A now also being attracted to a completely unrelated but
The Coin Detective