Don’t think the mainstream quite realises that project SAFE is gonna be like a libertarian swiss army knife from the Gods In one foul swoop it will level the great firewall, stop all mass surveillance in its tracks, make enforcing copyright infringement on individuals a thing of the past; will make the tracking of cyrptocurrency virtually impossible; provide frictionless state free money; stop censorship; act as the library of Alexandria for the digital age; provide a payment model for open source development; all whilst paying people to provide resources to the project.
The global power structures that have wrapped their tentacles around humanities ability to interact with it’s own information freely (which is a human right IMO) are about to get a huge wake up call!!
This all assumes one a) Has electricity. b) A digital device of some kind. and c) Is in proximity to the SAFE network or has internet access and can connect to the SAFE network that way. Oh and d) Is literate enough to use a computer and the SAFE network in the first place. I agree the potential ramifications for the SAFE network and it’s impact on society are huge and I too am extremely excited however let’s not forget the base requirements either and that even now there are many people that cannot access the internet because they cannot fullfill those basic requirements. SAFE doesn’t do someone without a computer or who can’t read any good whatsoever. I’ve got friends who are challenged by both of these issues and know of many more. I think fiat will be around for a long time to come if for no other reason than it still circulates physical cash that does not require an electronic device in order to use. Unless we start producing a SAFE coin, physically, or start buying physical assets with it for barter (gold or silver perhaps?) there are still going to be barriers of acceptance. Unless we decentralize hardware production and make it cheap, not easy considering you need rare earths in order to make computer hardware which are currently in short supply and high demand, you’ll have issues with hardware security and more importantly making devices which are cheap enough for people to buy. You might get away with retrofitting older hardware but that doesn’t nessesarily solve the hardware security issue. Open source software and operating systems could in fact be written for the illiterate: both for general use and to educate however as of yet this hasn’t seemed to have happened to a large degree. I haven’t seen a lot of high interest low vocab linux distros floating around nor do I see a lot of software for adult literacy education or low vocab use. It’s true mobile devices use predominantly icons but that’s more of a space issue than anything else. You’d be surprised how rampant illiteracy is and how difficult it is to teach someone how to use a computer when they can’t read the instructions or articles that would otherwise generate interest. Youtube is good but it only goes so far. Next is the electricity thing. NONE of this works without it. So unless someone has power they are not going to have access to the SAFE network. I could go on about this but a few ideas that pop into my mind are: promoting decentralized power for devices so each device can power itself via say solar panels or something else; Public access terninals for the SAFE network; open hardware power generation. The list goes on but it all needs to fit together. My point is that SAFE as is will be revolutionary for everyone with internet but not everyone has internet or a computer, or even power for that matter. It also assumes the user is close enough to the SAFE network. If you’re in a small town with no internet and not close enough to the SAFE network to connect you don’t have access to the Library of Alexandria save for your own little bubble.
I understand the concerns, but we don’t have to reach all the world to change the world.
If those who currently have access to power and the means to access the internet lose it, we’ve got a very different set of problems. But those attributes exist around the centers of centralized power, and that is where the change will start–decentralizing power down towards the individual. It’ll spread from there, I think.
In one foul swoop it will level the great firewall, stop all mass surveillance in its tracks, make enforcing copyright infringement on individuals a thing of the past; will make the tracking of cyrptocurrency virtually impossible; provide frictionless state free money; stop censorship; act as the library of Alexandria for the digital age; provide a payment model for open source development; all whilst paying people to provide resources to the project.