Blockchain Safety

(This is a simplified version of the Mirror Post Blockchain Safety. For the full article, read it on Mirror. )

While we know blockchain solves problem on centralization and privacy, do we know that blockchain itself brings problem? One don't mean being hacked by attackers, 51% attacks, or how decentralized or transparent the blockchain is. One also don't mean the risks we have during crypto trading, investment, etc. One means, what programs built on top of blockchain and web3 brings negative implications to its end users?

Supernormals

Supernormal are programs that triggers our brain, letting us think that we need them for survival when we actually don't. For example: junk food containing high calories used to be survival-important; now not. More common, social media containing social recognition, which attracts more mate for better offspring. Social media could be the form of YouTube videos or Netflix videos. When something is addictive, tricking our brain thinking we need it for survival, hence spending lots and lots of time on it until it disturbs our normal life, we consider it supernormal.

Normal activities includes reading a book, walking in the park, or having a conversation with a friend. These activities are enjoyable, but they aren't addictive.

And now, we have programs that pays users for using social media: that's what web3 does. Say, noise.cash. It pays users for sharing their data. The starting point is good; but it isn't always good. Social media per se isn't healthy for human use. Now, we pay user for their data, meaning we attract more users to spend more time on finding useful data that attract likes by other users instead of preferring normal activities. That's one disturbance.

Another disturbance is more people coming to browse social media. Luckily we didn't think of paying those people's time for browsing social media. Otherwise, we are encourage people to browse through social media instead of the normal activities that they could have enjoy somewhere else.

Overall, we can't prevent people from overusing social media; but it's time to re-think how our program don't damage their social, mental, and physical health by spending all their time there if it was spent elsewhere (on normal programs) before the program was built.

Games

People loves games. We are already awarding people for playing games, like LOL competitions worldwide. Now, that only rewards the top players. Blockchain tries to reward every players with better distribution of wealth. Good starting point!

Let's not forget that there are people sucked into playing games all the times when they could be doing something else. Let's not forget that, if everyone starts playing games, other sectors that may contribute to the society may start lack workers. When people could play game and earn enough to rear their living, why would they work for something else? Perhaps they're interested on working for something else at the beginning, but as games start ruining their lives and degrade their perseverance on other work, do they still want to work on that "something else" that they used to persevere for some time?

And what says NFT marketplace is a buy and sell, peer to peer? Certainly, there would be top buyers, and top sellers. Top sellers, okay, nothing to say. Top buyers, if they're kids, you expect them to steal money from their parents to buy a game object; and they can't resist buying the better game object so they steal more money and buy more objects? We just create a new stealer for the society: beware of your neighborhoods! Kids that can't refrain themselves from spending money, and programs that don't restrict people from spending money, is dangerous. Though there are ways to overcome, like creating multiple accounts and transferring gameobjects from alternative accounts to main account, we do need at least basic ways for people to not easily get what they need.

Conclusion

Blockchain safety is a relatively new field, that one cannot yet find with basic (surface) google search. Perhaps it already exist, perhaps not. Yet, it's important to be aware of negative implications of your programs. Blockchain brings us a new future, but let's not forget its drawbacks!

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