NFTs hint at something fundamentally wrong with humans Part 1: NFTs, zombies & progress
Context
On the off-chance that you were living under a rock, you ought to be made aware of the fact that 2021 was a landmark year for blockchain — from price rises of most crypto-related assets to the introduction of new use cases, a lot happened in the crypto world.
This was especially true within the world of NFTs — an extremely popular use case for crypto that has emerged within the past few years. Standing for “non-fungible tokens”, NFTs can be viewed as unique records of ownership of some underlying asset.
I’m not going to go into the technical details, but you can read more about NFTs here. The best explanation I’ve read is that “it is like sites that allow you to buy up ownership of faraway stars…but on blockchain”. In other words, it is an agreement between a group of people who think the agreement itself has value on its own.
That explanation may make you think this idea isn’t worth your time, or that it is idiotic enough that it’ll never take off. And here you would be wrong. Quite wrong.
Here’s a list of recent NFTs transactions that will likely leave you speechless:
You read those purchase amounts correctly!
What’s a bit difficult for many to wrap their head around is the fact that the ownership record and the asset themselves are different. For the pictures shown above, there’s no secret copy of these images that purchasers got, nor is their some sort of exclusive access to download a copy.
In terms of the underlying artwork: the purchases got the EXACT same thing as you did when you opened this free article. Rather these prices were paid simply to have an ownership record.
It is understandable why NFTs would be difficult for newcomers to understand — worth often comes from the concept of a supply-demand mismatch. One that arises on the back of scarcity. And NFTs don’t seem to have a scarcity associated with them.
BUT, it’s not that simple. In effect, what NFT promoters are trying to do is to force-fit “scarcification” in a situation where it makes no sense.
This is where my displeasure with NFTs start.
It’s not that I think NFTs are a financially unsustainable bubble that will crash. I have no opinion on the financial sustainability of NFTs. Crazier things have happened — and I can easily imagine NFTs will lead to a gold rush in the future.
No, my problem with NFTs is with a deeper question — what is compelling us to spend so much time and effort on a technology that deals with creating scarcity out of abundance? Instead of the other way around.
It seems to me that this is because humans have a terrible habit of prioritizing means over ends.
Why do I call this habit terrible? Because it seems to suggest that humans aren’t all that different from zombies. That we’re semi-brainless automatons who are simply performing actions without even considering whether those actions serve a purpose.
Doing actions with no purpose is the definition of prioritizing means over the end.
But why do I think this about NFTs? Don’t they represent technical evolution within the crypto world? Aren’t they a great marker of human ingenuity and progress?
While I agree that NFTs do represent an evolution, whether this is “progress” or not is another question altogether. And to answer that, let’s first try and understand how “progress” in the context of human ingenuity can be defined.
A deep-dive into progress
My previous articles often discuss the evolutionary programmed urges to survive and thrive. And that seems like a good starting point.
Survive behaviors: Survival is all about making the best of the present. A lot has to do with reducing potential chaos and continuing to be there for tomorrow
Thrive behaviors: This set of behaviors is more about making the best of the future. How can we put ourselves in better position tomorrow — making it easier to survive then
These twin urges are the wells from which most of human (and even animal) motivation springs.
Within this context, “progress” can be defined as means that improve the ability of an average human to survive and thrive.
It’s a simple (but effective) definition that allows us the flexibility to incorporate many different types of innovations within its ambit. And in fact, there are a number of different tools we’ve developed to help survive and thrive.
An in-depth analysis of all the tools is beyond scope of this article. BUT what we can say is that technology as been a particularly effective tool at helping us on both fronts.
The next part of this series deals with how technology helps humans survive & thrive. And whether this “governing raison” of technology is applicable to NFTs as well.
Read part 2 here
