Monthly Archives: May 2017

New York Times

On Italy's Coast, a Forsaken Village Is a Tale of a Paradise Lost New York Times What remains today looks less like a utopia than a paradise lost, a site of abandonment and degradation, and a concentration of southern Italy's abiding troubles: criminality, lax local governance and extreme poverty. The section originally designed ...

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On Italy's Coast, a Forsaken Village Is a Tale of a Paradise Lost - New York Times

Cecile Baird and Simon Chan are founding partnersof Blockchain For Good (BC4G), a think tank that aims tobring together minds from around the world to explore and debate the development of blockchain, for the greater good of humanity, society, economy and the environment.

In this opinionpiece, Baird and Chanargue that weneeda duty of care today, for a humanised blockchain future tomorrow.

Blockchains public interface, at its most basic, is a string of shared data made up of a series of uniquely ordered alphabetical letters and numbers, timestamped and immutable.

Yet, through this, blockchain can fundamentally change existing organisational structures, not merely as an evolutionary development, but potentially as a transformational technology. While it continues to develop, we need explore the opportunities that blockchain technology can offer and the consequences of not getting it right.

To do this, we believe we should zero in on one area that has not yet received the same level of attention or investment: the humanaspect of the blockchain, and how it could underpin the technologies that impact our everyday lives.

Together, we need to identify some guiding principles on how we can shape an underlying duty of care,bringing together greatminds in the fields of entrepreneurship, investing, academia, sustainability, charities and policymaking to tackle this challenge.

We are living in a world where for good has become zeitgeist and is often interpreted as 'social good'. However to set the scene of the discussion it is really important to note that 'for good' is not limited to non-profit activities or the third sector.

There are incredibly varied views of what 'for good' means for creative industries, it is transparency and fair distribution of royalties; for refugees, it is establishing or protecting identity; for charities, it is about accountability; and for government, it is about delivering better services to the public.

But what was interesting is the commonality between the interpretations of 'for good' the notion of creating new value, under a framework of ethics and clear moral intentions. When considering how blockchain can be used for good, it is important that we look at its relationship with creating new value.

Businesses that will continue to thrive tomorrow, will be those with a clear purpose underpinned by a commitment thatbalances the triple bottom line of people, profit and planet.

Where there is a vision of utopia, there is an equal possibility of dystopia. We have already seen cases where bad actors have manipulated projects based on blockchain technology quicker than the community can prevent attacks.

There is a second way where we do not get blockchain right, which can be equally systemic. Unless there is an unambiguous and clearly definedethical system, there can be no ethics.

A lack of an ecosystem and, perhaps worse still, a manipulated ecosystem, would fundamentally undermine the principles on which blockchain has been built: a transparent, immutable and distributed ledger.

The best-case scenario is that we end up with a large number of unconnected, private blockchain networks. But the worst-case scenario is that see the emergence of monopolies that shape the development of blockchain technology that benefit the privileged few at the cost of others.

Blockchain can recast trust relationships between government, people and business. As the Edelmans Trust Barometer, a survey of over 30,000 individuals globally, suggests, there is a widening trust gap between these three groups. Blockchain technology offers a new model thatcan help solve this point of crisis.

We believe we have distilled five areas that should be considered when developing a duty-of-care manifesto:

Distributed power

Blockchain technology does not allow vested interest in any one individual and power is given by consensus. As such, this creates network integrity and enables transparency by design. The principle of users being able to use, but not to manipulate, the system should be an underlying principle for enabling the technology to be used for good.

Authentication and new trust

One aspect that needs to be considered is how a distributed ledger would impact data privacy, data ownership and misuse of data.

Transparency and balance

How can these functionalities be used to enable good? There must be balance and compromise. There is no point using blockchain with the same frame of mind as withour existing economy and system.

Incentivised and accelerated value

The decentralised structure of blockchain technology passes value through to individuals. As such, there is no central authority setting economic policies or regulating the distribution, the incentive for action is open and put in the hands of everyone as there is a fair value exchange.

The role of communications

If were integrating blockchain technology into government infrastructure, it is essential that we focus on deployment in places where it is needed most. It is important that decision makers and policymakers are properly engaged. To safeguard the future of blockchain technology, ensuring it is being used for good and trusted, there is an onus for everyone industry and government, and those communicating on its behalf to do so responsibly.

What is clear is that we do require a federated model a guiding hand, to set the vision and principles to enable its success, for the greater good whilst allowing verticals or countries to govern their specific areas. To be clear, this is not a government, a centralised organisation or even regulation, but policy and principles that document a duty of care for blockchain technology.

The Blockchain For Good white paper and manifesto can be read here.

Hands on a chain image via Shutterstock

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, CoinDesk.

Link:

Crypto Utopia? Defining the Greater Good in a Blockchain World - CoinDesk

Cardboard Utopia's deck and dice RPG Children of Zodiarcs stormed Kickstarter earlier this year by accumulating more than five times its original ask. Part of the Square Enix Collective, it's now got a launch dateJuly 18and new trailer to boot.

The latter looks something like this:

Citing everything from Final Fantasy Tactics to Shinning Force, Tactics Ogre and board games and collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering, Children of Zodiarcs' raison d'etre is to "both recapture and build upon the spirit of the tactical RPGs that so captivated gamers during the 16-bit and 32-bit eras," so says its creators.

Although Cardboard Utopia is a new indie studio, its staff has worked on a number of big budget games, not least Eternal Darkness, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, The Warriors, and Far Cry 3. With Children of Zodiarcs, the team is clearly moving in a different direction but being smaller in size allows it to be more personable in its approach.

Creative director Jason Kim speaks to that point in a statement: "Having built a community of loyal fans thanks to our Kickstarter campaign, it feels really exciting to lift the lid on just when gamers will be able to get their hands on Children of Zodiarcs."

He adds: "Its also a nervy time, too. Weve put everything into delivering an experience that recaptures the joy people felt playing those tactical RPGs all those years ago, and because were a small studio, you can see the influence of each and every one of us in the game."

Over on the PlayStation blog, Kim describes he and his team's game as "turn-based, light-hearted with good character development but which [isn't] filled with an overly serious cast that would probably die if they cracked a smile!" With that, Children of Zodiarcs aims to tell a rich story, which also breaks "away from the norm."

Children of Zodiarcs is due July 18.

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Children of Zodiarcs is the next Square Enix Collective game, release date set - PC Gamer