This is a simplified version of an interview with Hu Yilin; the original text can be found at the bottom in the 'Original Link.' The original is somewhat lengthy and philosophically profound. I have tried to digest and simplify it.
When reviewing the development of information technology and cryptography, we often overlook the strong political tension behind the technology. The rise of civilian cryptography in the 1970s and 1980s began as a technical attempt, but as technological applications deepened in society and finance, it gradually evolved into a political issue.
From Privacy Ideals to Political Demands
The initial goal of cryptographers was to protect individual privacy in the future information society. They may not have had a clear political map but were technically preventing potential power violations. However, with the acceleration of currency digitization—from credit cards, Alipay to digital banking systems—the asymmetry of information and centralization trends have become increasingly apparent, and technological ideals have gradually transformed into political demands in the real world.
Hu Yilin points out that behind technical issues often lie political judgments: if you identify with the values of decentralization, freedom, and privacy, you will naturally try to solve these issues technically. Although technological idealists have faced setbacks in reality, they have not abandoned their beliefs but instead regard technology as a means of political resistance.
The Ideal and Collapse of a Free Internet
The entire history of the internet's development is essentially a political history. Although it originated from a U.S. military research project (ARPANET) during the Cold War, most of its creators were liberals. They used state funding to promote a system that countered state control, emphasizing the freedom and sharing of information.
Bill Gates was once seen as a 'heretic' for advocating that programmers should charge for their programs because, in hacker culture, programs were supposed to belong to the shared wealth of humanity. This debate reveals the core values of the early internet: openness, collaboration, and decentralization.
The success of the TCP/IP protocol is also based on this spirit of openness and sharing. It triumphed over competing protocols led by postal, telecommunications agencies and governments from various countries, becoming the global standard. The utopian ideal of 'the internet knows no borders' also took root in the technological culture of that time: everyone can equally enjoy knowledge, and technology is a tool of empowerment.
Examining Power Evolution from a Technical Structure
However, the internet has never had just one possibility. As Hu Yilin said, if it were born in the Soviet Union, it might have evolved into a massive central nervous system for real-time supervision and control, becoming the technological embodiment of a planned economy. The liberal culture of the United States steered it towards a relatively distributed and open direction.
This also means that the technical structure itself has duality. On one hand, the internet is idealized as a decentralized equal network; on the other hand, it can easily become a 'panopticon' that permeates every capillary of life. Power is no longer concentrated in palaces but diffused between nodes.
The Flattened World and the Single Logic of Markets
Today, we live in an era of high technological prosperity but relative cultural desolation. Liberalism originally emphasized diversity and freedom, so why has it instead spawned a singular, flattened market logic?
Hu Yilin explains that this is not a failure of liberalism, but rather the 'Matthew effect' in capitalism—capital pursuit and standardized production leading to structural concentration. Technological progress is driven by massive financing, quickly monopolizing the space and stifling potential diverse competitors.
Therefore, we need to rethink the logic of the market. He suggests that a 'savings-oriented' market is more conducive to the diversity of culture and ecology than an 'overdraft-oriented' market. Slow development is not a sin but a necessary path to resist homogenization.
Diverse Solutions of Blockchain
In Hu Yilin's view, blockchain is not a panacea, but it offers several powerful resistances.
1. Savings-Oriented Economic Culture
By requiring projects to develop based on real accumulation and trust rather than through 'story + financing' models that overdraw the future, blockchain can promote a healthier market rhythm and is more conducive to diversification.
2. Diverse Token Economies
The traditional world relies on national borders to maintain cultural and economic barriers, but the internet has broken all of this, forming a flattened global village. Blockchain, through its token mechanism, can artificially construct micro-economies and identity systems, reshaping the 'sense of boundaries.'
3. Autonomous Personal Identity
The wallet login mechanism in Web3 frees identity from platform control, allowing users to self-sovereignly migrate across multiple platforms. This means that the ownership of relationships and data returns to the individual, escaping the monopoly of platforms.
4. The Possibility of Networked Nations
Blockchain even provides a technical foundation for building 'networked nations.' It does not require geographical boundaries and establishes small, diverse economies through independent monetary systems and self-organizing rules, avoiding the homogenization and coercion of a unified market.
Conclusion: Technology is the result of choices.
Hu Yilin emphasizes that technology is never neutral. It has directionality, and this direction is determined by the thoughts and culture of the developers. We have been fortunate to have traversed a path of informatization dominated by liberalism, but now faced with challenges of capital concentration and technological alienation, blockchain may be the starting point for us to rebuild a diversified order.
It is not technology that shapes us, but we who decide how to shape technology.
