The Death of Virtue-Tech (for me at least)

From a young age, I had an innate sense of fairness. I could instinctively discern right from wrong and actively stood up for it with whatever little means I had. I cared about kids being wronged, defended those who couldn't defend themselves, and got knocked down by stronger kids a few times because of it. The world was black and white; you were either fair or not, right or wrong, a saint or a liar. There was no in-between, no shades of gray, no spectrums. A simple world, at least in my young mind.

Well, that didn't last long.

I began to notice that the world didn't always align with my black-and-white perspective. Some of those I defended turned out to be dishonest, and others I believed to be right seemed less so when I understood the broader context. My perception of the world started to fray, leading to confusion and sadness. How could things I felt so certain about be so different in reality? Gradually, slowly, I realized that things aren't always absolute; you can be both right and wrong simultaneously, guilt can depend on context, and someone's virtue can also be their downfall.

So, why not change the world?

I thought, maybe we can all agree on things being black and white. Change all those hearts and minds. All it takes are words and, where it can help, tech. So, I thought I could be a politician, a lawyer, an eloquent orator. Or maybe a software developer. Right, that's more like me. I can talk to the machine, and it talks to me. Now all I need to do is show how technology can restore lost virtues, help the helpless, solve great crises, and create a just society. A society free of fraud, respecting privacy and free will. A society where the good wins and the bad struggles. All possible because of tech. Tech I helped create.

And so a ray of hope emerges.

The first time I heard of differential privacy, my eyes lit up. Distributed ledgers? Wow, we can do so many useful things. Crypto tokens? Yes, we can tokenize physical objects or even abstract concepts like influence, then value them on free markets. ZK-SNARKs -- totally awesome and somewhat magical, we could prove things without disclosing details. The world made sense once again; these concepts were beautiful, discrete, deterministic... black and white. Oh my.

Time to get to work. Or is it?

I was fully prepared to start applying all the tech I had learned in my job as a software engineer. I thought I could show everyone what was possible. But, not so fast... Corporations are interesting entities. Nothing happens there unless a tangible (read: monetary) outcome exists, even if it's not the outcome you actually worked for. Working on R&D? The corporation gets tax credits, and the R&D gets shelved. Working on compliance? The company claims they put in the effort, but actual outcomes are disregarded. How about working on minor privacy features just to make the marketing collateral look better? Or implementing privacy to the absolute minimum simply to avoid fines or litigation? Unfortunately, all these scenarios are real.

Cryptographic world of disappointment.

I'm going to reserve a special rant for "crypto" as we know it. So many promises forsaken, so many opportunities missed. All these wonderful technologies that could truly make the world a better place have devolved into financial instruments for crime. And on top of that, the world now only knows and cares about Bitcoin. A crypto-token which carries ~200kg of atmospheric CO2 on its back, the dirtiest, slowest, and, I should say, stupidest coin. No level 2, no virtual machines, no ZK-anything, just CO2. It's not far-fetched to think of it as tokenized CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Great job, people! I am strongly convinced that if the first application of crypto wasn't financial (digital scarcity), the world would've been in a better place.

Epilogue

Yes, this may sound like a rant, and in many ways, it is. But it's a rant that comes from the heart. I genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. For now, I will leave that task to the next generation. I wish them all the best.