Fixing the Hub: a cultural perspecive

N.B. these thoughts were written in the aftermath of prop 82

I'm not going to do a full retrospective of prop 82 here, because I think a good one has already been written. And I don't have much to add to it.

I'm going to talk about culture instead, because it's what seems to be missing from the discussion so far. And where I think I can add the most perspective.

For what it's worth, my personal view is that what we've seen play out over the last few weeks runs much deeper than just prop 82.

The primary issue in my mind is not that we lost the vote, but the culture in which the campaign was fought under.

Founder sets culture

Comparing my time at Cosmos with my time at Ethereum, one of the lessons I've learnt is that ultimately the founder and the foundation are responsible for setting and shaping the culture.

Both are as important as each other.

If they aren’t aligned, or fail to assume this responsibility, the culture will degrade.

The spirit of the community is the most important thing, but, for better or worse, it cannot be separated from the spirt of the founder. The relationship between the two is like a reflection in choppy water.

How does this relate to Cosmos?

We are in a rather unique spot, in the sense that we have two founders who are very different in nature, and a foundation that feels MIA (from the perspective of those on the front line).

While Ethan has incredibly special and unique values, and is one of the most radically open-minded people I know, he does not seem to be comfortable operating on the front line to the same extent Jae does.

This leads to a situation in which Jae's mindset has more of a contagious effect on the community than Ethan's (at least when Jae chooses to get involved).

I believe Jae to be both brilliant and well-meaning, but I've come to realise that his tendency to deeply mistrust others can prevent him from engaging in good faith. Since this mindset is contagious when it emanates from the founder, it has a sort of reality distortion effect on the spirit of the community.

The ICF's pre-occupation with trying to appear as neutral as possible, has in practice only served to worsen this dynamic; it has left a cultural vacuum that has allowed this mistrust to take root, and the spirit of the community to be tainted.

The spirit of liberty

While we often talk about the shortcomings of decentralised governance, we seldom touch on the impact of culture on decision making.

My perspective is that the culture within which our decisions are made is infinitely more important than the precise details of our governance framework (and I say this as a governance researcher!).

Once you have a culture in which people regularly talk past each other, and jump to conclusions that re-enforce their pre-existing biases without a minimum of self-reflection, there is no governance system in the world that can save you.

Learned Hand, an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher, said it best when he wrote:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…

Once you've lost this spirit of liberty, whether in a nation or a network state, you've lost everything.

We are well on our way to losing it on the Hub. Though I do not feel like all is lost just yet.

I still believe the ship can be turned around. But I don't believe we have much time to do so.

Turning the ship around

Turning the ship around will require the ICF, or another sufficiently credibly neutral and founder-aligned entity, to step up and take a much more active role in shaping the culture.

Informal is probably the only entity which fits the bill here. But for this to work, Informal's Cosmos presence needs to feel like an extension of Ethan's soul, not anyone else's.

In particular, I think this entity needs to be willing to support the ecosystem at a far deeper level than just funding engineering projects. It needs to feel more like a nurturing mother than a stranger with a chequebook.

It needs to embrace radical transparency. And it needs to communicate regularly and with authenticity.

Yes, of course there are risks to being more authentic and involved at a cultural level. But by far the greater risk in my opinion is that the status quo results in both the Hub and ATOM fading slowly into irrelevance.

The best builders are more like sensitive artists than cut-throat entrepreneurs. If the Hub’s culture fails to accommodate that, they will continue to leave.

In closing

Storytelling is upstream of everything. It's the source from which culture springs. And it has notably been missing from the entire prop82 campaign.

Whichever vision we choose to pursue going forward, if we want to rally the community around it we will need to go much deeper than just magic coin go up.

Because if we're not bonded by something more than money, we will not be able to push through together during the darkest of times, and we will ultimately fail to live up to our potential.

In the immortal words of Antoine de St. Exupery:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.