How original is the Web3 culture created in Chinese?

Author: larri

"Decentralization, DAO, public goods, creator economy, cyber city-state, interoperability, token economy, consensus mechanism, creator basic income, sovereign individual..."

How many of these web3 concepts you have heard of are translated from English? Today, like our predecessors more than 100 years ago, are we still learning Latin languages, combining the Chinese characters "民" and "主" to think about society, and combining "科" and "学" to understand knowledge?

Are we creating, or are we still translating? Among the publicly searchable Chinese web3 information, a very high proportion is hardcore technical translations, English hot project introductions, and Chinese spoken by Vitalik himself (this part does not even need to be translated).

Subtracting these proportions from 100% is what this column is about.

I have seen a kaleidoscopic new world of Chinese.

Its scope goes far beyond the mainland. Outside this land, there are still many experiments that we can easily understand because of the common language, but we don’t communicate much because of the lack of communication channels.

In Taiwan, you can see newspapers publishing cartoons to popularize blockchain knowledge to children, the government promotes the application of decentralized technology in local governance, and some people study the significance of "Taoist" thought to decentralized organizations in white papers. There is a DAO that clearly stated that we don’t want the Western DAO system and we won’t vote if we can.

In Chiang Mai, or from Dali to Chiang Mai, people are creating a "enclave" of Chinese web3. Unlike Taiwan, they carry the cultural genes of the mainland, but in a foreign environment, they try to graft a uniqueness that no native culture can achieve.

In the Americas and Europe, far away from East Asia, the second and third generations of Chinese are organizing themselves in a completely new way and establishing connections with their parents' culture. I am in Paris, so I know the situation in France. Although these native French Chinese speak Chinese a little poorly, they develop groups on discord and set up grants to support bottom-up Chinese cultural projects in a decentralized manner. Most people do not understand blockchain, but their spirit has been injected with "freedom, equality, and fraternity". No matter how the previous generation left their homeland, they formed a new form and approached Chinese culture again. This group has tens of millions of people around the world, almost the population of France.

I have to add all of this up to find out what the Chinese-speaking world is contributing to the crypto trend.

I want to write about thoughts created in Chinese.

Those thoughts that cannot survive in a vacuum; these thoughts are about how to live better. They are not simple and beautiful codes that transcend culture. They sprout from the culture of the language users. There is no white paper telling us how to live. Every web3 builder and navigator in the crypto world cannot only face the code. They must face a life that is not black and white, and face each other with vivid emotions.

Crypto technology and decentralized thinking bring us enlightenment, and enlightenment lures us into a moral dilemma. I will write about these dilemmas in my column: "Should I reveal my private key to my spouse?" "Should I use tokens as barriers to create public goods that the poor can no longer share?" "Can I love Web3 and my own national government at the same time?" "Do crypto organizations give women more rights or widen the social gap?"

In an ideal world, Chinese speakers will give unique answers, different from any other culture. Because moral choices are not technical issues, they are the compass for using technology. Different cultures give different choices, and this is the beauty of diversity. Even Chinese culture is not a monolithic entity. Crypto technology has given mainland pioneers the spark of anti-censorship, but in Taiwan, people see it more as a new tool for social innovation. I want to write about the crypto revolution surging in the Chinese world. It is not a Chinese version of English thought, but an important part of diversity.

This is not over yet. There are also many non-crypto but punk practices in the Chinese world.

workface^[2] was born before Ethereum, 706^[3] is more decentralized than any DAO, Dali Creator Basic Income Plan CBI^[4] is a UBI that is more friendly to the creator economy. Many people may not think that the Beijing Gulou Community ten years ago may be closer to the DNA of Anji Digital Nomad Community or the NCC of Dali Digital Nomad Community in terms of temperament. Therefore, I will write in my column "Chinese people are changing UBI", "Is there a generation gap between 30-year-old and 20-year-old cypherpunks?", "What can crypto self-organization learn from non-crypto self-organization"...

Some practices have developed to a stage where they are silent or hibernating. They are also worth writing about. It is these practices that are withering and evolving in form and relaying in spirit that can help us grasp the essence of Chinese narrative. Even if a project or a DAO is going to "die", I will write about it. Isn't this a kind of Burning Man Festival in words? A sincere creation is burned solemnly and passionately, and later creators can still use the fire to light cigarettes. What do crypto-punks want to read when they smoke? I think I should write about "How to euthanize a DAO" or "Kill a Shijiazhuang DAO".

I am very concerned about how encryption technology, and to a certain extent AI technology, will change people's concepts culturally. The emergence of trains and train stations makes people pay attention to "accurate time", and the Internet has implanted the concept of "free" into people, what about blockchain?

It is not obvious that it will bring about the emphasis on "privacy" and "freedom". When people take a train, they will arrange their schedules around the departure time. It is unimaginable to show up at a "rough time" at will; living on the Internet, getting information or services for free is the default, and charging becomes an option that needs to be explained, which was also unimaginable before. Is blockchain making something that is taken for granted today unimaginable? I really don't know yet. The answer is scattered in the behavior of blockchain players, public goods builders, and crypto digital nomads, so the column is actually a jigsaw puzzle with unclear drawings and an unknown number of pieces.

The crypto movement should not be an industrial revolution, but an enlightenment movement. Become a part of the enlightenment.