> what all this effort is supposed to bring about
In the limit, all this effort brings about an artifact that could be thought of as a "magic" computer where:
- Everyone trusts that the computer operates to spec,
- Anyone (or any user interface) can type whatever they want into the terminal and press "enter",
- Anyone (or any other computer program) can read state out,
- The computer has immense amounts of storage and compute,
- Anyone who wants to change the computer's state in some way that cannot be achieved by using the terminal can freely make a copy of the computer with whatever changes they want, and encourage others to use their version instead.
What, one might wonder, would the use be? There are many, many potential uses — it almost boggles the mind — it's kind of like trying to imagine the uses of the internet when it was first invented.
To name one example: you could use this magic computer to operate a VR metaverse, instead of relying on a centralized Facebook one. Failing to do that would lock meaningful sections of our lives into a single vendor whose motivation is profit. Using the magic computer instead would mean that the metaverse would operate according to its predefined rules (which could leave plenty of space for human elections or other forms of collective decision-making), and that if things went awry anyone could try to set us back on track by making a modified copy of the machine and raising awareness about using it instead.
Just like regular computers, this magic computer could also have plenty of negative consequences. It depends on how people opt to use it. I think we'll probably have more luck adopting technology and trying to drive it in the right direction, though — the alternative is widespread Luddism, which might actually be a good idea, but I don't see a realistic path to achieving it.
A lot of folks who are very skeptical of web3 due to its dark sides are probably people who probably have great values and, if they adopted web3, could probably do a lot to improve its trajectory.