The Fable of the Dragon

I finished the first set of 6 courses of CryptoZombies, which covered the basics of blockchain. I learned how to create contracts, interact with other contracts, and how to write functions that can receive eth. The last course (#6) goes over how to call contract functions from a javascript front-end.

I don’t have any further blockchain updates, but I’d like to recommend a blog post I just read: The Fable of the Dragon. It’s the story of an indestructible, man-eating dragon and humanity’s struggle to either overcome it or live with it. The story carries a lesson: it’s natural to grow accustomed to the way things are and take them as truths. But by doing so we’re keeping ourselves trapped within a house in an open field. We fill it with lamps and patch its broken windows without realizing that just outside its walls lies a powerful source of light and warmth.

This story reminded me of the blockchain movement. I’d grown accustomed to the current societal, legislative, and professional power structures and felt dissatisfied with the lack of meritocracy and fair distribution of power. As a manager, I felt I had too much power over a person’s performance review and salary and my manager had too much power over mine. I never tried changing anything, I just resigned myself to thinking, “This is just the way it is. The rich and powerful make decisions for our society, I make decisions for my reports and my manager makes decisions for me.” Blockchain technology challenges the idea that this is just the way it is. With the internet, technology made knowledge free (well, if you have internet access), and now with the blockchain, technology will change the distribution of power. The change will be gradual, but the trends are clear.

I’ve never been happier to work in tech.