Popup Cities and Digital Governance

Transcript

all right got my suit Blazer in well I saw fortunately fortunately I saw you post one of these because like twice in the last year several people were like I want to record a podcast with you which for me me audio and so we we record the thing with video but you know I'm like oh this and then without any like xost review they just like posted online and I'm like unshaven with Bed Head you know like just like I mean like I look like just straight up like a crazy crypto guy know where it's like I just emerge from my computer cave to spout at you and like like and they're just like I

get tagged on Twitter and I'm like oh that's permanent all right like yeah no I I think it's important to give a heads up no matter what um but but yeah that's pry funny I'm sorry you had that experience no now I'm ready you can you can release this look into the wild like I'm ready like I amazing well let's kick off with just a quick intro who are you and what are you working on awesome yeah so my name is Eric olon I am a faculty member at CU Boulder in the finance division and I teach a variety of courses in among other things including blockchain and digital

currencies financial markets and institutions and sustainable outer space governance and I publish in a wide range of governance design areas including constitutional design Economic Institutions and commitment mechanisms but increasingly uh digital governance and the way new technologies are transforming our human potential for Association and collaboration amazing yeah so much exciting and relevant overlap and you actually came to join us in zuuk connect in Istanbul which was an earlier event we we did and then we were also excited to host you at Edge City in Denver and I'm curious if you could just

share a little bit about those experiences I I imagine this was kind of your first interaction with these kinds of pop-up City experiments I'm curious how that was for you it was uh it was really uh positive I mean I it it just sort of the the vibrant diversity and engagement that first zoook connect but also Edge City Denver uh managed to track was you know both inspiring as well as directly informative to a number of my research interests yeah can you can you say more about that I'm actually curious how these kinds of environments are relevant to the work that you were doing I'm

frequently frustrated by the extent to which Academia rewards a critical perspective which make no mistake is fundamentally necessary for us to improve we don't get better without you know interrogating ourselves and the weaknesses of our own perspectives but that being said it does I think disenfranchise the Creative Vision to a certain extent and so being surrounded by so many Builders using new technological tools to solve in some cases ages old human coordination problems and in some cases entire L novel ones created by these same new

digital context in which we're associating being surrounded by Builders was actually you know both inspiring but a way of getting realtime feedback on issues in digital governance that are directly important to me and so to give but one example um zero knowledge proofs and Technology built on the back of zero knowledge proofs was a major them at zoo connect and that helped me put together kind of a an interesting Proposal with Sophia Kosar from blockchain gov about um the extent to which zero knowledge proofs and Associated technology are

likely to facilitate privacy rights in the digital age while while simultaneously giving law enforcement authorities what they you know information that they need so proving the solvency of an exchange or a clearing house without revealing the exact balance sheets or order books of those same organizations is actually a really important benefit and so there's a number of existing applications of zero knowledge technology that we think will be really important for facilitating privacy rights while simultaneously satisfying government objectives for enforcement in this Brave new digital age we're uh waiting into

yeah totally great insight and take on ZK I feel like there's also a lot of skepticism sometimes in the tech space about Academia and about you know things with kind of a deeper history but the the combination of those seems very important and it's something that we would love to create more of a space for I'm curious what your take is on that as an academic that spends a lot of time in these like digital governance spaces yeah no and so that dig at my uh industry of employment if you will was not to say I hate it where I am it was more to say that I think that there is really important Synergy between people

in Industry who are directly building daytoday and people who dedicate their lives to the study of a particular topic because boy once governance became a buzzword in crypto communities the number of people that I saw posting on crypto Twitter or meeting at events they're like did a two-e retreat and speedran governance and I'm like I uh and you think you understand governance simply because I study it day in day out and to me I'm like I'm very humble about the extent to which I think I know an exante solution especially one that's one siiz fits-all across all places in time those don't tend to exist and so

studying lessons from a variety of historical governance context is essential but thinking that you figured it all out in two weeks and I'm being I'm being a bit uncharitable there are many Earnest individuals in digital governance in cryptocurrency communities that are like this stuff is hard and it's harder than we realized it was but to me it's that Synergy between both Builders and Scholars that is something that I found uh it rather heartening the extent to which both Zoo connect and a edge city were able to very cool and so building on that um looking forward what excites you most or is there anything and if so

what would excite you most about this concept of popup cities and these new types of communities people spending long batches of time living together uh incubating ideas about living Etc and so for me my interest in these popup cities goes all the way back to a storied concern about the modern era put by a scholar named putam in a book called bowling alone and he observed in the United States in particular a decline in Civic associations such as bowling leagues to give but one example of which he was fond and was saying this is bad

for our social fabric this is where we actually kind of create the true social fabric is through these voluntary civil associations in a very deto villian sense my response was I think you're not online enough because I found that some of my most important friendships in life are people I initially met online and so the ways in which we associate are no longer so geospatially limited and I think that's wonderful because that means people can find others with they deeply agree and voluntarily associate with them but that's not to say geospatial divides no longer matter at

all and so I see these popup cities as kind of creating an interesting backbone to the existing associational fabric that the ability to communicate correspond interact online has already facilitated to such a transformative and exciting extent so that's it's almost like giving an IRL Dimension to these new types of kinship bonds and communities that have formed in the cloud they formed in digital space and then and creating kind of a real world instantiation of of those ads yeah very cool exactly and to me there's necessarily a deep

complimentarity between personal knowledge and productive voluntary Association and so the fact that we sat down together in Istanbul for a memorable conversation one night to me leads to a level of connection that otherwise wouldn't be present if we were meeting for the first time on this uh on this particular video chat and so for me it's necessary to build personal knowledge of people that you do intend to associate in a more than a casual sense and so for me I see kind of the this this notion of popup cities of these kind of startup communities even if they're ephemeral is a way of of

facilitating the deeper human connections that can only come when you've met someone face to face yeah absolutely and it's actually such a good example of how these environments are allow for that kind of serendipity because I remember you posted something very thoughtful in our shared group chat with the whole Community I saw it I dm'd you straight away said if you wanted to meet for for a coffee or a drink and and then we did that day and then it's led to this great relationship over time that yeah it's quite meaningful so it's just a good little example of of what can happen exactly no it's it's and it's it has to be spontaneous to me there's

nothing worse than like now is your 15minute engineered Social Hour at the work mixer and it's like it's like does anyone feel like this is genuine yeah so so to me it's it's the spontaneity that being together in a beautiful novel location thoughtfully chosen carefully curated in terms of you know the events that are taking place but plenty of time for just you know outright uh it it it the sort of Joyful connection that is also the an an essential part of of the human social experience to me I'm I'm thinking just as much of the edge City closing party as well as the zoo connect closing party because I made meaningful

connections there as a result of you know a 90minut conversation that I had with somebody I'd never met before Oh beautiful I think that's a great place to end it Eric thank you so much thank you