Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
Elite disfunction defines our age. Whether you call it "Brokenism," "late Soviet America," or something milder, the underlying scandal is the same. While better minds than mine debate the best frame, I'll explore how *decentralized expertise* can help us out of our crisis.🧵
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Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
The best diagnosis I've seen for our condition is Martin Gurri's The Revolt of the Public. I'll do my best to recap (too quickly) his must read: when institutions at the commanding heights lost their “monopoly on information” (when we got alternatives), public trust went w/ it. 2/
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Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
As Bari Weiss recently wrote, though, the trust crisis is really a "trustworthiness" crisis. And Gurri had traced it to 9/15/08, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The Global Financial Crisis & slow recovery were a double disillusionment w/ experts. 3/ https://x.com/mgurri/status/1815535824307658887
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Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
Disillusionment w/ centralized authorities defines two bottom-up fintech phenomena that emerged after the Global Financial Crisis: cryptocurrency and retail investor empowerment (think GameStop). They each have decentralization—of governance and knowledge—at their core. 4/
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Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
Crypto and "Meme Stocks" provoked in financial regulators what Gurri would call a "counter-revolution." Crypto's been met w/ de facto bans & lawless crackdowns. Meme stock trading was met w/ paternalistic proposals: make apps less user friendly; restrict social media. 5/
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Jack Solowey
@jacksolowey
Here, elitism/paternalism does not equal (!=) wisdom. Hostility to applied cryptography in an age of cyber threats? Really? And meme stock trading forums like r/WallStreetBets were found to include informed due diligence, discerning readers, and beneficial recommendations. 6/
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