Longread: ForkLog as a Reflection of Bitcoin Concept

27.12.2015

When someone asks me, how your publication works, I usually say it’s a miracle. It has suffered troubled times, and now has almost nothing to do with its initial state. If answering the question seriously, the most correct answer would be â€“ the deuce knows. Answering the question seriously is almost impossible.

There are just a few people here. No service grades at all. Job duties comply with Boltzmann distribution law. Materials come at half past four in the morning. Every competitor is either a freemason, or a Rosicrucian. Advertisement is somewhere in the fields, scaring the crows away. A usual work flow, in a word.

When someone starts musing about global conspiracy of neo-Templars or alien intrigues, I always laugh. Cheap books like DaVinci Code describe that stuff amazingly efficient, with various illuminati making time machines out of ancient statues. Apparently, those conspirologists never tried gathering at least five people into a working collective or arranging a wedding for 50 guests. If they had, they would have realized professor Moriarty could go insane feeling the needles moving all the time. That is why I say it’s a miracle that we work.

The most important part of our work is enthusiasm. There was a time when we worked for a pure idea, with some of us even losing funds to keep the publication alive, just to do the things we actually believe in. We believe that now it’s possible to change lives of billions of people for better. We believe that total control gives more inconvenience than security, as it is a jeopardy itself.

There are major but not-implemented-yet ideas in the air. I still develop a concept using blockchain as an integral part of time-travelling technologies, as my first Ph.D. in physics can’t let me spend a sleepful night. Others, more inclined to politics, are willing to develop themes related to changes of social structures in the light of new technological opportunities. Some like delving into the internet of things and collective digital security. All in all, it turns out that we’re not so much into digital money as into expanding perception horizons for ourselves and those who read what we do.

Anyway, I can’t call it all a mission. We do not aspire for highest ideals. I can’t speak on everyone’s behalf, but I’ve seen and read about lots of instances when good intents were used to build not a mere road, but a giant autobahn to hell with complex junctions.

It feels great when you can do what you actually believe in. You have no guarantees you’re right, but civilized discussions usually end up in finding a middle passage running close to what you people call the truth.

Initially none of us had any experience in running a publication. Only deuce knows how many times I tried to find 10 differences between my work and goddamn bullshit. However, during the year that ForkLog exists, we more or less learned to sail across troubled waters.

Our editorial board is generally based on the blockchain principles. We have our own proof-of-concept, and somewhere in the future there is a proof-of-stake waiting for us. The whole network is completely decentralized. Each of us sits at home, sips tea, sends ridiculous jokes in the board’s group chat, and doesn’t think there is no board, and all is members dwell in different cities and countries.

ForkLog’s editorial board resembles bitcoin after all. There is no regulating entity, it doesn’t care about so-called borders, it goes up and down, it is fast, and has very low commission rates. Apparently, banks may embrace us any moment now.

By Jenny Aysgarth

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Tags: Bitcoin, longread