The Features of Brixton
Ines and Manali had an exploration in Brixton during the weekend and shared key findings with us, which included the lively feeling about Brixton: “Love and Peace”, “Care and Understanding”, “Inclusive” as well as infrastructure design with diverse people (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The feature of Brixton, photo by Ines and Manali
While my teammates were looking at the money metaphors, blockchain crimes, text transfer etc, I was interested in the special mechanism of Algorand Foundation. Algorand uses a pure proof-of-stake (PPoS) protocol instead of the universal consensus of Proof of Work. This means each user’s influence on the choice of a new block is proportional to its stake (number of tokens) in the system. Users are randomly and secretly selected to propose blocks and vote on block proposals. In other words, all online users have the chance to be selected to propose and vote. With this new consensus, the blockchains would be designed more decentralized and secure.
Algorand Foundation Research by Svaney
Blockchain of Care
Research so far, I gradually became aware that the establishment of the blockchain can be intended as an anarchic utopia, as a creation against capitalism, the decentralized autonomous ledger system shifts power away from centralized financial organizations, blockchain is expected to create an anarcho-capitalist society.
Based on this perception, we had a discussion about how could blockchain help to predicate a utopian community, our ideas revolve around applying blockchain technology to building a friendly Brixton.
A Mutual Aid Idea
One of my ideas was Trading Care- A system of mutual help
Users who need help can post a mission and marked with a price in the community (platform), everyone can see it, those who are able to complete this task can receive equal rewards (Brixton Pound). In addition, the system would record all events and award helpers honorary titles, the more kindness people do, the more community benefits they can enjoy.
Mutual aid system, sketch by Svaney
Presentation
Reviewing our last presentation, many participants reflected that the concept of blockchain was too abstract so that they didn't fully get it from our literal interpretation. Therefore, our group decided to conduct an interactive activity situated scenario in Brixton. We wanted to display the good features of the blockchain (decentralisation, anonymity, transparency and authentication) and the possible social values in Brixton in the future through our designed experience. By comparing the differences between processes and certificates in ordinary charity and blockchain charity.
However, the results showed that people mistakenly thought that was our idea rather than an example, due to we simplified the mechanism of blockchain, and had misunderstandings of ordinary charity and the application of blockchain in this field.
John and Al Switched the question to why do charity exist? Because the state can not provide sufficient support, so we need other organizations, and that's a design opportunity we can start in this project. We realised that we need to bring our thoughts to what's unique about Brixton; What do people value about their community. And then try to figure out how blockchain and Brixton Pound can be attached to the things we were looking at.
As far as I was concerned, the way we deliver knowledge seemed always confused people, from 1st week's textual mode of blockchain explanation to this week's experiential example of charity, we always appeared to put the emphasis slightly wrong and were unable to express our intentions well. Next week, we would need to organize the structure of presentation and consider the special value of Brixton.
References
Algorand Foundation. (2021). Brixton Pound chooses the Algorand blockchain on which to develop a tokenized version of their innovative Complimentary Local Currency, the Brixton Pound. Available at: https://algorand.foundation/news/brixton-pound-algorand (Accessed: 03 May, 2021).
Algorand Foundation. (2020). Why is Algorand such a unique blockchain?. 11 Spetember. Available at: https://youtu.be/-KLqZ5O3scw (Accessed: 03 May, 2021).
Algorand Foundation. (2020). Algorand Classroom: Pure Proof of Stake. 29 Spetember. Available at: https://youtu.be/u0ExeqpKJd0 (Accessed: 03 May, 2021).
Local Futures. (2021) The Brixton Pound. Available at: https://www.localfutures.org/programs/global-to-local/planet-local/local-business-finance/the-brixton-pound/ (Accessed: 05 May, 2021).
PixelPlex. 2021. Blockchain in Charity & Philanthropy: Benefits and Future. [online] Available at: https://pixelplex.io/blog/blockchain-charity-projects-and-their-philanthropic-benefits/