A Trespassers Guide to the Galaxy— thoughts on judging matters outside of your expertise
Kelsie Nabben
August, 2020
On 5th August, I joined a ‘digital salon’ to discuss thoughts on “epistemic trespassing” with fellow trespassers and experts. The session was led by Wassim Alsindi at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.
Epistemic trespassing refers to people who make contributions to a field of knowledge, outside of their formal training or scientific discipline.
“Epistemic trespassers judge matters outside their field of expertise. We should doubt that trespassers are reliable judges in fields where they are outsiders.”
Nathan Ballantyne, Mind (2019)
The concept can be approached with similar enthusiasm as many have take in approaching the blockchain space. This is because the phrase ‘epistemic trespassing’ is quite a suitable way to describe the emerging field of knowledge that is “crypto-economics”.
Decentralised, permissionless blockchain itself is an interdisciplinary convergence of mathematical cryptographic algorithms, economic game theory, computer science technology, and, people. It is a macro-social digital infrastructure — for coordination and participation in a multi-agent, complex system (Dopfer, K., J. Foster, and J Potts. 2004). An excellent primer on crypto-economics by Voshmgir and Zargham can be found here.
This technology lives within a broader context of laws and norms, inviting legal experts, policy-makers and regulators to come play.
Blockchain has an uncertain future. Crypto-economics is trespassing along the borders of multiple fields — in pursuit of knowledge making.
Yet, many of efforts to document, make-sense of, and help guide this emergent field are fraught with assumptions.
My current work is on emphasising the socio-technical nature of crypto-economic systems . I am increasingly convinced that participants that inherit these systems won’t win if they are considered to be the primary agent for security in the network (Goerzen, et al., 2019; my own work ‘Blockchain Security as ‘People Security’, 2020 — pending publication).
Led by curiosity, trespassing requires humility.
“you can only make a good legal claim if you have a very good understanding of the technology”… “My trespassing has become a learning, so that I have the necessary evidence and skill-set to make those claims”.
‘Wonderful trespassers give you their own insights while stating this is an insight outside of their expertise to inspire someone else, or actually take the time and are committed to become experts in that discipline and actually finding the proper cross-pollination between those fields’ — Primavera De Filippi, 28:00 [abridged].
This is why our work as translators is crucial and our conscientiousness in learning is essential, not despite but in light of the pace of the field.
To listen to the recording of our floating voices for the ‘praxis’ session (mine from 1am — 3am) see here. There is also a ‘theory’ session which included Nathan Ballantyne.
Wassim’s reflections on the sessions can be found here.
End.
