If nothing else, the Ohmies have accomplished something my distinguished former professor Scott Page could not — making game theory interesting.
As Chad mentioned up top, the omnipresent (3,3) in OlympusDAO devotees’ Twitter bios is not some obscure Nostradamian reference or a neo-fascist dog whistle — although, unfortunately, in 2022, I feel I do have to make that disclaimer. Rather, it is in reference to the game theory matrices illustrating the payouts of taking different actions when faced at a decision with another party. The gist is that (3,3) represents the maximally beneficial outcome, which degens understandably love to shove in the face of disgraced web2 zero sum gamers. (See SuperPumped: The Battle for Uber for a suitably cringe example.)
For a long time, the tech industry status quo has been to do business at the expense of both competitors and customers. Web3 promises a disintermediation on the gatekeepers of capital, whether that be in the form of information or fiat. And, in this decentralized environment, zero sum thinking just can’t compete with the speed of decentralized contribution facilitated by DAOs. Or so, at least, the MUSHROHMS hodlers claim.
Now, I am a self-proclaimed skeptic of most DAOs. In my experience, too many admins in the chatroom, so to speak, is a good way to talk a lot of shit and get nothing done. There is a clear need for accountability, structure, and direction for any organization. It’s why they’re called organizations. Ventures looking to achieve product market fit with their given audience face a juggling act of keeping the scope of a project small and manageable, while also being flexible and nimble enough to pivot towards revenue. Sustainable revenue is derived from functional utility and clear value proposition communication. A bunch of pseudonymous talking heads are great at many things — propagating memes, pissing contests via expensive PNG proxy, etc. — but communicating clearly and being functional are not among them.
Nonetheless, those doubts aside, OlympusDAO has (publicly) pioneered the first example of how a DAO of DAOs can operate, delegating the responsibility of domain expertise and execution to sub DAOs, while the core treasury behind the central DAO supports it all. (3,3) for me represents the fact that, when end users own the digital infrastructure, they reclaim ownership over their digital identity. Which, in an ideal world, gives us all the advantages of web2 tech, with none of the abuse. Truly, a maximizing position.
The architect of our current WW3 response is dead. A world leader seems intent on pushing the big red button for the hell of it. No one with power seems to know what to do about it, and no one without it seems able to muster a goddamn for more than the length of a TikTok video. A restoration of faith in democratic processes is refreshing to me. And, if our global slip back toward authoritarianism can be blamed on the rise of the ‘me’ generation, then maybe, with the rise of ‘i’ generation, we’ll see individualism rewarded within the collaborative setting of web3, and a hard refresh on democratic processes, supported by decentralized technologies.
Or maybe we’re a crater tomorrow. Who knows? Either way, a little psilocybin all of a sudden sounds a hell of a lot better to me.
