Lord of the Flies-Fi

A system that was supposed to operate autonomously with publicly visible immutable records is proving to be anything but. And precisely how governance is emerging is pretty scary.

Lord of the Flies is a famous book about a group of boys who get marooned on an island in the South Pacific. They set up some kind of governance structure which is meant to ensure, among other things, that a smoke signal to attract rescuers is maintained at all times. It’s kind of downhill from there.

The titular “Lord of the Flies” is a severed pig’s head one of the boys mounts on a stick and relies on to predict the future. More violence follows, a few of the boys die and generally the system falls apart. They are rescued in the end – but that’s pure luck as they had given up on the smoke signal even though it was a core founding principle of their system.

Starting to sound familiar?