Decentralize This! Ep 9 – Nathan Schneider – Platform Cooperativism and the Meaning of Decentralization

Summary

Hosted by Enigma’s Head of Growth Tor Bair, our ninth episode features Nathan Schneider. Nathan is a journalist and author as well as a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He’s written some really interesting books, including one about the Occupy movement and another about God, so he has some experience tackling fairly complex topics. His latest book is called “Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy,” and it focuses on the role of cooperatives in our society – and in our future. As a result, Nathan has some very interesting and relevant ideas about “decentralization” as a movement and as a term, and he recently wrote a piece titled “What to do once you admit that decentralizing everything never seems to work.”

On this episode Nathan and Tor discuss platform cooperativism, trust and accountability, the value of privacy, the difference between protocols and platforms, and how we should be defining this weird term “decentralization” – and whether it is a goal in itself or a means to another end.

Enigma’s new podcast “Decentralize This!” features guests from all over the decentralization space: developers, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, writers, artists, people in government and enterprise - all individuals who care deeply about building a more decentralized and sustainable world. How can all these people with different perspectives collaborate to create and scale the technologies we need to shape a better future?

Relevant links:

Nathan’s Website: nathanschneider.info
Everything for Everyone: nathanschneider.info/books/everythi…-for-everyone/
Hackernoon Article: hackernoon.com/decentralizing-ev…work-2bb0461bd168

Enigma: www.enigma.co
Enigma Blog: blog.enigma.co
Enigma Twitter: www.twitter.com/enigmampc