And so, to begin with, let's go back to grade 8 in social studies and find out what society is, as a complex system:
A system is a collection of interacting and interconnected elements that form a single whole.
It also includes the following characteristics:
- self-developing
- unfinished
- dynamic
- open
- self-regulating
- self-structured
- united
I can tell you in all seriousness that these characteristics are guaranteed to fit decentralized blockchains.
Now I will try to describe what each word means in society, as a system, and I will try to connect them with decentralization in simple words. Go:
Self-developing - this means that the system develops itself at the expense of internal resources. That is, in society there are some elements, people, relationships between people, and people themselves push society towards development.
How can this be related to decentralized blockchains?
Let's take, for example, any blockchain that is actively developing now, for example Free TON:
The same characteristic can be rewritten to the blockchain and will fit well: “A self-developing system means it develops at the expense of internal resources, namely, thanks to active community members who popularize the product, thanks to network validators that maintain uninterrupted operation, thanks to programmers creating new applications and updating old. That is, the network participants are developing the system (in this case, the blockchain).
Let's move on to the next characteristic - "unfinished"
An incomplete system (or, as some say, an alternative one) - this suggests that there is no clear calendar of events that should happen in the future, that is, the system lives and continues to live. There is no such thing that “in 2038 there will be a crisis, the whole system will collapse”
How does this relate to a decentralized blockchain?
Take Bitcoin for example now. When it was created, was there a clear plan of action, what will happen and when will happen to it? No, it was not) Will such a calendar appear in the future? Of course not.
Bitcoin is decentralized and therefore there is no calendar, it appeared and exists. There is no end.
The alternative is that anything can happen. We ordinary users have a billion possible solutions.
Someone can buy 20% of all bitcoin today and it will grow by 200% tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow all the people will go and sell all their bitcoin and it will depreciate. Nobody knows what the future holds.
Let's move on to the third characteristic - "dynamic"
A dynamic system is one that moves, does not stand still. does not stagnate. It is constantly developing, improving, constantly changing. In society, this can be explained by the fact that something new appears and the old disappears.
Now let's see how this might be related to decentralized blockchains.
To be honest, I haven't found any other example other than Free TON.
Therefore, let's take a look at this example. This blockchain has controls, thanks to which a variety of tasks are solved. So that's it. Imagine a situation that at the beginning of his journey he needed a management that would be looking for designers for logos, for something else, and after some time, when the blockchain already has all these branded logos, the management of finding designers turned out to be unnecessary.
Or an example, when the blockchain is trying to expand, people (elements of the system) create a management to popularize it and begin to promote it on their own.
Now let's analyze the word - "open"
An open system means that society admits new elements, new individuals, new relationships, and also provides the ability to move through its structure.
That is, in fact, it is the same with decentralized blockchains. Anyone can use the blockchain without any obligations, and so on. He can also become a network validator, he can become a manager of any blockchain popularization department if he is new. There is no such thing that you cannot use the blockchain.
Well, it remains to analyze 3 more characteristics and smoothly move on to the analysis of the word "self-regulating"
A self-regulating system means that the elements of the system, in the case of society, people, have themselves created the rules, laws, police, clinics to regulate what is happening. That is, in other words, the elements of the system regulate the system themselves.
I can see such an approach only in one of the blockchains because it is only developing now and therefore all characteristics are suitable for it.
I'm talking about Free TON. As I said above, it has controls that regulate certain activities within the blockchain, this can be: network support, product popularization, bug fixes, partnerships, and the like.
A self-structured system in a society means that the elements of society have themselves created such a structure. Nobody suggested it to them. They invented it themselves.
As in decentralized blockchains. Blockchain didn’t come up with the structure it does. It was invented by its elements, that is, network participants, managers, validators, and others.
Well, the final word is “united”.
Despite the fact that a blockchain can consist of many elements, they still interact with each other and constitute a single system, both in society and in the blockchain. Some element cannot be separate from the system. If he is not in the system, then he does not belong to it.
What did I want to say with this article?
I wanted to compare society as a complex system and decentralized blockchains and show by this how they are similar.
That is, in fact, we can say that a decentralized blockchain is like a small complex system, a copy of society.
After all, if you take society as a whole (for example, the whole world), then this is a really very complex system, which is really not controlled by not just one person, but everyone contributes their own part in it, EXACTLY the same as it happens in blockchains ...
I hope you found the article interesting, thanks for reading!