Skip to main content
Article
The Human Element: The Under-Theorized and Underutilized Component Vital to Fostering Blockchain Development
Cleveland State Law Review
  • Joshua A.T. Fairfield, Washington and Lee University School of Law
Document Type
Speech
Publication Date
1-1-2019
Abstract

This Article constitutes a lightly edited transcription of Joshua Fairfield's oral remarks at the April 6, 2018 Cleveland State Law Review Symposium on Blockchain Law and Technology.

The author posits that there is a tendency to think that technology will emerge triumphant in resolving physical problems, including banking and transactional recording; that there is sort of a "tech-bro utopianism," epitomized by Mark Zuckerberg, suggesting that what we need is a technological, not a human, solution. He states that one major problem is that social technologists, psychologists, historians, linguists, and cultural anthropologists are not on the development teams that are building this technology. Therefore, we keep making mistakes with the kinds of human communities we organize: We are doing a great job on the hard-technology, but we keep making mistakes with respect to the human communities that develop the technology.

Comments

Joshua A.T. Fairfield, The Human Element: The Under-Theorized and Underutilized Component Vital to Fostering Blockchain Development, 67 Clev. St. L. Rev. 33 (2019).

Citation Information
Joshua A.T. Fairfield. "The Human Element: The Under-Theorized and Underutilized Component Vital to Fostering Blockchain Development" Cleveland State Law Review (2019)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/joshua_fairfield/49/