Episode 6: Ontology - Modular, Open-Source Platform for Trust Rebalancing

Crypto Jerônimo's Musings: On Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Cryptocurrencies

Summary

This episode is the second part of our two-part review of Ontology (this is a link to the first part).

It’s important to indicate that there’s no particular listening order associated with these two episodes. Therefore, having listened to one of them is not a prerequisite to jumping into the other one and vice versa.

Overview

Ontology is a decentralized platform, which was founded by Li Jun, who is also the co-founder of OnChain.

The platform comes with a set of protocols and modules - which are its building blocks. Combining those blocks enables designing and building decentralized bridges between the real world and its digital counterpart. Moreover, the individual components are in no way immutable - they are subject to constant enhancement, and new, improved ones can be added at any point.

Just as in LEGO kits, combining these various units does not require deep understanding of the very intricate internal workings of each one of them. What’s really important is how they operate together, and how they can be combined to form higher-level structures.

As we build higher levels in such way, there emerges a hierarchy which has a more holistic nature to it.

The associated behavior to this abstract structure comprises a complete set of features, and, ideally, this final product enables some form of improved user experience.

Despite the fact that the various notions and meanings of trust greatly rely on our very own self-preservation mechanisms, decentralized, open-source platforms, such as Ontology, enable efficient, large-scale trust rebalancing. The latter can be achieved via embedding decentralized connecting components within existing centralized structures and institutions.

Topics

Our discussion touches upon a number of topics such as, but not limited to:

• Ontology’s architecture, including the various protocols and modules involved;
• the interconnection between open source and large-scale trust decentralization;
• open source and the future of humanity;
• the concept of trust graphs;
• the nefarious aspects of closed-source software;
• software engineering priciples embedded in Ontology’s fractal design;
• open source + decentralization = empowered society;
• fake news and its roots explained by evolutionary psychology;
• token metrics and minting.

Feedback

As usual, we look forward to your comments, ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism!

Enjoy! :)

N.B.: I was a bit sick during the recording of episode 6, and as a result, the voice quality is not exactly stellar. I believe this doesn’t interfere significantly with the presentation though.

Episode 5: Ontology - Overview and Use Cases

Episode Notes

• [Book] “Linked”, by Albert-laszlo Barabasi: https://amzn.to/2rTFypm
• [Book] “Emergence”, by Steven Johnson: https://amzn.to/2k9kqqQ
• [Book] “Sapiens”, by Yuval Noah Harari: https://amzn.to/2ID2OT2
• [Book] “In the Plex”, by Steven Levy: https://amzn.to/2xZGjCR
• [Book] “Flowers for Algernon”, by Daniel Keyes: https://amzn.to/2wWroJ4
• Ontology website: https://ont.io/
• Ontology whitepapers: https://ont.io/documents
• Ontology on Github: https://github.com/ontio
• OnChain: https://www.onchain.com/en-us/
• –, Episode 5: Ontology - Overview and Use Cases: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/podcast/2018/05/26/episode-5-ontology-overview-and-use-cases.html
• –, World’s Soccer/European Football Transfer Network: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/assets/images/world_soccer_transfer_network.png
• “Facebook emotion experiment sparks criticism”, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28051930
• “Facebook Tinkers With Users’ Emotions in News Feed Experiment, Stirring Outcry”, The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html
• “The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram”: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram
• “Obama 2012 campaign ‘sucked’ data from Facebook, former official says”: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/03/20/obama-2012-campaign-sucked-data-from-facebook-former-official-says.html
• “It’s Possible Facebook App Could Be Listening To You”, Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/christopher-wylie-its-the-possible-facebook-app-could-be-listening-to-you_uk_5abcc5e0e4b03e2a5c79ad70
• “Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems”, Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5?IR=T
• “It’s time for third-party data brokers to emerge from the shadows”, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-third-party-data-brokers-to-emerge-from-the-shadows-94298
• “How to turn off Windows 10’s keylogger (yes, it still has one)”, PCWorld: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html
• “Microsoft bashes Chrome browser over battery life via Windows 10 notifications”, Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/microsoft-edge-notifications-battery-power-usage-chrome/
• “Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens”, Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion
• “Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says”, BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711
• “Brazil’s Pirahã Tribe: Living without Numbers or Time”, Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/brazil-s-piraha-tribe-living-without-numbers-or-time-a-414291.html
• “The societies that survive without money”, Virgin: https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/societies-survive-without-money
• “Pirates of Silicon Valley”, a 1999 TV film : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
• “Triumph of the Nerds”, a 1996 TV documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
• Black Mirror - Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive#Plot
• “The Emergence of 4D Printing”, TED Talks: https://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing
• “You Know These Studies are Good Since They’ve Been Reviewed … by a Dog”, BigThink: https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/you-know-these-studies-are-good-since-theyve-been-reviewedby-a-dog
• EtherDelta DEX: https://etherdelta.com/
• Switcheo Network DEX: https://switcheo.exchange/
• “Ontology Holds First European Meetup in London”: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-holds-first-european-meetup-in-london-8f9eb50bbdfc
• “THEKEY - Summary of the Key Questions Raised during the AMA for the Progress Report on 20th April”, Medium, @thekeyvip: https://medium.com/@thekeyvip/thekey-summary-of-the-key-questions-raised-during-the-ama-for-the-progress-report-on-20th-april-ac019cffa37f
• “Ontology Launches VBFT, a Next-Generation Consensus Mechanism”: Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-launches-vbft-a-next-generation-consensus-mechanism-becoming-one-of-the-first-vrf-based-91f782308db4
• “Ontology Launches Smart Contract Tool SmartX”, Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-launches-smart-contract-tool-smartx-611a6065f3f1
• “The First Version of the Ontology Roadmaps”, Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/the-first-version-of-the-ontology-roadmaps-8760c96e50b5
• “Ontology pre-release v0.8 of MainNet on GitHub”: https://neonewstoday.com/general/ontology-pre-release-v-08-of-mainnet-on-github/
• “Ontology Announces the Triones Node Incentive Model”: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/triones-node-incentive-model-dbcb175f4728
• “Ontology Triones Seed Node Application Terms”: https://info.ont.io/trionesintro/en
• PageRank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank>
• “Neo’s Consensus Protocol: How Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance Works”, https://steemit.com/neo/@basiccrypto/neo-s-consensus-protocol-how-delegated-byzantine-fault-tolerance-works
• “Proof-of-Stake (POS) outperforms Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (POW)”, https://hackernoon.com/is-bft-consensus-effective-for-proof-of-stake-blockchain-implementations-dc01f429d225