I spoke to Eric Alston again! Eric is a professor at University of Colorado and recently completed a fellowship with the Summer of Protocols studying the governance of killswitches. His report is titled "Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death" and co-authored with Seth Killian and Garrette David.

During the interview we discussed the history of killswitches, the many ways they can be governed and the implications of the governance system they lie in like in blockchain governance. But killswitches are not just about complex technical systems but also social ones, and so we also take a look at killswitches in complex social systems like labor strikes as an example and how they are governed.

You can also find the interview in video form on YouTube here.

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Send me your questions or comments about the show and I'll read them out sometime.

ICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking.

The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

Who Controls the Killswitch?