Author: Fang Ting, contracted author with a unique perspective
The encrypted world is often referred to as the “rabbit hole,” but this rabbit is actually a mechanical cybernetic rabbit. It takes us not into a repaired and vibrant encrypted garden, but into a noisy cyber construction site. In this code construction site of the first half of the 21st century, various infrastructures are constantly being built, demolished, and dusted, and then completed or abandoned (in most cases).
Engineers have a decisive influence here, and correspondingly, engineering problems are often seen as the underlying problems of this world.
Abstract LEGO and Engineering Construction
In this world, the level of technical understanding determines the extent of one’s influence. People with more technical/engineering knowledge will have the power to obtain more “building materials” (corresponding resources). This creates a problem: more and more building materials are being allocated to increasingly specialized engineers, and these increasingly specialized engineers can only focus more and more on their own engineering skills in each engineering competition.
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The arms race of ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof) may better illustrate this point, but other fields that require the application of abstract cryptography, mathematics, or advanced architectural tools are no exception. An abstract LEGO keeps piling up higher and higher, while dust still fills the air on the ground.
Everyone knows, or expects, that one day there will be a breakthrough that proves one direction is feasible while other directions are declared blocked and resources misallocated.
But resources are inherently misallocated.
In the above narrative, the problem of “engineering aesthetics” is overlooked.
The order of engineering aesthetics and engineering construction has long been considered as having the latter (“construction”) first and then the former (“decoration”). “Insufficient hard decoration, make up with soft decoration,” so in crucial infrastructure issues, engineering aesthetics becomes an indefinitely postponed “ribbon-cutting date” on the calendar, icing on the cake, both necessary and unnecessary.
But the important thing is exactly the opposite: engineering aesthetics should always come before engineering construction and occupy a dominant design position. Because otherwise, engineering construction is no different from a violent solution of using a pile of building materials for spatial architecture. And solving problems through violence is a gambling game at the industry level.
Anesthetic: Blocked Perception
In “The Role of Aesthetics in Engineering,” Rolf Faste, a professor in the Stanford Mechanical Engineering Department, listed the possible roots of aesthetics: aisthetikos, related to sensory perception; aistheta, perceptible things; aisthenasthai, to perceive; aisthesis, sense perception. [1]
“Aesthetics” comes from embodied perception. Engineering aesthetics is not a narrative, but a sensory experience based on accuracy, just like “sensory temperature” often differs greatly from the “actual temperature.” Aesthetics is the key to solving the misallocation of resources, and it contains the meaning of “each getting what it deserves.”
Genuinely original engineering contributions are often built on the embodied perception of “treating oneself as a human being.” If the crypto world still wants to have its human residents, then respecting human’s true feelings, rather than training humans to adapt to programs, is the only way.
Rolf proposed the opposite of “aesthetics” in the end of the article, that is, “anesthetic,” which blocks sensory perception. It is often used for anesthesia, but blocking perception cannot selectively filter, it can only block all perceptions at the same time. Many times, this makes people feel that this is the current reality of the crypto world, and if you use certain crypto products as a user, “anesthetic” is the real experience.
Infrastructure is further away from users, so at this stage, it seems reasonable to avoid various subtle subjective areas and claim that everything will be completed by the application layer. This subjective area, as a blank field for “aesthetic realization,” leaves a space for aesthetic drills.
The aesthetics here refers not only to product aesthetics (which is of course very important), but to a more general “crypto aesthetics.”
Crypto Aesthetics
Aesthetics is not a term opposing utility; it represents the natural rhythm after aligning with the long-term development tone of the industry, and it is a non-purpose-oriented, procedural utility.
Obviously, products developed for “three years” and products developed for “ten years” will inevitably differ, and the concept for “fifty years” will have substantial differences.
Products are so easily outdated; even theories or concepts that should have longer lifecycles are at risk of yellowing and expiration in history. Just like how Alexander’s ideas had such a great impact in the architecture field last century, but are now considered somewhat outdated by some colleagues. Even the strongest thesis has its context and therefore its own lifecycle. To find a powerful and generalizing primary concept is like an adventure in a huge time coordinate system.
To find a word, to find this primary concept, is an aesthetic category.
Replacing “Orthodoxy” with Aesthetics
Danny Ryan proposed in an early discussion with us that “protocol” should be considered as a primary concept, and it has the sufficient potential and necessity to do so. It is a broad sense of automated device that can reduce the intelligence required for anything in execution. This experimental small team (Summer of Protocols) sees it as a concept spanning over ten years. In the exploration of several months, we, as researchers mainly from humanities and social sciences backgrounds, have gained different depth understandings of this word: death, memory, credit culture, protocols in urban planning, cyberspace, etc.
“Aesthetics” means integrity, not a canonical setting. Let’s replace “orthodoxy” with aesthetics: orthodoxy implies encapsulating past experiences, like restaurants emphasizing their “authenticity”. However, once encapsulated, the threshold is established, unintentionally making it difficult to maintain perception of a broader world and a richer system. Once “discourse” becomes “discourse power”, it becomes difficult to possess fundamental completeness.
Cryptographic aesthetics is a form of freedom aesthetics
If engineering thinking is problem-oriented thinking, without a holistic view, it is likely to become “proximity problem-oriented”, where the problems at hand are discovered first, while distant or perhaps more important problems often lack equal insight due to a lack of vision. Aesthetics implies insight. In other words, this is the difference between engineering thinking and design thinking, where the latter refers not only to the thinking of designers, but a people-centered observation paradigm after empathy.
Cryptocentrism is not liberalism, but if there is any ultimate goal, freedom must be one of them. In the definition of cryptographic aesthetics, there must be a clause stating “alignment with the long-term interests of the industry”: thus, cryptographic aesthetics is a form of freedom aesthetics, and “protocols” are free functions. “Protocols” are “candidates” found by practitioners in this new cryptographic aesthetic practice, and they are the first concept that contributes to this freedom aesthetics. This is also the true driving force behind the systematic publication and promotion of papers and peripheral content centered around “protocols” by the research organization I am involved in over the next few months.
Cryptographic aesthetics is a telescope on this construction site. It cannot provide any practical guidance to this construction site, nor can it predict where the market will go in the next six months. Within the boundaries, predictable technological progress survives; outside the boundaries, a broader scientific, humanistic, and social world survives. “Out, in, surpassing to see light; walking, tending, taking small steps and progressing gradually.” Cryptographic aesthetics is a “surpassing to see light” in the entire cryptographic engineering world.
In 2024, can we still find that rabbit?
Do you still remember the metaphor of the cryptographic rabbit hole at the beginning?
In her comprehensive paper on protocols and death [2] in the “Summer of Protocols” project, my “colleague” Saran Friend quoted a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit:
‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ ‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit. ‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
This famous story goes like this: a boy’s stuffed rabbit always accompanied him, and when their feelings were true enough, the rabbit came to life and became real.
“You become real, because a child REALLY loves you, not just to play with.” It is the seriousness in play that makes everything real. 2023 is about to pass, and 2024 is coming. If there is something that we still lack in the world of cryptographic engineering, it is a living rabbit with a pocket watch that guides everyone from one hole to another. In short, a rabbit of cryptographic aesthetics.
In the early stages of the still vague world of cryptographic engineering, whoever follows that rabbit is the real Alice. Aesthetics is the field that smart contracts and silicon-based organisms have yet to reach, and it is the key to resurrecting that rabbit once again.
Before playing hide-and-seek with the mysterious concept that “can revive the industry,” don’t forget the playmates who play with you. I joined Uncommons last week, and using the metaphor mentioned above, it is a magical organization that “resurrects the rabbit.” In the engineer-dominated cryptographic world, it focuses more on the technical, humanistic, and aesthetic issues of the cryptographic world.
Readers who can read this far are welcome to pay attention to and join Uncommons, becoming the Alice of this industry. 😀
“Could you please tell me which road to take from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
[1] Faste, Rolf A. “The Role of Aesthetics in Engineering.” JaLianGuain Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) Journal, 1995, Winter.
[2] The original text of the quote from Sarah Friend’s unpublished paper can be found in: Williams, Margery. The Velveteen Rabbit. Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 2005.
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