Lunarpunk Endgame by Rachel-Rose O'Leary | Devcon SEA

[Music] oh good um thanks very much for coming uh before I start I just want to get a sense of the uh the attendees so um how many people here have heard of darkfly okay it's like maybe half uh so I just want to say uh to start off that I won't be talking about dark fi much um but if you're interested in that and you want to learn more I recommend that you stay for the talk that's directly after this uh where my colleague Amir will talk and explain everything about darki um but today I'm going to talk about lunar Punk uh who here has heard of that term before and and okay uh for those that don't know what it is uh if you know what Cipher Punk is and solar Punk then you might you're halfway to understanding what lunar Punk is um one way of describing lunar Punk is as a synthesis of Cipher Punk and solar Punk which combines aspects of both uh imaginaries to create a new version which is supersedes both um but if you don't know what Cipher Punk or solar punk are the best way to understand lunar Punk is as a Sci-Fi imaginary that's oriented around utopian anonymity um so what does that mean uh utopian anonymity is the perspective or conviction that anonymity is something very good for society and that it could actually lead to a emergence of new kinds of civilizations um the basic idea is that surveillance um and a society Based on data extraction um is a kind of dead controlled world where Society can't progress um through anonymity we allow different kinds of societies and new forms of civilizations to emerge um so that's why uh lunar Punk sees itself as a kind of utopian anonymity um and tools like dark fi uh play a role in bringing this Utopia about but the goal of this presentation is not to talk about that uh in fact this presentation has three goals um so firstly I'm going to uh try to Define lunar Punk not by uh through these words and definitions but actually by showing you a potential future um so this talk is a Sci-Fi um with sci-fi artworks that is supposed to kind of uh uh speculate on one possible chain of events um and to Define lunar Punk concretely uh by example secondly um I want to clear up some misconceptions uh so when I first wrote about lunar Punk that was back in 2021 um it there was later an animation made of it if you Google uh lunar Punk and the dark side of the cycle you can find the video and the kind of mistake that I made at the time was that I defined lunar punk in contrast to solar Punk solar Punk was something uh related to transparency and surveillance uh by virtue of its transparency whereas lunar Punk was uh was was positioned in contrast to that as a um uh a pro anonymity um perspective the issue with this framing is that it made people believe that lunar Punk was some kind of negative or some kind of shadow um of solar Punk that it was a uh that it was rooted in negativity and skepticism whereas solar Punk was something optimistic um and positive so that's a misconception and I want to show you and exp through these images why lunar Punk sees itself more as a utopian uh perspective so it's really a story about uh how can these Anonymous tools lead to a world that is better than the world today um so it's an uplifting future and one of the reasons why uh lunar Punk is often seen as a negative is because in the lunar Punk imaginary there is an idea that the state uh the nation state Paradigm is overcome for some people that idea is suggestive of chaos um so they find it scary and they find it something bad um for lunar punks that's a really good thing um so it's the beginning of a new age it's something uplifting and uh optimistic um so I I want to I want to show you show you that in the in the coming uh talk finally the goal of this presentation is to provide a new image of the future um so we believe that by creating images of the future and by providing uh sci-fi speculative IM imagination about where the future could go we actually make those new kinds of future Futures more likely um so by by providing these kind of images we compel the future in some ways to move in that direction the uh what I'm talking about here is a strange aspect of Science Fiction that you see in many sci-fi such as William Gibson uh cyberpunk and all kinds of science fictions where the Sci-Fi actually proceeds it anticipates the future um so sci-fi has this amazing ability to bring about new kinds of features and imaginaries um so we believe that that one way to reorient the Future away from surveillance dystopia is through this effort of speculating on other kinds of possible Pathways and through that speculation making those path Pathways more plausible and concrete um okay so I'm invoking uh a lunar Punk um called porg Pierce um who was a revolutionary who participated in the 1916 Uprising in Ireland uh it was a failed Revolution um but through its failure failure it actually brought about the next Revolution which was a su success um so this is something that poric pierce said just before his execution he said we seem to have lost we have not lost we to refuse to fight would have been to lose to fight is to win we have kept Faith with the past past and handed on a tradition to the Future um so I'll let you kind of reflect on that I just wanted to bring that up um I think it's very interesting because um sometimes when it comes to the the the fight for privacy uh people become very very resigned um but in fact that it's through our uh our efforts and even our when we seem to have failed we are in fact winning uh through the very Act of of of defying the surveillance Paradigm okay so now we're going into the Sci-Fi sorry for the extended introduction um we begin at the beginning 12,000 years ago um in the Neolithic Revolution uh in those early days there were many different kinds of civilizations that coexisted um on this timeline we see the emergence of a particular kind of civilization um the rise of cities uh and ancient Mesopotamia the emergence of the nation state Paradigm 5,000 years ago um so throughout history there have been many different kinds of civilizations that have competed for dominance um the last uh so in human history there's a kind of a a rise and fall of different competing civilizational formats and uh for in this kind of 500e interval a particular form of civilization will Define that Paradigm um so the last 500 years have been the time of the modern nation state era um but as we move into the Millennium we're uh coming into a new paradigm which is different to what became before us five 500 years ago um in the past 500 years so this is the Y2K paradigm shift um that we're currently a part of um and essentially what we're seeing is this form of civilization that has emerged and you know became the dominant form of society in the past 500 years is breaking down and a new kind of civilization is assembling itself um peer-to-peer technology anonymity cryptocurrency all play a role in the disintermediation of the nation state and the emergence of something new um we believe that the next 500 years will be a kind of new Dark Age um that's sounds scary but it's actually not it's actually a really good thing um so what does it mean uh the new Dark Age will be a time of spiritual growth and development um it will be a time of red decentralization where uh we will see a global reconfiguration of power and the existing uh Nation States will um will Decline and something new will be born of that uh so it's a fertile age um where the the new kind of society is taking root uh so this is the projection of toward the next uh 10,000 years of human history um so the basic intention is we're entering with the Y2K Paradigm Shift we've entered a kind of new dark AG um this is a period of around 500 years where we experience a time of great great spiritual growth the Spiritual Development that we are set to undergo in the next 500 years will lead to a new Renaissance um so that next phase um 1,000 years in the future will be a Synergy of the 500 years of Spiritual Development with the uh new technological capacities um that will come about as a result of that shift so the goal in the next few slides is to sketch out like one possible timeline of events that you know could lead to these uh this phenomenas uh and you know it's a quick sketch but I hope it's going to excite you and and show you the the possibilities as you can see here once we go through this Renaissance period we enter kind of a a Neo Roman Cosmic expansion where like life and and human life animal plant life expands to the cosmos eventually ending in a in a great human speciation event um where we'll see a enormous diversity and plurality of um different kinds of society but also different kinds of post humans um that have evolved to different planetary conditions okay so this is um if you can see the date there in the the the the future it's it's 2033 so it's the near future um here in this image you can see lunar Punk Fighters um they're in a 3D weapons production facility um so this is a little snapshot of you know the coming storm where uh Global power begins to break up and organized factions um start to assemble and you know become the seeds of the new paradigm um so you can see that there's like forests creeping in they represent um the reforestation of society um 3D printed Weaponry is going to be a major defining force in this dis intermediation of state power anonymity in cryptocurrency is also playing a big role um at the same time we will see the rise of regional identities um and network uh States so these kind of new crypto enabled um uh Network exit civilizations so I think we're going to see both things at the same time so the regional identities are pre-existing um in some cases like indigenous identities that have a strong sense of rooted locality uh to a place so you might have the reemergence of some of these ethnic groups that have been um misplaced by the nation state or or uh you know silenced by the nation state so they're going to rise up and they're going to start to assert a autonomy within the next hundred years at the same time the network states are going to rise so we're going to have both things happening simultaneously the network state is something more Cosmopolitan um so you'll see a lot of different ethnicities coming together around technology um around space exploration around longevity and other kinds of like guiding topics um so you're going to have both of these forms this is going to eat away wear away at the nation state Paradigm and also provide the seeds of the of the next phase so now we've skipped a little bit further into the future as you can see we're we're we're like 200 over 200 years into the future um so there are a series of of events that that that happen one is this is uh imagees kind of indicates the um the the changing spiritual landscape um so we can see here kind of robed neotic fe uh uh female figures um on an island Skellig Michael for those that know it it's a island that was home to monks within the previous Dark Ages in the new Dark Ages it becomes home to a new spiritual order that um is uh has holds nature as sacred but sees Science and Technology as a way of connecting with nature kind of a a sacred act of worship and reverence um and so in this new monastic order we start to see Technologies emerging that more closely resemble organic life um and this particular uh monastic order is is very interested in Quantum Quantum biology um but also in uh biology in general at genetic research um so you can see some of the life forms that they've engineered in in in the corner of the screen um so as as they get deeper into this Quantum research um they begin to uncover new forms of Weaponry I mention this because I don't want to give the impression that the utopian future we're describing is is one where there's no conflict of any kind um in fact uh we expect that it'll be more the case that there will be new Sovereign communities and those communities are enabled to be Sovereign because they're able to back up their sovereignity with weapons that doesn't mean it's going to be necessarily a state of War all the time you know it's just a case of a kind of armed neutrality so it's like it's like there are new monastic orders new spiritual orders there there is societ societal speciation at the level of uh culture like many different societ existing uh side by side they're autonomous and that autonomy is backed up with weapons okay so at some point in this timeline uh there is the discovery of alien life uh that is like a huge event for Humanity in the same way as the cernic revolution like reentered man from the cosmos and you know was it like an a shock that change the trajectory of civilization in the same way the discovery of alien life um will show shock humanity and force A New Perspective upon us um I say here like there's another idea which is like maybe we're going to disc discover something like evidence of a old civilization on Mars um so there's theories about this that actually Mars was home to a giant nuclear explosion there's there's evidence in the minerals so people are like maybe there was an advanced civilization that blew itself up but nuclear the discovery of something like this on Mars along with alien life could would bring about A New Perspective that is you know begins to Revere n nature and life as something fragile and special and that should be protected and so the idea is like feeding into this new spiritual perspective that has emerged uh in the in the Neo Dark Ages you have this like uh this new reverence for life because you have a cosmic perspective which shows you know um the the kind of Devastation of uh of of nuclear war on Mars that's just one scenario okay so um back on Earth um we've seen the results of these this this new spirituality that has emerged many different uh civilizations this one is a is a neoc Celtic civilization that is um that loves nature and that has been Reviving extinct species um so they've started a lot of all this Research into biology and Quantum has like uh borne fruits uh so they've they have this this whole new uh hyper biodiverse Ecology of extinct plants and animals that have started to co- habit with the living um so this is happening and through that research uh We've we've by amassing all this new genetic knowledge of the of the extinct plants and species we actually make a series of breakthroughs in the our understanding of Nature and biology uh so so this is you know immensely useful and it leads to an evolution in plant Animal Human communication um so again we be we're we're nurturing this this deep reverence for nature through these this this this deepened uh relationship to the plants and animals that we cohabitate with uh via this like improved communication okay so I put this here this is just a quick sketch um to show that at this of History we're we're in like like 2,500 to 2,800 we're in the uh Neo Roman era uh like just after the the Neo Dark Age um so this is a time where you know the the political structure of the world has been basically decomposed into more older regional identities and the newer Network State type exit civilizations that are more Cosmopolitan uh so you have these things side by side and they have strong uh trade routes and uh connections so they're not isolated they're you know they're they're collaborative and it's possible to exchange ideas and materials um through this like Global Confederate uh system that has like healthy trade routs I I me emphasize that because there's a misconception that you can't have um like Global cooperation at the level of trade and economy without nation states that's a that's a misconception we've been doing it for like tens uh you know tensens of years so uh I'm running out of time but I'm I'm going to like fly through these these uh Network States they were focused on the space exploration so they've built these centers in the Atlantic which are like launch pads where they've been uh they're able to explore like the the uh the space um so you know that's the benefit of those Network States then we see the first signs of successful um uh uh terraforming experimentation on Mars which is the introduction of these like new genetically modified masses um that have been discovered by the civilization uh that's really into Reviving extinct life um so terraforming on Mars is starting to go well eventually we move the humans and the animals to Mars uh in three the year 3740 we begin to see the first signs of speciation um so the the humans and the animals and the plants that have uh migrated there are already starting to adapt to the uh to the low sunlight um onto the thinner atmosphere um that they experience on Mars um you know finally uh I had to put the moon in there because it's lunar Punk after all uh the terraforming has also been adapted to the lunar surface um so we're really spreading life uh throughout the cosmos uh finally you know uh 10,000 years into into the future um humans have expanded into exoplanets and this is the point where we start to see the uh you know the the uh extremes forms of speciation uh where humans and animals and begin to diverge rapidly um and you know along with this hyper diversity at the level of society um so that's a quick sketch of um of what the lunar Punk uh future could look like or one possible future um a huge thank you to ZK armor who made all of these artworks um you know he worked really hard on them and they're so beautiful uh so so thanks so much for so much to him uh he does all the art for all of darki um and yeah thanks very much for coming to the talk and I I'll pass on to Amir who's coming after me thank you that was a great presentation Rose and I actually made a big mistake at the beginning of this by not introducing you first and saying that Rose can actually basically bench press her own weight now if you can hang on just for one minute here I want we've got a couple of audience q&as um so there's a pretty big question here uh that's upvoted and that's why is dark fi an alternative L1 when it could instead be a properly private ethereum L2 its weaker security scares me do you have any takes on that or should we wait until the next I'm I'm happy to answer that um so it's it I'm going to start with the second thing which is about this security um the plan with dark V is to do a merge mine with Monero uh which basically means we're bootstrapping off the security of the Monero blockchain um so I don't see as as being scary or like weak security or anything like that that's the first thing second thing is um oh why are we in alel one the main reason is um our focus is on anonymity um privacy so we spent all of our development effort on that um and we weren't particularly opinionated on which like areb andl to do we use IBC or any of that that's not our Focus we know that there are many projects who are working on uh decentralized trustless um l2s IBC other kinds of like trustless bridging so we're just letting those projects work out those very difficult problems for us while we focus on the ZK ecosystem and then whenever like and please if you have ideas on this please talk to me it as soon as there are available trustless bridging um like trustless l2s uh decentralized l2s and and or IBC that can work with the utxo chains uh you know will adopt them we're not we're not fixated on being an L1 we'd happily you know we we we want other blockchains to connect to connect we want to connect them so we're open to it come talk to me if you have ideas and I think we have time for one last question um does darkfy see AI as a friend or fo to the mission and it also ties in that last question you see here where how do you foresee the rise of machine intelligence in the lunar Park timeline um so uh I I see AI as a kind of like um um like demon that has like grown off of the surveillance and the collection of like the mass data harvesting um so it is this kind of like scary uh evil demon that is like like based like grown on surveillance like fed on our data but that's not to say that you know it can't also help us in interesting ways um for example uh maybe you guys know Dr Nick he's a person who's very optim optimistic about the AI so like if you talk with him he'll give all kinds of ways in which the AI can uh can benefit societies um so you know I'm I'm I'm I I'm my main issue with the AI is like it's origin like but I'm not saying that it can't be used for good stuff and maybe in the in the lunar Punk timeline it helps with these uh new experimentation into like um hyper biodiversity and space exploration maybe AI plays a role in that maybe it plays a role in the human animal communication um so you know there there are there's plenty of potential there and I think it's probably one of those things that forces the uh the the new the coming like shift uh toward a new civilization it's like one of those like um transformative Technologies that's going to reconfigure um the like the new paradigm awesome well thank you so much uh Rose is going to be