Conflict & Conflict Resolution

On December 1st, the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project hosted its third and last panel Policymaking in Web3 as part of a three-part Perspectives in Web3 Virtual Series. It was joined by legal scholars, lawyers and policy researchers who work at the forefront of this domain, including Primavera De Filippi, Research Director at the National Center of Scientific Research and Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society; Connor Spelliscy, Executive Director of the DAO Research Collective; Miles Jennings, General Counsel and Head of Decentralization of a16z Crypto; David Kerr, Principal of Cowrie LLC; and Lindsey Kelleher, Senior Policy Manager at Blockchain Association.

On November 17th, the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project hosted its second panel Investing in Web3 as part of a three-part Perspectives in Web3 Virtual Series. It was an especially timely discussion given the series of events which have unfolded over the last few weeks surrounding the collapse of FTX, formerly the second largest centralized crypto exchange platform. Joining the conversation wereNick Ducoff of G20 Ventures,Lauren Stephanianof Pantera Capital, andBrandon Hoffmanof Sunset Ventures. This blog serves as an event recap and outlines some key takeaways from the event.

While the buzzwords and acronyms related to web3 have received a lot of attention and hype, in this piece, we look at what they really mean and why they matter. We start with a macro-lens on the societal trends that have contributed to the growth in this space, dive into “web3” and decentralized autonomous organizations, or "DAOs," and identify a few areas for further research.  

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the importance of national security objectives when Western nations formulate energy policy.  At the same time, they should not take their eye off the ball of reducing environmental damage and, in particular, slowing down greenhouse gas emissions.  Both goals, geopolitical and environmental, are urgent.  The national security and environmental objective should be evaluated together, rather than via separate “stove pipes.”

As Russian troops mass along the border with Ukraine, the White House has been calibrating its response. President Joe Biden has warned that in the event of an invasion, the US and allies would make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay a heavy price. Likely measures would particularly include economic sanctions such as a cut-off from the SWIFT payments system and turning off the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline.  Good. It is possible that such threats will deter Putin.

Recap of James Snyder in Conversation event "Israel and the Middle East through a Literary Lens"

Recap of MEI event "UNRWA, Its Mandate, Successes, and Challenges"

Why is France looking for clues as to why they have done less well in the current pandemic than Germany? 

“Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.”  And the rest of us are condemned to repeat George Santayana.

Will the Coronavirus Recession of 2020 be V-shaped?  Or U-shaped?  If we fail to heed the lessons of history it is likely to be W-shaped, with incipient recovery followed by successive relapses into sickness and recession.

As has been widely noted, we would have been better prepared to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic in the first place if everyone had paid more attention to the past history of epidemics. Be that as it may, the world is now deep into the pandemic and its economic consequences, the most severe such events since the interwar period, 1918-1939.  As decision-makers in every country contemplate their next steps, they would do well to ponder the precedents of that interwar period.

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the US housing crash of 2007-09, and the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, are called “black swans”: in each case, few people were able to predict them reliably, at least not with precision.  But they were known unknowns, not unknown unknowns.  That is, in each case, knowledgeable analysts were fully aware that such a thing could happen, even that it was likely to happen eventually.  They could not predict that the event would happen with high probability in any given year.  But the consequences of each of these events were severe, and predictably so.  Thus, policymakers should have listened to the warnings and should have taken steps in advance. They could have helped avert or mitigate disaster if they had done so.