Original author: Shenchao TechFlow
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Today, Vitaliks blog was updated with a long article titled My Technological Optimism, which explains his approach to recent technological optimism, AI risks, and how to avoid centralization in todays world.
The article itself has a high perspective and focus pattern, and the content is too long. Interested readers can directly check the translation.
Vitaliks blog is often interpreted as a trend vane of technology, and the concepts in it will sometimes cause a burst of hype in the encryption circle. In this article, Vitalik also mentioned an important concept that seems both unfamiliar and familiar: d/acc.
d/acc, what is this abbreviation that looks like a code symbol?
Before you can fully understand it, a trend in the encryption circle has begun to happen:
Many big names, such as Solanas co-founder Raj, have changed the suffix of their names to d/acc, which is quite similar to Vitaliks previous change of his Twitter name to Tunlin, which caused many accounts to imitate it.
Subsequently, Dogecoin named d/acc quickly appeared on both Ethereum and Solana, becoming the new target of degens today. From a blog post idea to a meme symbol to a crypto asset, speculation in the crypto community is indeed fast.
But apart from speculation, with a pragmatic attitude we should also figure out what exactly this d/acc Vitalik is talking about.
Similare/acc
The reason why this d/acc looks both strange and familiar is because a similar word was also very popular 2-3 months ago - e/acc.
existWhat kind of new thing is e/acc that Silicon Valley big guys are chasing?We have already introduced in the article that at that time, Marc Andreessen, the founder of A16Z, and Garry Tan, CEO of the YC incubator, took the lead in adding e/acc to the names of their social account names. Then you will find that many people have added these letters to their names.
The previous popularity was related to the great discussion in the GPT and AI craze.
The so-called e/acc is translated as Effective Accelerationism. If you feel confused, you can easily understand it as:
You should appreciate the tremendous benefits that technological advancements bring and want to accelerate this trend so that these benefits come faster.
A typical example is AI. When products such as GPT allow everyone to taste the benefits and marvel at technological progress, e/accs point of view should be to continue to strongly support the development of AI, making it more intelligent and serving more scenarios.
In the eyes of e/acc followers, any innovative idea that offers hypothetical value should not be dismissed, even if it seems too ridiculous, outrageous, or far-fetched now.
Therefore, using e/acc as the suffix of your account is actually an attitude display in the venture capital or technology circles.
What exactly is d/acc?
Lets go back to what Vitalik mentioned about d/acc.
First of all, Vitalik himself must know the true meaning of e/acc, so he made an expansion of his thinking on this basis: acc still means acceleration, but the letter d can be given multiple meanings from a representational perspective :
Defense, Decentralization, Democoracy and Differential.
According to this combination of words, you can extend it to the directions of accelerating defense, accelerating decentralization, accelerating democracy and accelerating difference.
It does sound a bit abstract, but Vitalik put his thoughts together in his blog post and pointed these different directions to the same concept---a defense first worldview.
Vitalik believes that a defense-biased world is a better world because it not only directly improves security and reduces conflict, but also makes it easier for healthy, open and freedom-respecting forms of governance to flourish.
So, what exactly are we trying to defend against?
Vitalik elaborated on the macro and micro aspects of the world we live in, which also means that defense is actually everywhere:
Cyberattacks: Improve Internet security and reduce the threat of hacker attacks.
Privacy Invasion: Reduce intrusions on personal privacy and unnecessary international diplomatic tactics by enhancing network security.
Information warfare: Combat false information and online fraud, and improve the authenticity and reliability of online information.
Biosecurity and public health: Rapid response to disease outbreaks, such as the rapid development and dissemination of vaccines to reduce the spread of viruses.
And, what means should we use to defend ourselves?
Technology Tools and Applications: Develop personal defense tools, such as software to block online attackers and browser tools to identify scams.
Data security and encryption technology: Use blockchain and cryptography to improve the security and non-tamperability of data.
Smart contracts and decentralized applications: Use blockchain technology to provide transparent and secure network services and transactions.
Rapid response and innovation: Responding to health crises through rapid development and deployment of new treatments and vaccines in the biotech and medical fields.
At this point, we have actually touched on the entire concept of d/acc: accelerating technological development in different fields to defend against possible attacks and risks in different fields.
Considering that Vitalik gave multiple explanations for the letter d such as Defense, Decentralization and Differential, we can also look at how the above methods reflect these explanations:
Defense
Security and Protection: d/ACC emphasizes strengthening security and protection capabilities in technological advancements, especially in the fields of network security, information security and biosecurity.
Combating external threats: Defending against cyber attacks, information warfare and public health threats through technical means reflects the emphasis on defense in d/ACC.
Decentralization
Distributed technology application: Use decentralized technologies such as blockchain to enhance data security and improve system resilience, reducing reliance on a single centralized entity.
Enhance personal privacy and autonomy: Decentralized technology helps protect personal privacy and enhance individuals’ control over their own data and online behavior.
Differential
Promote technological innovation and diversity: By encouraging technological development in different fields, d/ACC promotes the diversity of technological solutions to address various challenges.
Differentiated defense strategies: Take customized defense measures in different fields (such as network security, biotechnology).
Therefore, on the whole, Vitalik demonstrates the practical application of the d/ACC concept through these defense measures and strategies in his article, highlighting that more attention should be paid to security, decentralization, and differentiation in technological development. Pay attention to it, so as to better form the defensive world he mentioned.
Similarities and differences between e/acc and d/acc
Now we can quickly compare the conceptual similarities and differences between the previous e/acc and the d/acc mentioned by Vitalik:
Overall, both e/acc and d/acc emphasize the importance and impact of technological progress, and both consider the impact of technological development on social structure and mode of operation.
But the difference is that the technical fields and implementation methods they think about are different. Vitalik thinks more about the improvement of the existing social, economic and technological framework, rather than encouraging complete subversion and progress like e/acc. .
In the end, you may feel that these concepts have little relevance to you and the crypto world.
But in fact, discussions from a high position often gradually penetrate into all aspects of the industry in a subtle way; it is not a bad thing to pay attention and understand.
