1/ If crypto networks are like cities, then there is an interesting argument that we are building a lot of Brasilias right now.
2/ One of the essays that initially got me most interested in Bitcoin was @Gwern’s Essay “Bitcoin is worse is better” -gwern.net/Bitcoin-is-Wor…
3/ He argues "Bitcoin's long gestation and early opposition indicates it is an example of the 'Worse is Better' paradigm in which an ugly complex design with few attractive theoretical properties compared to purer competitors nevertheless successfully takes over"
4/ The 'Worse is Better’ paradigm was termed “illegibility" by James Scott in his book Seeing Like a State (synopsis - ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-b…)
5/ Scott asked why there had been so many utopian schemes in the twentieth century that had failed miserably. From Le Corbusier’s Brasilia to agricultural modernization in the tropics, there were many attempts by well-meaning people that resulted in catastrophic failure.
6/ Scott's answer was that these attempts suffered from what he called “high modernism”
7/ High modernists tend to look at systems from a top down POV and design them to make sense from that perspective.
8/ In the case of city planning, compare London with Brasilia.
9/ On a map, Brasilia looks great. It’s “logically” organized with straight lines and easy to navigate roads. It is the pinnacle of high modernism. 
10/ Paris, by contrast, looks like a complete and total mess. There is no clear organization.
11/ And yet, the lived experience of Brasilia feels soulless and empty compared with the vibrancy of Paris.
12/ Scott observed that the most functional complex systems (NYC, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, London, etc. in the case of cities) tend to look like a mess from the top-down, high modernist POV.
13/ See also Gall's Law: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system."
14/ To me, this has always been one of the most compelling elements of Bitcoin. Like Paris, it makes no sense and looks like a complete mess from the top down.
15/ But, from the bottom up, it seems to have a resilience and richness to it that other projects lack. This illegibility is an essential property of any long-lasting complex system from a rainforest to a city to a crypto network.
16/ However, we still live in a society dominated by high modernist thinking.
17/ When I first read Gwern’s essay in ~2014, the illegible nature of the project seemed like it’s the biggest feature, not a bug. I felt it was being underestimated by the high modernists because, at first glance, it looks like a mess.
18/ I am wary of a lot of the “second generation” crypto networks which have some premise amounting to “Bitcoin is so inefficient at X, so we’ve fixed it to look all nice and pretty in this whitepaper”
19/ Many of these pitches sound very similar to Le Corbusier’s argument that “Paris looks like such a mess on the map, I’ve designed Brasila to look all nice and pretty on this map"
20/ The crypto networks which survive in the long term will follow the crypto corollary to Gall's Law.
21/ A complex crypto network that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple crypto network that worked. A complex crypto network designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple crypto network.
