Sometimes in our language, we forget the original meaning of the words we use. When I was a little person, growing up with the word "power", I used to think of super heroes, evil villains, or the work done/energy over time in engineering terms, electricity, etc. When you think there is something mystical about it, it is easy to forget the most basic meaning and etymology of power, which comes from the old french "povoir", meaning "to be able".
In this world of mass distraction, it is easy to forget we have the power too, we have the ability, we can to do things, work, create and earn. But even when we are remind through music, with lyrics like "I got the power", and "Yes, I can", we often choose to give power away, for various reasons, often for something in return, convenience, time or laziness. It is often said that money is power, with money we can get things done, most often by paying someone else who can do work for us. However, in doing so, were are paying others the ability to do things that we could have learnt and done ourselves. In time we may loose practice is what we could have done, and get sucked into a system where we constantly have to rely on others or a particular service. If we have to pay for it, we loose power, and if we don't pay for it, it is sponging power away from others, like the welfare system. This is often not sustainable until we also work, meaning have the power, the ability to do our jobs that will earn tokens of value in payment, which we can use to trade power. Like a "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" kind of system, sharing power with each other.
In the light of the recent data controversy surrounding Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and companies alike, users were freely giving away their data, to receive "free" service. Some unknowingly, some knowingly/don't care, whichever is the case, each user is effectively giving a little bit of their power to a more centralized organisation that is in essence collectively gaining a huge amounts of power. Recently I have been hearing more people say things like "The product is not the service they are providing, you are the product". Yes, they sell our data, they sell the power of targeted advertisement, which is basically marketing to convince to us to spending more money on things and service we don't necessarily need, or to hand over yet more data, more power we lose here. Worring still is the power to influence votes and undermine our democracy. Where power can be used to gain more power, and it can become very unbalanced.
Control and regulation on such powerful organisations, to says "no, you can't do this", in a bid prevent to limit their power from getting too dangerous, do not always work, simply because they have too much power. When the same action of control falls on us, being more vulnerable, it can limit our freedom -- what we can do. There needs to be a good balance of power, and it would be nice if things are more decentralized, with more innovative distributed services, platforms and reward systems to use instead.
It is encouraging in see there are many decentralized projects out there and there is much faith and power to make it all happen in this space. But while many people who are not in the loop and are still giving to centralized powers, such projects may not take off as fast as we hope, but take off anyway it shall and hopefully many will follow.
