Bridge Atlas Episode 2: Paradigms

Issue #68: A conversation with Nils Gilman and Josh Stark

Welcome back to another episode of Bridge Atlas, a video podcast series hosted by Christine D. Kim. In this episode, we look at the world through the lenses of hardness and planetary thinking, with Nils Gilman, Executive Editor of the Berggruen Press and Deputy Editor of Noema, and Josh Stark from the Ethereum Foundation.

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Christine:
Nils, can you tell us a bit about your background and introduce the idea of planetary thinking?

Nils: I was trained as a historian, with a PhD from Berkeley in American history. My interest in planetary thinking comes partly from studying modernization and globalization. After academia, I spent years in tech and consulting, including with intelligence agencies on long-range issues like China’s rise and climate change.

Planetary thinking is concerned with flows which are beyond human intentionality. Globalization covers intentional flows like goods, money, and ideas; planetary phenomena – like the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, space debris, and ocean plastics – are often human-influenced but unmanaged. We have governance systems for global flows but few for planetary challenges.

Christine: Josh, can you share your background and define “hardness”?

Josh: I started as a lawyer, then co‐founded ETHGlobal, which runs Ethereum hackathons, and later joined the Ethereum Foundation leadership. Hardness, as I define it, is a system’s capability to make a specific outcome very likely to be true in the future, usually to enable social coordination.

For example, I’m confident assets in my Ethereum wallet will be there in five years because of cryptographic guarantees and economic incentives. Similarly, money in a Canadian bank is backed by legal systems and deposit insurance. These are different sources of hardness, but they serve a similar function.

Nils: How is hardness different from legal reliance or reliability?

Josh: Reliance is about people’s mental states or trust in behavior. Hardness is a property of the system itself – it can exist whether or not people believe in it.

Christine: Given today’s erosion of trust in institutions, could Ethereum’s hardness also erode?

Nils: Trust in most U.S. institutions has declined for decades, except small businesses and the military, perhaps due to accountability. People turn to blockchain systems partly because they don’t rely on self‐dealing elites; their design is relatively incorruptible.

Josh: That’s core to crypto’s ethos – creating systems resistant to capture or corruption. Ethereum’s hardness is less likely to be undermined by cultural or social disputes because it’s a network, not a traditional institution.

Christine: How do you measure hardness versus trust?

Josh: Trust experience is like user experience – it’s about how people come to trust something. Hardness is about the system’s actual properties. For Ethereum, you could look at validator distribution, economic incentives, cryptographic security, etc. Like security, hardness is context-dependent.

Nils: Institutions like universities can remain hard – Harvard will likely exist for centuries – while losing trust. That’s why distinguishing hardness from trust is useful.

Christine: If trust erodes but hardness remains, does hardness matter?

Josh: It’s not enough for Ethereum to be secure; the world has to know and understand it. We need to bridge that gap so people see it as a fundamental coordination tool, not something alien.

Nils: From the outside, two big challenges for Ethereum are technical complexity and a public image dominated by financial speculation in cryptocurrency, which doesn’t foster long-term commitment.

Josh: I agree. The reputation can change, and security has improved – smart contract hacks are less frequent. But there’s still much to do on user safety and education. I hope Ethereum evolves like California – from Wild West to a vibrant, global hub.

Christine: Let’s pivot to planetary challenges. Nils, you’ve said diplomatic machinery can’t keep up with technological breakthroughs like AI.

Nils: Traditional diplomacy was about national governments negotiating. In the globalization era, diplomats needed economic and financial literacy. Now, planetary challenges require literacy in carbon accounting, space governance, and environmental monitoring. I’m working with foreign service schools on curricula for this.

We also need to understand the systems – potentially including Ethereum – that monitor and respond to planetary phenomena.

Christine: Josh, where could Ethereum be relevant?

Josh: One example is the Freedom Tool, used in Russia, Iran, and Georgia. It uses zero-knowledge proofs so that citizens can prove eligibility to vote in online polls without revealing their identity. It’s been used by opposition activists to contest election legitimacy. I think the first billion-person vote could happen on Ethereum using such tools.

Nils: In planetary thinking, some focus on building new institutions, others on technological systems as de facto governance. For example, sensor arrays in shipping channels detect whales and automatically redirect ships, preventing collisions. Many planetary challenges will be addressed through automated systems rather than marble-column institutions.

Ethereum could enable more voices in decision-making and even multi-species integration – like monetizing Rwanda’s gorillas via Ethereum to fund protection and ecotourism.

Christine: Sometimes Ethereum feels like a small technical detail in grand planetary conversations. How is the Ethereum Foundation raising its profile?

Josh: We have a new Institutional Secretariat team to engage with governments and large organizations. For example, Bhutan is building its national ID system on Ethereum. There’s also “diplomacy” within blockchain – managing relationships between Ethereum and other chains, roll-ups, and L2s. As these proliferate, keeping the system interoperable will be critical.

Nils: Ethereum could also enable post-national diplomacy among cities, corporations, and other actors, bridging increasingly closed-off technological stacks in different regions.

Josh: I agree. In a fragmented world, Ethereum is one of the few trends moving toward more global integration. Both Chinese and American companies build on it, and it’s supported by a global community. That’s an underrated strength.