Beyond Engineering Cryptographic Aesthetics

Engineering Cryptographic Aesthetics

Author: Fang Ting; Source: Wobble Neck Three Views

The encrypted world is often referred to as the “rabbit hole,” but this rabbit is a mechanical cyborg rabbit. It takes us not into a already repaired and fragrant encrypted garden, but into a noisy cyberspace construction site. In this code construction site in the first half of the 21st century, various infrastructures are constantly being built, demolished, and dusty, and then completed or abandoned (in most cases).

Engineers have a decisive influence here, and correspondingly, engineering problems are often regarded as the underlying problems of this world.

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01 Abstract Lego and Engineering Construction

In this world, the ability to understand technology determines the amount of discourse power. Those who have more technical/engineering knowledge will have the power to obtain more “building materials” (corresponding to resources). This creates a problem: more and more building materials are allocated to increasingly specialized engineers, and increasingly specialized engineers can only focus more and more on their own engineering skills in each engineering competition.

The arms race of ZK (zero-knowledge proof) may better illustrate this point, but other fields that require the use of abstract cryptography, mathematics, or advanced architectural tools are not exempt.

An abstract Lego is getting higher and higher, while the ground is still dusty.

Everyone knows, or expects, that one day there will be a breakthrough that proves one direction is feasible, while other directions are declared closed and resources are mismatched.

But resources are inherently mismatched.

In the above narrative, the problem of “engineering aesthetics” is overlooked.

The order of engineering aesthetics and engineering construction has long been considered that the latter (“construction”) comes first, and then the former (“decoration”). “If the hard decoration is not enough, the soft decoration will make up for it.” Therefore, in the critically important infrastructure issues, engineering aesthetics becomes a “ribbon-cutting date” on the calendar that is indefinitely postponed, icing on the cake, and can be dispensed with.

But the important thing is quite the opposite: engineering aesthetics should always come before engineering construction and occupy a dominant design position. If not, engineering construction is no different from a violent solution of using a bunch of materials to create spatial structures. And violent problem-solving is an industry-level gamble.

02 Anesthetic: Blocked Perception

In “The Role of Aesthetics in Engineering,” Professor Rolf Faste of the Stanford Mechanical Engineering Department listed the possible roots of aesthetics: aisthetikos, related to sensory perception (pertaining to sense perception); aistheta, perceptible things (perceptible things); aisthenasthai, to perceive (to perceive); aisthesis, sensory perception.[1]

“Aesthetics” comes from embodied perception. Engineering aesthetics is not a narrative, but a somatic experience based on accuracy, just like how “somatic temperature” often differs greatly from “actual temperature”. Aesthetics is the key to solving resource mismatch, and it itself implies the meaning of “each getting what it deserves”.

Genuinely original engineering contributions are often built on the somatic experience of “treating oneself as a person”. If the encrypted world still hopes to have its human residents, then respecting the authentic human feelings, rather than training humans to adapt to programs, is the only way.

Rolf proposed the opposite of the word “aesthetics” in the end, that is “anesthetic”, which blocks sensory perception. It is often used for anesthesia, but blocking perception cannot selectively filter, it can only block all perception at the same time. Many times, this makes people feel that this is the current reality of the encrypted world, and if you use certain encrypted products as a user, “anesthetic” is the real experience.

Infrastructure is further away from users, so at this stage, it seems natural to avoid various subtle subjective areas and claim that all of this will be completed by the application layer. The subjective area, as a blank field of “aesthetic implementation”, leaves behind a space for aesthetic exercises.

The aesthetics here refers not only to product aesthetics (which is of course very important), but also to a more general “crypto aesthetics”.

03 Crypto Aesthetics

Aesthetics is not a term that is opposed to utility, it represents the natural rhythm after it is in line with the long-term development tone of the industry and keeps pace with the beat. It is a non-purpose-oriented, procedural utility.

Obviously, products developed for “three years” and products developed for “ten years” are inevitably different, and the concept of products developed for “fifty years” will also have essential differences.

Products are so easily outdated; even theories or concepts that should have a longer lifecycle have the danger of becoming yellowed and outdated in history. Just like how Alexander’s ideas had such a great influence in the field of architecture in the last century, but are now considered somewhat outdated by some peers. Even the most powerful thesis has a context, and therefore has its own lifecycle. To find a powerful and comprehensive first-level concept is like embarking on an adventure in a huge time coordinate system.

To find a word, to find this first-level concept, is a realm of aesthetics.

04 Replacing “Orthodoxy” with Aesthetics

Danny Ryan proposed in an early discussion with us that “protocol” should be regarded as a first-level concept, and it has the sufficient potential and necessity to do so. It is a broad sense of automated device that can reduce the intelligence required for anything to be executed. This experimental small team (Summer of Protocols) views it as a concept of more than ten years. During months of exploration, we researchers, mainly from humanities and social sciences backgrounds, have gained different in-depth understandings of this word: death, memory, credit culture, protocols in urban planning, cyberspace, and so on.

“Aesthetics” means integrity, not a canonical setting. Let’s use aesthetics instead of “orthodoxy”: orthodoxy means encapsulating past experiences, like emphasizing oneself as an “authentic” restaurant. However, once encapsulated, the threshold is established, not intentionally, but it also means it is difficult to have the opportunity to maintain perception of a broader world and a richer system. When “discourse” becomes “discourse power,” it is difficult to have fundamental integrity in order to establish itself.

05 Cryptographic aesthetics is a kind of freedom aesthetics

If engineering thinking is a problem-oriented thinking, in the absence of a holistic view, it is likely to become a “nearby problem-oriented” thinking, where the problems at hand will be discovered first, while distant or perhaps more important problems often lack equal insight due to the lack of foresight. Aesthetics means insight. In other words, this is the difference between engineering thinking and design thinking, and the latter refers to a human-centered observation paradigm that goes far beyond the mindset of designers.

Crypto-anarchism is not liberalism, but if there is any ultimate goal, freedom must be one of them. In the definition of cryptographic aesthetics, there must be a clause that states “to be consistent with the long-term interests of the industry”: therefore, cryptographic aesthetics is a kind of freedom aesthetics, and “protocol” is a free function. “Protocol” is a “candidate” found by practitioners in this new cryptographic aesthetic practice, and it is the first candidate concept that contributes to this freedom aesthetics. This is also the true driving force for the research organization I am involved in to systematically publish and promote papers and peripheral content centered on “protocols” in the coming months.

Cryptographic aesthetics is a telescope on this construction site. It cannot provide any practical guidance to this construction site, nor can it predict where the market will go in the next six months. Within the boundaries, predictable technological progress survives; beyond the boundaries, a broader realm of science, humanities, and society survives. “Out, in, surpassing to see light; walking, tending, taking small steps and gradually advancing.” Cryptographic aesthetics is a “surpassing to see light” for the entire cryptographic engineering world.

06 Can we still find that rabbit in 2024?

Do you remember the analogy about the cryptographic rabbit hole at the beginning?

In her complete paper on protocol and death in the “Summer of Protocols” project, one of my “colleagues” Saran Friend quoted a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit:

‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

This famous story goes like this: A boy’s stuffed rabbit has always been with him, and when their relationship becomes real enough, the stuffed rabbit comes to life.

“You become real, because a child REALLY loves you, not just to play with.” It is this seriousness in play that makes everything real. As 2023 is coming to an end and 2024 is approaching, if there is something we are still lacking in the world of cryptography, it is a living rabbit with a pocket watch guiding everyone from one hole to another. In short, a rabbit of cryptographic aesthetics.

In the early days of the still blurry world of cryptography, whoever follows that rabbit is the real Alice. Aesthetics is the field where smart contracts and silicon-based organisms have not yet reached, and it is the key to resurrecting that rabbit once again.

Before playing hide and seek with the mysterious concept that “can revive the industry”, don’t forget the buddies who play together. I joined Uncommons last week, and based on the above metaphorical system, it is a magical organization that “resurrects that rabbit”. In the engineer-dominated crypto world, it focuses more on the topics of technology, humanities, and aesthetics in the crypto world.

Welcome readers who can read this to pay attention to and join Uncommons, and become the Alice of this industry. 😀

“Could you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

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