📚Philosophy of Kleros - Part 1: Origins ⚖️ This is the first in a series exploring the philosophy behind Kleros, tracing both @federicoast's personal journey and the ideas that shaped the project. From Buenos Aires to Blockchain Federico studied Economics and Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires, focusing on institutional economics and political philosophy. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, alongside Bitcoin's whitepaper, he was working in online media. Being from Argentina, a country plagued by inflation and currency instability, crypto made immediate sense. The Collective Intelligence Connection During his PhD, Federico became fascinated by how people collaborate in groups. Wikipedia demonstrated something remarkable: anonymous people, through the right mechanisms, could build an encyclopedia better than traditional models. The pattern was clear: ▸ Wikipedia democratized information ▸ Bitcoin democratized payments ▸ What could democratize justice? The Problem Freelancers could learn skills online and get paid via crypto, but if a dispute arose with an international client over $500, there was no practical recourse. Traditional courts couldn't solve global, low-value disputes. The Solution In 2015, Federico began writing about "crowd juries": panels of anonymous jurors who could evaluate evidence and vote on outcomes. This became the foundation of Kleros. Silicon Valley and the Optimist's Case After winning a startup competition, Federico spent three months at Singularity University (NASA Ames), learning from Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. The first lesson was about human progress: declining poverty, increasing literacy, spreading democracy. @sapinker's Better Angels of Our Nature summarized the bullish case for humanity. The talk also covered the foundations of the digital age, from ARPANET's decentralized origins to Vint Cerf's TCP/IP and Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web. Next: Part 2 — The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley