What if Hive could be used to accelerate the advance of science and democratise the access to scientific content worldwide?
Could the blockchain technology be used to fight censorship in academia and contribute to ensure immutability of the scientific record?
Could we possibly start incentivising and rewarding scientists for their discoveries and merit?
Let's give it a try, shall we?
[deep apologies, some boring stuff first]
Hello all, my name is Gustavo Hassemer, I currently work as professor at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, a Brazilian public higher learning institution.
Most of my academic experience is in the field of Botany, especially Plant Taxonomy. My formal academic publication record can be looked at:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gustavo-Hassemer
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4365-6934
Commelina catharinensis, one of the new species described as a result of my scientific work. This is literally one of the rarest and most threatened species in the world! Presenting this species to science was quite an adventure... it quite literally took blood, sweat and tears. My special thanks to the co-authors and all others who made this feat possible! Photo by João de Deus Medeiros.
One of the nice things about being a botanist is that you get to go places... very different places. Imagine a moon-like landscape hugged by the sea. That's around Cerro Moreno, north of Antofagasta, northern Chile. Photo by Ekaterina Shipunova.
However, my interests are not at all restricted to Botany or Biology. I have considerable interest in a broad range of subjects, including History, Linguistics, Economy, and more recently also the blockchain technology.
Indeed, I'm of the opinion that, in order to understand the world we live in, we must be curious about a wide range of topics. And this brings us to an unfortunate, very frequent vice in academia: most academics have considerably narrow range of interests, which leads to narrow, arguably deficient understanding of the world. This is possibly, in my opinion, one of the factors that is increasingly contributing to alienate academia from the rest of society.
Blockchain technology is a good example of this. The Bitcoin whitepaper, which was made public on 31 October 2008, is arguably the single most ground-breaking piece of technological advance made in the present millennium. Yet, most academics are still oblivious to it, and the majority of the advances in this field are coming from outside academia.
[For all those who still haven't read it: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf]
This post is both a [very brief] introduction to myself, but especially [and more importantly] an introduction to a project I'm initiating: Hive-Science. That's a very experimental attempt to bring Hive into the nascent DeSci [decentralised science] scene, and use it as a venue for communicating and incentivising scientific content.
The first phase of this initiative will involve university students being introduced to Hive and performing a number of academic tasks that will require interacting with the chain in meaningful ways.
— What benefits I think the use of a blockchain like Hive could bring to academia and science?
Avoid the considerable waste of money and time caused by the current scientific publishing
cartelmodelAccelerate the peer-review process, and make it more transparent, useful and meritocratic, and possibly also economically rewarding
Increase accessibility to scientific content to a wider public, ideally to all people worldwide, irrespective of economic conditions
Lessen the stifling and corrupting effect of the scientometrics currently in use, most notably the Impact Factor
Fight censorship in academia and science (an increasingly severe yet still largely overlooked problem)
Contribute to ensure immutability of the scientific record (to help preventing fraud, data loss, etc.)
Contribute to reward scientists for their discoveries and merit (here the Hive reward system comes in very handy)
Decentralise and democratise scientific funding
[I admit, this goal is very ambitious! Surely some will call me a dreamer, but I suspect I'm not the only one...]
— In addition to these positive impacts to science, I also expect this initiative to:
Increase awareness about blockchain technology and its huge benefits and potentials
Educate more people about the proper management of cryptographic keys, thus enabling them to more safely join Web3
Educate more people about the potential dangers of CBDCs
Increase awareness about Hive, a blockchain with huge utility and potential
Increase financial literacy among academics and people in general (this is normally a very beneficial "side effect" of crypto literacy)
— [for the sake of transparency] What do I stand to gain from all this?
In material terms, nothing, really. All rewards received from my posts will be kept 100% as HP [Hive Power], and will not be sold [this can be verified on-chain] — this HP will be used to upvote the best contents published in the context of Hive-Science, especially those from my students. Any additional HIVE sent to or somehow obtained by this Hive account will be powered up to HP. This means, I won't benefit economically from this initiative in any way.
My motivations evidently lie elsewhere. I wish I can cause some positive impact, both to science and to society as a whole. If we can achieve at least some of the goals presented above, even if only partially, I think it would be a great feat and I would already be pleased.
And this is really just an introduction. Future posts, coming in the next few weeks, will present further details about this initiative, including proposed mechanics and expected challenges.
If you like this initiative, please upvote and do help spreading the word about it! And make sure to stay tuned for more, coming soon! Also, if you feel like contributing, please share your ideas and [hopefully constructive] criticism. Your feedback is very much welcome!
Important note: Just like it is the case with any scientific publications, all statements and opinions, in any of my Hive posts (in this one, and also in any future ones), are entirely my own, and I do not officially represent any institution. This should be obvious, but better stress it anyway.