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Vitalik: Ethereum Foundation Pursues "Wu Wei Governance," But It's Definitely Not About Doing Nothing
BlockBeats News, February 19th, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik, during a text-based AMA held on the Tako platform, responded to the question "Why did you decide to take over the reins of the ETH Foundation again?" by saying:
I feel that the blockchain community, and the world as a whole, is in a rather perilous state right now. There are many things happening that lack long-term value, or even worse, are malicious, and the people behind them are under attack.
However, we cannot just oppose these things; our goal should be to give investors a good choice and demonstrate that a stable, brighter future is possible.
Here I am referring both to within the blockchain community (if a meme coin that drops 97% in a day is not our future, then what is?) and to a macro-social aspect: many people now think that a democratic approach is impossible and that things can only be accomplished by powerful leaders. But at Devcon, a political scientist told me that he greatly respects Ethereum for being a truly open and decentralized ecosystem, and that our success at our current scale gives him hope. So if we can succeed in this way, the positive impact on the world could be significant and provide many people with examples they can emulate.
However, "decentralization" does not mean "doing nothing." The Ethereum Foundation's "philosophy of subtraction" does not mean "reduce the foundation to 0," but rather a way to maintain ecosystem balance. If there is an imbalance in an ecosystem (for example, if a part of the ecosystem is overly centralized), we can help address it. After solving that issue, the foundation can withdraw from that area. If a new imbalance arises elsewhere, we move resources there.
In Chinese culture, our approach may be most similar to the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching, but walking this path requires intelligence and the foundation's ability to enhance certain aspects, not just a matter of "doing nothing and succeeding." So, in the short term, we need to focus on key tasks.
