Literature

Serey: a Cambodian social media platform on the blockchain inspired by Friedrich Hayek

/ Chhay Lin Lim / Leave a comment

www.serey.io

Serey is a new Social Media platform that specifically targets the Cambodian market. The country that saw nearly a quarter of the population decimated during the civil war of the 60’s and 70’s, the Khmer rouge regime, and the subsequent famine, has gone through rapid economic developments in the past two decades due to its friendliness to free markets. Accompanying this development is the adoption of new information technologies. One such technology is social media, and blockchain.

These two technologies are now combined into a social media platform called Serey. It rewards content creators, such as writers, for their creativity. The platform now has 400-500 users who all contribute by writing content ranging from short fictional stories to history, philosophy, and technology. Users can post any content they want. There is no central authority that can censor the posts in any way. The system is based on a democratic voting system in which every user can vote on articles. Dependent on the votes, the content creators are rewarded with the platform’s native cryptocurrency called Serey coins (SRY).

What does Serey stand for? 

The name of the platform, Serey (សេរី in Khmer), is derived from the Khmer word seripheap (សេរីភាព) which stands for liberty or freedom. The platform is built on the philosophy of liberty and is inspired by Friedrich Hayek’s theory of dispersed knowledge. Realizing that every individual knows just a fraction of what is collectively known and that our collective knowledge is therefore decentralized, Serey is looking to encourage the sharing of the unique information that individuals possess through the Serey platform. It wants to create an open platform where everyone is free to enter, to exercise their creativity without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. The platform also encourages to engage in thoughtful, civilized discussions.

There was no such online platform in Cambodia yet. Cambodia, at this moment, also doesn’t have a culture of reading and writing. Serey is aiming to transform this so there is also an educational component to it.

We need to learn to dance with our feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?

The mission statement of Serey is as follows:

“Rewarding self-expression and creativity.”

Why is Serey run on a blockchain?

The Serey blockchain allows the storage of content – actually only the actual text of the article and no pictures or videos to keep block sizes minimal – in a distributed manner. Anything written on Serey is stored on a blockchain that is shared among many other servers, called witnesses, that run an exact copy of the blockchain. This makes all content tamper-proof and censorship nearly impossible. This is in line with Serey’s belief that everyone should have the right to free expression.

In addition, a blockchain serves the people’s right to keep the fruits of their labour. Serey cannot take away any of its users Serey coins. All earnings are rightfully theirs and they can spend it in any way they want.

What are the features of Serey?

Serey is principally a fork of Steemit – another social media platform on the blockchain – and therefore essentially makes use of the Graphene technology that also powers Steemit and Bitshares. However, whereas Steemit is trying to create a one-size-fit-all approach with their platform, Serey is entirely dedicated to the people of Cambodia. They believe that regional differences require different user interfaces and functionalities that match the people’s cultural makeup and level of sophistication with blockchain technology.

Compared to Steemit, Serey has a different layout, a market place section, a Khmer language option, an free advertisement section, and a simplified reward system.

The Serey Decentralized Exchange is currently under development and will offer an English and Khmer language option.

In addition, the Serey Decentralized Exchange is currently being built in cooperation with developers close to Steemit and Bitshares. It will be a full-fledged decentralized exchange that is accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world. Users will then be able to trade Serey coins (SRY) for 15-20 other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Bitshares etc.

Other features that Serey users can look forward to in the next six months are an online betting system, improvements of the market place section, an integrated chat feature similar to that of Messenger, and a mobile app.

If you are interested in Serey, please feel free to visit the website and to register for free. Most articles are written in Khmer, but English articles are welcome as well.

The Problem of Evil

/ Chhay Lin Lim / Leave a comment

This post by Writeforthemasses on the problem of evil is excellent.

It can be broken down logically, but it is better displayed with an example. The problem of evil can be seen represented in the 1947 poem “Who But the Lord?” by Langston Hughes.

I looked and I saw
That man they call the Law.
He was coming
Down the street at me!
I had visions in my head
Of being laid out cold and dead,
Or else murdered
By the third degree.

I said, O, Lord, if you can,

Save me from that man!

Don’t let him make a pulp out of me!

But the Lord he was not quick.
The Law raised up his stick
And beat the living hell
Out of me!

Now, I do not understand
Why God don’t protect a man
From police brutality.
Being poor and black,
I’ve no weapon to strike back
So who but the Lord
Can protect me?

We’ll see.

In that second stanza, the two lines “O, Lord, if you can, Save me from that man!” in poetry this is known as an apostrophe. That is a device when a character calls out to a being that is not there, such as a dead person. In this poem the character calls out to God, and God does not answer. The character calls out to God for the very reason that he needs to be protected from evil, but even then he is still beaten in the end.

While the focus of Hughes’ poem is more on racial injustice than religion, it illustrates the point well. One of the many variations of the problem goes as follows: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” This is often contributed to the philosopher Epicurus, summarized by the theologian Lactantius. However the actual authorship remains debated.

The point remains, if God is an omnipotent being, then how does evil exist without God himself being at least in some form evil? Philosophers and theologians have debated back and forth about this issue for centuries. The first argument being that of course evil is a subjective term, so something is not inherently evil in itself but only evil depending on who is viewing it. This is a largely amoral argument, and doesn’t sit well with many people. This sort of attitude leads to the justification of some evil acts on the basis that they cause good, another point used when discussing the problem of evil.

The second issue is that many people claim free will, or more simply any human action at all, creates this evil. This is a sort of pessimistic view, but still a valid one. It claims that as humans have the ability to choose their actions, the result of those actions create the very evil itself, not god. I always found this argument to be curious just based on the fact that it uses free will to justify both evil and God. The discussion of God and free will has had an odd history, and for many people the Doctrine of Predestination pops up in their heads, but nevertheless it is a valid argument. To me it seems in many ways the existence of free will negates the omnipotence of God, and therefore changes the entire essence of God for so many defending it.

Another point when discussing the problem of evil is that our definition of evil may not be the same definition used by God. It can follow that many goods follow up from evil, and therefore are justified in their existence. For instance, compassion towards a person in need is one good, or people coming together to form strong bonds after a tragedy. While this makes sense, it still doesn’t negate that God must be partially evil, or at least not powerful enough to prevent the force of evil in the first place.

The last issue that will be addressed here is one often used in dinner-table discussions of the problem of evil. That God allows evil to test his followers. This argument has been used in many of the worlds religions, and by many individuals to justify their own suffering. How many people will say to themselves “This evil is God testing me and in the end I will be rewarded” and what is the basis of it’s logic? This answer is sufficient for some people, and for others it is not. It is very easy to say the suffering one is currently feeling is only a superficial evil to eventually reach God’s greatest good.

The reason I appreciate Hughes’ poem quoted above is that it marks the era leading into the civil rights movement, it’s a statement saying “God won’t fix our problems, only we can.” And the very same is true today. There have been many people to respond to all sorts of statements, my goal was merely to summarize the issue and give some personal input on them. In the end the problem of evil really does come down to a stalemate, the problem can be debated all day, but only to reach a brick wall every time.

The problem of evil has been one of the most debated, as well as one of the most popularized, issues in philosophy. It concerns the existence vs. the nonexistence of god and the necessity of evil.

Source: The Problem of Evil

Withdrawing a Watermelon (Mark Twain)

/ Chhay Lin Lim / Leave a comment

“I remember, I remember it so well. I remember it as if it were yesterday, the first time I ever stole a watermelon. Yes, the first time. At least I think it was the first time, or along about there. It was, it must have been, about 1848, when I was 13 or 14 years old. I remember that watermelon well. I can almost taste it now.

“Yes, I stole it. Yet why use so harsh a word? It was the biggest of the load on a farmer’s wagon standing in the gutter in the old town of Hannibal, Missouri. While the farmer was busy with another – another – customer, I withdrew this melon. Yes, ‘I stole’ is too strong. I extracted it. I retired it from circulation. And I myself retired with it.

“The place to which the watermelon and I retired was a lumber yard. I knew a nice, quiet alley between the sweet-smelling planks and to that sequestered spot I carried the melon. Indulging a few moments’ contemplation of its freckled rind, I broke it open with a stone, a rock, a dornick, in boy’s language.

“It was green – impossibly, hopelessly green. I do not know why this circumstance should have affected me, but it did. It affected me deeply. It altered for me the moral values of the universe. It wrought in me a moral revolution. I began to reflect. Now, reflection is the beginning of reform. There can be no reform without reflection –

“I asked myself what course of conduct I should pursue. What would conscience dictate? What should a high-minded young man do after retiring a green watermelon? What would George Washington do? Now was the time for all the lessons inculcated at Sunday school to act.

“And they did act. The word that came to me was ‘restitution.’ Obviously, there lay the path of duty. I reasoned with myself. I labored. At last I was fully resolved. ‘I’ll do it,’ – said I. ‘I’ll take him back his old melon.’ Not many boys would have been heroic, would so clearly have seen the right and so sternly have resolved to do it. The moment I reached that resolution I felt a strange uplift. One always feels an uplift when he turns from wrong to righteousness. I arose, spiritually strengthened, renewed and refreshed, and in the strength of that refreshment carried back the watermelon – that is, I carried back what was left of it – and made him give me a ripe one.

“But I had a duty toward that farmer, as well as to myself. I was as severe on him as the circumstances deserved. I did not spare him. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself giving his – his customers green melons. And he was ashamed. He said he was. He said he felt as badly about it as I did. In this he was mistaken. He hadn’t eaten any of the melon. I told him that the one instance was bad enough, but asked him to consider what would become of him if this should become a habit with him. I pictured his future. And I saved him. He thanked me and promised to do better.