Engineering Ethics in Web3

• Token Engineering Commons (TEC) is a society engaged in research, education, and standard setting in addition to designing, building and maintaining technological solutions.
• Web3 enabled systems are deeply entangled with social and economic systems, and thus have the potential for a deep and long standing impact on social institutions
• “The ethical engineer is one who is competent, responsible, and respectful of Cicero’s Creed II. Cicero’s Creed, engineering’s oldest ethic, directed engineers to place the safety of the public above all else.”
• Key concepts form a common thread among the diverse group of Investors, Builders, and Early Adopters of web3 systems: privacy, transparency and agency.
• Adherents to the web3 value system adhere to regulations out of pragmatism rather than in deference to those regulatory authorities.
• Rather than looking at the engineering profession as a social institution empowered by sovereign nations to design, build and maintain technological infrastructure, we can instead let’s look at the engineering profession as a social institution empowered by the public  to safeguard their well-being in the face of technologies so broad and deep that they cannot hope to understand it all, and thus cannot make educated judgements regarding their own individual safety.
• People want to enjoy the benefits of new technology while the underlying complexity is abstracted away from them. This is only practical if their interests are safeguarded through social institutions like the token engineering commons (TEC).
• We must look beyond the boundaries of our technical fields to experts in the humanities and social sciences with a particular need for those studied in ethics, law and governance. TEC community will be open to all who wish to take up the burden of safeguarding the public, not because a regulatory authority demands it, but because it is a role in society necessitated by the existence of technology.