Much has been said about the democratization of technology and how the internet, mobile phones and social media can level the information age playing field.  But technology can be an equalizer on a more fundamental level — that of trust. Distributed consensus algorithms enable communities of people, strangers who are both unknown and untrusted, to securely collaborate with each other over the internet without the need for a trusted central server.  In the past few years more than a billion dollars have been invested in this type of technology.  But why? Why is distributed consensus important? The answer can be found by looking at the differences between a dictatorship and a democracy.