Fluid Decentralization: Randomness and a Lack of Manipulation

We are trying to create a system (society) that doesn’t require a centralised authority to administer validity and justice.

A society without central authority is essentially egalitarian -- each person has the freedom to do what they wish provided they comply with the transparent rules. Of course, they should also have some say in these rules and so far our best solution to that is some form of democracy.

The major problem is existing hierarchies, which is what forms with centralised power have a habit of perpetuating through any new more egalitarian system.

Those that already wield power - monetarily or entrusted - end up transferring that power to the new system either by wielding their wealth or being selected as the trusted overseers of the new system.

My solution to this is: direct democracy + entrusting others anonymously + easy devolution + randomness.

Problem with current DLT (Decentralised Ledger Technology)

If incentivisation does anything, it teaches children to play the game.

My 3 and a half-year-old son likes playing a game on his tablet which I assume is to teach him how to care about others by giving them bandages and medicines.

But he keeps looking in the top left corner to see if his actions had increased his score. Often this is the only way to figure out if he is doing the right thing. He is just doing what would keep the game happy. I doubt he's learning how to care for sick animals.

That’s what incentivisation does to a toddler. To adults it can make them do the opposite of what is intended. We know when we are being controlled… sometimes.

Incentives, nudging and advertising are forms of control from a centralised power be that an algorithm or a dictator.

Adults need freedom from manipulation then our intrinsic decency can shine through. We also need to feel part of the system/society and empowered to enact change from choices.

As I write this he asked for a snack bar ( already had too many today) so I limited his options to an apple or pear (no snack bar). He loves both. His response was to repeat the words "snack bar" over and over and over.

Is that a Sybil attack? I caved. He got a snack bar and an apple.

Then you have our cats, the more you lure, call, herd them the more they go away. If you close the door and wait they'll be there ready to come in without a fuss.

Liquid Democracy + Entrusting Others Anonymously

The key is a liquid democracy that proxies votes to a committee for a period of time. The committee members know they are on the committee but don't know how many votes they wield and this can constantly change.

The committee's job will be to create proposals (an executive). Those non-proxied votes can still be wielded to vote on proposals and voters can constantly move their votes from the committee member to others not on the committee or vote themselves.

The vote allocation is completely fluid.

The committee members know they have been entrusted with some power but never know how many votes they wield on any proposal, nor does anyone who may wish to buy their votes.

So underneath the entrusted - trust encourages trustworthiness - there is a secret liquidity of votes. To pass a proposal the majority of committee members and votes would be required. This ensures no populous idiocy and no committee selfishness.

This is a real-time devolution of power.

One vote per person rather than one vote per dollar does lead us to the identity problem. There are currently very inventive solutions to this from Kleros, Idena and others including myself. No solution will be perfect.

An algorithm that highlighted massive changes in vote proxies could highlight fake account creation.

Randomness

50% of the committee is selected at random from those proxies without enough votes to win selection. This ensures that even if the most hubristic or popular, colluded, or were bought, they would not control everything.

The randomness is to confuse collusion and ensure new voices.

There’s a history to this as the executive in Greek Democracy was a random selection of citizens.

The best thing about randomness is it creates a chaotic element which is very hard to organise the control of, and it is one of the fundamental elements of evolution in nature. It is from this that new things arrive.

Easy Devolution

Devolution is one of the key elements in any decentralised system of governance or validation.

If the system isn’t working for you or you notice collusion you must be able to move your votes (both trust and monetary) to a new system.

The major issue here is what many call stickiness. We have a habit of staying with what we know even if it no-longer performs the functions we joined it for.

We haven’t closed our Facebook accounts because we still have some friends there, or we stick with the same bank/insurer/telco because we know them and haven’t got around to changing.

There is risk in changing, will the new system work? This is loss aversion, laziness and a lack of a solid safety net. One of the many reasons a Universal Income is required for true decentralisation.

The best way to enable easy devolution is to have a strong safety net and a pluralistic system whereby each person already uses many different systems to do very similar things and those systems have the ability to, or already offer all services but with different structures.

Like using many different currencies and exchanges on a daily basis. Ease of entry and exit its also necessary. Owning and storing your own data is highly desirable, which means there must be a simple and reliable way to store it and connect it.

Modern phones aren’t very good at this that’s is why we use centralised clouds. Unfortunately, we also have a habit of losing stuff, private keys, passwords, wallets, computers etc.

So there will need to be many easy-to-use, decentralised, secure, private, but protocol neutral repositories for our information. The decentralization is solved with the ideas above. The internet uses a universal protocol. Secure and private will always be ongoing issues.

Could this System be Used for Transaction Validation?

A combination of elected and random nodes would be Sybil-proof.

Most importantly we dilute the finance issue, where everything becomes a matter of quantifiable trade.

We are more than that!