Topic: Consensus-based society with provable trust-free voting - page 2. (Read 11187 times)

it's funny how statists say that they want to replace the state but end up proposing... a state. it's like tribalism is baked in their brains and they can only offer solutions that make use of organized violence.

/sigh... No, my friend. You have no anchor. That's the problem.

+1000
I'm sticking to that time track as much as I can, throwing anchors around left and right

...and with that, reality is left behind. Tell you what, why don't you shift to the time track in which I agree completely with you? That way, we're both happy.

I forgot to mention that topics to vote on in the consensus-based system are submitted by individual peers and are assessed and approved for voting by the rest of the peer-to-peer network. So their is no central body who would decide what people are going to vote on or which topics are welcome and which would be suppressed.

It doesn't mean that people would have to vote blindly, they can discuss the matter with themselves or listen to experts in their society before making their choice. And even if achieved consensus doesn't seem to satisfy what people have originally thought it would do there is no limitation that would prevent some peer to raise this question again and see if the previous decision can be overturned. There is no 4 years period of taboo on voting in this system. If something doesn't work change it.

Also remember as I've explained in my other thread, all versions of reality already exist, even those where quotes that you provided are true. It's all about sticking to a time track that you prefer, but you need to be representative of that vibration or you won't be able to perceive it.

"...envy is the root, the seed that gives life to the tyranny of the majority. Democracy satisfies this covetous nature while sanitizing the evil – creating a false legitimacy to the end result of envy, that being theft and destruction." - "Bionic Mosquito"

"A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’" - Robert A. Heinlein

And a personal favorite, H.L. Mencken:
“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
― H.L. Mencken, Gist of Mencken

Every person will always vote themselves a bailout. All it takes is a convincing speaker, and for someone to put it to a vote. Then greed and envy take over, and by virtue of Democracy, each person's hands are clean when the army enters and slaughters the other territory.

I like your knowledge of history and popular quotes, but you keep making assumptions about intentions of people around you and their level of morality and ethical behavior. As we've agreed this is generally unknown and there is no point arguing about it.
If you find yourself in a street gang or on a remote island populated with cannibals that quote might be applicable.

Instead of making assumptions about people the provable voting system will allow you to know with a good level of certainty of their understanding of ethical behavior. And as I mentioned before having more information is better than having less. You might even pretend for awhile that you agree with them while finding your way closer to the border and once you get close you make a run from that nightmare.

But why think so bad about people? Would you think a population of a large country would directly vote to initiate a war against another country while not being under direct attack? I doubt it.

Also as I edited one of my posts above, it boils down to what is more profitable. Think of it as what would you like to outsource to free market compared to what you would like to keep in-house. Would you outsource defense or judgment about ethical behavior to a random company on the market and pay for it or would it be cheaper for people to consolidate resources and do it by their means in-house?
Initial clustering of people by their understanding of ethical behavior would produce more peaceful society that clustering people by their motivation for profit which is what your model of free market would imply (as I understand it).

Also things like states and democracies exist not because some crazy people invented them, but because that's how things work. That's how stars form as well, matter in a dust clouds start to coalesce and form clusters of gravity which accumulate more and more mass until pressure and temperature becomes high enough so that thermonuclear reaction becomes self-sufficient. You might not like it but power on free market tends to consolidate and form self-sufficient clusters the same way. It's simple physics.

So instead of arguing with gravity how about we improve technologies so that those clusters of power which would form anyway won't get easily corrupted to grow out of proportion and turn into a tyrannical black holes? See where I'm going?

"Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?" - Mather Byles

You might call it that if you wish, but it would be a different kind of state
You see, you keep calling things names, while I explain how things work.

In any case, with this system you will have "rules but no rulers". Sounds familiar?

Regional monopoly? Guided by democracy? Held together by threat of conquest?

Yeah, that's a State. Sorry.

The important property of a consensus group is that by crossing a threshold of a certain size it becomes capable of defending the land it occupies. This gives rise to the land ownership without the state.

So by leaving a certain consensus group you would loose or significantly weaken your ability to defend the land you think is yours. That consideration along with other benefits that consensus group might provide would create a necessary degree of stickiness, so that it doesn't fall apart too early.

You can also use the information derived from provable voting procedures to gauge the level of acceptable behavior of society you find yourself in (regardless of whether it's forced or not) and to make a determination for yourself whether it is representative of your values and you would like to continue to support the group or it's something that you don't prefer and you'd better leave the group and not contribute to its cause.

It's also possible to imagine a loosely tied consensus groups in which individuals proceed fairly independently on a regular basis but are capable of forming a larger group very quickly to consolidate enough power to deflect any outside attacks or make an important decision about environmental issues which would affect anyone anyway. Whether achieved consensus is going to be forced, ignored or taken into consideration by anyone individually would solely depend on the people of that society.

EDIT: Regarding questions about being profit-driven and how it works with consensus-based groups, my vision would be that individuals within or outside of the consensus groups might very well be profit-driven. However consensus would determine what would mean to be "ethical" while still remaining profit-driven.
Whether "ethical" behavior needs to be enforced and how would be for consensus group to decide.

So instead of looking for protection on the free market and paying private defense company which might be quite expensive actually, one can seek like-minded people and stick around them so that together they will be able to defense themselves by their own means when the need arises. And that behavior is very well in line with being profit-driven as it might be cheaper that way than outsourcing everything to free market and pay for it.

As I said at the beginning, if joining is voluntary, and voters explicitly agree to go along with the decision of the majority, then I have, and can have, no problem with it.

But I feel that it's rather pointless to have a majority rule system that can splinter after the vote. You may as well just let each decide for themselves.

The technology itself cannot be responsible for people's future decisions to force it upon someone.
Who knows maybe one day we will be forced to use Bitcoin.

This thread was more about the technology rather that the model of society based on it.
I decided to include a reference model of society to just provide some examples of how technology could be applied. In this reference model people who voluntarily join the consensus group would be either forced to comply with the consensus or forced out. I think it's fair, but I can't possibly account for all variations of how said technology can be used. I've already proposed it for adoption in Bitcoin Foundation thread and Gavin said that it was a great idea. However he said that they would have to think more about voting and would probably use something simpler in the beginning.

While discussing certain examples above I expected more arguments than contradictions from you guys (if you go up through the page you will know what I mean) but nonetheless I enjoyed every bit of this conversation. Here is the gift for you two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkzjBfTDH20

Yes, if that's the case, that would be fine.

Of course, a futarchy would be even better.  People can pony up money on their polls.  That usually makes them more accurate and cautious about not saying idiotic shit.

So, what you propose is a provable opinion poll? A way to gather information?

I guess that's fine. Democracy with no teeth can't bite you in the ass.

Ha.  Of course it is about that.  Why, then, are we non-voters forced to obey the orders that the voters (allegedly) gave everyone?  You think I can just stop paying the tax used to murder human beings abroad, and not be put in a cage?  How is that not force against me?

I think I understand now what we actually disagree upon - it's what people are going to do in any particular system or structure. That solely depends on the people and is generally unknown, so there is not much to gain to continue to discuss what our imaginary people are going to do.

if we introduce any kind of system to a group of rogues it will probably fall apart no matter how good it sounds in theory. At the same time any system would tend to work, even centrally managed one, when introduced and operated by people who value life and prefer to co-exist peacefully.

So think of the provable-voting system in question as a way to raise awareness of what other people think is acceptable behavior or what other people think they prefer to see manifest in their society.
It's not about forcing anyone to obey anything, it's about collecting provable information that might help in resolving certain situations in a better way than without this information.

More information is always better than less information, wouldn't you agree?
Here is a few examples of how this system could be used to benefit even those who tend to live and work alone.

1) With distributed peer-to-peer network it would be easier to communicate information about any incoming attack from violent groups approaching from other locations and quickly achieve consensus on how to coordinate actions to defend themselves. Without provable way to do it the centralized communication system might be covertly hijacked by attackers before engaging in the attack. After the attack is successfully diverted, community might proceed as they did before following whatever model of free-market they prefer.

2) If a large factory started to pollute the river nearby the community, then the provable-voting system can be used to collect provable information about how many people disagree with the situation. That might serve as a valuable asset when arguing with the factory about resolving this conflict, either personally or via arbitration company from free-market. There is no point for us to argue and determine how exactly the conflict would be resolved, but with more information about the situation I believe it will be easier not harder to resolve it in a peaceful way. After the conflict is resolved, community might proceed as they did before. Even if you live and work alone resolving the conflict about polluting the river you drink from would benefit you regardless of whether you want to work with other people in the community or not.

3) The same applies to building bridges or schools. Information collected through provable voting might become a valuable asset to the road construction companies operating on the free market to determine the demand for bridges in the area. It also might serve as a feedback system after the bridge was constructed to determine whether the road company did a good job or not.

So thank you guys for engaging in this valuable conversation (it was valuable for me). Without it I wouldn't be able to highlight and explain the properties of the system I'm proposing.

I'm leaning that way myself. I'll give him one more chance.

Myrkul, the guy refuses to read the information provided to him.  It's clear he doesn't want to have a conversation about the subject (except perhaps if the conversation makes him feel good by confirming what he already believes).

My humble opinion: Don't bother.

If a group voluntarily decides to make it's decisions based on the popularity fallacy, yes, I can't stop them. Unless, of course, that decision is to use force to appropriate others' resources. Tell me, what's to stop the group from splintering, after the vote, with each group going their own way? And if nothing, how is that different from each person going their own way in the first place?

No, the model of a free market I am defending includes protection against criminal gangs, which you would know, if you had bothered to read the goddam article. Small agrarian societies are vulnerable to attack and takeover by criminal gangs. Which is what humanity was when the State got it's start.

I say again, adding computers to a fallacy only makes things go to hell faster. We programmers have a saying: GIGO - Garbage in, garbage out.

Ever hear of entrepreneurship? Going into business for yourself? And how, exactly, is a company going to "slowly turn into a state?"

Your logical fallacy is...

It has empowered me to answer your question in a meaningful way. However, Why should I repeat information that is there for you to read already? Would you like me to copy/paste to save you the trouble of clicking a link?

Dafuq are you talking about? If by the "doom scenario" you mean the fact that companies know that building extra bridges would drive them out of business, the answer is for them to not build the extra bridges. The companies that get the land that is most profitable (narrowest span of river to cross) build the bridges first, and only if there is sufficient demand do more bridges get built.

As for "centrally-managed pyramid-structured profit-driven corporations," what makes you think that all businesses in a free market would be structured in such a way? Corporations, after all, are a creation of the state.

You mean it will allow those with higher morals to be shouted down by the majority.

Right, because rejecting state violence inevitably leads to state violence, while accepting "might-makes-right" leads to peace and freedom from oppression.

You're starting to sound like Dank, my friend. Self-interest is what keeps you alive. Not all profit is monetary.

Again, would you like me to copy and paste so that you don't have to click the link? I'd just be repeating the information found in that article.