Topic: Consensus Decision Making is what bitcoin needed - page 2. (Read 1758 times)

Blockchain can help us to get some technical facility but ultimately it is the human that is making decision. You can prohibit any change in protocol, but then you lose the ability to adopt to any unknown future change

I have pointed out this 2 years ago that there is no clear decision making mechanism in the bitcoin community, especially the core devs. But unfortunately at that time I did not noticed and researched consensus decision making model, now it is time to pay more attention to this decision-making model


An example for the importance of consensus building:

The 2013 fork is reversed by an urgent decision among core devs, but obviously it does not satisfy everyone, especially Gavin. Since that decision was not well reached through a consensus model, Gavin felt that he is left over and dis-empowered by the other core devs. This in turn leads to his radical action of joining XT branch and cause turbulence in the whole community 2 years later

No it won't. You seem to forget that there is a built in economic incentive to prevent that.

Because bitcoin is something totally new, so we could not use any traditional method like war and vote to resolve the conflict of interest, it just does not suit, a fork will just cause mutually assured destruction, and most importantly it broke the promise of limited supply of bitcoin. For money, when trust is gone, the value is gone

In fact, if you look at those people that uses consensus decision-making model, they are very close to the group of people that bitcoin users are: anarchists, independent, vountarily

From the main article:
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Who uses consensus?

Consensus is not a new idea. Variations of consensus have been tested and proven around the world and through time.

On the American continent non-hierarchical societies have existed for hundreds of years. Before 1600, five nations - the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca - formed the Haudenosaunee Confederation, which works on a consensual basis and is still in existence today.

There are also many examples of successful and stable utopian communes using consensus decision making such as the Christian Herrnhuter settlement 1741-1760 and the production commune Boimondeau in France 1941-1972.

Christiania, an autonomous district in the city of Copenhagen has been self-governed by its inhabitants since 1971.

Within the co-operative movement many housing co-ops and social enterprises use consensus successfully: prominent examples include Green City, a wholefood wholesaler based in Scotland; and Radical Routes, a network of housing co-ops and workers’ co-ops in the UK.

The business meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) use consensus to integrate the insights of each individual, arriving at the best possible approximation of the Truth.

Political and social activists such as many anarchists and others working for peace, the environment and social justice commonly regard consensus to be essential to their work. They believe that the methods for achieving change need to match their goals and visions of a free, nonviolent, egalitarian society. In protests around the world many mass actions and protest camps involving several thousand people have been organised and carried out using consensus, including the 1999 ‘Battle of Seattle’ World Trade Organisation protest, the 2005 G8 summit protests in Scotland and the Camps for Climate Action in the UK, Germany, Australia, Netherlands and other countries.

I wonder if there is a way to use block chain technology to arrive at consensus for questions such as, "what is the best solution to the block size issue?" and implement that best solution? Surely there must be a way to utilize this shiny new technology which is essentially just a decentralized way to arrive at consensus, to arrive at consensus on something as important as this block size issue is….

The thing is, bitcoin definitely something different with all of what we have seen in the past. A consensus with a small group of people can indeed work fairly well with all the points you mentioned above but how to reach a consensus with a very very large group of people with diametrical point of views? The answer is, it is most likely impossible. This leads us to an impasse where no decisions can be made while the market and all the businesses can't afford to wait forever. I think that XT if forcing that consensus to actually be made at some point.

Also from wiki

As a decision-making process, consensus decision-making aims to be:

Agreement Seeking: A consensus decision making process attempts to generate as much agreement as possible

Collaborative: Participants contribute to a shared proposal and shape it into a decision that meets the concerns of all group members as much as possible

Cooperative: Participants in an effective consensus process should strive to reach the best possible decision for the group and all of its members, rather than competing for personal preferences

Egalitarian: All members of a consensus decision-making body should be afforded, as much as possible, equal input into the process. All members have the opportunity to present, and amend proposals

Inclusive: As many stakeholders as possible should be involved in the consensus decision-making process

Participatory: The consensus process should actively solicit the input and participation of all decision-makers

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You can clearly see that XT move violated some of the rules in this practice, thus leading to competitive, rather than cooperative atmosphere

Just had some good reading at

http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus

"Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a group using consensus is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports, or at least can live with.

This ensures that all opinions, ideas and concerns are taken into account. Through listening closely to each other, the group aims to come up with proposals that work for everyone. Consensus is neither compromise nor unanimity - it aims to go further by weaving together everyone's best ideas and key concerns - a process that often results in surprising and creative solutions, inspiring both the individual and the group as whole.

Consensus can work in all types of settings - small groups, local communities, businesses, even whole nations and territories. The exact process may differ depending on the size of the group and other factors, but the basic principles are the same. "