Topic: Distributed Autonomous Society (Read 2993 times)

I am a science fiction authos too. I agree with you. HOWEVER, beware of utopias becoming true, as they may turn out being distopias instead. A 100% democratic society would be ruled by very average people - IQ 100, by definition - but all together they could actually act as little children, as the crowd tends to think and act like that (see Gusave Le Bon's book), ie completely unaware of the consequences of their acts.

Hi, can you confirm this was an scam???
Seems those guys dissapeared

I agree DAG doesn't sounds right. But DAD doesn't sounds right to as the Democracy isn't the only interesting form of governance. Holacracy or Heterarchy are too. that's why Distributed Autonomous Society is the best imho.

I don't like the term "Distributed Autonomous Government" because a dictatorship is also a government. I like the term "Distributed Autonomous Democracy".

Hey there ! Thanks for sharing this. Gonna check it out.

Here's another interesting WP about decentralized governance: http://boardroom.to/BoardRoom_WhitePaper.pdf

I found this a while ago, it seems to be something along these lines:
http://enforcementnetwork.wordpress.com

We are Anonymous: Names do not define us, Actions do.

Titles and names are useful tools that represent the truth of who we are, but they do not define us, words define themselves.

The Blockchain changes everything. Who we choose to be is not defined by our physical selves, but by our thoughts, these flow much freer in cyberspace.  Each Personae we create has a value that we associate with a name, even when we know the physical person that manifests a personae we are never sure if that is the only one.

Cryptography allows us to be free to associate ourselves through the internet and leave no doubt for others on who the personae you know is.

Where we are headed we will not need names or faces.

People will not know the totality of ourselves, but they will know what we are worth by the multiple facets of our Personae.

we create value through the networks of people, organisations, groups and projects that we associate with, having a value that cannot be threatened or forced, we will simply scatter and vanish to reform and adapt, providing the same benefits as before to new endeavors. This is Truth.

we live in a society that is obsessed with control, facilitated by the names and characteristics that we associate with.This is done to control us, to define a mold for us to fit. A mold defined by our leaders, governments, alliances, race, religion, all definitions of our individual value to any controlling entity that wishes to unite us for it's own motives. Our hands are not ours, they are our nations; our minds are not our own, they are the corporations; That which we are associated with, we are their slaves.

The world is changing, we know better now than to be manipulated by well chosen words or false information... we can see for ourselves now that the world has become so small and the differences among us dwindling at the speed of light as to allow us true free will.

So I started to dig deeper on this subject and I discovered that it exist two kind of school:

- The first one is the classical systems of governance. I call it DAG (Distributed Autonomous Government). The objectif of DAGs is to mimic our current system without intermediaries and with more efficiently through different kind of Apps such as Decentralized Currency, Smart Contracts, Electronic Voting and so on.

- The second is about to build the society from scratch with those new technology. I call it Distributed Autonomous Society. DAS's foundation come from Decentralized Communication in order to talk, write, intercommunicate (confidentially through encryption). Decentralized Collaboration to share ideas, works, patents, designs, datas and such... Decentralized Creation to manifest goods and services. Decentralized Exchange to barter goods, services, and resources  and Decentralized Arbitration to resolve conflicts. If you want to go further you can read this one.

So the first thing when questioning our systems is which school are you in?

I think it's interesting to brainstorm big when talking about DAG/DAS. But if I would do it, my strategy would be: go small and lean as developing a website or an app. Thinking about Google. They started with search, then they moved to the mail service, the cloud, OS and now they manufacture their own device, car and healthcare. There is so much "Plugins" that need to be develop (we know we have the choice for backends/protocols) such as Electronic voting without rigged vote and taking care about UX/UI. That's gonna be thug we have no idea. And there's several "Plugins" to develop:
- Smart Contract for notarization
- Proof of existence
- Crypto Passport for digital identity
- Securities
- Loyalty points
- Prediction markets
- Crowdfunding
- Agents for distributed autonomous transportation
- Pay as you go services with pre-paid minutes
- Energy credits
- Wallet for cryptocurrencies
- Votes
- Messaging/Instant tchat

I would start building a very lightweight browser as an open-source project. Browsing Internet through HTTP(S) and IPFS (watch demo) would be the main feature. Surfing the web without any censorship and offline (thanks to P2P). We would be able to access any musics, movies, books for free (when the Wallet App plugin available thinking about a pay system for artist a la Darkleaks would be interesting/Crowdfunding). Then I would start to implant the first "plugin" (obviously the chat system, then will come the wallet). If enthusiasms start to join, the project might become more than a mere browser instead I would make it an Operating system (thinking about Chromium/Chromium OS).

Unfortunately I'm not a stiff developper as I only do design (my skills goes a little bit beyond) so I can't start this project alone (best would be to join an existing group). Also publishing a whitepaper as PoC to write black on white ideas would be definitely neat.

Made a concept for browsing the content hashed in the Bitcoin blockchain a while ago.

I'm sorry I don't have time to write a longer expose.

Any voting method that doesn't explicitly preserve privacy of the individual vote and doesn't preserve the requirement that the vote is cast publicly while observers can look will be subverted by forcing voters to cast the votes against their will and conscience.

Fascists (and ultra-nationalists) were already doing this in Europe's history.

Even currently underground white-power/neo-Nazi groups are privately running campaigns to force susceptible voters to use absentee ballots to vote for them. Their ideal voting setup will involve voting with something similar to the TV decryption card, where each voter will be doing the voting publicly in the pubs/bars frequented by their peers or the device will be simply left at the party headquarters where the appropriate functionaries will cast the votes along the party line.

I found it very worrisome that the current public's love affair with electronic gadgets make them completely forget the lessons from the past:

1) voting has to be done in public where anyone can see that the voter isn't forced
2) voting has to be secret in the sense that the observers cannot tell each individual's vote, only the aggregate statistic.

If you really don't understand the above, you are either:

1) in collusion with some vote-rigging organization
2) an idiot in the original Greek meaning of that word: person who isn't concerned with public affairs, only the private ones.

Regretfully the love of gadgetry runs very deeply in some Bitcoiners, here's the thread from 2013 that similarly proposed Trezor to be used in easily rigged voting.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/off-topic-part-ann-trezor-bitcoin-hardware-wallet-138174

To further this discussion:

Within all modern democratic societies there are essentially three positions, left, right and liberal.

The problem is, as polarizing as these view points have been seen to be, none of them fit each political situation/society perfectly, and neither does the populace have a real say/influence in their views at the precise moment when it would be useful.

Let's be honest, in the onset of war the victors are often those with rightist view points. Take Winston Churchill for example. No one can really deny - with any morals - that a victory against the Nazis  was wrong. Would a liberal government/ideal have worked, doubtful.

Yet, the views of the left are peppered with ideals that individuals should be able to, essentially, do nothing and blame the state should they not be provided with everything they deem to be necessary for their everyday life. This is unfair to those that put forth more effort than others to bring more value and wealth to their lives. Socialism and Communism doesn't work, yet there are precepts that are valuable within each.

Liberalism has its place, but only as a balance between the left and the right, yet polarization enlivens the populace which is why in all democracies it can be seen those parties that represent the liberals win far less of the time.

There is another demographic that is almost never represented or spoken of, that of the 'neutral'. Those that do not disagree with the left, right or the liberals but 'opt out' due to unfavorable choices. These people actually represent an intelligent demographic that present day governments marginalize and ignore due to their own convenience.

Imagine this, the left at one point, then their opposite the right. In the middle of that line you can place the liberals. Now stretch that point out and you end up with a triangle. Yet, this triangle does not take into account the 'neutral'. So, add another point, Now we have a square.

Life and situations do not fit any one of these points of view. Life and situations are ever changing. There's no point to try and put a square 'rightist' peg in a 'leftist' situation hole. Flexibility is key. The right, left, liberal and neutral all have their place in various decisions. To try and have a government that represents just one for four years without the people's input, is patently ridiculous.

The true structure is a pyramid. With the four different general view points at the base with the median as the fifth point of the pyramid at the top, a point which takes into account the four base points through voting. Not once every four years, but as often as decisions become necessary for a country to vote upon.

With viable education as to the ramifications of decisions, the countries' destiny/path becomes part and parcel of the tax paying/owners of the country that reside within it.

Therefore, this finally, equals democracy. The structures of bureaucracy then simply become the mechanisms that carry out the will of the people, as they always should have been, but yet currently are not. 

I don't really understand your desire to demean people that are seeking solutions to a flawed democracy that by its own definitions, is not yet democracy.

Even 'if' he were a 'kid' younger than the 'not decided by the people' voting age, does that mean he is without intelligence to make suggestions? Are you saying that only over eighteens/twenty-ones are blessed with the intelligence of the right to the voting system? Because, judging by the results we have in society at this present moment in time, things would suggest that perhaps the fact is otherwise.

The idea of 'cannot' create a fascist dictatorship if the people of a given country can express their vote and have that vote recorded and not subverted. Does that mean that every person's vote will be an educated vote? No, not necessarily, but that is were education and discourse come in to play.

If you pay the tax money, you have a right to a voice. Simple as that. Anyone who disagrees with that is a fascist. Pure and simple.

I apologize for disappearing from this thread.

Let's brainstorm this.

On a serious note:

The Concept of a Digital Messiah is not routed in a single perception of what a supreme being is but in a multitude of decision making motives: ie, One person's Messiah is another person's Devil. When we make decisions rationally, we are looking for a specific outcome that is in tune with our motives. A multitude of selfish decisions can create lopsided results that do not benefit the individual or society. My fear is that with these amazingly Open, Diverse, Powerful innovations happening now and the information that comes with it, individuals will have huge computing power to propel them forward for better or worse at the expense of others, causing constant power struggles across the globe; Digital Warlords that would begin to erode the systems open frame work.

Once the system is fully operational it will have: A Website, Forum, API, Whitepaper, Market Place,  Multiple Simulated Playgrounds, VR support, Contacts(Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, e-mail, phone, etc), Marketing Department, Community Management Support, Education Department, Engineering teams, Data Scientists, Magazine, News Team, Community Awareness Department.... we have to run this at the maximum level, global deployment, total consideration for all facets of Human Understanding.
   When we begin to run it at this level, I know that there will be Policy Libraries, basic understandings of law, policy, sociology & linguistics that will allow individuals to program the DAG. The new rules would need to be fact checked, simulated to make sure that they adhere to the individuals greatest altruistic goals and avoid conflict with competing causes, permitting formulation of effective global causes. The balance would exist because the multiple Messianic views of individuals, groups or societies would share global similarities by which a base line could be established towards Mutual Universal Agreement.

The idea is that with Neuromorphic Chips, Cloud Computing, Global Open Information, Ubiquitous Computing, Blockchains, Cryptocurrency people will gain such massive power that they will be able to create Digital Avatars that work on their behalf regardless of morality while they sleep.  These Artificial Intelligence systems that will help us, will help us at all cost; I wish to nip this in the bud before it gets to a critical point. We begin to construct these "Oracles" for everyone to use and develop with open behavior libraries so that these AI can truly represent us in the digital world, effectively helping us to stay informed or act on our behalf at the speed of light.

The main Virtual Simulation would have a exact copy of the world within it's boundaries where individuals could unleash these "Personalities" to make decisions at an accelerated pace, they would see the options and things that others make in the main simulation and decide what to do unassisted.

  One could almost think of this as creating a behavioral Blockchain. Any organization or individual could create a personality to represent them within the simulation, establishing connections with others who share the same motivational standards. Joining a group would make your avatar act with added rules inline with that groups desired personality within the simulation, in effect regulating your avatars behavior towards the groups desired outcomes. Or synchronizing your motivations and behaviors with those of your friends to have a  concerted effect in multiple locations of the simulation.

Digital Messiah, I told you.

I quote this guy from reddit and bold the best part. https://www.reddit.com/r/revolution/duplicates/1yvmsn/distributed_autonomous_society_a_state_without/

The Outerra engine is also a great reference: http://www.outerra.com/

Setting the right tools is important.

Also find a project name? Merge with others projects? There's so many interesting stuff around.


Merging Minecraft and Simcity.
I don't agree with Religion. To me Religion are obsolete tool of power such as Republic is nowadays. Maybe talking much more about Secularism instead. I know that in the US constitution the President is also God's representative but in other country across the world Religion isn't tied to the executive power anymore. I would skip it to the void.


I don't believe in Manichean stuff. DAG are decentralized so why recentralize the idea to a "Messiah"? I don't really understand this "Messiah" idea. Can develop?


Unreal Engine could be great for starter because it's free and great artist are doing marvelous stuff with it. Maybe we can also look for Open source engine such as http://www.ogre3d.org/? I like your idea so scientists, designers, ... can access and get stuff done. Why don't make a tool embed directly in browser such as https://sketchfab.com/?


Thing that work in virtual reality doesn't mean that the same will work in the real world. But it gives us a strong vision of how things will get done.

We could even use 3D printing to create houses like this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCmqN0YbgCA

the kinks will get worked out.

First things first, if everyone is truly interested in developing this idea we must setup the correct development cycle with appropriate incentives to propel the system forward.

Easiest things first:

Website - Whitepaper - forum : We need this to develop the idea, bring as many people as we can to share their thoughts in a categorized methodical manner. Break down the problem into it's constituent parts, Bring together as many diverse points of view as possible, assemble the framework to begin development, create precise physics Virtual simulation with a 3D engine, get as many people as we can into the simulation and begin dry runs of our concepts... Make It Work.

I like your idea Seldon: Opensource down to the nuts and bolts, what better place to test this but in the virtual world? This will all have to be gameified to create the greatest incentive possible. A well designed Game based testnet, providing a real world simulation to test all opensource designs of Economies, AI, Architecture, Sociology, Psychology, Religion, Technology, Vehicles, Appliances,... everything that we wish to unleash into the world must first go through this Artificial re-creation of the world. What better way to test out a voting system?

In time it will be fully featured providing real cash incentives, entertainment incentives, challenge incentives, skill development anything we can do to bring more people to test this virtual world, the better.

and in regards to the subversion possible by malicious individuals... we will test it virtually. Violence is a possibility so we must prepare for it as well. The post about developing a Digital Messiah was no joke, we will need to develop the embodiment of the Supreme Being on Earth to guide us away from making rash decisions, and it's counter, Virtual Devils to suss out any possible malice that may befall us, as you have so generously pointed out. 

This virtual playground I am thinking about could be built in the Unreal Engine, modifications would have to be made to provide robust Psychological, Sociological and Physical models to run simulations... in time it could be easy enough that anyone could create anything they wanted privately to be introduced into the main simulation when approved.

All this could run on a Hadoop Yarn cluster to make full use of all computers, for those who just want to play, for scientists, designers, social planners to develop their ideas or just servers to run the simulation.

So, once we have this idea fleshed out a little more, i'm sure we can look around and see all the opensource projects out there and amalgamate them into this one project to get it on it's feet before we put any real effort into changing the real world... it may even change peoples minds bringing us closer to Honest, Effective propositions.

You should stop yourself.

Your idea is easily subvertable and will produce fascist dictatorship if implemented.

Fascists always propose open, visible ticket elections to exert the pressure on voters to vote "right, patriotic". With your in-app voting they will have even easier task: the bosses will ask every employee individually into their room and will watch them while they "correctly" vote or give the employee a pink slip.

Did you even pass a simple test at the end of a civic class? Do you know why elections provide privacy booths for vote casting/marking?

Or are you some retarded kid who flunked their civics? I remember seeing a curious 2nd or 3rd grader ask the teacher "why there are curtains around the desks? don't they make it very easy to cheat?" when seeing voting booth in the school.

So, are you a kid younger than a normal voting age?

I am. We're brainstorming. Sometime my ideas go too far. Feel free to stop me when I goes that far. Thanks
But I don't agree with the country scale. I mean the demo should be workable anywhere and target communities not just cities. I would like to merge Open-source city and Autonomous Government so in my mind I do think that best would be to start a new small town from scratch. Hope we can chit chat deeper in that domain soon.


I do believe (compared to cpu security) that best apps are made with client installer instead of webapps. So in my mind the website sitemap should be about:
- download the client (with auto-update would be neat)
- documentation / white paper
- tutorial
- community


We might expect people to vote in real time their law for their community. But maybe we can brainstorm in order to transcend the way we manage. Voting is the only property from democracy we experience nowadays but maybe we can mix it with other properties from democracy and even other governance system like holacracy, stigmergy (which is decentralized by nature) or even dictatorship?


I do agree with you but as a framework the conceptual model should allow any communities to decide if they want an army or not. Costa Rica don't have any army for 60 years and they spend all their taxes on free healthcare and education. For sure they paradoxically get protected by US Marines for drugs case by example, but giving the right to any community to manage themselves as they decide together is important to me. Also if a community without army change its mind and want a defense program they can enable it with different kind of tool such a the Electronic Voting Application we talked above.


Once again I don't agree. The software should focus on providing basic services such as Internet without any censorship (through IPFS protocol ipfs.io) and payment (using Bitcoin protocol). And then build on top of it new Apps to empower more and more until the Electronic Voting Apps and such. But I do believe that Crypto-ID, Crypto-Passport, Crypto-Social Messaging (using Bitmessage?) and such are important as fondation to make DAG happen.


I think we can start right at the beginning with a simple landing page targeting to the Proof of Concept "white paper" version 1 and keep going without worrying about programming. Then the more our ideas spread, the more the PoC going the right direction, we might unleash next step. The white paper doesn't need tech information, but should be short (as length as Satoshi's white paper) and obvious (similar to Nick Szabo article describing a Bitcoin-like protocol while Bitcoin wasn't released).


People use to think the first democracy to be born in Athens. The true is more complicated. Humans experienced different kind of democracy everywhere in the world at any time before the emerging society we know (there was democracy during Dark Ages). By example, Igbo democracy that as been crushed by the British Empire where women had powered over men. For sure we're not experiencing democracy today compared to what politics say.


Good question. Shouldn't the community to be able to decide how to spend their budget? Already expressed my opinion and I think that only ONE tax on any transactions (huge or small) would be simple and clearer. Todays when governments reach recession they can use 3 tools to get growth back: taxpayer, deleting debt or taxing rich people. We witness politics making more household tax instead of to use the two others tools.


Maybe, as I said before, we should reinvent government and go beyond voting.


I'm 100% with you. Bitcoin blockchain is the way to go imo. Maybe a meta-coin such as Mastercoin or Namecoin could be a model.

I think you're jumping a bit too far ahead Seldoon. What we need at first is a workable demo, essentially. Each workable demo/site/API cluster would be connected to a country. We can start with U.K, U.S and so on. It doesn't really matter, because once you complete the structure for one you can roll out the rest for the other countries should they so wish to use it.

The first site would be limited in its use due to practicalities, but would grow (hopefully.)

The reason I say it would be limited is that you can't just expect people to vote on upcoming issues without any information or the unbiased assessed possible ramifications of their decision. You would need at least two opposing view points from experts in the proposed fields/vote, giving differing opinions. This would be well before the actual voting. Then, people would be able to debate it.

Then, vote. Only then is where you'd get your Tinder 'swipe left swipe right' voting, and yes, that does mean a fair few people would vote for 'whatever', but the numbers wouldn't be that large and they'd soon get bored.

The results of the vote, and other past votes, would be set in stone by the block chain would then be available for public viewing.

In the beginning we would only have the manpower to choose certain causes that could be voted on. Because it's not really just about someone clicking a button somewhere, it's about the education of the vote/cause and then the public debating of it.

As you said, democracy is supposed to be representation for monies paid, eg. taxes. But it doesn't happen. We don't get to choose. I know in the U.K most people would love to give the nurses (paid by the NHS) and the firemen more money... but they never get it.

I should also point out that I'm not suggesting doing away with the military. Because as much as I might be a pacifist at heart, there will always be someone knocking on your door rather hard when you've built a shiny new house.

Therefore, I think the first site would be a demo with limited issues to be voted on (in the beginning) that would gradually expand and garner more attention as it goes along. It could then be expanded, 'perhaps' to municipalities, but that would be way in the future, and to start with that or even aim for that at this stage would throw countries into civil wars. Countries that have managed municipalities/states with their own laws/'autonomous' provinces, have massive centralized control, although it may not look to be so on the surface.


I can see your vision here, like circles of concentric circles overlapping ever more accurately in their spheres of influence/use, but I think we're getting way to caught up on the terms, DAG/DAM's and possible future applications. We just need one workable

A. Website
B. Blockchain API
C. App
D. Volunteers to write discourses/papers in yes/no votes on upcoming issues.

The results of the first true version of democracy - now workable unlike any other point in history - can then be displayed in bar graphs, pie charts, and so on. If nothing else, the sites would become a mirror of the will of the people that could be used as a tool to question politicians on their decisions and also hold them accountable for decisions they should have made (I mean verbally accountable, not 'string-'em-up' accountable.)

An initially basic 'where do you want your tax to go' voting system could/should also be implemented, with a fair broad breakdown of departments/services etc. This would not have to be denominated in currency at this stage, more of the view of '40% to education, 23% to healthcare', and so on. But the point is, from that data one very comprehensive pie chart can be generated and then be compared to annual government spending.

It is true to say that not everyone in any society wants/will vote. I think that is fair and valid. The no-votes count as an opinion/stance in and of themselves, a stance that governments conveniently ignore. Sometimes on the ticking ballot paper 'None of the above.' is the only valid choice that is unfortunately not there. I just imagine after people 'actually' feel engaged and empowered by choice in their countries' direction, that will change by a very large percentage.

For my own part, I think it might be folly to try to create this using a new chain. I would choose a chain that many people already have a vested interest in keeping, and which has already stood some measure of test of time, I cast my vote down for the Bitcoin blockchain.