Overview
From Abstract:
In a world that has succeeded in the globalization of financial assets while keeping political rights enclosed to territories, we need to build new models of democratic governance that enable humanity to collaborate and address pressing global issues. Democracy Earth Foundation is building free, open source software for incorruptible blockchain-based decision-making (voting) within institutions of all sizes, from the most local involving two people to the most global involving all of us. Uneven distribution of opportunity around the globe due to the perpetual confrontation between national governments has led to accelerated climate change, rising inequality, terrorism and forced migrations. Democracy Earth Foundation considers that the technology stack that includes Bitcoin as programmable money without Central Banks, and Ethereum enabling smart contracts without the need of Judiciary Courts, requires a new layer that signals incorruptible votes beyond the territorial boundaries of Nation-States. This transnational network will act in accordance with the personal sovereignty of its members and protect their human rights with encryption. In our Initial Rights Offering we offer a token called vote that will grant participation rights to every human with decision-making as its main function. Our proposal introduces cryptographically induced equality: as long as any person is able to validate his or her self-sovereign identity, they will receive a corresponding share of votes that is equal to the share of every active participant in the network. We define a Proof of Identity process that avoids central authority by introducing the concept of attention mining which incentivizes participants to strengthen the trust of votes by performing simple tests aimed at detecting replicants. Finally votes get dripped to valid participants under a Universal Basic Income mechanism with a goal of finding a proper equilibrium in the historical tension between money and politics. We seek nothing less than true democratic governance for the Internet age, one of the foundational building blocks of an achievable global peace and prosperity arising from an arc of technological innovations that will change what it means to be human on Earth.
Reading
Seed Questions
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Is the paper’s claim that the blockchain structure is so robustly incorruptible valid? Is it incorruptible by principle or is it incorruptible because a number of different security processes have been rolled into the architectural framing?
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The authors make the following claim : “Any kind of system that requires trust from participants ultimately runs the risk of having its whole structure collapsing if any authority is fraudulent” (p.7, paragraph 2). Isn’t trust built into any social system? Does this say something profound about our socioeconomic structures?
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How does mining serve governance in a strategic way? What are the dynamics of its value?
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Does paper’s reliance on technology for democracy (using smartphone apps for voting, etc.) leave certain participants or demographics open to various forms of coercion and disentitlement?
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What is the longevity of the use of certain technological methods (ex: video as a verification process) In the long term, won’t this also be “beatable” by AI systems?
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Is the analysis too optimistic and idealistic? Is this truly a realistic system?
Context and Backstory
Supplementary Material
Andrew Yang for 2020?