[MG] Democratizing Blockchain Governance in Versioning

[Edward Pastore]

There is an antidemocratic governance problem in cryptocurrencies as they exist now. When a new iteration of a cryptocurrency’s software is introduced, it becomes established when the majority of nodes switch to that new iteration. This node-based governance method biases the system toward monied influence because individuals and organizations with more financial capital can support a greater number of nodes, a problem that is compounded by increasing centralization of mining due to the advent of massive ASIC data centers.

Put simply, the problem is that the “voting” rule for version-adoption is one vote per computer rather than one vote per individual. There is a need for a cryptocurrency governance system in which software evolves according to democratic will, i.e., the preferences of the majority or consensus of individual users.

I suspect that part of the solution is to build a mechanism for both decision-making and version-control that is programmed right into the blockchain’s code. Ideally this mechanism would be built so deeply into the code that it cannot be refused by nodes. But this is just my guess, and I can’t figure out how it would take shape while maintaining the decentralized and secure nature of crypto. I am hoping that this group might be able to hash out a better solution.

Ideas?


P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this, a friend sent me an article which details this exact problem:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/ <https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/>

P.P.S. Sorry I haven’t been around much; but I am still caught up in my personal projects. Though I am increasingly convinced that cryptocurrency is the most promising avenue to democratizing governance. It just would help to figure out the above. :)

[Steve Coffman]

"Kogan had created the most anodyne of tools for electoral manipulation: an app based on personality quizzes. Users signed up and answered a series of questions. Then the app would take those answers, mush them together with that person’s Facebook likes and declared interests, and spit out a profile that was supposed to know the test-taker better than he knew himself."

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-cambridge-analytica-response/

[Scott Raney]

Post by Steve Coffman
"Kogan had created the most anodyne of tools for electoral manipulation: an
app based on personality quizzes. Users signed up and answered a series of
questions. Then the app would take those answers, mush them together with
that person’s Facebook likes and declared interests, and spit out a profile
that was supposed to know the test-taker better than he knew himself."

Brilliant! These are the kinds of marketing opportunities you just
can't buy. Unfortunately I'm not ready to take advantage of this one
because proxyfor.me is sleeping while I perform surgery on it...

The two big wins are:
1) It reinforces the belief in The People that you actually *can*
predict someone's preferences and behavior using data you collect
about them.

2) It clearly demonstrates why shared logins with social media
services are a really bad idea. In the case (though the article isn't
nearly as clear about this as it should have been) what the data
provided was a way to identify likely Trump voters so that the Trump
campaign could manipulate them into acting as "recruitment bots"
(using them to spread information (and in many cases disinformation)
about both of the presidential candidates).

I'll have to add this example to the documentation to help people
really understand why they'll want to use different names for the
proxyfor.me account any other service they use. It's going to be
pretty embarrassing for those who will come to be known as "Chumps for
Trump", especially when that looming shitstorm that will bring him
down hits...
Regards,
Scott

Post by Steve Coffman
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-cambridge-analytica-response/

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[Steve Coffman]

Post by Scott Raney
Brilliant! These are the kinds of marketing opportunities you just
can't buy. Unfortunately I'm not ready to take advantage of this one
because proxyfor.me is sleeping while I perform surgery on it...
1) It reinforces the belief in The People that you actually *can*
predict someone's preferences and behavior using data you collect
about them.

As I see it, following Cambridge Analytica's breach of the public trust, people are going to be even more reluctant to hand over their *personality* data to any online database. In another thread you mentioned how little you’re willing to trust anyone with your credit card data; how is this different from giving out your personality data? You can always change your credit card numbers...but once your personality data has been compromised, there’s no taking that back. It seems to me your entire design relies heavily on a level of public *trust* that just doesn’t exist, and likely won’t for some time to come.

[Flash Cards]

As I see it, following Cambridge Analytica's breach of the public trust, people are going to be even more reluctant to hand over their *personality* data to any online database. In another thread you mentioned how little you’re willing to trust anyone with your credit card data; how is this different from giving out your personality data?

This is quite ironic, isn't it?

[Scott Raney]

Post by Steve Coffman
As I see it, following Cambridge Analytica's breach of the public trust,
people are going to be even more reluctant to hand over their *personality*
data to any online database. In another thread you mentioned how little
you’re willing to trust anyone with your credit card data; how is this
different from giving out your personality data?

It's *completely* different: If my identity is compromised I could
lose thousands of dollars, the ability to do anything that requires a
good credit score (buy a house or car, rent an apartment, etc.), and
will have to waste dozens or hundreds of hours trying to fix it. If my
personality profile gets out about all I have to fear is that Trump's
team (or the Russians, or whoever) will target me with ads that
encourage me to spread fake news.

Post by Steve Coffman
You can always change your
credit card numbers...but once your personality data has been compromised,
there’s no taking that back. It seems to me your entire design relies
heavily on a level of public *trust* that just doesn’t exist, and likely
won’t for some time to come.

No, it only requires that people realize that the rest of us already
know what your personality is (even if you don't take the test, I can
tell just by looking at your posts/likes/etc.) so there's no point in
even trying to hide this stuff. And there's really no danger to
disclosing it other than maybe making it easier for advertisers to
target you. In which case the problem is with our blind acceptance of
advertising as a social engineering tool and there's no point in
quibbling over minor tweaks in how effective it is...
Regards,
Scott

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[Scott Raney]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 12:32 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
There is an antidemocratic governance problem in cryptocurrencies as they
exist now.

Yeah, and that's really the least of the problems, the biggest one
being that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. I have yet
to see anyone answer even my most basic questions as why blockchain
provides anything useful at all to EDD:

1) Since you have to trust the executive branch to actually
*implement* any of the decisions made using the system, why is it so
much to ask to trust it to run the decisionmaking system itself?

2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?

3) Even if you don't believe #2 is a requirement (and I'd like to see
the handwaving you'll need to do to come up with an alternative that
supports delegation), surely having the ability to verify your *own*
vote in a centrally managed system is sufficient to detect tampering
by the executive branch?

4) To operate at scale, the system must be able to manage billions of
transactions in a relatively short period of time (certainly less than
24 hours). No blockchain system can do this, a flaw that is
fundamental to the design of the architecture. How do you propose to
get around this?

And just to round out the collection, I *also* happen to believe that
blockchain is inappropriate to even use for "currency" for reasons #1
and #4 and furthermore because it effectively prohibits implementation
of "fiat currency", a tool that is necessary to manage the economy
(inflation, recession, etc.) IMHO blockchain's only use is as
commodity to be used for speculation (actually, I'd just call it
gambling), maybe as a way of reducing the risk of criminal activity,
and definitely as a way to waste a whole lot of energy thereby making
it a significant contributor to climate change. It's simply delusional
think about it as being "money".

Actually the *most* amazing thing about blockchain is how completely
obvious people are to the fact that it only has any value because we
*believe* it has value, and yet that is the very same belief process
that allows governments to exist. Why is it so hard to believe that we
can change or replace the government if you can believe in something
that is far more fantastical like the "value" of a bitcoin?

Regards,
Scott

Post by Edward Pastore
P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this, a friend sent me an article which
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/

[Edward Pastore]

I am not asking for the solution to all the problems of blockchain. There are many. And that’s because it is in it's absolute infancy, compared to banking and government, which are extremely mature and nuanced. Blockchain has a lot of issues to work out, so the code needs to be able to evolve.

So for the code to evolve best, it should be done democratically. That’s why I asked my question. How can the evolution of the code happen through a democratic process, instead of being controlled by whomever controls the most nodes?


Regarding your points:
1. I don’t understand this. What does the executive branch have to do with cryptocurrency, which is inherently global?
2. Open voting isn’t necessarily a problem with governance of the versioning of crypto (share whatever ideas you have for this, please); but that is entirely separate from the trust relationships in currency exchanges.
3. This isn’t about some executive branch. It’s about who decides which version of software to run for any particular cryptocurrency.
4. Someone else’s problem. There are already more evolved chains like holochain in development.
As for the value of crypto; remember that gold was the standard for ages, and it has no inherent value either. There’s no point debating this; there are tons of articles about it and it’s not relevant to this question. I want to see crypto evolve in a democratic way so that it can turn into something that is much, much better than blockchain. That’s all I’m asking about.

Post by Scott Raney
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 12:32 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
There is an antidemocratic governance problem in cryptocurrencies as they
exist now.

Yeah, and that's really the least of the problems, the biggest one
being that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. I have yet
to see anyone answer even my most basic questions as why blockchain
1) Since you have to trust the executive branch to actually
*implement* any of the decisions made using the system, why is it so
much to ask to trust it to run the decisionmaking system itself?
2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?
3) Even if you don't believe #2 is a requirement (and I'd like to see
the handwaving you'll need to do to come up with an alternative that
supports delegation), surely having the ability to verify your *own*
vote in a centrally managed system is sufficient to detect tampering
by the executive branch?
4) To operate at scale, the system must be able to manage billions of
transactions in a relatively short period of time (certainly less than
24 hours). No blockchain system can do this, a flaw that is
fundamental to the design of the architecture. How do you propose to
get around this?
And just to round out the collection, I *also* happen to believe that
blockchain is inappropriate to even use for "currency" for reasons #1
and #4 and furthermore because it effectively prohibits implementation
of "fiat currency", a tool that is necessary to manage the economy
(inflation, recession, etc.) IMHO blockchain's only use is as
commodity to be used for speculation (actually, I'd just call it
gambling), maybe as a way of reducing the risk of criminal activity,
and definitely as a way to waste a whole lot of energy thereby making
it a significant contributor to climate change. It's simply delusional
think about it as being "money".
Actually the *most* amazing thing about blockchain is how completely
obvious people are to the fact that it only has any value because we
*believe* it has value, and yet that is the very same belief process
that allows governments to exist. Why is it so hard to believe that we
can change or replace the government if you can believe in something
that is far more fantastical like the "value" of a bitcoin?
Regards,
Scott

Post by Edward Pastore
P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this, a friend sent me an article which
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/

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[Scott Raney]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 6:04 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
I am not asking for the solution to all the problems of blockchain. There are many. And that’s because it is in it's absolute infancy, compared to banking and government, which are extremely mature and nuanced. Blockchain has a lot of issues to work out, so the code needs to be able to evolve.

But why even bother to work on obscure problems when even fundamental
things don't work or aren't possible?

Post by Edward Pastore
So for the code to evolve best, it should be done democratically. That’s why I asked my question. How can the evolution of the code happen through a democratic process, instead of being controlled by whomever controls the most nodes?

This is a problem all open source developers face. AFAIK it always
comes down to a trusted individual/team that makes the final call. In
proxyfor.me ultimately it will be the executive branch and if the
people don't like they just vote up the "replace the manager" proposal
and start over with a new one.

Post by Edward Pastore
1. I don’t understand this. What does the executive branch have to do with cryptocurrency, which is inherently global?

It has to do with the supposed benefit primary benefit of blockchain
which is that it's distributed. But my claim is that is no benefit at
all because the *implementation* of a decision has to be accomplished
by the executive branch (i.e., a central authority). And if you trust
the executive to actually do what you tell them, why is it so hard to
trust them to run the decisionmaking system itself? Poof: the supposed
main advantage of blockchain disappears in a puff of smoke.

Post by Edward Pastore
2. Open voting isn’t necessarily a problem with governance of the versioning of crypto (share whatever ideas you have for this, please); but that is entirely separate from the trust relationships in currency exchanges.

If you're not using encryption to hide the votes, why do you need
blockchain at all?

Post by Edward Pastore
3. This isn’t about some executive branch. It’s about who decides which version of software to run for any particular cryptocurrency.

Are we talking about a monetary system or a decisionmaking system?

Post by Edward Pastore
4. Someone else’s problem. There are already more evolved chains like holochain in development.

You don't worry even a little about investing a lot of time and effort
into something that has a huge fundamental flaw that turns out to be
unsolvable? I prefer to have the whole design in my head before I
start working on something, thank you very much...

Post by Edward Pastore
As for the value of crypto; remember that gold was the standard for ages, and it has no inherent value either. There’s no point debating this; there are tons of articles about it and it’s not relevant to this question. I want to see crypto evolve in a democratic way so that it can turn into something that is much, much better than blockchain. That’s all I’m asking about.

But why? What problem does it solve that you can't solve a lot easier
some other way? Or is this just a fanboy thing?
Regards,
Scott

Post by Edward Pastore

Post by Scott Raney
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 12:32 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
There is an antidemocratic governance problem in cryptocurrencies as they
exist now.

Yeah, and that's really the least of the problems, the biggest one
being that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. I have yet
to see anyone answer even my most basic questions as why blockchain
1) Since you have to trust the executive branch to actually
*implement* any of the decisions made using the system, why is it so
much to ask to trust it to run the decisionmaking system itself?
2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?
3) Even if you don't believe #2 is a requirement (and I'd like to see
the handwaving you'll need to do to come up with an alternative that
supports delegation), surely having the ability to verify your *own*
vote in a centrally managed system is sufficient to detect tampering
by the executive branch?
4) To operate at scale, the system must be able to manage billions of
transactions in a relatively short period of time (certainly less than
24 hours). No blockchain system can do this, a flaw that is
fundamental to the design of the architecture. How do you propose to
get around this?
And just to round out the collection, I *also* happen to believe that
blockchain is inappropriate to even use for "currency" for reasons #1
and #4 and furthermore because it effectively prohibits implementation
of "fiat currency", a tool that is necessary to manage the economy
(inflation, recession, etc.) IMHO blockchain's only use is as
commodity to be used for speculation (actually, I'd just call it
gambling), maybe as a way of reducing the risk of criminal activity,
and definitely as a way to waste a whole lot of energy thereby making
it a significant contributor to climate change. It's simply delusional
think about it as being "money".
Actually the *most* amazing thing about blockchain is how completely
obvious people are to the fact that it only has any value because we
*believe* it has value, and yet that is the very same belief process
that allows governments to exist. Why is it so hard to believe that we
can change or replace the government if you can believe in something
that is far more fantastical like the "value" of a bitcoin?
Regards,
Scott

Post by Edward Pastore
P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this, a friend sent me an article which
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/

_______________________________________________
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[Edward Pastore]

Not everything has to be debated here. The issues you raise are debated all over the internet, and it’s pointless to overrun my question with these topics, when it is a legitimate and serious question. Please leave room for others to comment.

Most people know nothing of crypto. Many people such as your self are very skeptical to varying degrees. And many people are investing billions of dollars worth of resources and enormous effort into it. If you disagree with that last group of people, then I guess you don’t need to chime in on this thread. That’s okay.

Post by Scott Raney
This is a problem all open source developers face. AFAIK it always
comes down to a trusted individual/team that makes the final call. In
proxyfor.me ultimately it will be the executive branch and if the
people don't like they just vote up the "replace the manager" proposal
and start over with a new one.

That’s what I’m asking for: a better solution than benign authoritarianism. Crypto was designed to be decentralized and therefore democratized, and it faces an issue of not being able to democratize in how it evolves. People want to solve this, and I’m asking this group for help thinking of solutions to this.

In other words, I’m asking for brainstorming, not debate on tangential issues.


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[Jacopo Tolja]

i just do not believe Scott point number

2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?

after the legislation and administrative decision are done collectively
only administrator will be necessary
I believe that models like proxyforme can actually help make it easier to
streamline decision making and eliminate delegate.
AI delegation is the next big think not human

jacopo.

Post by Edward Pastore
Not everything has to be debated here. The issues you raise are debated
all over the internet, and it’s pointless to overrun my question with these
topics, when it is a legitimate and serious question. Please leave room for
others to comment.
Most people know nothing of crypto. Many people such as your self are very
skeptical to varying degrees. And many people are investing billions of
dollars worth of resources and enormous effort into it. If you disagree
with that last group of people, then I guess you don’t need to chime in on
this thread. That’s okay.

Post by Scott Raney
This is a problem all open source developers face. AFAIK it always
comes down to a trusted individual/team that makes the final call. In
proxyfor.me ultimately it will be the executive branch and if the
people don't like they just vote up the "replace the manager" proposal
and start over with a new one.

That’s what I’m asking for: a better solution than benign
authoritarianism. Crypto was designed to be decentralized and therefore
democratized, and it faces an issue of not being able to democratize in how
it evolves. People want to solve this, and I’m asking this group for help
thinking of solutions to this.
In other words, I’m asking for brainstorming, not debate on tangential
issues.
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[Scott Raney]

Post by Jacopo Tolja
i just do not believe Scott point number
2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?
after the legislation and administrative decision are done collectively
only administrator will be necessary
I believe that models like proxyforme can actually help make it easier to
streamline decision making and eliminate delegate.
AI delegation is the next big think not human

Maybe, but we're a *long* way from having that technology so I believe
using other people as proxies is a necessary intermediate step. Plus,
even if we had the technology ready, jumping directly to "AI
benevolent dictator" would be a very difficult sell, marketingwise.
One step at a time...
Regards,
Scott

Post by Jacopo Tolja
jacopo.

[Scott Raney]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 8:30 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
Not everything has to be debated here. The issues you raise are debated all over the internet, and it’s pointless to overrun my question with these topics, when it is a legitimate and serious question. Please leave room for others to comment.

Hey, you were the one that brought up blockchain as if it had
something to do with public policy decisionmaking. Now you admit you
don't have answers to fundamental questions about how it would work or
even what relevance it has to what this list is for?

Post by Edward Pastore
Most people know nothing of crypto. Many people such as your self are very skeptical to varying degrees. And many people are investing billions of dollars worth of resources and enormous effort into it. If you disagree with that last group of people, then I guess you don’t need to chime in on this thread. That’s okay.

How big is the gambling industry? Is that any correlation with its
utility or value to society?

Post by Edward Pastore

Post by Scott Raney
This is a problem all open source developers face. AFAIK it always
comes down to a trusted individual/team that makes the final call. In
proxyfor.me ultimately it will be the executive branch and if the
people don't like they just vote up the "replace the manager" proposal
and start over with a new one.

That’s what I’m asking for: a better solution than benign authoritarianism. Crypto was designed to be decentralized and therefore democratized, and it faces an issue of not being able to democratize in how it evolves. People want to solve this, and I’m asking this group for help thinking of solutions to this.

And I'm helping you with that: I say don't think about it because it's
just a waste of your (and everyone else's) time because it has exactly
zero to offer toward solving any the problems we face...

Post by Edward Pastore
In other words, I’m asking for brainstorming, not debate on tangential issues.

You gotta have a brain and at least some passing familiarity with the
technology to brainstorm about it. Since you can't respond to even my
most basic questions about how blockchain is relevant to
decisionmaking, I too wonder why you even brought it up...
Regards,
Scott

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[Mikael Sand]

Post by Scott Raney
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 12:32 PM, Edward Pastore

Post by Edward Pastore
There is an antidemocratic governance problem in cryptocurrencies as they
exist now.

Yeah, and that's really the least of the problems, the biggest one
being that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. I have yet
to see anyone answer even my most basic questions as why blockchain
1) Since you have to trust the executive branch to actually
*implement* any of the decisions made using the system, why is it so
much to ask to trust it to run the decisionmaking system itself?

One problem I can think of is the deletion / censoring of data, this
needs to be externally monitored and verified in a both centralized and
decentralized systems. The crucial part being to witness in what order
do additions to the immutable persistent storage happen, and maintain
consensus of this. No proof of work needed, this is actually strange
form of consistency, the cost of censoring/double-spend is merely
related to the amount of money/hardware/energy you're willing to invest
(probably within the budget of US/RUS military etc), rather than
consensus on what changes happened when. I've made a proposal based on
"proof of communicating witnesses"
https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger/issues/18#issuecomment-349709686
but later on I found https://www.radixdlt.com/ which does essentially
the same thing. Monitoring and maintaining consensus can be relatively
fast and cheap, given the time it takes to calculate hashes and the
round-trip-time latency of communicating this globally.

Alternatively, if simply distributed databases and a decentralized web
is wanted, one can use https://datproject.org/ and
https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/ as a gossip protocol. No blockchain needed.
Can try it today with the https://beakerbrowser.com/

And I don't see a problem with distributed ledgers and democratic
processes. Its up to people what system they use, not how many nodes a
blockchain / consensus network has.

Post by Scott Raney
2) Since I think we all agree that some sort of
delegation/representation system is required doesn't that require open
voting, eliminating the need or even the ability to use encryption on
the vote data?
3) Even if you don't believe #2 is a requirement (and I'd like to see
the handwaving you'll need to do to come up with an alternative that
supports delegation), surely having the ability to verify your *own*
vote in a centrally managed system is sufficient to detect tampering
by the executive branch?

I hope the previous paragraph makes it clear that we need to monitor
that all data remains immutable, not only our own.

Post by Scott Raney
4) To operate at scale, the system must be able to manage billions of
transactions in a relatively short period of time (certainly less than
24 hours). No blockchain system can do this, a flaw that is
fundamental to the design of the architecture. How do you propose to
get around this?

Have you heard about directed acyclic graphs? E.g. the Tangle used in
https://iota.org/
They can scale much nicer than the traditional blockchain with nakamoto
consensus.

Post by Scott Raney
And just to round out the collection, I *also* happen to believe that
blockchain is inappropriate to even use for "currency" for reasons #1
and #4 and furthermore because it effectively prohibits implementation
of "fiat currency", a tool that is necessary to manage the economy
(inflation, recession, etc.) IMHO blockchain's only use is as
commodity to be used for speculation (actually, I'd just call it
gambling), maybe as a way of reducing the risk of criminal activity,
and definitely as a way to waste a whole lot of energy thereby making
it a significant contributor to climate change. It's simply delusional
think about it as being "money".

Fiat currency or quite similar systems can for sure be built on
distributed immutable log like systems as long as the participants agree
on the rules. You can do it without any
proof-of-work/stake/space/elapsed-time, if a web of trust exists among
the actors taking part of the economy.
E.g. https://duniter.org/en/ implements the Universal Dividend, as
specified by the theory called Relative Money Theory.
https://duniter.org/en/theoretical/
http://vit.free.fr/TRM/en_US/

Post by Scott Raney
Actually the *most* amazing thing about blockchain is how completely
obvious people are to the fact that it only has any value because we
*believe* it has value, and yet that is the very same belief process
that allows governments to exist. Why is it so hard to believe that we
can change or replace the government if you can believe in something
that is far more fantastical like the "value" of a bitcoin?

While something doesn't have universal acceptance as a method of
payment, or sufficiently easy liquidity, it shouldn't be considered
"actual" money. And in no case does it have any value like assets or
commodities do, you cannot estimate the value of them or predict if the
current irrational market price is above or below that value, only
speculate on the future exchange rates of the limited collectible(s).
Essentially the difference between investments and trading, the tools
used in one fail miserably in the other.

Post by Scott Raney
Regards,
Scott

Post by Edward Pastore
P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this, a friend sent me an article which
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610018/bitcoin-and-ethereum-have-a-hidden-power-structure-and-its-just-been-revealed/

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[Scott Raney]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you: I only had very
limited Internet access for the past couple of weeks (camping).

Post by Scott Raney
1) Since you have to trust the executive branch to actually
*implement* any of the decisions made using the system, why is it so
much to ask to trust it to run the decisionmaking system itself?

One problem I can think of is the deletion / censoring of data, this needs
to be externally monitored and verified in a both centralized and
decentralized systems.

Again, if you don't trust the government not to do this, how can you
trust them to do anything else?

And as a practical matter this also isn't a concern anyway IMHO as
long as you use an open voting system where anyone can go in and
verify their votes (surely someone will notice if their vote gets
deleted/changed).

Alternatively, if simply distributed databases and a decentralized web is
wanted, one can use https://datproject.org/ and https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/
as a gossip protocol. No blockchain needed. Can try it today with the
https://beakerbrowser.com/

Or use any database that supports sharding on cloud systems (e.g.,
MongoDB on AWS, which is what proxyfor.me is built on). That gets you
the redundancy to deal with outages, DOS attacks, hacks, etc., which
IMHO is 99% of what you need distributed systems for. Note that
"because I don't trust anyone" is not on that list...

I hope the previous paragraph makes it clear that we need to monitor that
all data remains immutable, not only our own.

Sorry, I don't follow: Not only do you not trust the executive branch
not to change/delete the data, but you *also* don't trust your fellow
citizen to detect and report this if it happens to them?

Fiat currency or quite similar systems can for sure be built on distributed
immutable log like systems as long as the participants agree on the rules.
You can do it without any proof-of-work/stake/space/elapsed-time, if a web
of trust exists among the actors taking part of the economy.
E.g. https://duniter.org/en/ implements the Universal Dividend, as specified
by the theory called Relative Money Theory.
https://duniter.org/en/theoretical/
http://vit.free.fr/TRM/en_US/

Again, I submit that if you don't trust the executive branch (and
indeed the entire banking system with all it's checks and balances) I
submit that no amount of fancy technology is going to cure what ails
you. And if you do, then the technology we use can be vastly
simplified, improving service levels, reliability, and the ability to
detect and deal with attacks on the system. Indeed one of the biggest
problems with cryptocurrencies is their very opacity: When someone
develops a way to game the system it probably won't be discovered
until the damage is so great that the entire economy might collapse as
a result.
Regards,
Scott