We do that today because we are incentivized to acquire monopolies. Or in other words housing and other generalized assets that use a typical ownership model. If individuals can't "own" property, but instead "possess" property via a self assessed real time tax, you eliminate that gluttonous incentives that all humans have for accumulation.
With collective possession you can increase users stake in making sure that negative incentives don't exist. It's all in the game theory of realigning incentives, but before you do that you have to break down how the current system we live in at its foundational root is flawed.
My theory is that we don't understand the economic systems of the crypto economy because they aren't rooted in the same type of economics that exists in our current system. They are completely different incentive systems and are not correlated at all. We just confuse Capitalist values with crypto-economic values, thus leading to entire new schools of thought in how we organize ourselves manage systems.
Explained simply, while there are indeed users acting as the middle man verifying transactions, you don't have to worry about trusting them because the system is built in a way where you know exactly what they're going to do.
To add to this idea of mining, theres a more grandiose theory that smart contracts are the additive tool that we can use to build all sorts of incentives in our society for people to collaborate effectively. You don't have to force people to collaborate towards the greater good if you can just incentivize them to build the thing you need. This allows them to mine out the value and build a better and more trust-less community at large. It's like a bug bounty but for problems in society.
ConstitutionDAO exists as a smart contract on Ethereum, not a legal entity. Funds pooled in that contract are spent at the discretion of users in the DAO, by contributing to the DAO you agree to the multisig stipulation (this could vary depending on the DAO).
Because the constitution and ownership of the constitution is managed in the current legal and financial world (centralized), the DAO has to bridge out of the decentralized network to purchase it. Since no decentralized system exists in the current legal infrastructure they had to incorporate in Wyoming to make the purchase. (I don't think they would have been required to do this if Sothebys had an Ethereum Wallet)
If the DAO had won the bid and kept the constitution and managed it, nobody from the centralized world would be able to purchase the Constitution without the permission of the DAO and it's 17 thousand users (aka a buyer coming into decentralized territory). This is the purpose of the purchase, it is purely symbolic. The metaphorical possession of the DAO sets the precedent that blockchains can set a new standard for building Governance systems. What better way to demonstrate the growth of innovative governance bodies than buying the foundational document of modern day governance itself?
Moreover, it may be wrapped up in humorous memes and shitposts, but the sentiment is the same. That being the blockchain is a contender for overthrowing all current financial systems, and by proxy Governance as well. This is the whole idea behind the metaverse. Emergent and collaborative digital cities that are representative of real world communities working together to solve real problems like climate change, world hunger, poverty, education and every other problem you could think of. It breaks the shackles of the masters inside corporations and the masters inside the government.
Also, after losing the bid, do you think it is a coincidence that one of the men who stands to lose the most from the success of cryptocurrency was the person who won the auction?
-note, this is probably my last comment for this thread. I appreciate the friendly debate. I always like chatting with those who hold opposing views. I will definitely be pondering points you've brought up and do more reading.
Thanks. If you're willing to expand on your thoughts about blockchains not being necessary to any of the things I described, I would like to hear it. I'm honestly looking for any reason to be wrong on this, and I have yet to find that reason.
How else could ConstitutionDAO have raised funds as quickly as they have and in a secure manor without an intermediary company/legal entity holding the pooled funds?
The adults in the room don't take it seriously because they're blind to future advances. They think the current system can be upgraded and patched, but at present, that is impossible. It is fundamentally broken. The younger generation is already faced with unimaginable hardships and because of that has a tendency to be extremely dynamic and adaptive. They see the true problem as a coordination problem and crypto opens a new door with unexplored possibilities for coordination.
Crypto and thought schools adjacent to it combine elements of Libertarianism and Socialism in ways that were unable to exist before their advent. These typically contradictory ideologies can be combined in a new way that help us overcome these systemic coordination problems and let us execute collective action faster. Find me another cause that has raised 40 million dollars in less than a week where funds are held in escrow by a computer contract.
To expand on that the field I work in is communication by nature and I'm literally planning on pitching a project to a startup DAO this evening. This project may quite well open the door for people in my field to jump start a new way of funding projects which makes sure that Consumers, project contributors and everyone involved are compensated in a fair way while also not requiring a private investor. This literally would have been impossible without a DAO.
If the pitch goes well and the project is successful it would allow me to undercut all of my potential competitors. As people who enjoy a free market might say "That's just business baby". Then on top of that, because of the nature of how it's structured, nobody is exploited and no rent is extracted from a private party.
None, but those are just a few I had the imagination to come up with. If you fail to see the value, you will at some point. As Jeff Bezos has been quoted saying, "Your margin is my opportunity." and opportunity right now is ripe.
This specific copy of the constitution doesn't belong to the people, it is privately held and being auctioned. But if you are talking about the ideas of the Constitution belonging to the people, then how is that any different than the ideas of the blockchain and cryptosphere belonging to the people?
That's the beauty of ConstitutionDAO, it is quite literally proving that we have new ways in organizing and collectivizing. As a signal of that they are buying the constitution so that the people can take back what is rightfully ours. It gives people the freedom to try and solve new and complex problems in new ways.
Memes are the rallying cry of Gen-Z. DAOs are just a tool for organizing. The crypto community may not be ones to rally for Madagascar and I'm not expecting them to! But, DAOs give YOU the power to try and rally the people so we can do something. Rather than trusting you to manage the funds, the collective can trust the smart contract and vote on how they want to approach solving the problem, which professionals they want to delegate to to solve the problem and so forth.
This is so much more than trying pump shitcoins or ponzischeme. This is about allowing societies to collectivize in ways they never have before. You and your neighbors want to start a solar coop? DAO. A neighborhood is lacking the funds to support the local schools? DAO. The county wants to try and build a water treatment plant because they can't get funding from the Fed/State for clean water treatment? DAO.
DAOs will exist in all shapes and sizes and for different causes. Some will fail and some will succeed, but that's how innovation goes. While the technicals behind how these things will develop is still up in the air, this is the Netscape moment for crypto and nobody on Hackernews can come up with any other sort of justification for it not working other than it's a Ponzi Scheme.
I think you're missing the point. What if it became a meme to collectivize around a DAO that meme-ifies fighting climate change? Would that be something that interests you? A good example of someone that already altruistic things for the world and makes it fun is Mr. Beast on youtube.
For instance on a quick search I found this video of him rallying a bunch of people to clean an extremely dirty beach.
Humor and productivity don't have to be mutually exclusive. Maybe humor and fun is the way we get the average person to engage in collective action and do things that everybody thinks are impossible otherwise.
Maybe you could use your imagination a little bit to potentially think about why something like ConstitutionDAO might have larger implications than "it's just another ponzi-scheme. Or fall in line with the rest of Hacker News that fails to see how real people can benefit from an interesting technology.
You have if/then statements that act as a clause allowing you to bypass that system for that specific person. Since all identity will be intrinsically built into the system, you can hypothetically initiate this bypass mechanism which would require multiple associated wallets to confirm that that particular wallets owner has become incapacitated and can't fu-fill their duty as an authenticator to your wallet.
I don't have any specifics on what that type of mechanism would look like (I'm just spitballing), but it's a something that definitely is interesting to think about. Maybe that mechanism randomly selects wallets that have no known correlation to your own and ask those individuals to confirm that the specified person is incapacitated. Since those people wouldn't have any stake in your transaction (allowing it to go through or preventing it from going through), they would be incentivized to be truthful.
Edit: to add to this last thought, maybe the wallet requesting the incapacitation confirmation is abstracted from the users confirming the incapacitation. The wallet essentially probes other active wallets and requests them to confirm that person is incapacitated without revealing who is requesting the information. this could help prevent collusion
> The reality is that our socioeconomic disparities will be exacerbated in a digital world, particularly if the majority of content is owned
I definitely agree with this sentiment, but if it's not centrally owned by a government or a corporation what are our other options? We sit around and moan about how centralized entities are ruining the world and how we don't have alternate ways of coordinating? Ethereum and projects like it are the only ones actually experimenting with changing up the formula and seeing if you can combine typically contradictory ideologies.
In my opinon, if we can't find a way to decentrally coordinate we are doomed as a race and will eventually destroy ourselves via capitalistic/corporate greed or by the tyranny of a government.
> Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?
I think future game development in the metaverse actually will be mainly open source and community driven. Imagine if you will a DAO that players of the universe can interact with and basically vote on new features that will be added to the game world. Rather than waiting for a centralized developer to patch and update the game they want, players will pool assets together in a sort of tax that helps fund future game development. Pair that with a Retroactive funding and other cooperative mechanisms and you will be providing incentives for player themselves to build out the game that they want to see.
It would almost be like building a town in the real world, but this is in the digital world.
I find this to be a null argument with the potential future development of smart contract wallets that help secure hot and cold assets and require multiple users to sign off on a transaction for cold assets. You can delegate sign off authority for transactions to multiple other wallets of users that you trust in the real world. That way there are multiple tiers of asset transfer authentication.
For example I wouldn't be able to transfer my house deed NFT without first getting a relative to sign off on the transaction via their wallet as well as maybe my best friend. The beauty of a smart contract wallet is that there can be multiple if/then statements that determine when cold assets are allowed to move, all of which are up to the discretion and preference of the end user.
An alternative solution is altering how we manage assets in general including the suggested Harberger tax from the Book Radical Markets. But I feel that's a deeper dive into more theoretical territory.
This is going to be an unpopular opinion here on HackerNews, but I think that potential protocol is Ethereum. It will be the tool that enables all sorts of Metaverse type things to exist (via NFTs), but I don't think that's where it stops. The metaverse and the real world will eventually be one in the same and are going to become interlinked. In game items, Car titles, house deeds, and any sort of asset that requires proof of ownership are all going to be part of a future society/metaverse.
All fungible as well as Non-Fungible tokens will represent the value that the users bring to the platforms/systems and reward us for participating.
For example, imagine playing a video game where all in game items are built on the NFT standard. A super rare item in game might end up having some sort of real value that a user can then later extract for time spent in game. They could either sell the item via a decentralized market, or leverage that item and take a loan out on it by using it as collateral. And why shouldn't they be allowed to do that? If a user pours hundreds of hours into an online game, they are generating value for that game network by being someone that other users can play with.
Just curious, why do you say decentralized trading is incomplete research/vaporware? There are dozens of decentralized exchanges that are up and operating, including sites like Dydx and uniswap. Obviously these are still experimental, but they do work.
With collective possession you can increase users stake in making sure that negative incentives don't exist. It's all in the game theory of realigning incentives, but before you do that you have to break down how the current system we live in at its foundational root is flawed.
My theory is that we don't understand the economic systems of the crypto economy because they aren't rooted in the same type of economics that exists in our current system. They are completely different incentive systems and are not correlated at all. We just confuse Capitalist values with crypto-economic values, thus leading to entire new schools of thought in how we organize ourselves manage systems.