‘Proof of Stake’ is Not the Way (to govern the “Proof of Brain” tribe)
As we continue this ‘experiment’ known as the “Proof of Brain” tribe, it is now abundantly clear that ‘Proof of Stake’ governance is not the way.
The two ‘anti-downvote-abuse’ proposals I put forth a few weeks ago for public scrutiny and ‘Proof of Stake’ voting (1, 2) produced some great dialogue, debate, and engagement. As such, I am in no way regretful of having put so much time and energy into that.
One of the best responses I received was from @clixmoney who wondered aloud why we are relying upon ‘Proof of Stake’ to govern a tribe whose stated ethos is ‘Proof of Brain’. I couldn’t agree more!
And plenty of folks, like @antisocialist, were simply against adding ‘rules’ to a platform that is supposed to be about decentralization and freedom. Again, I have a hard time arguing against that mindset.
Some, like @scooter77, asked “why not just remove downvoting all together” from the Proof of Brain tribe?. Apparently that’s really easy to do. I’ve also been told that it’s equally easy to reconfigure the tribe’s token so that downvotes use upvote mana (i.e. each downvote would ‘cost’ the same as an upvote, instead of being free).
However, others such as @themarkymark have argued that removing downvoting altogether (or even just making them ‘costly’ instead of free) could impair the tribe’s ability to combat plagiarism and spam.
And then there’s @onealfa, who threatened (or promised?) to intentionally spam the Proof of Brain tribe if downvotes are eliminated or curtailed:
if enough (50+%) ppl vote now to prohibit downvotes on overvalued rewards. If this happens, I will go to my next door neighbour, active photographer, who is still posting his photos on steem/appics, will tell him to come back to hive & POB, and will put him on my autovoter.
We will play by rules, no plagiarism, no NSFW, nothing unauthorized.I wonder under which excuse "antidownvoters" will stop us.
We also have @interpretation, who called attention to the fact that
@onealfa.pob which is the biggest investor of the #pob tokens threatened to ignore the user who support the [anti-downvote-abuse] proposal
to which @oneafla then replied:
And if I cut completely my support to these people [who vote “YES” on an anti-downvote proposal] - would it be better for them to know in advance this change in my support, or it would be better for them to find this as an unpleasant surprise?
So, there you have it.
That last comment by @onealfa makes it abundantly clear to me why governance of this tribe CANNOT and SHOULD NOT proceed based on any sort of ‘Proof of Stake’ governance model. When you have a whale who is on record stating that he will effectively ‘punish’ content creators who vote in a way contrary to his wishes (and no way for them to vote via secret ballot), you have a system that is broken and cannot be relied upon.
As such, I doubt that you will see any more formal proposals from me regarding changes to the Proof of Brain tribe. Rather, until some reputable and reliable governance model is adopted, you will just see regular old posts from me with arguments presented (and debate and dialogue invited) in such a way that the tribe founder (@proofofbrainio) can listen to the arguments and counter-arguments, read the tea leaves (of public opinion), and then decide the best course of action to take, (much the same way a CEO decides what products to make, in hopes of attracting customers by providing them something they genuinely value).
As @themarkymark pointed out a few weeks ago in his excellent post about Hive-Engine tokens, investing in a Hive-Engine token involves a lot of risk, because, the way H-E is structured, whomever controls the token’s issuing account pretty much controls it all. In other words, even if an elaborate ‘decentralized’ governance system is put in place, it doesn’t really mean much, because the issuing account has unilaterail power to change pretty much anything and everything, at the drop of a hat.
Does this ‘centralized power’ of the Proof of Brain token and tribe bother me? Sure.
But, as @themarkymark pointed out, this is a ‘feature’ associated with all Hive-Engine tokens, and should certainly factor into every individual's decisions about whether or not to invest their time and treasure into any particular tribe (and token).
So, let me spend a few moments explaining why I remain fully invested in the ‘Proof of Brain’ token and tribe (and plan to stay that way).
My initial interpretation of the Proof of Brain white paper (as in, my impressions and ‘takeaways’ the first time I read it), was that the founder would not be taking any founder’s fee or initial token distribution, and that 100% of the tokens accumulated by the tribe’s founding account (@proofofbrainio) would be used to advance the tribe itself (e.g. to further develop the front-end, etc.).
This interpretation was shaken a bit when a new account was created on 4/7/21 (@pob-fund) and then publicly announced in a post on 4/8/21. With that change, it seemed like maybe the founder was claiming for himself the tokens that had accumulated into the @proofofbrainio account and the tribe would only benefit from the tokens in the @pob-fund account. Thus a question-mark began (in my mind) when this second account was created, and that question-mark grew larger when the beneficiary of the 10% ‘tax’ was switched from @proofofbrainio to @pob-fund, on 4/16/21.
I tend to give “the benefit of the doubt” to people and, as such, I chose to keep my concerns to myself and decided to just ‘wait and see’. However, I abandonded that ‘wait and see’ approach when it came to my attention (on 6/22/21) that the beneficiary of the 10% ‘tax’ had been switched back to @proofofbrainio (on 6/3/21), with no public announcement of the switch. Some folks on the Discord server jumped on that ‘secret switching of accounts’ and said “Aha, the tribe founder is hijacking the tribe and its token for his personal enrichment” and much Discord drama ensued [cue jokes and memes about ‘Proof of Drama’].
Rather than jump on the accusation bandwagon, I decided to simply ask @proofofbrainio up front regarding whether my initial interpretation was correct (i.e. that 100% of the tokens in the original @proofobrainio account were meant for the exclusive use of tribe development and NOT for the founder’s personal gain).
My reason for asking this question was straightforward. If my original interpretation was correct, then switching the beneficiary from one account to another would be akin to a bookkeeping change -- i.e. instead of the ‘company’ revenues going into ‘Development Account B’ they will be going into ‘Development Account A’.
Here was my question (presented on the #general channel of the public ‘Proof of Brain’ Discord server):
And here was @proofofbrainio’s response:
Every interaction I have ever had with @proofofbrainio (and I have had a lot, starting on about Day 3 of the tribe’s existence) has left me with the same overall impression -- he had an idea that he thought would improve the distribution of ‘proof of brain’ rewards and would thus be beneficial to the Hive ecosystem and to society in general, he decided to invest his own time and treasure to launch the idea, and for whatever reason, he has decided to remain completely pseudonymous (hmmm, where have I heard that before ... ?).
‘Proof of Stake’ Decision-Making is NOT Decentralized Decision-Making
I’ve said this elsewhere, and I’ll say it again: ‘Proof of Stake’ voting is not decentralized decision-making. In fact, it’s really not even close. It is essentially a centralized decision-making process wrapped in a decentralized veneer.
In fact, I would argue that the term “decentralized decision-making” is a misnomer. In a truly decentralized system, there are no centralized decisions, period. In other words, if a single, overarching decision needs to be made, such as choosing whether or not to commit X amount of HBD from the ‘Decentralized Hive Fund’ to support a specific project, then that simply cannot be done in a truly decentralized fashion. The are no central decisions or central plans in a truly decentralized society and economy.
F. A. Hayek, in his seminal paper on The Use of Knowledge in Society explained how local (i.e. individual) knowledge is the key to decentralized ‘decision-making’ (again, it is not really decision-making, in the normal sense of the term). Furthermore, the real beauty of a truly decentralized ‘system’ is that no active collaboration, cooperation, or agreement (express or implied) is required. No ‘consensus’ is required. No ‘voting’ is required (other than voting with your sneakers). All that is required is for individuals (lots of them) to be free to act on whatever information each has knowledge of, in fulfillment of each individual’s personal preferences. And, the basic assumption is that each individual will act in a way that is consistent with his/her best interests (and also in accordance with his/her local knowledge).
That’s it! The key to true decentralized decision-making is a competitive market where individuals are free to choose from a diverse offering of goods and services. Translating that to the Hive ecosystem -- we needs LOTS of Layer 2 solutions (tribes, tokens, dApps, front-ends, etc.) each competing for the time and attention of individual users -- that’s true decentralization. That is what @taskmaster4450 was getting at when he published this post about Hive needing 10 ‘Splinterlands’. Obviously he was not referring to 10 mere clones of Splinterlands. Rather, he was referring to the fact that Splinterlands has successfully created and delivered value to a whole new group of people and, in so doing, has onboarded a record number of users over the past week or so. Hive needs 10 more Layer 2 ‘solutions’ that achieve that, or something similar.
(With all that said, it is worth noting that, in the absence of true decentralization, a DPoS-based system, like Hive, where no single individual or entity controls more than 5% of the stake is probably about as good as can be hoped for, in terms of ‘decentralized governance’. As such, when it comes to blockchain governance, I know of no current system that is superior to Hive -- that is one of the reasons I remain extremely bullish about Hive.)
Conclusion
The vast majority of all Layer 2 solutions are and will be highly centralized, and that’s completely okay. Some may experiment with alternative forms of ‘decentralized’ governance, and that’s okay, too.
The governance mechanism of an individual tribe is mostly irrelevant. What is relevant is the extent to which any given tribe (or dApp or other Layer 2 solution) is able to deliver genuine value that attracts lots and lots of individual users.
In closing, although I am okay with the “Proof of Brain” tribe experimenting with alternative forms of governance, I am wholeheartedly against ‘Proof of Stake’ as a governance method. As stated above, the fact that whales are able to influence voting via threats (whether stated or implied) makes any and all forms of PoS governance at the tribe level untenable, imo.
Two major governance aspects here are totally unrelated to each other in terms of execution; layer 1 and layer 2's. On a scaled layer 1 that is censorship resistant, you can then build layer 2 apps with various governance models. The key point is, on layer 2, you no longer need to worry about censorship resistance of the base layer, IE your metadata (account, community list, etc.), and most importantly, your token balance. The hardest part of layer 1 is getting it both scaled and censorship-resistant. That's why it's good to keep layer 1's as simple and stripped down as possible, so they execute correctly.
Layer 2s are free to be centralized or censorship-resistant in their own ways. For instance, let's say you want a tribe and front end where no one person has the power to kick another; it had to be a community decision. You see, this has nothing to do with token balance as that is safe on Hive, but these tribes are akin to a company almost, and one can have a board of directors as an example to help "decentralize" decision making.
I quote decentralize because that is never the goal. You don't just want decentralization for the sake of it; just as you don't want fire just for the sake of it, each has a purpose and a limit to the extent of its usefulness. Fire in the fireplace works great; on the living room floor, not so much. You want decentralization up to the point of censorship resistance and not an inch more. And for layer 2, you can be much more flexible and add centralized convenience points where needed. As you're aware, layer 2's can be centralized. However, it's a free market, and if one is too heavy-handed, the account ownership model makes switching layer2s a breeze. The free market is what gives you your censorship resistance from being banned on any one front end, as they will simply go out of business or be irrelevant if they try to control something they can't.
Just because my ears perk anytime I hear governance talks, esp DPOS, I'll throw this here. PoW, PoS, DPOS are the major 3 ways humans have found to do blockchain governance. PoW being by far the most unique of the 3 and DPoS being the most established (humans have been voting with their stake for a long time)
However, what happens is they all end up similar to DPoS, which means they were be fewer "supernodes" that run the network. The idea of everyone running their own miner or node is just not going to happen, and I've confident enough o write that off in practice to focus on the inevitable outcome of fewer nodes. The reason power consolidates is because that is just the natural flow of things. Humans have always had hierarchy; it's just how it is. DPoS at least forces you to have 20 nodes, whereas, in PoW/PoS, you'll have a handful. You'll find that the free market prefers a much more centralized approach when it comes to governance, and DPoS ads a layer where it protects the free market from itself via parameters. Satoshi protected the free market from itself with the 1MB cap block (he implemented it as a protective measure vs. lethal spam attacks at the time), but the free market never removed it because it knows the free market would bloat the blocks for a faster experience and thus centralize the chain due to heavy nodes. So in practice, humans have been voting with their stake since we had seashells, back then stake being strength and honor; nowadays, it's money. So DPoS is just giving the free market what it wants in a better package instead of trying to "look the part" with thousands of useless nodes with a handful control 90%+ of the hash rate/tokens.
Yes, that is (hopefully) a major takeaway for folks who read this post and the comments. Layer 2 has the freedom to be governed any way the owner/founder of a given Layer 2 solution sees fit because of Layer 1's protections against individual accounts being deplatformed. As such, the governance method for Layer 1 is critical, and thus makes the governance methods for Layer 2 solutions essentially inconsequential.
Stated another way, on Layer 1, it is the method by which decisions are made that is consequential (critical, even), while on Layer 2, it is the decisions themselves that are consequential (not the methods) because bad decisions by a given Layer 2 solution will merely send people to 'better' Layer 2 solutions.
This is sorta like the concept of federalism. If you have a federal government that guarantees your right to freely move from state to state, then the states themselves have to compete for residents. As such, the governance method at the federal level is paramount, making the governance method at the state level secondary, or even inconsequential. For example, in the U.S. if a given state chose to elect a dictator and operate as a dictatorship, that would not be a big deal because citizens of that state are free to move to a different state. However, dictatorial powers at the federal level severely diminish the rights of all the citizens, irrespective of which state they live in.
This reply made my day.
Well this put a fresh set of eyes on all PoS things :)
Whales acting in not appropiate manner has been an issue on Hive beffore as well .... most here know bernie as the prime example. Although after some time more and more people turned against that and he just simply left.
I havent followed the discussion above in details, although from my experiance onealfa has always been a great supporter to the community and provided a lot of value with capital and a lot of his personal time.
About the governance models.
When the Hive HF happened I looked around for alternatievs, and I have seen the pos model and then a reputation model. The risks with the reputation model (curent democracy?) is that it can be faked, while stake can not. There was ideas about adding decentralized reputation model on top of the pos model, a type of hibrid. There are some papers about decentralized reputation models online. @blocktrades also mentioned that he is planing to build a peer-to-peer network for sharing and rating informations, on top of what diferent systems can be build.
Hive with its social aspect already has some form of unoficial reputation model.
Anyways great to see some brainstorming on the topic. I wouldnt rush into conclusions, dpos with social has its advantages and sometimes it just takes time for issues to be resolved. Also we can never move forward if we dont keep trying new things :)
P.S. For context here is the blocktrades post
https://hive.blog/hivemind/@blocktrades/a-peer-to-peer-network-for-sharing-and-rating-information
And here is another one, where I have touched your idea above about more tokens and competive market, with a concept like game within a game
https://hive.blog/hive-167922/@dalz/a-game-within-a-game-or-a-solution-for-the-first-comers-profit-the-most-problem
A lot to think about here; thanks for putting together these thoughts.
One of my very first impressions when I found Hive's predecessor almost 5 years ago was a sense of amazement and bafflement at the way a significant number of people were going on and on about the wonder of blockchain and decentralization as the answer to all our woes... while remaining blinkered to the fact that simply because we have these tools does not exempt us from the vagaries of human nature.
Of the many many "People of Influence" I have come across in this ecosystem, it seems like only a minority subscribe to the idea that all we have is a set of tools here, and human nature is and will be what it is. Most humans tend to "voluntarily" centralize and hand off accountability and management to someone else and many humans "voluntarily" take it upon themselves to exploit and manipulate others and situations to their benefit, and the deficit of those others.
The fact that we even use the terms "governance" and "decentralization" in the same sentence seems mildly contradictory. And yet... it is necessary because we seem utterly unable to autonomously think for ourselves and self-govern.
So perhaps your concluding words represent precisely the reality here (which @theycallmedan also hints at) is simply that the "freedom" or "free market" isn't within each tribe like POB, LeoFinance and others, but in the freedom to choose which ones we participate (or don't participate) in.
What comes to mind here is sign I saw at the entrance to a very large multi-booth flea market, many years ago: "Disputes and differences of opinion that cannot be solved via arbitration will be resolved through open brawling."
It seems like that's pretty much how humans operate...
=^..^=
Yes, that is my perspective.
If there are two extreme factions, one that views Layer 2 downvotes as absolutely necessary, and another that views them as harmful and prone to abuse, then we actually NEED two separate tribes, one that operates without DVs and one that openly embraces them. That way, those who prefer the one get what they want and those who prefer the other get what they want.
Even if both are 100% centralized in their respective governance and decision-making, their mutual existence contributes to a decentralized experience for the consumers.
Which then leaves us just with the "tough nut" that so many people who factionalize themselves just can't STAND the idea that approaches different from their own even EXIST!
And I'm only being partially facetious, here...
=^..^=
Hmmmmmm, woah! First of all i gatta say this is one fucking dope hell of a write up. It really gat me perplexed and imaginative base on the fact that it's a crazy but reasonable idea to eliminate 'downvote' but it would really have been interesting to see that happen. But it's ok, ok, ok we just have to hope that it will be considered before we leave this earth🤣🤣 if you know what i mean.😉 Thumbs up bro, i like the way you think. This is really a good idea and thought you put down here.👍
To be honest, this isn't far from the truth for most everyone.
Some may not downvote, but they certainly won't upvote, thus punishing you indirectly.
Hive (and anything having to do with money, especially when it doesn't come out of your pocket) is filled with virtual signaling and power plays. I've even seen (and have had done to me many times) people try to sabotage all your curation curation rewards because you voted on someone they felt they "owned" punishing both the author and the other voter.
Just most don't come out and say it and prefer to keep the shadows and pretend they know nothing about it. Never have I seen so much greed, virtual signaling, pettiness, and deceit.
So that's why majority of the people here don't vote for my work. They're punishing me...
That explains everything and everyone!
Of course I'm only joking. Not receiving support from people who aren't into my shit only feels natural. Set up shop anywhere; most of the people walk past. It's to be expected.
That small town mentality backroom clique lunch table gossip shit is getting really stale though. The place needs thousands more genuine dedicated consumer types browsing and supporting organically. Without a crowd, after this long yet; presenting new stuff is losing its appeal.
So many Hive cliques. I sure hope you are in the right Hive clique.
Better off going your own way.
First time i am seeing your post on pob. Do you use the pob frontend (occasionally)?
I honestly don't think this would ever end. This is why i rather focus my energy on other things than governance (which is very important to the growth of the community).
I used the tag a couple times for shits and giggles but I just use PeakD out of convenience. Can't keep up with all these tribes and various tokens. I just want to read/view stuff and hit a button if it's cool. I don't post often these days. Maybe published twelve this year so far.
Understandable. I use the pob frontend given that I have a lot going on here. I cannot keep up with everything as well, so I prioritize.
Lol, that's me in two weeks.
Well. Let me put it this way. Was thinking of doing something fresh. I've already put nearly ten hours into one image/artwork for my next post, and I'm not finished yet. Plus the plan is create a new thumbnail/cover which I haven't started yet. And I have to write something which will take time, then that might lead to even more time spent producing images to go along with the words. Might even throw in a simple animation gif for good measure. Haven't decided yet but if it's humor, I'll have to spend hours fine tuning jokes or I'll bomb hard and just end up looking like an asshole for doing all that work. So maybe I'll take the horror route this time and get downvoted for being a freak. I dunno what sounds like more fun yet...
Yes, although @onelafa’s comments expose the flaws in PoS governance, I respect him a great deal for stating plainly and up front his intentions. That is so much better than those who punish in secret while pretending to be non-biased.
And, as you aptly pointed out, those biases are most likely the norm rather than the exception. Better to know up front where you stand with someone rather than play guessing games.
I wonder how the "DV-removers" imagine they will be able to fight against abusers, leeches, circle-jerkers, malicious players? With one MUTE button, and the MUTE keys in the hands of ONE SINGLE person?
Does anyone at all believe the tribe founder will ever share his account's keys with anyone else on this planet ? You do? Seriously?
You want this level of centralization???
With DV button in the hands of every participant (and any time, any day), we have at least some certain level of self-regulation. Do you want to remove this totally, and leave everything up to the mercy of ONE SINGLE person? A person who have enough reasons to be 100% anonymous?
What are his secret, long term plans?
Instead of abstract warnings "there may be a powerful abuser(whale) one day, which you possibly will have to stop somehow", I clearly said - this whale is HERE, already, TODAY, and he knows how to do BAD things. And there will be more, many more of such abusers. Just open the gates for them.
It is not "IF", its only "when" this happens.
There is no other, more important thing for the prosperity of POB tribe, than keeping the DV feature available to everyone & all the time.
To save this feature, I see there is no limit on the measures. Anything GOES
Even open threats.
Because many people only understand this type of language.
Haha, we both know what is going on here. Lets say: 100 guys with 1K POB stake in total wants to rule 1 guy with 50K stake and tell him which post he can vote 100% and which he can't . That's proof of communism. Let them do it and they will end with nothing.
To be clear, I'm talking about max-payout idea, it must be implemented after removing downvotes
max-payout idea is great ! I always thought about it.
There are many evil whales lurking.
Yes, greed and selfishness. This can probably mainly traced back to the bad marketing of Steemit. "Come and earn money,". This attracted mostly the selfish and greedy users. And the Hive blockchain is a hardfork of the Steem blockchain, and because of this most Hive users are is (or was previously) Steem users, so this cycle just continued.
By the way, I am also a Steem user. I registered on the Steem blockchain on 2017.05.17. A little bit more than 4 years ago.
Inasmuch as I won't be cowed into the making decisions due to the fear of influence, I still believe that a lot of people here knows how centralised the tribe system and hive engine works. It begs to ask the question: can pure decentralization work or be achievable in the tribe systems on hive? Even if it were so, what would be the repercussions? What would be the advantages? There will continue to be speculations whether there's CPOS or DPOS, I just feel that dialogue is the key that proof of stake should and wouldn't work as a governance method. It's all about trust, can be trust in the centralised system? How far are we willing to push the project? Hope the founder would not up and disappear one day? All these are questions.
Truth is, it's all about making or experimenting to see how we'd eventually get it right.
As for downvotes it shouldn't be remove, Just refrained. There should be some protection so that the tribe would not go to shit and it would have been all for nothing.
So the guy with "overvalued content" (IMO) wants to downvote content based on the subjective "overvalue" standard?
How surprising. Now that wouldn't increase the reward pool for his content, would it? Some folk's motives are clear indeed.
Well written, again. Thank you for breaking down the DPOS situation for us. From SEEM to HIVE to POB, people don't change. Change the rules, and they'll find a way to game the changes.
It's a shame that the bullywhales never understand how driving people off the chain reduces the use of the chain, and from there, the lowered value of rewards they get in the long run.
Isn't this literally what his point is? People should downvote his overvalued content and he in turn should be able to downvote overvalued content he believes is. It's baffling to me how people instead of working on some methods to be alerted when malicious downvotes occur and how to combat it they're just ready to give up and call an experiment as failed when the tools and the masses are there. It's pretty clear we can't remove downvotes, just look at what Steem and Blurt looks like without them, all short term crying over downvotes on posts many deem overrewarded is void but it's something most people like to focus on. If many band together to combat malicious downvotes or zero'ing of posts they can share the amount needed to counter it and everyone only loses a little ROI doing that, the rest is up to the malicious downvoter. If he decides to go out of his way to start attacking people countering his downvotes then you counter them too, eventually he will need to start dipping into his upvote mana which will cost him meaning the masses countering his downvotes take a small ROI loss while the malicious downvoter starts sacrificing all his curation rewards if he wants to continue doing so. Eventually they give up or leave/power down completely, this has also been proven.
It's the countering and being able to ask people for help that's the difficult part, but it's something that should be figured out eventually even if the issues of malicious downvotes are only 0.001% of all votes. Removing downvotes completely or trying to jump over hurdles to make this a safe space for people through centralization is not a solution.
For Layer 1, yes. However, Layer 2 should be a place where a plethora of experiments are encouraged and implemented.
Yeah, I'm interested to see what people come up with on L2. I have an idea for a token myself that's focused on curation I'd like to experiment with when I find the time, funding and devs.
there are a couple of services that do this on HIVE, freezepeach, iirc
I dont think that it's a matter of unwillingness to confront malicious DVs as much as it is a lack of an easy venue to do it through. setting up a community is hard (I know). getting a community publicized is harder.
that is something an individual will have to organize the effort with no recompense. otoh, I would certainly argue that the person that did set this up for POB should fix a beneficiary as part of the process.
Totally Agree and tied to have followed ya.
@geneeverett read this! It’s what is happening to you. Every post getting zeroed out.
https://www.proofofbrain.io/hive-150329/@lucylin/and-on-the-eight-day-god-created-the-can-opener-
here's a thought..
definitely interesting idea
...anything that promotes free market dynamics and not socialist ones (the current hive set up) is the way to go for any chance of growth.
Socialism (and it's mindset ) , is the cancer of innovation and the killer of anything positive.
I think it's the crony capitalism/syndicated socialism quandry...essentially there's no difference when power gets that centralized, over time, then power is used to control, not to create. Corruption and decadence take priority...real life? not so much.
The self-proclaimed "elite" abandon accepted means of politics to maintain their power.
Interesting post from today looking at this issue (I've been getting a lot of synchronicity lately, probably karma saying sorry for fucking me out of DEFCON, LOL):
Delta vs. the Delta Response
my comment here at #237
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=394888#c35186378
As you pointed out it all comes to stake distribution and a good will of token owner, however I wonder if it would be possible to code the governence in a way which would give back control over token back to the stakeholders. I can imagine, in this competitive environment more decentralized solutions would get advantage over these centrally governed.
I would hold this assumption valid only on some idealistic level, we are neither reasonable, nor tending to get perfectly informed, actually, it creates highly competitive environment, which rewards only the most engaged and oriented (very often insiders) creating conditions of stress and fear for the most. I don't believe this is ideal situation for social media ecosystem.
And there come another factors: changing social networks like your cereals? Dumping all your network of social contacts because another network grants you more power in decision making? It doesn't seem very humane. Financial is not only motivation here. I can imagine working this model on the cryptocurrency market, where decisions are strictly economic, but social dimension add whole level of complexity here.
I can't help but express my concern about what I have read here...as well as my disillusionment.
In the "real" world, those in power always want to manipulate others to achieve their goals. In the digital world and in HIVE/POB I seem to be seeing the same thing.
For a person new to anything to do with blockchain like me, facts or hypothetical scenarios like the ones described here both in the post and in the comments, far from encouraging one to continue, may end up driving one away from Hive and the community.
If I understand the concept of decentralized, it is not possible to allow ANYONE to decide by their power what one does or doesn't do, who to vote for, who to read, follow or whatever the fuck one wants to do.
I am not saying that there are no cases where it is necessary to control, but it should NOT be the norm here and even less if it is imposed...no one deserves to be treated like a sheep and even worse not to rebel to this.
I think EVERYONE here is here for the same thing: rewards and added value and we all have personal interests, but what is a community? What is social based on? Does personal pettiness prevail over "common" interests?
I am not in favor of eliminating DV, but neither do I accept that it is used in such a non-objective way, as I have seen in some cases I have investigated.
I think there should be a balance between everyone and for everyone: founder, investors, curators, creators and so on. At the end of the day we are all here for the same thing, money, and no one wants to lose their investment, their effort and their time.
I do what I want, nobody controls me, but let's take care of ourselves and HIVE/POB between all of us.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Just take a look around. Nowadays the average number of comments per post on is around 2-3 on the Hive blockchain, and most of those comments are bot comments. The social side is almost nonexistent for most of the users. Probably they do not even want it. Most people focus only on their own posts. On the rewards on their posts, to be more specific.
I agree with you, nowadays publications that have interaction are increasingly rare, and I believe this is a determining point in the community.
You know PobTalk, I believe that the interaction that takes place there strengthens bringing people to comment on the posts, as it creates a friendship and a new follower for your feed.
It's not the best solution, but it's something.
In the days when downvote didn't exist, the blockchain was a mess, a lot of spam. Many imitators (clones) of Steem died due to the non-existence of downvotes. Sorry to say this, but the downvote is a necessary evil
for Layer 1.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why free DVs are necessary for the proper functioning of Layer 2 tribes and tokens.
I envision a good start. I've seen this before. Happy people going around knocking on doors, saying how great it is. Anyone who's planning to milk the easy money out of the tribe will make damn sure the tribe puts itself in a good position first because why should they do the work. Then a mass extraction event will occur, and won't stop. At that point you'll be debating whether or not things like self votes should be a thing, only to discover there's no way to prevent it plus the vocal are yelling about "freedom". It becomes contagious. Suddenly everyone is voting mainly for their own posts and comments with nothing left to give to others. The foolish will come in with the hopes of extracting 'free money' once they see how easy it is, pumping the token value slightly, until the breaking point where extraction becomes overwhelming. Most extractors at the start should come out of there with at least some profit. It's a sitting duck, basically. And you can't mute everyone. Even with the token value touching the floor, there's still potential in profiting from extraction, provided enough believers hold on to 'hope'. It's a numbers game and since it's a tribe, those numbers are small by default. The only 'investor' wanting in will do so in order to extract. Those incoming funds will confuse believers, because number go up, and who cares about quality content if number go up. Any long term 'bagholders' with experience in crypto will know to avoid that thing like the plague. It's only sustainable for extraction purposes but not forever. The social and media elements become a front.
These reward pools aren't like tip or charity jars sitting on the counter at a restaurant or store. Those sit out in obvious places flashing money as an advertisement, so others put money inside, not take. Most bolt those things to the counter now, for a reason. Start flashing money in crypto and it's gone before the flash, especially if there's no security device. Word of a free lunch travels fast in crypto.
A reward pool is a reward pool no matter what layer it's on. People have known how to rip apart reward pools for extraction purposes since forever.
You're free to experiment, of course. Just like the people are free to expose the flaws in the experiment, and they will.
Excellent post. I truly have nothing to add to that. You did a good job researching, thinking, and then explaining.
Though who knows what seeds you may have planted in my mind. I don't. Yet.
While I see today that most of what I learned in school has been propaganda, the relevant phrase "checks and balances" does come to mind and still applies.
It seems once a whale is overly weighty and powerful he does not need to fear retaliation after making threats. I always thought it ould be natural for other large players to counter this with their stake, but i often find "batmen" don't really exist and all the fatcats are looking out for their own first and foremost.
I agree and have said so here and there throughout the years as I've continued my search for a home platform.
That is;
POS will always become an Oligarchy and that's exactly what Hive governance is. A few decide what projects get funded and control the forward path of the blockchain.
POS is fine for spreading out the post earnings, but NOT for governance. We need a more equitable governance system to push closer to decentralization or the claim of decentralization needs to be dropped from the marketing of the platform.
And, I fully disagree with @themarkymark. The only reason civilization seems to always flow towards POS is that the economic systems always allow for high stakes to buy power. We need a new economic system, rather than just give up and say, "well, this is just how it is and can't be changed, cuz human nature."
For me a truly free market is void of large corporations/whales that control large parts of the markets. A truly free market is each individual being a business and finding their niche without ever controlling more than their voice worth. Anytime an individual controls enough of any individual market where they have sway over the life of another, the market ceases to be free.
So, a truly free market would not allow for control to ever be consolidated into the hands of a few and we should work towards this end. How could that happen?
Simple, we already the mechanism in place. That's the community standard that most every Hive user adheres to to avoid spam and copyright theft. We have a community ideal that the community enforces and it's time we add a new economics model to that ideal.
in the end all of this is an experiment, that's all that it is.
Yes, just like BTC is just an experiment.
Fortunately, experiments can yield long-term benefits for society. Let's hope this one does that.
Thanks for making all this clear and public, the endless sneaking around in discord, hiding from any open discussion, cripples the Hive system...
As I see since I am here that you are struggling to make this community better so thank you on behalf of all of us .
https://www.proofofbrain.io/hive-150329/@lucylin/and-on-the-eight-day-god-created-the-can-opener-
A free market, is a free market....
One whale controls everything.
Maybe not one, but a few.
Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!
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great post
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 71/91) Liquid rewards.
So much to learn here, this is indeed a very sensitive post
https://www.proofofbrain.io/hive-150329/@lucylin/and-on-the-eight-day-god-created-the-can-opener-
A free market, is a free market....
How can a tribe that build in POS/DPOS system has governance model other than POS/DPOS system?
In real blockchain world when you don't agree, you just "fork" out.
Tribes do not have a built-in governance model. Hive-Engine tribes and tokens are fully centralized -- controlled by a single Hive account.
They can choose to emulate PoS/DPoS, but that is really only a facade. Ultimately it comes down to the whims of whomever has access to the Private Keys of the issuing account.
When you ask for governance , Democracy is the most accepted form of governance and tribe should have the same but as we can make multiple accounts so these "fake votes" make challenge to run a democratic system.
We need to find a way between POS and "democratic" vote system for governance.
I am not a huge fan of purely 'democratic' governance. Democracy just means the majority faction can oppress all minority factions and feel 'justified' in doing so.
The beauty about Layer 2 tribes is that you can readily create your own tribe with its own governance system. I am currently fleshing out a new governance 'system' (with the help of a few others) that we are tentatively calling "Proof of Stewardship". We will share more about it when we have more to share.
A lot to dissect in this post. But the fact remains and it has taken your analysis to discern that PoS and decentralization cannot go hand in hand. If we take an example of a government, then a capitalist government will always be swayed by lobbies and money when electing governments ot making laws. Decentralization is akin to a true democracy where anyone is free to choose what they want.
I can't help but express my concern about what I have read here...as well as my disillusionment.
In the "real" world, those in power always want to manipulate others to achieve their goals. In the digital world and in HIVE/POB I seem to be seeing the same thing.
For a person new to anything to do with blockchain like me, facts or hypothetical scenarios like the ones described here both in the post and in the comments, far from encouraging one to continue, may end up driving one away from Hive and the community.
If I understand the concept of decentralized, it is not possible to allow ANYONE to decide by their power what one does or doesn't do, who to vote for, who to read, follow or whatever the fuck one wants to do.
I am not saying that there are no cases where it is necessary to control, but it should NOT be the norm here and even less if it is imposed...no one deserves to be treated like a sheep and even worse not to rebel to this.
I think EVERYONE here is here for the same thing: rewards and added value and we all have personal interests, but what is a community? What is social based on? Does personal pettiness prevail over "common" interests?
I am not in favor of eliminating DV, but neither do I accept that it is used in such a non-objective way, as I have seen in some cases I have investigated.
I think there should be a balance between everyone and for everyone: founder, investors, curators, creators and so on. At the end of the day we are all here for the same thing, money, and no one wants to lose their investment, their effort and their time.
I do what I want, nobody controls me, but let's take care of ourselves and HIVE/POB between all of us.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
I can't help but express my concern about what I have read here...as well as my disillusionment.
In the "real" world, those in power always want to manipulate others to achieve their goals. In the digital world and in HIVE/POB I seem to be seeing the same thing.
For a person new to anything to do with blockchain like me, facts or hypothetical scenarios like the ones described here both in the post and in the comments, far from encouraging one to continue, may end up driving one away from Hive and the community.
If I understand the concept of decentralized, it is not possible to allow ANYONE to decide by their power what one does or doesn't do, who to vote for, who to read, follow or whatever the fuck one wants to do.
I am not saying that there are no cases where it is necessary to control, but it should NOT be the norm here and even less if it is imposed...no one deserves to be treated like a sheep and even worse not to rebel to this.
I think EVERYONE here is here for the same thing: rewards and added value and we all have personal interests, but what is a community? What is social based on? Does personal pettiness prevail over "common" interests?
I am not in favor of eliminating DV, but neither do I accept that it is used in such a non-objective way, as I have seen in some cases I have investigated.
I think there should be a balance between everyone and for everyone: founder, investors, curators, creators and so on. At the end of the day we are all here for the same thing, money, and no one wants to lose their investment, their effort and their time.
I do what I want, nobody controls me, but let's take care of ourselves and HIVE/POB between all of us.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Nice one
An interesting one. Thumbs up to you. I love this.
Do you know some may not upvote down vote your work still the will never upvote you. We need to address this issue too.
Your write up spoke half of my mind and I must confess you really got me becoming a follower. Thumbs up👍
I guess this is problem that is common to every community. The people with the highest stake will always determine the flow things, either directly or indirectly.
It was good proposal, the ultimate aim might not have been achieved. But it was not altogether useless.
At least engagements in the platform was at its peak.
How hello people how you doing I really love to be here because the brain is the most talented fighter ever have never been before proof of brain is the best site ever which I've never been before I'm so glad to be here and so glad to be here forever and making it because they are doing well
The downvoting stuff ruins the whole platform and just makes it a dictatorship. Fair enough when it’s actual spam ( repetitive comments with no alteration - not someoen who can’t speak English well) and plagerism but the rest ruins the whole platform. It means there is only one opinion ( the most trendy one) that can ever make money. If someoen just doesn’t agree with an opinion or doesn’t like you just walk in by. This downvoting and powerplaying is petty and down right childish.
HIVE!D