I've been thinking about the Oracles - Collective Wisdom / Collective Consensus
True Democracy
Is that even possible? I'm not trying to be a cynic here. I mean, I understand the concept on paper, I completely understand it because it's also a fruit of an idealist mindset. However, I'm not one to subscribe to Utopian ideas without poking all the holes I can into the system proposed.
If this is a topic that interests you, I recommend you checkout the youtube video released by Steemit Inc. just yesterday. It details the plan in the easiest way possible, without the excessive amount of technical language that developers tend to love a little too much.
The goals are beautiful
Let me get that out of the way first, don't misinterpret me. I mean, I want a system that has social accountability too. Where if someone is a terrible actor, that person can suffer the consequences of his actions regardless of the size of the wallet. That to me sounds fantastic, almost musical. But, a couple of minutes after listening to the presentation I was already thinking of ways corruption could take a bite off the pie yet again.Some of the Challenges will remain
And this is exactly why I believe that the change we need has a lot more to do with the culture than code. Lets apply a little of that ugly honesty to this whole conversation so that we can be prepared to tackle the challenges to come. If Oracles are democratically elected, but they are also responsible of verifying the authenticity of accounts, thus giving the accounts the power to vote... Do you not see a possible conflict of interest?
Doomsday Scenario #312
OK, I'll come out and say it, because it needs to be said(imo). A whale with enough resources on Steem could: finance the creation of a Botnet that will allow him to upvote content within the SMT, and also vote the Oracle into its position of policing the system he is abusing of.
Now of course, this would be conditional to that particular SMT being something gaining enough moment for a corrupt whale to even consider the amount of work and offset the costs of doing such a thing. But, as one of my really good friends and mentors says all the time - "Never underestimate your opponents".
The possible way forward
Has to be with diving the power of the Oracles even more, and I realize that it would complicate things to a higher degree. But, aside from an Oracle being specific to the First Condition (in this case verification of individuality) and the second condition (being a good actor), those two obstacles should be approved or disapproved by a collective poll type voting of the oracles that participate of the ecosystem.
So, for example if a user @impartofthecabal is approved by the cabal's Oracles (this word is hilarious to me). Then, that would be offset by the Oracles that are not part of the Cabal. In very much the way the sincerity database works currently on Steem.
On a side note, I'm currently rated at 2% bot and around the same as spammer, isn't that interesting. But, I digress, the truth is that in my personal opinion, one Oracle should not have the absolute power to qualify or disqualify an account for rewards. If this tweak is not implemented from the start, if someone else did not think of this possible exploit to the system, I would be surprised with a hefty dose of disappointment.
Let's play a Game - Let's think like Corruptors
How can you think of ways the system can be exploited? Listen to the video yourself. Maybe we can collect valuable input that we can present our leaders the witnesses and they in turn can forward it to Steemit Inc. Hopefully collective wisdom can score a field goal here.
Other posts by yours truly
• If the keyboard takes over I want impunity
• It doesn't look like anything to me
• Open Mic Week 87 - Top 5 Selection and Honorable Mentions
• An open Letter to those who claim to care
• We can be so silly
This video is in the korea summit last month i believe. SMT is an interesting concept; I have a project on blockchain which we're studying which platform to choose.
Steem offers great stuff on content, ETH also brings amazing reward system....
This is definitely the beginning of the new era. Still too much to come 🤞
New era indeed my friend, the "trick" has to be to decentralize government (i know its an ugly word) as much as possible. Or it won't work, we just make room for Cabals, organized "crime".
But the tech is leaning towards enabling us to do so.
If i have got you right, you believe in a decentralized regulation?
So it will need universal culture, universal understanding of what's bad for the entire community etc...
For such target, I prefer to stop ecosystems which engages rewards and minetizing...
Or the members should have come to a level of wisdom and awareness so they set their goals for long run.
I believe your no.1 enemy for such utopia, is the ugly truth in the real world: different social classes
We cannot expect a citizen from a country which normal monthly income is $200 to act same as a citizen from Luxemburg or Singapore.
I would appreciate your words, maybe you put them in a post, if it's getting long
Regards
That is a good subject to tackle... I think I will give it a go.
Please 🙇🏻🤞👍
I am an individual and good actor.... Yay!!! I'm so bullish then !!! Not really... mmmm
One person one vote, but how much worth is a vote then? I guess it depends on the particular SMT. Some small niches SMTs won't be worth the time to post for the number of account votes and could die soon. Also giving more power to human elements gives more corruption possibilities... It is just how humans work. I like that if an oracle is found corrupt it can be easily voted out, like what happened in our political scene in Span.. Have you heard? But corruption is so powerful, that it can corrupt the new oracles again and again.
I think Vitalik will eventually be right, we will have to depend on AI... and Dan will lose. But it is not the time yet. I look too much into the future.
Sorry... you see? I can't post... I get bearish as I type.
You asked for opinions. This experiment wasn't enough... now it is the experiment of the experiment ;)
I think excessive myopic cheerleading is ten times more damaging than what you call getting bearish. You have valid concerns.
@tcpolymath believes it will be up to the SMT design, if that's the case, I say we come up with our own version. I think if good people take the initiative, we can come up with the best possible solution.
They named the functionality for determining who's a good citizen after Larry Ellison's company.
(I know that's not actually why but it's pretty funny anyway.)
hahahhahahha I wonder how they came up with it... maybe @ned is a big fan of matrix, it could be that simple.
So as I understand it, and I'm not totally up to speed on SMTs yet, this will be up to the SMT designer. I think It's entirely reasonable for one oracle to be used for some SMTs; if I want to make an SMT for people who post about curling, and I'm the only oracle for determining who posts about curling, that's probably fine. (Does anyone post about curling?)
The big high-concept SMTs with goals for changing the whole ecosystem will have to have more careful design to them. Probably only one or two of those will ever be at all effective, so in some sense the community will have a choice to go for the best-designed one. Whether we make that choice well....
Well... i hope you are right... the good people token is going to be a thing tho, at least the first SMT will serve as a test..
Of course you are right that whatever system is designed will at least be attempted to be corrupted.
Any time there is an economic reward, some portion of people will try to game that reward.
I've been sounding a similar alarm over the past couple weeks. I have not seen anything in the Oracle/SMT talk so far that has convinced me that however Oracles verify users will be any more effective than keeping bots of facebook and twitter.
Hi Neal!
It depends a lot on the SMT design and the Oracle. Lots of the smaller, more topic-focused SMTs I expect to see should work fine with community Oracles. That's a really good place for them, so that, say @pechichemena wanted to make an SMT for cover-a-steemian, we could have a few Oracles who were active in the community verify that the people getting the tokens were playing the game by the rules.
Using them site-wide to address the grandiose issues Ned likes to pontificate about is a much tougher problem, but I'm not convinced that's ever going to happen anyway. Good Person Token seems to be a marketing concept Steemit is using because talking about humans vs. bots is a good way to lots of views and discussions here right now, not an actual project.
If the token is very narrow in use and it’s economic value is low, then that makes sense. There isn’t enough profit for the spammers and scammers to bother.
But then why bother having a token that isn’t worth much?
Who knows, maybe they have a brilliant solution to making the whole thing work. I’m just skeptical is all :)
I doubt the dev team has not thought about the particular DOOM scenario I've thought of. These are bright people, a lot smarter than me. But, because assuming is probably not the best way of approaching this. I'm interested in this conversation and the collection of some wisdom through it.
I hope you are right.
If SMTs gain value and there is a superlinear rewards curve to votes, then the incentive to create accounts is exponential. So it all comes back to getting those accounts verified by whatever means is still profitable.
The ideas of oracle seems good according to Ned presentation, but like you pointed out, people are already planning on how to hijack it even before it is imlemented.
The question I would have love Ned to answer are the following : Who are the oracles? What are the methods used in selecting them?
It is the whales and the already powerful people on steemit that would still be in control of the system of operating the oracle.
Except it won't have the human element, I can't see it workin, it would make it more of who know who..
technically anyone can be an oracle... like... you could become one, you would have to learn of course the technical aspects of being an oracle, it might involve a server, complicated software and other things.
But then the people would vote them, like in government elections. So you would have to campaign....
I mean, this has been implied, not specified.
That's is what I'm referring to as human element.
Even before election, we have the idea of who will win.
Their are lots of cabals on steemit believe me, they can go to any length to accomplish their missions.
Some people would still be getting away with some acts as long as they belong to the group of this people.
I'm in full support of the change, but I don't see it not been hijacked.
A new way for publishers to monetize their online content and community, based on battle-tested blockchain technology.Smart Media Tokens will allow anyone with even minimal coding knowledge to launch a new token for $1 empowering the 99.999% of the world before that was..Thanks for sharing,,@meno
Hmmm… As always, Meno, you bring valid points to the fore. In my view, if there was a way to “code” the “Golden Rule” and a subset of complementary laws of like-minded truth and justice onto a given blockchain – perhaps in the form of some generally accepted “constitution” as it were – well then by golly, those subscribing to such truths and credos would be bound by the UN-DEMOCRATIC guidelines upon which such foundational terms of participation were clearly defined.
Democracy works sporadically and tangentially. Thereafter, it is largely a failure if not an outright curse on the existence of humankind. Pure unfettered democracy does not serve the interest nor protect the inherent property rights or beliefs of the individual.
At the end of the day, yes, individual character and the collective culture derived from such matters greatly if not exclusively.
What might bind such noble actions? To my mind, there is only one metric capable of achieving, imposing, and enforcing such a state of collective noble behavior. Quite simply, that metric is a social contract based solely upon an incorruptible rule of law based largely upon the Golden Rule and other natural laws.
Tribe-defined Oracles are not a solution in my view. A plain set of governance rules based upon a set of natural vs. man-made laws would be required to rid any such system of the ability to become corrupted.
As such, Rule by Law – not by man nor Oracle would be a fine place to start.
That makes sense, but attempting to sell that idea here is like yelling at walls.
Most people who participate of steem are all about voluntarism. Use the word law, watch them retaliate.
Ha-ha… I suppose you’re right, Meno. I guess if a small seed could be planted that might be a start. After all, in order to protect property rights, even in a voluntary society or one of total anarchy for that matter, a basic “rule of law” is required to ensure that contracts, both social contracts and otherwise are upheld.
I define voluntarism in part as conforming to “the Non-Aggression” principle, and in general keeping with a clear disdain and rejection of coercion on any level. I suppose that all too often, a great many of us are not precisely sure of what is truly in our best interest over the long run or more succinctly, how to define it, act upon it, and live it.
To each his own as they say…
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation, headquartered in Redwood Shores, California."We hope that people who want to change the world choose to come to #Oracle so we can make change happen together,"Thanks for sharing
Hey do you want to know how to make a lot of money on Steem? - I'll tel you, its real simple...
˙ƃuᴉɥʇou ƃuᴉɥsᴉldɯoɔɔɐ puɐ pɹɐɥ ɹǝdns ƃuᴉʞɹoʍ ǝq llᴉʍ noʎ ɹo ʎʇᴉɹǝɔuᴉs ɥʇᴉʍ ʇɔɐɹǝʇuᴉ oʇ uɹɐǝ˥ ˙ǝɟᴉl ɹnoʎ ɟo spuoɔǝs ǝǝɹɥʇ ǝsoɥʇ pǝʇsɐʍ ʎlǝʌᴉʇɔǝɟɟǝ noʎ oS ˙ɥƃnouǝ pooƃ ʇou ʇnq 'ǝʌᴉssǝɹdɯᴉ ʎʇʇǝɹd sɐʍ ʇɐɥʇ 'spuoɔǝs ǝǝɹɥʇ ɹoɟ ǝlƃooƃ ƃuᴉsn ɹoɟ sdoɹd noʎ ǝʌᴉƃ llᴉʍ I 'ʍoN ˙pɐǝɹ ʎlpǝsoddns noʎ ʇɐɥʍ oʇ pǝʇɐlǝɹ ǝq ʎllɐnʇɔɐ llᴉʍ ʇᴉ uoᴉuᴉdo uɐ ǝʇᴉɹʍ noʎ uǝɥʍ ʇɐɥʇ os sʇsod ǝɥʇ pɐǝɹ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ʎllɐnʇɔɐ noʎ ʇɐɥʇ suɐǝɯ ʇɐɥʇ 'ǝuᴉnuǝƃ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ no⅄
Oh yeah thanks boss.. upvote done..
Nice video,,That's a good content,,
˙puɐʇsɹǝpun llᴉʍ noʎ 'llɐɔ dn ǝʞɐʍ ɐ sᴉ sᴉɥʇ ʎllnɟǝdoɥ 'ʎllɐuoᴉʇuǝʇuᴉ sᴉɥʇ ǝʞᴉl ʞɹoʍ noʎ ƃuᴉʞɐɯ ɯ,I ˙ʇuǝɯᴉldɯoɔ ǝʞɐɟ ɐ sɐʍ ʇɐɥʇ puɐ sǝʇoʌdn ɹoɟ ƃuᴉɥsᴉɟ ǝɹɐ noʎ ʍouʞ oʇ uǝddɐɥ I ʇnq ˙noʎ puɐʇsɹǝpun I 'ʇǝsdn ʇou ɯ,I 'ƃuoɹʍ ǝɯ ʇǝƃ ʇ,uop ˙pǝǝɔɔns oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ǝɹɐ noʎ ɟᴉ ʇɹoɟɟǝ ǝɹoɯ ʇol ɐ ʇnd oʇ pǝǝu noʎ ʇnq 'op llɐ ǝʍ 'ɯǝǝʇS uo ʎǝuoɯ ǝɯos ǝʞɐɯ oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ ʍouʞ I
yeah,,That's right,,Some people are trying spam and try to make more money like him,, this is not a good mentality,,
yeah,,, i understand..
For a new member, i have no proper knowledge,i obey,i join here to see another..If there have no profit, nobody can't waste his time,money..
so this is not fair ,,@meno..I also have knowledge little,,so you shouldn't say like this,,
you too @mishuxr
The system currently recognizes your account as 57% spammer. Hence why I decided to give you some constructive criticism.
So as much as it might offend you that I'm requesting you comment with a more sincere tone. I'm not alone in perceiving you as not sincere. If most of the people you are interacting with think you are spamming, then effectively you are.
Hey what's that system you're using? Sounds like it would be a useful thing to add to my bot to help prevent gaming.
It's a feature on Steemplus, but specifically this is going to answer your questions.
:)
https://steemit.com/steemdev/@andybets/steem-sincerity-new-api-data-and-methods
edit: gentlebot is yours? if it is... i love the idea...
Thanks! I love the idea of gentlebot too, but unfortunately so do spammers.
I will definitely have a look through those APIs.