RE: POLL: Should Moo! Wrapper be Removed from the Whitelist?
This is part of a larger discussion that we probably can leave for later in a different thread. I will, however, say a few things.
The first is that 'decentralization' does not imply 'equal distribution of power'. It just means that there are enough independent stakeholders that there is no single authority or colluding oligarchy. Both these concepts are important, but the 'decentralized' aspect is what's key. I don't want to conflate the two. In particular, power disparity by itself does not threaten decentralization; in fact, I think moderate levels of power disparity are expected and beneficial in distributed networks. Thus, I'm just not convinced that allowing some influence to be directly bought will lead to such dire consequences.
I don't think it's an argument against the 'coin = influence' scheme to say the entire Gridcoin network could be bought. Ultimately, it remains a fact that pretty much any cryptocurrency can be bought out, whether by building an enormous mining operation or purchasing a majority of the coin supply. What blockchain does it make it really expensive for anyone to do so. I'm not sure blockchain by itself is able to provide 100% security against this.
One concrete thing we can do is continue to have magnitude carry a significant voting weight. That way, anyone who wants to dominate the network's voting will have to BOTH buy a huge coin stake AND assemble an enormous mining infrastructure. Besides making centralization much more difficult, this should combat [extreme] power disparity as well (c.f. the 'pareto distribution problem' in PoS).
But giving the coins themselves a voting weight is important too. This gives them a concrete unit of value -- a unit of 'influence' in the network, and incentivizes people to buy and hold. In fact, this isn't a new idea; Steemit works in precisely this way. So for now I'll stand behind the idea.
As for your two questions:
Something is scientifically useful if it contributes to knowledge. 'Knowledge' here refers to nontrivial, objective facts which can be verified empirically by others.
I'm not sure I understand this question. A central entity with its own money system is by nature centralized and controlling, is it not? As I argued above, I don't think the 'coin = influence' scheme seriously jeopardizes the decentralization of Gridcoin.
I've been thinking about your definition of of useful science and I can't get away from it.
"Triviality" is a measure of value. Value is a measure of opinion. Now we're back at the beginning. I don't think "useful science" can be objectively defined.
If this is the case -- I invite challenge on the subject -- but if this the case, the question becomes: do we want to impose our values on everyone else? I can think of arguments for both sides of the discussion and am very much looking forward to when we as a community get to delve into this issue in a more structured and objective way (without the fate of a project on the line).
Yeah, I see what you're saying. Words are hard.. (why I've never been a fan of philosophy..)
I suppose one example of triviality is something that could easily be inferred from what we already know. moo! wrapper falls under this category. One can think of other instances, e.g. calculating as many digits of Pi as possible "just to check" that its decimal representation doesn't terminate.
Checking the digits of pi is crucial!
So is the testing that collatz conjecture is in fact true!
So is SETI!
etc.
The thing about pi is we can prove its decimal expansion never terminates. On the other hand, there is currently no proof that the Collatz sequence always reaches 1 no matter the starting n, nor is there compelling evidence ET doesn't exist out there.
Learned a lot from this conversation. Looking forward to more = )
Likewise! We'll come back to these topics in later discussions I'm sure.