Putting on the Thinking Cap

in #steem6 years ago (edited)
You know this happens sometimes. Someone just asks you a question that you believed you could answer with absolutely no problem, only to find yourself struggling to do so. It's been a while since I've been stumped like this, I must confess. But, not because I'm some sort of know it all or anything like that, more so because It's not so common to be challenged like this on my blog.



I should say the question was a friendly one. I'm not trying to say it wasn't, not in the slightest. As a matter of fact I enjoyed the fact that its got my brain working overtime at the moment, because I honestly don't have a complete answer to it, yet here I'am punishing the keys of this logitech device.



I know the professor is just proposing a hypothetical here, but his question/thought experiment requires so much thinking, I'm not sure he knew what he was pushing me to do that night. You know what I'm talking about right? I'm laying in bed trying to tell all the voices to shush, and there is this particular one that has 1000 watt speaker. Yes, that, that is what was happening.

Bleach in the drinking water


When @professorbromide says "take it private" to me that is proposing something somewhat impossible. Meaning that was we currently have on this blockchain is technically not privatisable (just spent all my french there). You would have to convince all the other whales to go away, send your their stake, and I don't know if they would at all. I mean, I could ask, imagining that my pockets had no limit (I wish), I could. But, I could see most of them telling me to enlist for space-force right away.

However, just to entertain the idea that I could, that somehow they cave and just sell me their stake, and then I, I alone have ze POWA. (one eyebrow twitching) - Would things just magically work out? Would we not enter some sort of tyrannical dictatorship?

I guess you could say something along the lines of: "Oh, but if the mega-ultra-whale is benevolent, its all good" - Maybe, I'm not entirely sure. After all, it benevolence is somewhat subjective... somewhat.

But, for the sake of conversation

I will probably make some crazy changes to the blockchain, or at least push those changes along that is. So this post is my bizarre utopian system that is likely to never exist. But a man can dream, right?

Witnesses


This would probably be the core of the problems we could solve on the hypothetical blockchain. To me the idea of stake weighted votes makes a lot of sense, but only when the system is not too easy to corrupt. I don't have to go into details but there was someone offering witness votes for money and to me that goes against the safety of the network. In my view, the solution might be in the middle.

  • 50% of the ranks are calculated by STAKE.
  • 50% of the ranks are calculated by number of votes.

A system like this would mean that it could both incentivize whale investors to keep their influence on the platform, but at the same time it would not drown the little guy out. The way the system works today, the voice of the little accounts have absolutely no weight and I feel that is somewhat tragic.

Now in order for this to work and not be exploited, we would probably need something along the veins of the ORACLE solutions to determine one account per user. I won't go into details of that on this post, since I don't want to TLDR it too hard. (I'm going that way anyways).

The speculation here would be that we could balance out developers and community oriented witnesses. Meaning that as much as I'm all about improving software, interface and all that jazz. Witnesses of the likes of @aggroed for example, should balance out all the techie stuff that to the average person sounds like a foreign language.

Most people want to have fun, use apps that just work and are not too interested in how they work. So, I think something like this might balance the scales a little more.

Reward Pool Plundering concerns

Are not far from my thoughts either, but I have a different opinion that most do regarding this very subject. Meaning that to me creating a system that creates incentives to have people interact and contribute to others, is more important or practical than attempting to make anyone and everyone adhere to what I find ethical.

A little while ago @clayboyn suggested a 50/50 split between creator and curator. Some people in chat that day got close to having an aneurysm. The idea of an "evil whale" taking half their work sounded like someone telling them to be OK with being robbed.

Needless to say that idea comes for a scarcity mindset and I don't subscribe to it in the slightest. You can have your 100% of nothing if you wish, or you could get 50% of a banquet, the choice is yours. If you are from the team "I rather keep it all to myself" - then I probably would not want that mentality to be participating of the ecosystem anyways, so making that change would weed them out. ( I know @meano is at it again)

This also would require having a system that can be effective at making sure that people would not be using sock puppets and what not, and the reasons should be obvious. Again for this I would probably default to the ORACLE idea that SMTs are attempting to implement.

The speculation here would be that we would effectively create a user base of content consumers. They can make as much as the content creators, they don't have to create themselves, thus balancing the system a little more.

As we have it today everyone feels obligated to write, to post videos, etc, and let's face it. Is it logical to think that everyone wants to? I mean, those who create, those who write daily or post music because they've been doing so for years and years don't actually worry about where content is coming from. I don't ever think about what I'm going to write about today, because that is the thing I've been doing for twenty plus years and it's how I fake being sane.

Development Budgets


Would probably be one of the main focuses of this craziness too. I think in order for mainstream to be achieved we need not only more dapps, but amazing and I do mean amazing user interfaces and experiences. So, I would see this "mega-ultra-whale" throwing down some major satoshis in that quest.

Without trying to bore anyone with specific nerdy details, the ideal situation should probably be along the lines of: "It's so easy to use, to send money to the bank and viceversa that you are not even sure how cryptos do their magic"

I will give you a weird yet verifiable little fact. Most people think that linux didn't quite make it, that it remained and operating system for the nerdy types like muhself. But, they would think that while connecting to an apache server running on linux to checkout their favorite content, using their newest samsung android (linux also), and playing around with their automated AC system they just got for their home (running also on linux). So, linux not only went mainstream, it's so mainstream the whole world is using it in one way or another while at the same time having no idea that they are.

Schools of Thought


And this part is probably the only one I had thought about prior to the professor posing that crazy question. To me most of the problems in the world are not directly a consequence of the lack of critical thinking, but remain problems because we just don't have enough critical thinkers.

This is not to say that we could one day reach utopia and that we would solve all of the problems in the world just like that. It just means we would get a little closer and possibly that is the only win we should be striving for.

I imagine an online school of thought with both reliable knowledgeable teachers and students who are incentivized to learn through a system that rewards them for doing so and not just punishes them if they don't.

The idea that in first would countries the only way to get educated is to become a debt slave seems appalling to me, because at the same time those who lack the education are the core element of our economy.

This whole thing needs so much brainpower I would not dare to outline it on this post, because it's a gargantuan task, but I'm sure more ideas will find themselves on this blog soon enough regarding Schools of Thought.

I'm sure the professor has a dusty tome with written concerns


And he will show up and ask me more things, but I'm looking forward to it, because I find this thought experiment absolutely fascinating. But, feel free to chime in, add your 2 cents, 3 or four, I certainly welcome it.

@professorbromide - What say Yeee?


• Helpienaut Meeting 8/13/2018
• How does that help?
• Open Mic Week 97 - Top 5 Selection and Honorable Mentions
• A story about a Fisherman
• If you had an opportunity to talk to an investor about STEEM, would you?

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The answer is NO

let evolution do the work...blockchain is all about decentralization..

It's not possible... this is just a mental stretch bro dood... come one dewd.. gimme your best internet right now.

I am answering professor's question...
we would end up facebook once again

We would Zuckerberg the blockchain?

The only thing we should change is less influence with so few people , for which , right now is best time to buy influence.

In any case , it will get distributed over time , people sell out and go do other things , new people come and ride the wave.

42 the answer is 42 ^^

Great Post again my friend.. Love the articles you smash em on top and the hit the triggers...

There is little to no incentive to curate with the current system. Simple as that.

I do it because I care about other users experiences on here, but so often will find content with zero comments and low reward, and there is little to nothing I can do aside from throw a few cents and a (generally) positive comment.

Have a great day !

we obviously need a stronger middle class to fix this problem... if we just have dust accounts interacting its pretty hard to imagine it going anywhere.

Which would involve some investment, or being extremely lucky. Or gaming the system (account creation exploits, pow mining a ton, etc).

When your own posts can be threatened at the end of the voting window and you can't do anything about it (this changes in hf20 I believe). That seems like taking the risk of working hard and then getting nothing.

If you want to volunteer and are happy to work for free then I wonder why have stake in the first place? which goes back around to the problem of not enough middle-class.

Combine that with the fud around crypto and people not wanting to take a risk in hodling a bag, it's not surprising most coin out and never reach that vaunted 'dolphin' status.

Round and round we go, on that crypto merrygoround!

Thanks for the reply!

Edit.. : Perhaps in this utopia you envisage we could adjust the ability to increase stake with capital to be similar to the powerdown system currently in place, making it take 13 weeks to enter the 'system' might mitigate that somewhat?

The idea of increasing curation rewards dramatically seems like a no-brainer to me. There is no shortage of content on the STEEM network, but there is certainly a shortage of labor to sort through it all and find something worth reading. Manual curation should be very highly rewarded.

I also like the Schools of Thought idea. Using the linked blog format is a great way to connect teacher, student, and peer together. It would be great if the STEEM network could be used to confirm identities, establish reputation, and organize teamwork. Those are some of the primary functions of the formal education system - I think that the STEEM network could be used to do the same thing. Instead of having a diploma, a resume, and a LinkedIn account, you would have a complete professional identity on the blockchain. Ideally it would be encrypted and you could grant limited access to your information to trusted people.

I'm not sure about your witness voting idea. The result of shifting witness voting power out of the hands of the whales and into the hands of the plankton is difficult to predict. I don't see any reason to think it would be an improvement.

There seems to be something wrong with the way that the witness voting process works, in my opinion. The witnesses are trying to maintain an online persona, engage their followers, etcetera, but that doesn't really have anything to do with technical aspects of running a server. I would prefer to have witnesses who run servers, call them "technical witnesses", earn their rewards for making the network run faster and more reliably - FULL STOP. I don't know how to do that, but I think it is the right way to go.

Setting price feeds, promoting Steemit, making a market for STEEM/SBD, developing new dapps, proposing changes to the code base, are all more social aspects of the witness job that should be separate from the server operation. I'm leaning toward two different kinds of witnesses, one technical and one social.

My first instinct is to start creating the "social witness" concept around a combination of manual curation tasks, mentoring tasks, and social organization tasks. Imagine that @meno the "social witness" earns his rewards for creating an organization like @helpie plus @curie that serves as a way to improve manual curation, provide mentorship, and creates an autonomous social network. Maybe it would evolve into something you would call a School of Thought and I think that it should be rewarded at the witness level.

I like the idea of having two different witness categories. I see this allowing the witnesses to utilize their greatest skillset to benefit the platform whether that be on the technical or social side of things. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of the witnesses are not experts in both areas.

Steem cannot be purchased in its totality, because as you start buying it, the price of the Steem you don't own rises exponentially. If you pay $100million for a quarter of all Steem tokens, the rest of the Steem tokens will rise in price by $2 billion, thus making Steem in total unaffordable.

The reason for this exponential escalation is that most Steem is printed, not bought. Therefore, the impact of $100million real fiat dollars entering the eco-system will shock the system to a degree about 20 times the amount invested. Thus the average Steem token would rise from $1 to $20 overnight. The 20:1 ratio is the best guess regarding how much real fiat money actually flows through crypto projects, the market cap of most cryptos being a hope for future growth.

Therefore, it is impossible to buy Steem in it's totality.

For the sake of clarity, I will address some of your other suggestions in another reply lol.

Yes of course Rodney, I'm breaking the 5th Newton law here.... this is quite impossible.

Having established that the mega whale cannot buy Steem, I have a much better suggestion for him:-

If he really has all that money, his best bet is to grab the open source code of Steem and create a NEW rival Steem blockchain.

This way he acquires Steem for nothing.

Because the real value of Steem is US, the 65,000 active users. Having established that we can't be bought, the mega whale simply starts a new Steem 2.0 related company, call it NOSTINC, and he recruits 21 new witnesses, and starts again.

Since he knows that a major problem with Steem itself is the lack of dolphins and orcas, and the poor distribution of the token, his best bet now is to steal us from Steem.

To do that he AIRDROPS his STEEM2 token to EVERY active user of Steemit, with a rep score of 40 or more, in EQUAL amounts. In so doing, he creates 65,000 dolphins in one easy sneak attack.

Of course, he reserves 40 percent of the tokens for development, and 10 percent for himself. He is a mega whale, after all, so that's his reward.

Now, given that he has 65,000 dolphins, he now creates new rules for them to follow. Self-voting is made technologically impossible in Steem2. All bots do not work in Steem2 and are completely prohibited. Huge reward incentives are distributed to dolphins who curate new active users. When a curator pushes a new user up a rep point, he cashes in double curation rewards. When a minnow is curated, a huge curation reward lands in the lap of the curator who made that minnow.

Al incentives are on growth and active users. Everybody who makes a new one makes more money.

Flagging is only encouraged on users who create fake accounts and are caught, and on users who create circle jerks.

All incentives created by the mega whale are designed to push the active user base to 2million people. At this point, corporations will jump in, join the party, and Steem2 can fly to the moon. :)

I like your utopia the best!

I would make the whole platform into a lottery contest by only delegating out 100% votes. Imagine some guy making a random post comes back and has a vote worth more than 2000 dollars lol.

Anyways that's how far my primitive brain goes. Also why nobody should ever hand me this much power.

I agree... it would be so easy to create a MAGNETO! - the rise of the mutants!

Hi @meno, I'm @checky ! While checking the mentions made in this post I noticed that @meano doesn't exist on Steem. Did you mean to write @meno ?

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FAKENEWS CHECKY!

When will @meno ever learn?

Also you did not mention anything about market when you have all the power, what do you plan to do in that direction?

Yes, that is tricky... Something bankish would have to be made with nice ROI to ensure investment participation. But, yes... not easy, not easy.

So let me say, I don't think its possible.. i think i was clear on that..

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