@ura-soul A reply here from John Huckel @matrix-8 (he sent it to me asking me to post it as he's having trouble logging in):
Hello US,
Your point is well taken. And I think AL answered it well.
The assumption is that this system will be used to do actual Things in the Real World. So, once everyone in the Matrix comes to a well-defined Business Plan regarding some subject, they will know precisely how much money, at least the initial steps will take. That number divided by the number of Participants in the Cause Group will determine how much will be expected from each Participant. If there were a bunch of Zombies as Participants, they would immediately be outed if they didn't make their Donations to the Cause. It would be an annoyance to the real Participants, but after the Zombies were washed out of the Cause Group, everyone else could get back to business. If then, the re-figured assessment per Participant was agreeable, the Business Plan would go forward. If not – they would have to go back into Deliberations to come up with a cheaper Plan, or actively recruit new Participants to their Cause Group until they could afford to put the current Business Plan into effect.
One of the reasons that the Anonymity question rears its problematic head is in part my fault. Almost all my focus has been in explaining what is new about my system: the ability for individuals to both Deliberate and Vote in anonymity. We haven't seen that before; it is only since the advent of the Internet that it has been logistically possible. BUT... at this point, I assert that, although it has not been tried before, it is logistically possible! Using the Congress of the United States as an analogy - to pass a law, or in our case to approve a Business Plan, both the House of Representatives, and the Senate are necessary.
The anonymous Matrix-8 Platform side of the equation is the House of Representatives; the open, broad base of the Cause Group is the Senate. Our Senate is in the form of a Chatroom, where like Facebook everyone can see your picture and everyone can know your name. Quite different from the US Congress – our House of Representatives is made up from the very same folks who make up the open Chatroom, or Senate.
But there will be no House of Representatives formed, until there are sufficient people in the Senate; and it's when the Chatroom atmosphere ceases to be productive regarding the Cause, that the same participants in the Senate morph themselves into Participants in the House of Representatives. When they move from one state to the other, it's like they move through a semipermeable membrane – their names, reputations, college degrees, etc. don't make it through. (And in fact – they will be chastised if in the House of Representatives they attempt to sway the argument by divulging what they have been told to leave behind.)
Chatrooms are great for defining the Cause – in fact they are necessary - but they fall apart--often, unfortunately into useless name-calling--once they get too big for real Deliberations to continue.
Please Google "The Iron Rule of Oligarchy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy "It asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an 'iron law' within any democratic organization as part of the 'tactical and technical necessities' of organization." I assert that this--aside from being inevitable--is a good thing! On almost every subject there are recognized Experts - the Elite. To ignore them, or to exclude them from Deliberations is the height of foolishness. So in the Chatrooms it is they who will best initially delineate the Cause and suggest various specific solutions. But they don't get to Vote – other than as Participants within the Matrix-8 Platform.
I hope that this explains that while fictitious Participants might be a nuisance, it is unlikely that they would survive the open free-for-all of the initial Chatroom, then be able to navigate the intimate atmosphere of the 8-PAC's without being found out. And if these Zombies made it through those tests and even paid their share of the costs of the Business Plan – so what? The fact that this system is designed as a solution to large groups being able to practice Real Time Democrity, any small percentage of Evil Doers would have a minimal effect.
Please let me know if this answers your question. And I am very interested in answering any further questions you may have.
Together we can get this done,
John Huckel
Thanks to you and John for the reply here. I do not agree that oligarchy is either necessary or a good thing - almost all of the most evil actions we have seen on the Earth have been done by a state, which by the definitions provided by the alleged 'iron law' were the result of 'experts' and oligarchy.
In any case, as I understood the model being proposed, the ultimate decision made as a result of the matrix process is one that is not enforced on anyone and which simply directs the funds of those involved towards an outcome. So it seems the matrix is a way of organising and directing discussion towards an outcome, as opposed to being anything that can be compared to oligarchy, as such (provided the decisions are not of a kind that are intended to subvert the free will of others - such as might occur if a large number of fascists or nazis used the system to direct their resources).
The issue of anonymity is clearer with your explanation here, though I am not sure of a way that an application can be run to manage or host such anonymity that could not ultimately be tracked somehow by whichever entities have access to it's data. Even the anonymous browser 'tor' has been subverted to a certain degree since there is always a hardware requirement and always therefore an attack vector that can be exploited.
I will introduce my own 'iron law' here if you like. The more power gets concentrated into a system (centralisation), the more of a target it becomes for subversion and manipulation.
Power itself does not corrupt since power is only the 'ability to act' and is absolutely necessary for life to continue at all. The corruption comes in the form of heartlessness and denial that leads to false beliefs and rigid thought frameworks that do not respond to reality or accept reality as it is. There are numerous possible ways to resolve this problem, but it cannot ultimately be done with technology as it is a matter for the soul and heart of individuals and they need to solve it for themselves in their own right time.
This!!
Power corrupts no one. The corrupt seek power, and all power they gain they seek to use to increase their power. The absolutely corrupt seek to gain absolute power.
Lord Acton (IIRC) who originally authored the aphorism 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' was corrupt, and sought thereby to mislead the naive to gain more power.
The actual truth is that 'The absolutely corrupt seek absolute power.'
Thanks!
Ah, yes - I agree. I wrote a post that even I thought was profound a while ago on STEEM that talked about this and why the belief that 'power corrupts' is one that 'the establishment' would want as many as possible to buy into! What a plot twist!
I'm not sure if you read this post https://peakd.com/hive-153630/@matrix-8/welcome-to-new-age-dapps-a-solution-to-what-ails-us in which John writes:
I think @openseed are working on a way to keep some data within a community (in this example it could be the user details) private within that community, yet still be able to within the community what is chosen to be shared and I guess each user would have their own set of private keys. I;m certainly not technically qualified to answer this. I'm hopeful however that we will find some people who will find the solutions. I've also referred this to John for a further reply. Thanks LOTS for your continued engagement.
Edit: I just made a Matrix-8 Q&A post which includes a glossary and a link to this thread: https://peakd.com/hive-153630/@atma.love/matrix-8-questions-and-answers
@ura-soul
John's response to your last comment can be found here:
https://peakd.com/hive-153630/@atma.love/anonimity-in-matrix-8
@ura-soul - you might also like to view, and perhaps join in this in depth ongoing thread which offers some valuable insight: https://peakd.com/informationwar/@valued-customer/re-atmalove-q7zmj1
#matrix8challenge
Interesting