thoughts about governance

from the chat in IRC (#gridcoin-social) today, between me and Mercosity:

Erkan: governance: based on past stuff and e.g. polls favouring rich, ... I currently would say governance would not be doable
Erkan: someone would have to need let go power first so that the governance can work
Erkan: or the governing committee is just a puppet play
Erkan: I told user1 some ideas about the governance
Erkan: he tried to lure me with it
Mercosity: ...yup, decentralized governance will put some peoples noses out of joint, but we've got to do it very soon as before we open up ..
Erkan: he didn't give then feedback on what I criticized or what need to be done for it to work ;-)
Mercosity: I think everyone except a few realise there is a desperate need ..
Erkan: even if there is a need
Erkan: you can't force it currently
Erkan: it only will work when people like user2 and other whales give away their power
...
Mercosity: I've been doing some research and no one seems to have come up with a really workable system .. people always seem to quote DAO (ETH) ..
...
Erkan: but I see 2 things to do it:
Erkan: 1. everyone can decide
Erkan: 2. a group gets elected
Erkan: --
Erkan: 2. will corrupt over time
Erkan: 1. the whales just distribute their wealth on more accounts to bypass that
Erkan: so, the workable thing is 1.
Erkan: but only when the whales prove they e.g. burn wealth or something
Erkan: I haven't thought more about this all yet
Mercosity: Funny, but everything is relative .. some people see us as whales ..
Erkan: you know the !top ? ;-)
Mercosity: Depends on which way you look at it .. biased towards crunchers or biased towards whales .. I believe we must respect the investors but the crunchers are the primary movers ..
Mercosity: Yeah, it's just perception with new users who don't have a big stake .. in real terms I am a 'guppie' ..
Mercosity: not even a 'minnow' ..
Erkan: minnow, guppie, whales: wait until the team requirement falls
Erkan: that will in my view have not a positive effect
Erkan: will bring more distance between rich and not-rich
Erkan: governance: in the end the blockchain only favours balance
Erkan: everything we do so far is outside-action
Erkan: and if the coin does not radically get changed we won't have true governance any time soon
Erkan: important decisions like these: Low network (balance) stake weight participation solution?
Erkan: are just talked about
Erkan: for 1 year now
Erkan: no action
Erkan: outside action: as in when we want to democratize more it goes on by stuff we do outside of the chain
Mercosity: That's where the voting mechanism comes in as it's weighted to advantage whales at this moment ..
Erkan: yes
Erkan: and to think about even changing that we need "approval of the whales"
Erkan: and they normally wouldn't cut their own flesh
Mercosity: Yup, that is the 'bottleneck' ..
Erkan: so, the first practical governance model Gridcoin might dare to attempt
Erkan: will involve a bias towards whales
Erkan: otherwise they would not join the initiative
Erkan: but then to pull away again the power from them is like the poll-system
Mercosity: dats our dilemma .. we can't do anything without the whales approval ..
Erkan: yeah, so we'd need a radical change in the chain
Erkan: and that they also won't allow
Mercosity: Mexican standoff?
Erkan: so the governance model will be supported when it fits good into marketing plans and so
Erkan: Mexican standoff: we are not that
Erkan: we are already in the losing position
Erkan: because whales HAVE the power
Erkan: even if we could get al 99.99999999999999999% of Gridcoin users on the side of a governance model
Erkan: we couldn't implement it by the poll which would decline it
Mercosity: Maybe we need mutually assured destruction (MAD) governance model ..
Mercosity: Crunchers stop crunching and close their wallets .. dead ..
Erkan: well when all miners stop Gridcoin it will be just a PoS coin so it will survive, so to speak
Erkan: people will go away because no science in it anymore
Erkan: but for like a few weeks it will hold value
Erkan: and in that time people can sell their GRCs
Erkan: so miners have not really a big influence
Erkan: given also:
Erkan: that we assume everyone would really wanna a governance thinggy
Erkan: we are interested
Erkan: not sure who else is really
Mercosity: I think maybe we need to define governance then so users understand what it is and what it will do for them ..
Erkan: the average user will just care about GRC price
Erkan: we hardcore guys care for more
Erkan: longterm vs shortterm interests
Erkan: I think all what I have said may sound negative
Erkan: but I am also supporting governance
Erkan: but I just think it would be wasted time without assurance of whales first
Erkan: if no whale support: in the end starting all this governance will back fire
Erkan: like people giving up hope on Gridcoin and showing really that's a whale-coin in the end

Erkan-Yilmaz / GRC

thoughts about governance #35