DGP 1: district0x Network Code of Ethics

[joeyurgz]

Goals

• Prevent the district0x Network from facilitating activities that are commonly accepted to be immoral and unethical.
• Protect the district0x Network and DNT holders from potential legal and karmic repercussions due to the actions of malicious parties on the platform.

Description

The district0x Network Code of Ethics identifies uses of the district0x Network that are seen as morally reprehensible and harmful to humanity as a whole.

WIP...

[lkngtn]

Curious what your thoughts are on enforcement of this policy. As District0x is building infrastructure for decentralized, un-cesorable marketplaces, preventing people from using it for "evil" things may be difficult.

For example, if it is allowed for users to create a new district through district0x and set the bylaws within the Aragon entity such that District0x/DNT holders cannot participate then they will be able to use the d0x infrastructure without any oversight from the District0x community.

In such a situation it is feasible for them to operate a district for purposes outside of the Network Code of Ethics (whatever its final form becomes). This may or may not have legal repercussions for the community, but would almost certainly have PR and Karmic implications.

What if a marketplace was set up to organize human trafficking, drug, weapons, etc? Obviously that would not be popular among the community, but as I understand it there is nothing currently planned that could prevent that. Even if there was a mechanism in place, it would be impossible to prevent a motivated person or group from forking the project and using the codebase for those purposes.

So that sort of leads to the following questions:

1. How much do we care to enforce this policy if ultimately it is impossible to truly prevent people from using the technology for evil activities?
2. Is it enough to make the distinction between a "native" district which allows DNT participation in governance and leave it up to DNT users to enforce what is acceptable on the network through through the built-in governance mechanism within each Aragon entity?

[aliensyntax]

I'd caution against using stake-based voting to determine global regulations for the district0x network.

There's no necessary correspondence between the user's aggregate stake in the underlying protocol and what is commonly accepted to be immoral and unethical. If the distribution of the currency is overly concentrated you will not be setting your standards according to the interests of most users, but according to the interests of the largest stakeholders.

This model of governance may work for particular communities, but it would be highly inappropriate to enforce on everyone by default. It's inappropriate because it assumes the artificial superiority of plutocratic-oligopolistic values against democratic-egalitarian values. It also introduces perverse and misaligned incentives between stakeholder preferences and public policy.

Most people, or at least most rational people, will have a strong aversion to this form of governance. That aversion will most likely manifest in a general sense of distrust towards the global regulations of the district0x network. If the majority of people think the governance process is illegitimate, the regulations will be treated as morally and/or politically arbitrary. If the regulations have no force with the users of the platform, the network will lose most of its audience. Without a large community, the district0x token will lose most of its value.

On these grounds, the governance process should be maximally inclusive of the values and beliefs expressed by each unique person and maximally rational in terms of the actual merits of specific proposals and bylaws.

A delegative-procedural democracy is the only governance model that can guarantee these properties.

This is technically feasible to implement given the current state of the Ethereum infrastructure. Unique identities can be established through a decentralized certification authority assisted by uPort. The voting weight attributed to each user can be represented by an independent token system in accordance with a community mandate serving to reward users for their subjectively valued contributions to the distrix0 governance initiative. Users can then participate directly in the governance process using their voting tokens or flexibly redistribute them to adjust the decision-making power of their desired representatives.

This scheme ensures the integrity and legitimacy of the regulations. It provides people with the means to define their preferred values and norms in a maximally inclusive and rational manner.

The objective isn't to assume the concerns of the community are one and the same with the concerns of some vested minority. The objective is to secure the consent of the governed. You cannot secure the consent of the governed with plutocratic-oligopolistic values.

This is the fatal flaw in all blockchain-based governance schemes I've observed to this point. I advise you all not to make the same mistake as everyone else.

There's a reason democratic processes are the dominant form of political organization on this planet. It has nothing to do with favoring one particular ideology over another. Democratic processes exist and are the most dominant because they're the very result and mechanism for resolving these ideological differences. You would all do well by accepting that and working on genuine democratic solutions.

[lkngtn]

@aliensyntax I'm really interested in understanding a bit more about how uPort can be used in its current state to establish "proof of individuality" as you the suggest. As far as I'm aware this is not possible, though I do agree that it would be extremely useful.

I think that there is a lot to be said for trying to get as close to 1 person, 1 vote if the goal is to represent the interest of the public, however, in the case of a more private community (District0x investors/contributors), I don't think the 1 person, 1 vote is necessarily ideal. I feel like it is not unreasonable for people who have contributed more to a project, to have more of a say in its direction.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that using the district0x infrastructure and participating in its governance/rules is completely voluntary (even for district creators), and even if DNT holders tried to enforce some rules on individual district communities, they could always choose to fork the code and run their project independent of the district0x network.

[alanajoy]

When a new law is created, freedoms are taken away. "Good" and "evil" are subjective. Governing the internet killed the internet. Let's not repeat history.

Keep it as minimal as possible, allowing districts to self-govern with freedom and determine their own contextual rules.

https://hbr.org/2017/04/who-controls-the-blockchain "...we have to be able to trust the blockchain, and to trust that no one controls it."

Never forget: The longest chain is the most trustworthy.

Food for thought:

(via https://www.amazon.com/Breakpoint-Implode-Obsolete-Everything-Technology-ebook/dp/B00CBFXLGC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499332344&sr=1-1&keywords=9781137360977#customerReviews)

[ItsmeeBosslady]

This is thought provoking convo, here's my two cents lol.... I think it's important to remain as free of censorship as possible, and as decentralized and transparent as possible. We can't tell people how to act but we can give them all their options up front, and people can either opt-in or out. That being said, it remains our individual responsibility to contribute in such a way that there are way more benefits to adopting the tech than there are evil uses.
Just like the users determine the market, so should it be with governance. :)

[davibicudo]

The karma/PR concern is perfectly understandable, but just take a look at the Bitcoin case before you worry too much about it. For some time general media around it was just about how it was related to drugs and the darknet. Because of that, most of the people still think of it this way. After a few years though, the media started realising the positive aspects of Bitcoin and decentralised cryptoeconomics, hence what we see now is much more neutral/positive news than negative ones. The general public will follow the media and in a few more years it will be clear that Bitcoin and public blockchains in general are ultimately free and can't be held responsible for the actions of it's users. As people start to understand it, it will be the same thing as blaming language for people who slander or gossip and then trying to regulate free-speech as a measure against these misuses. So let's hold our fears and try to leave regulations soft and keep up the hope that by the time some bad actors use the protocol to create unwanted districts, it will be already clear to the media (and the general public will follow it) that it's not the community's fault but of some small group of misguided individuals. The true thing to be concerned about regarding PR risks is code quality, because in the case of bugs/hacks (and fund leakage) people will always come after the developers.

[dpyro]

On the internet, no one knows you're a dog. Is there a feasible way to ensure one person = one vote?

What's to prevent me from making 100 ETH addresses, putting 1 DNT in each, and then voting 100 times? Once you directly incentivize having multiple identities power will shift to the few who most efficiently (automatically) create or purchase as many identities as possible. A proof-of-stake type voting model may be plutocratic, but a proof-of-incentive result is far more autocratic.

[Alexand0x]

@dpyro Nothing is to prevent you from doing that, and nothing is to be gained. Votes are weighted by the amount of DNT behind them on purpose.