RE: Paris: A Case For Tauchain...
A Tauchain discussion can scale and when we say discussion we have to think of all that could mean. But I also want to remind people that a Tauchain discussion is out of band and that Tauchain while it can scale discussion, detect contradiction, maintain the formal aspect, it still is vulnerable to false information decoy discussions, propaganda, because facts have to be true and how do we establish what is TRUE and what is FALSE?
Tauchain will not determine TRUE from FALSE. We have to determine that. Tauchain can help us, but ultimately the users have to be dedicated to the TRUTH even if it breaks with their beliefs. The users have to be willing to change their beliefs when they discover TRUTH. This is going to be a challenge because people are invested more in their belief than in their search for the truth in many cases.
Politics involve ideology, religion, and beliefs based not on facts, or on evidence, but feelings, propaganda, even fake science articles. There has to be a means of determining which discussions on Tauchain are authentic. How would we solve this?
Excellent question, as that's a critical point to consider.
What first came to mind: a solid identity/reputation system/component would be a start, such that input could be confirmed to be coming from real people and not just fake accounts trying to manipulate consensus. Of course, that still doesn't touch the issue of valid users' input being tainted unconsciously with misinformation, cognitive bias, etc.
What came to mind second: there might not be a definitive answer to that question at this point.
I feel that we'd have to have a working model of an actual platform to determine the exact dynamics it utilizes first, before being able to custom-tailor answers to specific communities. Some communities and discussions might be more abstract & philosophical, versus others of a more scientific nature where there are concrete facts which can be proven/disproven. I'd envision there needing to be customized parameters for different communities / types of discussions with different rulesets for validating factual evidence or determining what is undeniably subjective.
Part of my brain would love to dive in deeper to the challenge of formulating answers, though that might be getting ahead of ourselves without some tangible case studies and a clear idea of what a Tau-based platform would function like. Great to keep that concern on the radar for when the time comes, though...
I think the problem is deep. First if the people provide the discussions under their real name then how would you distinguish signalling from authentic discussion? If a group of people would be more socially desirable to a specific demographic to have one discussion over another discussion then will this influence the discussion the group of people have?
If the group of people values how they are perceived by that specific demographic more than they are aligned to the truth or to being authentic then would this influence the discussion? Kind of like if all votes are public and most people in society have a boss, what do you think the boss could say to get his people to vote in the way he thinks is right?
The only way I see around the problem is to have pseudo anonymity. Reputation can exist for pseudo anon organizations which can have discussions but which cannot be coerced into ignoring the truth in favor of the propaganda. Otherwise with the right kind of pressure almost any individual can be coerced to say almost anything which would invalidate discussion.
Please give this more thought and consider a followup post.
Pseudo anonymity could certainly be an excellent feature - the identity & reputation component active to verify users are qualified to participate in discussions on the back-end, though it being up to them whether they choose to reveal their actual identities or not on the front-end...