Knowledge based weighting?

[oldsheepranchinn]

Curios about other's thoughts on a knowledge based, weighted voting system. What I mean by that is connecting a weighted block-chain voting system like this to a knowledge based stake distribution system. In basic form, people would get quizzed and their score would determine their stake.

[nathanielhourt]

Interesting idea... it seems like it would be tricky to implement securely, i.e. if the quiz questions/answers are public (i.e. for verification purposes), people will simply look up the answers to boost their quiz score and thus voting weight... I wouldn't discount the idea out of hand, but a secure scheme would need to be devised.

[oldsheepranchinn]

That would be a critical issue to solve. It could be a panel of experts that upon getting voted into the panel have certain voting power, then they create the quiz.
The major issue would be answer sharing. I think the solution to this would be a lightning quiz that people could only submit a solution to a question in a specific short period of time. Different time zones would have different questions.

[sophware]

Why are we discussing authoritarianism here? Hopefully, this is just shower thoughts or weed talking.

https://zipar.org/analysis/problems-epistocracy/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/03/democracy-vs-epistacracy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0653ddf6d7ff
https://stanfordsphere.com/2018/10/23/against-epistocracy-why-rule-of-the-informed-will-not-fix-democracy-pt-i/

[oldsheepranchinn]

sophware, I am not talking about a simple epistocracy. With current technology we could have a direct democracy combined with epistocracy. Some votes should be indifferent to knowledge. Some should be made by knowledgeable people, depending on the subject. The vote for president should be inclusive of everyone, but the vote on if the ecelogical impact outweights the economic gain for fracking? Some people, a lot of people... don't even know what fracking is. Why do we have 'representatives' voting in some committee, when we could have direct access to industry experts, and knowledgeable citizens? I haven't read all of your links, but I agree I am not advocated for a full epistocracy at all. What do you think? I would be curious about your viewpoint on adding a 'knowledge basis weight'. It would be valuable for business as well, businesses make 'teams of experts' when they could be polling and weighting all their employees opinion on different decisions.

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On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 12:20 PM sophware ***@***.***> wrote: Why are we discussing authoritarianism here? Hopefully, this is just shower thoughts or weed talking. https://zipar.org/analysis/problems-epistocracy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/03/democracy-vs-epistacracy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0653ddf6d7ff https://stanfordsphere.com/2018/10/23/against-epistocracy-why-rule-of-the-informed-will-not-fix-democracy-pt-i/ — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#201 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/Aj5QY9_4j87bZGI_ZPrdFy3oxjIxZ6sfks5vI0HggaJpZM4WSRq4> .

[sophware]

NOTE: Your idea may not be epistocracy, exactly. My application of it here may be inaccurate, if it means political knowledge, rather than subject-matter knowledge. Sorry! That distinction may be important, especially wrt the difference between what you are putting up for discussion and what current reps do.

In the case of fracking, I know of two highly-intelligent, highly-accountable people who disagree on what outweighs what. This would seem to be perfect for your situation--they may not vote the same way, but at least they both know enough about the topic.

Except:

• Who decides what counts as knowing enough and what the right answers/ definitions are?
• As hard as this may be for one vote (impossible, I think), it is much harder for dozens, hundreds, or many more votes a year.
• Should people too close to the issue really be the ones deciding it? Shouldn't more detached people have the same say, or more? Where you stand on this is clear; but the majority in most countries may not agree.

Why do we have 'representatives' voting in some committee when we could have direct access to industry experts, and knowledgeable citizens?

While you might see a sharp difference between the former (reps) and the latter (those with subject-matter knowledge), they are similar on paper and the same in reality.

The reps are meant to be more knowledgeable than the average citizen. Direct voting is replaced, today, precisely because the plan was to have smarter legislators (drafting and voting). As mentioned above, you'd have to have a huge number of sets criteria and processes if you wanted to have subject-specific votes with industry and topic-knowledgeable citizens (essentially specialized reps).

In the US, reps are organized into committees. These are more broad than what you've floated here; but they are more sustainable and, as-is, show the flaws of trying to get experts: the people on these committees are sometimes the least fit to be on them, depending on who you ask, because there is no single point of reference for what the correct knowledge is.

Some people think the world is 5,000 years old. They would want to make sure that nobody who believes in evolution (natural selection, etc.) is considered knowledgeable on any related topic. Want to vote on anything related to science, education, or science education? Ruled out, if you favor Darwinism. In the sad case that I'm chatting with someone who does believe the world is 5K years old, simply consider the reverse situation

In short: who votes on who votes? Do the flat-earthers (and nobody else) get to be the ones voting on space budgets and plans?

[oldsheepranchinn]

Sophware, Agreed. The two problems would be creation of the test of knowledge (corruption of the test) and validity of the responses (cheating on the test). Maybe more difficult than either of those is the balance between the openness of the test creation, to reduce corruption, and the ease of the test answers being ‘scraped’ from that creation process. I want to note that neither of these are as major of problems in a business environment. Aragon, for one, is bringing voting to organizations and their stakeholders. For test creation, there are options like Colony.io where there is full transparency, roles of manager, auditor and for this case ‘creators’ of test questions. If the creation is open sourced then this is a possible solution to the corruption problem. As I mentioned earlier, a possible solution to the cheater problem is ‘flash’ quizzing, from the large pool of questions. You only have a minute or less to answer. Blind to the answer before starting, not the same question as your neighbor... etc. Why is it that we have political prowess deciding who our representatives are? Thats not even considering the lobbying problem... I appreciate you engaging on the topic, mainly it is my mind searching for a possibly of a solution to the authority problem. How is it that we have the best solution come put of a large group of people, without corruption of the process? Impossible? Maybe. Thanks, Matt Roe

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On Jan 31, 2019, at 11:52 PM, sophware ***@***.***> wrote: NOTE: Your idea may not be epistocracy, exactly. My application of it here may be inaccurate, if it means political knowledge, rather than subject-matter knowledge. Sorry! That distinction may be important, especially wrt the difference between what you are putting up for discussion and what current reps do. In the case of fracking, I know of two highly-intelligent, highly-accountable people who disagree on what outweighs what. This would seem to be perfect for your situation--they may not vote the same way, but at least they both know enough about the topic. Except: Who decides what counts as knowing enough and what the right answers/ definitions are? As hard as this may be for one vote (impossible, I think), it is much harder for dozens, hundreds, or many more votes a year. Should people too close to the issue really be the ones deciding it? Shouldn't more detached people have the same say, or more? Where you stand on this is clear; but the majority in most countries may not agree. Why do we have 'representatives' voting in some committee when we could have direct access to industry experts, and knowledgeable citizens? While you might see a sharp difference between the former (reps) and the latter (those with subject-matter knowledge), they are similar on paper and the same in reality. The reps are meant to be more knowledgeable than the average citizen. Direct voting is replaced, today, precisely because the plan was to have smarter legislators (drafting and voting). As mentioned above, you'd have to have a huge number of sets criteria and processes if you wanted to have subject-specific votes with industry and topic-knowledgeable citizens (essentially specialized reps). In the US, reps are organized into committees. These are more broad than what you've floated here; but they are more sustainable and, as-is, show the flaws of trying to get experts: the people on these committees are sometimes the least fit to be on them, depending on who you ask, because there is no single point of reference for what the correct knowledge is. Some people think the world is 5,000 years old. They would want to make sure that nobody who believes in evolution (natural selection, etc.) is considered knowledgeable on any related topic. Want to vote on anything related to science, education, or science education? Ruled out, if you favor Darwinism. In the sad case that I'm chatting with someone who does believe the world is 5K years old, simply consider the reverse situation In short: who votes on who votes? Do the flat-earthers (and nobody else) get to be the ones voting on space budgets and plans? — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.