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Decentralized Protocols.md

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··· 27 27 - When building a technology, consider: [does this centralize or decentralize power?](https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2021/01/18/technology-without-industry.html) 28 28 - Many decentralized protocols are trying to build next generation common digital infrastructure. 29 29 - Unfortunately,[nearly every crypto project realized that they could capture value (make a lot of money) with innovative tokenomics that looked a lot like Ponzis, or at least borderline securities fraud](https://andrewconner.com/common-digital-infrastructure/). 30 30 + - [Whether something is decentralised or not is a function of the administrative control of different parts of the system, not a function of the network topology](https://bsky.app/profile/martin.kleppmann.com/post/3jujacxncil2r). 30 31 - [Credible neutrality](https://nakamoto.com/credible-neutrality/) is the principle that a system or protocol should be demonstrably fair and impartial to all participants (open source and publicly verifiable execution), with no hidden biases or privileged interests. When building mechanisms that decide high-stakes outcomes, it's very important for those mechanisms to be credibly neutral. Rules to building a credibly neutral mechanism: 31 32 - Don't write specific people or specific outcomes into the mechanism. 32 33 - Open source and publicly verifiable execution.

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Incentives.md

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··· 44 44 45 45 Traditional funding often fails here. Instead of just giving money upfront (prospectively), Impact Evaluators create systems that look back at what work was actually done and what impact it actually had (retrospectively). The setup is similar to Control Theory. Based on measuring and evaluating this impact against predefined goals, the system then distributes rewards (e.g: similar to how BitCoin block rewards do it). 46 46 47 47 - The Impact Evaluator goal is to **create strong incentives for people/teams to work on valuable, uncertain things** by promising a reward if they succeed in creating demonstrable impact. 47 47 + - The Impact Evaluator goal is to **create strong incentives for people/teams to work on valuable, uncertain things** by promising a reward if they succeed in creating demonstrable impact. 48 48 + - They work well on concrete things that you can turn into measurable stuff. They are powerful and will always overfit. When the goal is not exactly aligned, they can be harmful. Eg. Bitcoin wasn't created to maximize the energy consumption. 49 49 + - They should be flexible as it's hard to predict ways the evaluation metrics will be gamed.

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Politics.md

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··· 51 51 - There's a difference between redundant complexity (many parts serving similar goals) and optimizing complexity (one knob per problem). 52 52 - What seems "simple" is often just familiar - cultural context and shared historical experience shape our perception of complexity. 53 53 - [[Systems|System design]] should balance mathematical/technical approaches with historical/anthropological learning to avoid extreme conservatism or dangerous utopianism. 54 54 + - [Architecture is Politics](https://web.archive.org/web/20070607161518/blog.kapor.com/?p=29). Freedom, participation, creativity, and openness are better fostered by a [[Decentralized Protocols|decentralized]] but [[coordination|coordinated]] architecture. 54 55 55 56 ## [Voting Theory](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D6trAzh6DApKPhbv4/a-voting-theory-primer-for-rationalists) 56 57