Premises

Some of the premises underlying this project:

• Current democratic processes are badly broken.
• Advances in technology make it possible to design much better democratic processes.
• This is something which needs to be initiated at the grassroots level, and can be initiated by individual coders (working alone or together).
  • New processes need to be tested with small groups before they are used at a scale with large potential losses.
• Having accurate information about the trustworthiness of other individuals is a key element to creating any kind of systemic change that doesn't just trade one form of disempowerment for another.
• The best way for any given individual to get this information is to consult their (existing) friends.
  • These are the people you've already decided to trust, whose actions and expressions feel right and consistent with the idea that they care.

Objections

• Q: P2P reputation be gamed for espionage
  • A: The question is not whether it cannot be gamed at all; the question is whether it is less vulnerable to gaming than existing systems.
  • A: The systems discussed here are not aimed at keeping secrets, but at enabling wise consensus-building among large numbers of people.
    • It can support subsystems that are aimed at secrecy and privacy.
• Q: There are already organizations dedicated to helping people.
  • A: There are many, many people who still need help (and this number appears to be growing). We need solutions that can be generalized and/or replicated.