Bitcoin Forum

The goal of this is to find the "most fair" way of voting for how money for a group/city/state/country is spent.

In an ideal voting decision the outcome would be that 100% of the members vote the same way. But practically, that is hardly ever the case. If 80% vote one way then you are forcing 20% of the members to spend their money in a way that they do not wish for it to be spent. This could be considered theft. 51% to 49% is far from ideal but is often used, leaving 49% of people dissatisfied. Not the best solution.

But even if you require 100% of people agree on something, there will always be that one or two person hold-out that just want to cause trouble or have an agenda which brings activity to a halt.


Overall method
So to the solution. I am taking the ideal solution of 100% voting the same way and adding an element not used in voting today...Time.

The solution is for everyone to contribute their money equally and then have a vote for where that money is spent. If 100% of people agree, then the money is spent in that manner. If only 30% of people agree on where the money is to be spent then the vote passes...BUT...you add time for the 70% who do not agree. So, perhaps you add a day for every 1% who do not agree, so you have to wait 70 days for it to be spent. Then the vote goes forward on a different way to spend that money, maybe it gets 50% this time. The first vote of 30% is dropped and the second vote passes...but it will happen in 50 days. After some discussion there are compromises made and more people are satisfied with the way the money is to be spent, it now has support of 70% of people. The 50% vote is dropped and now it will only take a month before the money is spent. This may be satisfactory or if they want to do a bit more negotiating to get it done faster they can work with the last 30% to satisfy them. Either way, they have time to work it out. If during those 30 days an emergency presents itself, they may push forth another vote and this time get 99% behind it (1% just are not willing to budge). It waits a day and the money is spent.

That is a very simplified summary of the concept, now how do Bitcoins come in.

Bitcoins role

Say you have a group of 10 people forming a club. They all agree up front that they will pay 1 Bitcoin a week into the club and they all have 1 vote. A program is written up where if they do not pay their 1 Bitcoin they lose their vote until they can make up for the lost weeks. The function for doing this would be for each person to have a 10th of an encryption key when put together creates the full key which can then be used to transfer funds. They each pay their 1 BTC for 10 weeks and there is now 100 BTC in the one address. One guy convinces 2 other people to vote to give all 100 BTC to him. They submit the votes and set up a transfer to his BTC address. They have 3 parts of the key and the computer then begins working on un-encrypting the rest of the key. Turns out, this will take several years so it is a non-starter. Then a vote comes up where they want to donate 50 BTC to helping children with cancer. They all agree on it and submit their part of the key. 50 BTC is transferred to the kids with cancer BTC address. They are now left with 50 BTC.

Then another person comes in and says he wants to join the club. The other members say ok, as long as he is willing to pay in the same share that they all have in at the moment, which is 5 BTC. They set up a new address with 11 parts to the key. They unanimously submit their keys and move over to the new address with 11 parts. They now have 55 BTC to spend. Another 5 weeks goes by and they now have 110 BTC. Some members want to set up a clubhouse with the 110 BTC. 6 members vote for it (the other members do not like the choice of the clubhouse location). They all submit their key and begin the transfer. The program begins to work on getting the other keys, turns out this will take several months. They do a bit more research and find a decent clubhouse. They vote again and 10 out of the 11 people are satisfied with it. The last guy is the chairman who really wanted all the money given to him and refuses to vote for it. Turns out it will only take a week to process through his vote so they go ahead with the transfer and start getting things set up. The chairman drops out and stops paying his dues. He loses his vote and it goes back down to 10 club members.

Now say that another 10 weeks go by and they have 100 BTC. They find another club that has a lot going on but their club costs 10 BTC per month. Each person cannot afford it but they decide instead to join the club as a group. The other group has 10 weeks worth of BTC in their account so they allow the new share in for 100 BTC with 1 vote. The same process goes through, they vote in the same way. 10 weeks go by again and the new club now has 2000 BTC. They want to set up a lodge on a large property for their clubhouse. The same process goes through for votes, this time the original club has 9 people who agree with one hold out. The new club has 8 people in agreement with one hold out plus the original group who is not in support until that 1 vote is unencrypted. They decide to go ahead with it and transfer the money with the delayed time.

2 years go by and the group now has 10,000 BTC in their coffers. They find a group that requires 100 BTC a week and is working on something big. They join them in the same way that the original group joined the new one and go through the process. The huge group has 100,000 BTC and decides to buy a large lot of land and split it up equally among all of the 10 shares. They find 3 different locations and various votes go through, each taking a long time. They get 8 votes for one final lot that costs 100,000 BTC but it takes another 10 weeks to get it to go through thanks to the hold outs. They buy the land and have 10,000 still in their coffers. With this they begin voting on clearing out the land, marking property lines, getting started on a community plan, etc. They essentially have the means to go forward on their own town set up with a system of collecting money to pay for things and voting on how that money is spent. And they can team up with other larger groups as wanted. People can drop out at any time and not pay, etc.


tl;dr - Set up a system for spending Bitcoin as a group which requires each person to have a piece of a key. If 100% agreement is not there, the keys of the hold outs are unencrypted over time giving time to compromise based on how many people are in agreement.

There are a few small things here and there that I have considered but did not want to make it any longer than it already is.

It's called a Democracy because the majority of the population are happy with the choices that are being made. If you want 100% of the population to agree on something and are willing to essentially use force to coerce people into voting for what you want it's essentially fascism.

Did you bother to read anything up there?

What part represents force?

you suggest a system where-in if only say 60% of people agree with a vote then for every 1% of people who do not agree with it an extra day will be added until funds will be allocated to the vote. It might not be direct physical force but it is an attempt to force people to vote with the majority or not at all, which in addition does nothing of any substance since arbitarily saying "okay well we'll wait x days before we try to do thing y" isn't going to change the outcome of the vote or appease anyone. In fact it could make things worse, especially where time is of the essence such as purchasing something or emergency aid or voting.

Wait you are on to something.    Using a voting system like that it would be almost impossible to forge a vote.    Each individual would be given one coin...  the problem would be when one guy pays another for his coin...  

This is a way of providing compromise and time to compromise. Or they can come up with a better solution all together before the time is up.

If it is an emergency then this would be the best solution because during emergencies people tend to come together and go with the most obvious solution.

If you do not agree with how your money is being spent, this is far better than having a 51% majority going ahead and spending your money without your input. At least with this you can trade time for a better compromise that you may agree with.

This encourages you to vote your conscience. If I do not agree and I am in the minority I can say no, and the proposed plan will not go forward for some time. Why would I want to vote yes if I do not agree with the solution? Just so it passes? But I do not want it to pass. That is the point.

The system also allows you to leave. You can stop paying in at any time. There is no force there.

Not really. It is more like a vote by shareholders. You can have more shares than someone else if you pay in more than anyone else. Thus you have more say on how your money is spent. You have an equal say for the equal amount put. Which is how it should be.

If tomorrow we said "Why not bring together the Bitcoin community and create a Bitcoin TV ad" and we had a few people willing to put in ten thousand BTC and others only able to contribute a few BTC, then those who contribute more would have more say in what the ad says and where it is aired. This would encourage people to put money in to the idea because they have more say. Those who only have a few BTC to contribute can still voice their opinions and even slow things down if things go completely contrary to when the original purpose was meant to be.

But if we instead used a 51% majority of people vote on how things are done. Then those with 10,000 BTC may not be willing to contribute too much. They would put in the least amount possible to get to vote. Then their money could be spent on something they did not want it to be spent on because 51% decided to do it that way. And they would have no means to do anything about it.

Wrong. That's exactly what you want to avoid.

There was also the part about each new member of the group requires a vote by everyone else. So if your group does not want you to have more than one share they can just vote against you getting another share. If they want more money coming in and like your ideas, then they may allow it. That would be up to each group.

You forget that people tend towards greed. A system where someone with the most money can buy all the votes they want is a bad system.

Yes, people do tend toward greed. It is better to work in a system that is productive based upon this fact than try to fight it.

If you have a group where the same guy keeps buying up the votes, the remaining members can EASILY drop the group and form their own. That is the point of this, it is very fluid. You stop paying dues and you are no longer a voting member. You do not like how the club is being run. Drop out and join one that you do agree with.

The point of this is to have people join others with similar interests and goals and put their combined money toward those goals. On a voluntary basis. And if there is not agreement, the group will be slow to growth.

And the solution that satisfies the most people in the group will always win. Because there will always be that delay to allow for better ideas that satisfy more people to be presented. With the goal of finding a solution that satisfies everyone.

The part that says State. If I don't consent and I don't contribute, then what?

Then we lock you up.  Why should you be able to freeload on other people?

You would likely not receive the benefits of whatever the group spends their money on.

The system is purely voting on where money is spent. It has no enforcement power other than to spend money.

One of the services you will need to provide is care for the violent mentally ill.  If he opts out of that, he still gets the protection but pays nothing.  Is anyone likely to pay for services like that?

Why do I need to provide that?

Because you don't want random people to be hurt.  It could be you.  Or your daughter.  Or your Mom. 

Ok, then what does that have to do with how a group votes on spending their own money?

The ones who don't vote to pay for care of the violent mentally ill still get the protection.  They get the service for free.  And that hardly makes sense does it?  In a free market you'd end up with everyone taking it for free and then how do you pay for it?

very cool

From whom?

From people who are violently mentally ill.  Surely you could read that?

Whom will provide the protection?

Whom?  What kind of grammar is that?

Its your system.  You decide what to call the people who provide protection. 

The system is a method of voting for how money is spent. Not on how things are done.

The only enforcement power within the system is the distribution of funds. That is tied to Bitcoins and cannot be corrupted.

So you vote how money is spent and there is no-one to actually, um, spend it? 

You have obviously not read the full OP, otherwise you are just trolling.

Come back after you have read it.

I have.  And I don't think its workable.  You will never get 100% consensus and attempting to force it will result in secession.  The best you can aim for is majority rule.

There is no requirement for 100% consensus. Try again.

I think you need to read your own post.

As I'm learning more and more about BitCoins, this idea popped into my head.  As original ideas are few, did a search first and sure enough this thread popped up with the same description, so instead of starting a new one, and addressing the OP's concept directly, perhaps another way of looking at this problem needs to be developed & as I've not worked out any of the details, the intent here is to spur continued discussion & approach the problem of voting from different angles...

One where like BitCoin's is to money, and NameCoin's is to DNS services, why not have a VoteCoin type implementation where anyone could contribute votes on any issue they saw fit.  Remove the concept of money from voting completely.  So much today is about buying votes, and the process is rotten to the core.  Obviously corruption in that regard has reached the highest levels in society today.  IMO measures &/or officials should fail to pass, unless those people effected at least care enough to even bother to vote.

The whole idea of "mining for votes", might take on a whole new meaning &/or be redefined technically from the way BitCoin's works, or ride piggy back similar to how NameCoins derive new coins.  Have no idea at the moment, how to work out that detail, maybe scrap that part of the code entirely, and assign one coin to each voter for every issue needing to be voted on, perhaps mining becomes a way for those individuals that care about this or that issue to bring any given vote topic into existence.  Just throwing out ideas...

Another one is...only those issues, from within the entity being effected should get vote coin, such as a city, county, country etc. so perhaps many different levels of p2p blockchains could co-exist for those sub-entities, with a natural tendency for having the global votecoin chain exist only for those issues which effect humanity as a whole on the planet, and when one comes up to that level, every soul gets an equal assigned value to vote ya-nay.

The point is, it seems to me like the most honest and tractable voting system ever developed by humans could come out of thinking about solving once and for all this problem of free, fair & open elections...

Got to run, or will be late for work, still have a foot in 2 worlds...

GR