Bitcoin Forum

Instead of randomly electing people and giving away our power to them,
how about we keep the power to ourselves and solve the problems in a consensus-based manner.

For that we need a total transparency for (a) money transfers and (b) provable trust-free voting.
Bitcoin solves the (a) part of the problem, so we only need to create a solution for (b)

I've already proposed this in Bitcoin Foundation thread a couple of times so I will repeat it here.
It is possible for an organization with membership paid in Bitcoin to create a system with provable trust-free voting.

In this system all membership fees are collected into a single public Bitcoin address and votes are the messages signed with the private keys of the addresses that sent a full membership fee to that address.
The whole repository of these messages along with their Bitcoin addresses is then made public.
This will allow every individual member to check that his/her vote is correct and also verify that other votes come from legit members (those who paid the fee) and they in turn can verify that their vote is correct.

The members of that organization/society can then vote for variety of different things: decide where money need to be spent and how, appoint people to lead different projects to achieve certain goals and so on.
All the money flow will be transparent because the fee collection address is public.
It probably needs to be protected with multisig so that no single person can run away with the funds, but that is one of the technical details that can be worked out along the way.

Can I opt out?

Sure!
You won't be able to vote, but if you don't want to/don't care it's totally ok.

EDIT:
This might give an answer to the questions like "who will build the roads?" and
"who will look after the old and sick?" :)
Also it doesn't need to get big or centralized, it can start as your local neighborhood of 10 families and stay that way.

As long as those who do vote keep their decisions to themselves, I'm fine with it.

Yes, the votes can still be as anonymous as Bitcoin addresses, so it will be hard to pressure people.
Also it is better to start with small local communities/neighborhoods where people know each other and the total number of members is limited and known, so that system would be hard to hijack from outside.

It's actually perfectly inline with AnCap. I highly doubt that without the government society will consist of lonely strangers. There will still be families, there will still be neighborhoods and they would want to resolve conflicts in a civilized manner. The idea in OP could provide one of the possible solutions.

That's not what I meant, but the rest of your reply implies, though falls short of outright saying, that what I did mean - that those who voted would not attempt to foist the results of the vote upon those who want no part in their system - is true as well.

Yes, the system is completely voluntary.
Two neighborhoods may vote within themselves to join forces, for example, and those who were opposed to this decision are free to leave and create their own neighborhood or stay alone.

Also, as the neighborhoods grow to the point where they can successfully defend their territory this may give rise to a notion of land ownership. Simply if you occupy the land and can defend it - it's yours.
Over time this system should stabilize and provide some consensus of who owns what and there finally be peace on Earth! :)

So long as politicians are able to make choices independent of the people who voted for them voting will never be fair.

Consensus is difficult enough to get working within the context of people who live together in cohousing/ intentional community. Within the scope of a society, its lunacy. Maybe you are searching for another term?

Unless your group is going to be 6 people forcing 4 people to do and not do stuff you might as well just skip voting and go with actual consensus. Don't do stuff to people without their permission. You don't even need 10 people you can start by yourself. Don't hurt people and don't make excuses (uniform, election, tradition, etc) for people who do hurt others (including yourself).

Gang warfare.  Brilliant.

The regular people lacks the expertise and information to make an informed decision on majority of the government's operation, this is why we have to elect professional politicians to do it.

There is no perfect voting system.
This has been proven.
http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N8/8voting.8n.html (http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N8/8voting.8n.html)

If they're so unskilled and uninformed as to make a good decision on policy, how are they to be expected to be well-informed and skilled enough to make a good decision on selecting a policy maker?

The whole point is to have a convenient and reliable system where people themselves can vote for things that matter to them and not delegate their power to politicians. Think along the lines of dedicating 10 minutes of your time every evening at your computer to vote for something you care about.


I can start with simple example - there is a need to patch the road shared by 10 families in the neighborhood, nobody else uses that road (so they don't really care) and there is no central authority to call for. How would those families achieve consensus of who does what and who pays what.
It could be that one good guy just goes ahead and fixes it for everybody to benefit from it, but if that doesn't happen there needs to be a reliable mechanism to achieve consensus.


There is no forcing of anyone to do anything. People who agreed to participate in the system would have an option to either accept the result of the vote even if they disagree with it or leave that particular consensus-society or never even consider participating in any to begin with. The idea is that people need other people to survive, to grow food, to build houses and those who will learn how to achieve consensus while working together in a most constructive way will prosper and flourish and show an example to other people how things can be done, not that other people have to necessarily follow that example.


I simply meant that the system cannot be rigged/hijacked with fraudulent votes.
It is 'fair' only in that sense and no other meaning was intended.
I think the 4th paragraph in OP describes the mechanism with enough details.

There is nothing about forcing this system against any other system, that decision would simply be left for free market to demonstrate which system works best. I only wanted to point out that with Bitcoin we now have a technical solution to voting problem that never existed before.


The course of action that people will take in any situation will only reflect their level of development.
If they are aggressive and operate from the position of fear that there isn't enough for everyone we might observe what you just quoted. But it doesn't have to be that way if people want to build things and improve their way of life by using expertise and labor of other people in a consensus-based reality.


This is one of the general misconceptions that there is some 'government operation' and that 'they' know better than 'us' what is best for 'us'. If you delegate that decision making process of what is best for you to other people then you probably expect that those people know you better than you know yourself, which is frankly ridiculous. You are your government, you are your authority, you are unique point of view, you are particular perspective of the infinite - cherish your existence!

It has also been proven that there is no solution to Byzantine Generals problem, yet here we are with Bitcoin as living example of how it actually works.

The only reliable mechanism for consensus is training and alot of dedicated work. A casual mechanism that you speak of is frankly impossible. In reality in order to make a decision, someone's opinion will always be overridden... (often for good reason...)

They are not, necessarily. And that's why we end up with uninformed policy makers as well.

AnCap: a bunch of dumb people who don't understand that their neighbors are doing stuff that is not good.

Democracy: a bunch of dumb people electing dumb people who enact dumb policies.

One guy decides to fix the road, and asks everyone to pay towards it. (say, in a neighborhood meeting) Using Bitcoin, it would be easy to track how much has been set aside for the road repairs. When enough has been gathered, he fixes the road. It doesn't matter who pays how much, just that the job gets done, and paid for.

This works quite well for Kickstarter projects.

I'm not saying that the mechanism I'm describing is the only way to achieve consensus. In smaller groups a simpler approach might work as well, while it would require some trust in persons handling the voting if there is a voting to begin with.

The goal is to have a trust-free way to achieve consensus via voting.
Maybe it's a better wording than 'provably-fair' even though it is still provable.

EDIT: I have renamed the thread to replace 'fair' with 'trust-free'

Yes, as I've already pointed out people have a choice to accept the result of the vote even if they disagree and stay within the community if benefits of staying out-weight the downsides of the vote or leave and search for better life. Spending a lot of time to achieve consensus is also an option but it might end up in an infinite loop with circular arguments and nothing will ever get done.

Ok - well thats not consensus then. I dont know what your system is, but definitions are important.

It's called "democracy." Other names for this system are "majority rule," or "mob rule," depending on the attitude of the speaker towards the appeal to popularity fallacy.

But hey, as long as people know that when they cast a vote, they are agreeing to abide by and accept the outcome - no matter what it is, and voluntarily agree to that system, I'm fine with it.

Consensus is a shared understanding of how to proceed working together.
If working together for certain individuals is not possible then consensus for them is to not work together.

PS: I haven't looked up the definition of consensus in any dictionary yet, I just made it up myself :)

Unlike "democracy" (the loaded word I really wanted to avoid), the system I'm describing and society built around it is self-enforcing. Everybody has an equal access to the voting repository, everybody is free to find and point out the discrepancies in any course of action taken by other members. So it will only work if enough people would be willing it to work and if this system turns out to provide more benefits and better life than any other system or no system at all.

the technical side of trust free voting can easily be solved with namecoins (even directing votes to other voters) or colored bitcoins.

One problem is identifying voters while still letting them be anonymous. Even that can be solved by shuffling vote tokens with random people or people you trust.


More importantly the system also needs to have ways to determine if an upcoming question is important or not. It is impossible for all people to vote on every question somebody can come up with (why does Atlas come to my mind? :) ).

Depending on how many people think a question is important and how clear the outcome looks the system would have to determine the number of people necessary to vote to come to a result. Of course everybody should be allowed to vote if he wants to or does not like the preliminary result.

The part of the trust-free mechanism is derived from the fact that votes come from the addresses that paid the membership fee with a currency spendable on a global market.
This removes the necessity of maintaining a separate database connecting "who paid the fee" with "who has voting tokens". I need to look more into Namecoins though. Last time I read about them there was a discussion whether they need to be destroyed or not when they are spent, that was probably a year ago.
Could you please describe the voting mechanism as you see it with Namecoins?


Regarding identifying members vs anonymity of votes there is indeed at least one problem.
If the system provides benefits to members (pensions, sick leaves, etc) there needs to be a way to
identify who is eligible to receive them. At this point I can think of the following approach:
Split the membership fee into (a) public part and (b) voting part.
Those members who paid the public part of the fee become eligible to the benefits of the system. The voting part of the fee is anonymous and voting itself doesn't make any member eligible to any benefits just influence the voting outcome. I think it would be safe to assume that number of voting members should be less than or equal to the number of publicly registered members. On a local scale community needs to be cautious to an outside influence in the voting process, however on a large or global scale rigging the vote outcome becomes prohibitively difficult cost-wise since underlying monetary system has limited supply.


I agree this would be an interesting challenge. People need time to do actual work too, not just chatting the whole day about how they are going to vote. The basic concept I can think of is that members send proposals of the change they are willing to make to an already existing consensus with a schedule to vote at least one week (or even month) ahead. If within this period enough members approve that the community indeed needs to look at this issue then the proposal is added into the voting queue.
Sort of how WEB2.0 content management and rating system is working today.

PS: on the side note...
Another area where this system can also be applicable is a company/corporation. Right now corporations are modeled after the idea of central governance - there is one chap at the top who issues commands to his "generals" and those in turn are in charge of small armies of developers which normally have no say at all. For people with libertarian mindset it might be hard to accept any managerial authority on top of them who would tell them what to do on a day-to-day basis. The system with provable trust-free way to achieve consensus might be easier to swallow. As an example, imagine working on something like building a Boeing 747. That would require a lot of people from many different areas of expertise to do a lot of work in a very coordinated fashion or it simply won't fly.

Bitcoin actually provides the perfect voluntaryist solution to keep track of who has paid how much for what services.  You didn't chip in for school?  Your kids don't go.  You didn't chip in for the roads?  You don't get to use them.  All fully verifiable at any point in time.

Of course, politicians will never go for this itemized system, because they like to have full discretion on how to grab your money and spend it on prostitutes, cocaine, and murdering other human beings.  And who are you, lowly owner of that money they steal, to tell them how to spend it?

This approach definitely has merit and I like it.
The problem arises when there are conflicts like who will build the road, who will build the school in a particular place, who decides that there is a need for road or school and how money we chip in towards these goals are going to be spent.
I look at this from the position that there is no central authority to decide that.


The consensus-based system I'm describing works best when it starts small - the smallest unit would probably be a family, then neighborhood, then small village. If there is a tendency to grow it'd probably be better to keep original hierarchy in place (with local consensus rules) when communities join.
This way it would be easier to manage.

Also, the voting repository might need to be maintained in a decentralized manner and then there would be several servers with HTML interface to view it and work with it to verify (something like blockexplorer.com for blockchain). If there is a need for politician in this system it would be a simple role of secretary to execute non-decentralizable parts (if there are any) of the achieved consensus. Any deviation in execution from the achieved consensus would be immediately noticed.

The amount of coins collected through membership fees would constitute the organization's budget and it would need to be held in a public multisig address with multiple private keys spread across different secretaries of sub-communities in the hierarchy. But the whole structure and topology of the system is not enforced in the design itself - it is going be the choice of the people participating in it. They will decide whether to join or to split or to leave this system completely.

That's a terrible response.

I'm amused at how often blatherblatherblather responds to my comments, even as he knows that he's on my killfile and I can't read anything he writes.

Ohhhh.... So you think school should be "free" then?

Good news! It is. It's called "homeschooling." Really, you should Google it.

If someone is providing a service for you, on the other hand, then they need to be compensated, don't you think so?

Good news! It is. It's called "homeschooling." Really, you should Google it.

If someone is providing a service for you, on the other hand, then they need to be compensated, don't you think so?

HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

He's got me confused with any other statist who believes that not taking your children to an indoctrination camp somehow qualifies as "injustice".  So "obviously" (like the statist douche he is) he believes that, if you don't pay for someone else's school, that's "unjust"; therefore, since that is "unjust", and since I reject child abuse, I'm a "hypocrite".

And he has the audacity to preface this block of concentrated stupidity with "don't be an idiot"!  There's so much wrong in that blather³ quote, it's fractally wrong.


Great amusement was had at this thread.

Hmm. I wonder how all those private school parents will react when I tell them that they are practicing "child slavery"?

No, seriously. WTF are you talking about?

Matter of fact, don't respond here. I'll make a new thread. This is worthy.

I wanna be on that thread, if only to read your replies, because I need some humor and blatherblatherblather is delivering.  Please post a link.

Also über LOL at blatherblatherblather equating homeschooling with child slavery and indebtedness.

@rudd, blabla and myrkul:  please keep this topic clean

could I not pay the fees several times and then vote several times with your system?

I think most of the time it will be impossible to achieve consensus. What about the obvious ranked majority vote?

namecoin is a decentralized name/value storage system. you can create identity or voting tokens to send to the voters. they can then set the value of these tokens. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66868

this kind of split is a good idea. you can send out the id tokens to all the voters, then send the vote tokens to the ids. anonymous vote tokens can then be mixed and set with the voting value. should not be too hard to implement.

sounds a little like the system of the pirate party...

definitely. should be possible for pretty much every group of people with some kind of common interest. the pirate party could need a better system ;)

I was thinking along the lines of paying membership fee once per year and voting as many times as the need arises within that year. Also the fee is not refundable, so if the person or group decides to leave the system not only do they loose the benefits that the system provides they also loose their membership fee.
That should provide some stickiness to the system so it won't fall apart at the earliest occasion.

Consensus should be achieved by majority of votes which are all equal as the fee paid to enable this ability was also equal. I think it better keep it that way or otherwise big money will simply buy the outcome of the vote.


Registering id tokens would probably create unnecessary centralization.
With Bitcoin private keys both parts of the fee structure could be decentralized.

For the voting part of the fee votes (messages signed with private key) would be cast into a P2P overlay network and land into a common repository shared among all the peers. It should be fairly easy to defend against spamming. Every node must check that the message is signed with the address that paid a full membership voting fee to a fixed public address within a year and check against repository that message hasn't been received already. If any of these conditions fail the message will not be re-broadcast.

For the benefits part of the fee members simply come to the nodes that "distribute" the benefits and claim their part by signing the message with the private key of the address they used to pay their membership benefits fee from. If one of the benefits, for example, is the school built with the organization's budget then claiming that benefit would simply be going into that school after confirming your membership with your private key.



I need to look more into how pirate party is organized.
They should definitely like to play and experiment with these ideas.
I thought that Bitcoin Foundation would also make a perfect example of this system.

Also instead of having a centralized treasurer to manage the budget I lean more towards having multiple secretaries as representatives of smaller subgroups within the system each having control of a single private key of a common multisig address. So that any decisions to spend budget would need to be authorized by all secretaries of the subgroups. They would not have to argue but simply execute already achieved consensus.

In case if one of the multisig private keys is lost or destroyed there needs to be an underground vault with the full release key from the whole budget buried deep enough that stealing it would require a noticeable amount of time. Any unauthorized attempts to unearth it would be noticed and prevented.

You know, there's already a system in place that ensures that your decisions make a difference, provides services only to those who pay for them, and allows the public to send messages direct to the service providers...


"The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote." -Ludwig von Mises

so how do you prevent multiple votes? or don't ya?

Good point!
I think consensus-based system would work better in some cases while creating unnecessary complexity in other. I don't insist at all. It will find its place eventually if people find it useful.

I forgot to clarify that the vote is actually a triplet of the form {Bitcoin address, Topic ID, Vote message}
The message is signed with address's private key.

If multiple votes come with the same Bitcoin address and the same Topic ID the system would normally accept the first one and store it in the repository and after this point all duplicates will be rejected.
In fact as majority of nodes in the network store the original vote in their local repositories even propagating duplicates will become close to impossible.

I'd do it the other way around, to allow someone to change their vote. But hey, it's your system.

That would open up possibilities for spamming the network. Some malicious member would simply send 1000 of duplicate votes per second causing all nodes to rewrite their repository with the latest one.

On the side note, one another area where this system might be helpful is the basis for legal framework if society decides that it needs one. Basically people can vote directly for the laws governing their society.

After giving more thought to the duplicate vote problem I now think that the correct behavior would be to do the following:

1) if incoming votes are exact duplicates of the ones already stored in the node's local database they are simply the echo of many other peers re-broadcasting them and must be ignored.

2) if incoming vote is a conflicting duplicate of the one stored in the database (the vote message is different) then it cannot be ignored as it might leave the distributed database in inconsistent state*. Therefore it is removed from the database and originating Bitcoin address is put onto a node's local suspension list for a short period of time (say 5 minutes) during which all votes from that address are ignored. This will prevent the spamming. After the timeout has expired new vote can be cast from that address with any vote message as all previous versions were deleted.

3) if some nodes disconnect during the voting window they need to acquire the missing votes from other peers for topic ids active within that window to keep their database consistent with others.
The mechanism to achieve this is to ask other peers for each active topic id the number of votes they have for that id then pick the one with the biggest number (longest chain analogy) and start downloading the most recent votes checking against local database for missing ones and recording them.

* A determined attacker can use his Bitcoin address to start propagating conflicting duplicate votes from different "ends" of the network causing part of the peers to record one version while other peers would first see and record another.

EDIT:

I have found at least three problems with allowing an address to re-vote after sending conflicting duplicates thus by default it must be disallowed. The behavior then would be for every node receiving a conflicting duplicate from an address to remove any version it already had in the database and permanently add that address to a suspension list for a particular topic id. The suspension list must contain proof of duplicates therefore it needs to keep the address along with at least two conflicting votes it received.

When nodes reconnect to the network before asking other peers for missing votes they first ask for the longest suspension list with the proof to check that they didn't miss the removal of any conflicting duplicates and then ask for valid votes as described in 3) above.

If a malicious node reports a number of valid votes N for a particular topic id which turns out to be the largest number across the network but fails to provide the declared number of votes after the timeout T then nodes reconnecting with the network should keep asking other peers with lesser declared number before the numbers finally add up. If there is at least one honest peer they will get the complete database eventually.

In order to avoid fraud in reshuffling the topic ids with the topic contents in the external system the topic ids must be represented as hashes of the topic's content (or at least the title) which must include a clearly defined list of acceptable answers followed by a meaningful question. It might be just {"yes", "no"} or something more complex like {"red", "green", "blue"}. The node's local database would need to have a reference to a topic's answers list (to be able to verify incoming vote messages) and the topic's question to verify that the whole topic's content (answers list + question) hashes to topic id.

There might be other corner cases to look into and I'll post them here together with solutions as I find them, but in general the concept starts to converge or so it seems.

So I create a thousand bitcoin addresses and vote a thousand times?

Yeah, it needs to be one coin one vote.  Kind of like proof of stake. 

Yes, as long as each of those addresses paid the full membership fee to a fixed public address you will be able to vote 1000 times. Note that the annual membership fee might be substantial. I thought I somewhat explained it in the OP (paragraph 4) but maybe it needs more clarification.

This fixed public address called budget or domain address might need to be a part of the vote structure thus making it a quadruple of the form {Domain address, Member address, Topic Hash, Vote message}.
Topic hashes would then be grouped around domain addresses and would not intersect globally.
This will allow the voting P2P network to span across multiple domains/organizations/societies.
I originally thought that domain addresses and their respective networks would be isolated and thus domain address would be hard-coded in the system or pre-configured in the settings somewhere.

Each voting node would be able to verify using blockchain that votes are coming from the addresses which paid the full membership fee to the domain address before registering the vote in the local database.
Obviously a few other conditions need to be met to deem the vote as valid:
 - signature on the vote message must be valid (checked against member address)
 - vote message must be one of the allowed answers (stored in the database) for a given topic hash
 - conflicting duplicates for a pair of {member address, topic hash} are removed, pair banned with proof
 - exact duplicates are ignored (not repeatedly registered in the database, not propagated to other peers)
 - topic hash must be in the list of active topics for a given domain address
 - topic hash is the hash of {domain address + topic's question + topic's answers list} stored in the database

This approach still allows big money to buy the voting outcome the same way it allows big money to perform a 51% attack on the underlying monetary system but it will at least make it obvious that the number of valid votes is greater than the estimation of the actual members in the group, not that it helps much.
How to handle this situation is still an open question.
One of the possible solutions is to make topic questions secret thus not allowing "outsiders" to vote in a meaningful way even if they paid for it. Topic answers still need to be in the system as it is part of the vote verification mechanism.

EDIT:

Small correction: It should be possible to feed the topic's question and the list of topic's answers into the unchanged system as the hashes of the actual question and the actual answers thus allowing full validation of the votes and the topic hash itself (topic hash would then be a hash of hashes) while keeping the whole content of the topic secret. Vote messages coming from the members would then be hashes of the actual answers.
Those members who paid the voting fee but don't know the question/answers would still be allowed to vote, but would have no clue of what they are voting for.
Maybe some other things need to be made secret or the system needs to be compartmentalized in some way. But the basis of the concept remains the same - only those who paid are allowed to vote and it is provable via blockchain. Current design fully satisfies this criteria.

Also it should be possible to keep the initial assessment and eventual approval of topics for voting within the voting P2P network itself thus reducing the risk of certain topics being suppressed on the external (centralized?) system where they are discussed (if that external system is needed at all)

And thanks for keeping this topic alive, guys!

EDIT2:

There are at least 2 possible solutions for 1000-votes-per-person problem that I can think of apart from the fact that he/she would need to pay for all of them.

One would be to add another field into the vote structure making it a quintuple of the form:
{Domain address, Member address, Topic hash, Vote message, Nonce}
while adding another rule into the vote verification mechanism (as described above):
 - hash of the whole vote quintuple is less that the current vote difficulty (derived from monetary difficulty)
Thus adding the requirement for members to be at least small miners. The time required to find the nonce for a single vote should be one third or one half of the voting window allowing for variance maybe less assuming there are several topics to be voted on within given window.

Another solution for small group to avoid external influence on their voting process is to create their domain address in secret and allow very short window of time for members to pay their membership fee after which any addresses paid to that domain address would be discarded and not allowed to vote.
These rules along with how much fees and how frequently they need to be paid (yearly, monthly, etc) must become the "domain policy" which should be stored in the voting distributed database for votes verification and protected with signatures from the domain address private key(s) (multiple keys if domain address is multisig). Domain policy needs to keep version number to allow amendments and the way to recognize which policy is the latest one. The amended policy would then be broadcast to the network the same way as votes are broadcast preferably not within any voting window for that domain.

What will all this nice brainstorming be used for?

Once it is generally understood that the current design holds water, one could create a node software for distributed peer-to-peer voting system with trust-free handling of the voting procedure and the ability to prove that all the votes are legit (in terms of the constraints of the proposed system - which is currently one-fee-per-domain<->one-vote-per-topic or one-fee-per-domain/one-nonce-per-topic<->one-vote-per-topic for more important issues).

This system can be used for variety of cases. One example is voting on a motion in a distributed bond/stock market. Another example is managing the budget of an organization like Bitcoin Foundation with members paying their membership fees in Bitcoin. Also if people want to build a society with principles based on consensus rather than central governance then this system can be used as a basis for its legal framework. Yet another example is to model a for-profit corporation/company after this idea and see if it proves to be competitive on the global market.

This system would NOT need a central issuer of the voting tokens nor the central place where topics for voting are submitted. This should eliminate the risks related to abuse of power given with centralized approach.

The unresolved issues I still have with the current design is finalizing and archiving the achieved consensus. When voting window for a particular topic hash is closed all the nodes already have most of the set of valid votes they received and recorded during that window. So every node can already see the result of the vote, but someone still needs to announce the result and have most of the voted peers agree with it and sign it with their respective private keys and only then it can be marked as completed and archived into a chain of topics for a given domain address. I have a few ideas how to do it, but I don't yet feel I have completely nailed it.

PS: Since this thread turned into somewhat technical discussion of the underlying principles of the system it might be a wise idea for moderators to split the technical part into another sub-section of this forum if needed.

EDIT: corrected terms in the first paragraph.
EDIT2: added examples of various use-cases (second paragraph)

now that I understood better what you have in mind I would not even call it voting any more because there can be an arbitrary number of votes from an arbitrary number of voters.

Strictly speaking you are correct.
Although the idea was to have a voting system in its original sense (one-person<->one-vote),
it turns out that it doesn't work that way no matter how you spin it.

With centralized approach there is always a risk of fraud when some people register many times using their fake identities or central issuer's buddies get a bunch of voting tokens for free or central issuer is threatened with violence to manipulate voting tokens in some way. So we never actually had a provable one-person<->one-vote system anyway, we only had an illusion of one, which is even worse, because we trusted it and we let it slide totally out of our control.

But the good news is that this new decentralized system doesn't need to apply to the old principles of democracy (one-person<->one-vote), because with new monetary paradigm in ideal situation (when everybody starts to mine at the same time) money is abundant and it would be fair to vote with your money. The other key difference is that you don't have to pay if you don't want to vote and you don't have to participate in any particular consensus group if you don't like what is going on there. The problem of course is that a particular large group might achieve a consensus that they will fight and conquer nearby territories and enforce their rules on the people they capture, but that would be their consensus and it's totally outside of the scope of this system to try to prevent this.

I guess Satoshi tried to resolve a similar kind of problem when thinking about initial distribution of coins.
Here is the quote form his Bitcoin.pdf paper on page 3:
So he never got to the point of making it one-person<->one-vote either.

Interesting idea :)  What's wrong with just letting any verified signature of an address represent a vote?  Why do you need a membership fee and list of "registered voters" on top of the existing structure? 


I think this "problem" (big money influencing votes) is inherent in voting systems and once people recognize that money has an influence and embrace that as part and parcel of voting we will have a much more open and fair voting systems.  When you need something not directly influenced by money you can do what Democritus suggested (and is currently the topic of another thread), namely select people at random to make your decision. 

Very often when provably fair (verifiable) voting systems are suggested they are shot down because the act of verification means that you can prove who you voted for and thus sell your vote. 

The idea is to first gather money towards a common goal for a group of people willing to work together.
A good example would be building a school for a small neighborhood.
So people who are interested in this would have to pay a certain fee to a certain Bitcoin address.
The voting system is then needed to decide how to manage that money, so that we don't disconnect ourselves from decision making and later blame others for failures. Yes, that's what we've been doing for centuries now, so we are very good at it :) We still might want to listen to the opinions of experts on matters like which materials to buy and where, but the final decision remains with us.

So allowing just any address on the blockchain to cast a vote on how to spend that budget would not make much sense. Therefore only those who paid to that address and thus contributed to that budget become a "voting member". There is no registering for voting other than paying a full membership fee to that address. There was also an idea of splitting "voting membership" and "benefits membership", so that voting remains anonymous, while benefits need to be claimed explicitly.
In the example above you provide proof of your "benefits membership" when you go to that school.


Yes, this is how I see it as well.
With the new monetary paradigm where everybody can mine or attempt to build their own blockchain,
the old political systems no longer work very well.
So the money will be abundant (while still remaining scarce in each particular system) and it's what to do with it and how to efficiently put it to work that becomes a problem.

With decentralized provable trust-free voting system, people can vote with their money for the outcome of the projects they care about. It's more like having shares in a company on the free market rather than having rights to vote in a centralized non-voluntary democratic society.

I meant society in a general way, but basically it's a group of people with common goals and interests willing to work together.

The problem, as I see it, is that voting with your wallet on the free market doesn't solve the land ownership conflicts very well. All the questions like who will build the roads and bridges, who will protect the rivers from pollution.

Determining consensus on these issues via explicit voting system before any action is taken might be more cost effective and peaceful conflict resolution process than just allowing everyone to do as they wish, build 10 bridges in one place competing with each other and only then realize that 8 of them are making losses instead of profits and need to be destroyed thus wasting resources and hurting the environment.

Letting private corporations rule the market would create danger that governments of today will be replaced with corporations of tomorrow and looking at how corporations are structured today after the idea of central governance at the top of the pyramid we might as well just get even worse system than we have today.

Without government granting those corporations their legal shield, and without the cloak of legitimacy granted to the government, companies would not be able to pull off the shit they do today, nor the shit the government pulls.

Because today we lack both of the components of the free society - sound money and provable voting.
It seems that events of 1910-1913 is what completely disconnected society from those pillars.

The money is printed out of thin air by private corporation and the voting procedure controlled by private corporation is clumsy and time consuming thus making it inefficient for day-to-day issues.
It couldn't just happen all on it's own, it was a well devised plan.

But there is no going back to the old paradigms.
New systems will shape the society of the future.

Provable voting is not a pillar of a free society. It is, instead, a means for the majority to force their will on the minority, unless 100% consensus is required to pass a vote.

Replace it with a free market, and you might have something.

What makes you think we don't have a free market today?
Everybody is free to do as they wish but if you don't have power to overrule decisions of others you have no other choice as to comply with what others are "free" to force upon you.

The provable voting would allow for better coordination of actions of people who otherwise would delegate all of the decision making to the strongest in the pack. The difference is that those who are ruling "free market" today are very well organized and coordinated.

The fact that we don't. There are laws limiting who can and cannot sell or provide services, there are laws limiting what goods or services you can or cannot offer, laws limiting the price of certain goods or services... the market is constrained and distorted at nearly every turn. That's not a free market.

I understand but that's the paradox - what we have now is the result of actions of participants of the "free market" called Earth. So all the regulations and limitations and restrictions are not coming from the sky, they are created by those who think they are strong enough to pull it off and the free market let's them do it.

What I propose in this thread is a system that would help regular people to achieve consensus and take actions in a coordinated way thus empowering themselves to compete with the sharks of the "free market" of today called governments.

So by that logic, the rape victim is to blame, since she lets the rapist do it? When violence enters the equation, the market is no longer free, it is being coerced, distorted.

I'd say it's more like trickery and bribery on the mass scale is what resulted in our today's society.
The use of force is sold under "protecting the people" or "fighting for democracy" via large broadcasting networks, that's why it is accepted by the masses. But none of these phenomena is prohibited by the free market.

So again it boils down to a lack of coordination on the people's side rather than lack of overall power.
We need to figure out how to consolidate this power so that it is able to protect itself.

Fraud is just as bad (and market distorting) as using force or threatening to use force, which is why the nonaggression principle includes it as one of the things which no person has the right to use against another.

I like NAP and I'm all for it, but the paradox is that trying to enforce it would be in violation of NAP.
So NAP is the ultimate goal for society, but we only get there when everybody accepts it voluntary.
The consensus-based approach might be a first approximation, a first step in that direction, because it will at least create the awareness of what people are willing to do with their time and their money and it will highlight those things that are not yet representative of the ideas proposed by NAP.

On the contrary, "enforcing" the NAP is called "defense" (sometimes "self-defense").

Unfortunately it's a bit wider than self-defense.
If I build a factory that produces chemical waste and start dumping that waste into the river you drink from you would have to "attack" me to prevent me from doing it.

Is an attempt to poison someone not an attack? If you attempt to stop that person from poisoning you, is it not defense?

In a black-and-white case like that yes that would be an attack.

But imagine I'm acting in a good faith and I reduced the percentage of chemicals in my waste to an acceptable level so that my research shows that it is no longer a danger to the health in a long term.
However a few people in your neighborhood are having an allergic reaction to those chemicals and are not overall happy about the situation. How to resolve that conflict without peaceful means to achieve consensus on what is acceptable level and who is going to monitor it?

What makes you think there is no peaceful means to resolve the conflict?

There might be, but having a well understood and structured way to do it might save some time and therefore money to understand what course of action would be generally supported by the community.

Luckily, such a way exists already. It's called arbitration. If someone is harmed, they seek damages from the company. If enough people seek damages from the company, putting any chemicals out into the water may become unprofitable. Smart companies know this, and factor it into the cost/benefit analysis before doing any dumping. ...and now we're back at the corporate protections granted by governments. Limited liability in these sorts of things distorts the possible costs to the company, and encourages them to take more damaging actions than they might otherwise have.

Does free market provide arbitration? I thought it's more like you are on your own...
And what if that polluting company pays to the arbiter to not take any action against it?

The free market provides anything there is a need for. That's the point.

Then another arbitration company would take the case, instead. No monopoly on justice means you can't buy off the justice provider.

I see, it seems like with the free market it's always somebody else who will solve the problem and not the people themselves. I think this kind of attitude is what led us to where we are.

What if all those companies and providers not constrained by anything else start realizing that there are ways to collude and form cartels which would eliminate possibilities for competition thus allowing them to do less work for more profit.

And that is not a hypothetical scenario, that's precisely what we have now.
The consensus-based system would open the decision making process in society in the same way the blockchain opens the information about financial transactions.

Um... Wat? The market is the people. Arbitration companies are run by people. People hire arbitration companies. "It's always someone else" is the opposite of the free market.

Cartels always fall apart. Here's why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

What would people be voting for if not to transfer power from themselves to someone else. Unless the elected position was purely ceremonial in which case i am force to wonder, what is the point?

In your arbitration example it seems that arbitration company has some authority over producing company. In free market who gives it that authority? What if I and other couple of guys want to start our own arbitration company, who will give me authority to charge polluting factory any damages?


Why is this not happening in today's free market? What would be different in your model of free market that would prevent things that are happening today?


The whole point is to make voting as simple as possible, so that you can finally vote for things that matter sitting on your sofa at home instead of physically gathering in one place to elect another human and give him all the power, because voting in this way is not practical for anything else. With this new system people will be voting how to spend the budget they contributed to, or how to resolve the conflict of any kind.

The producing company themselves give the arbitration company the authority to decide damages. They do this because they think that the arbitrator will decide fairly, and know that if they don't go to arbitration, violence may be the only way to resolve the conflict. Since violence is expensive, and killing your customers bad for business, they prefer a peaceful solution.

Because today's market is not free? In an actually free market, competition would prevent cartels from forming, or ensure that they fail if they do.

this would be a great idea if democracy wasn't a terrible idea.

Ha! Perfect answer... sums up the whole thread.

The major difference is that consensus groups in proposed system are voluntary to begin with and members are free to leave as they wish. The only thing that needs enforcing is that everybody complies with achieved consensus if they decide to stay in the group and receive the benefits it provides.


Have we ever had a free market in history of humanity in your definition?
If yes, what caused it to collapse into what we have now (not free market in your terms)?
What would prevent it from collapsing again in case it emerges in the future?
If no, why free market doesn't emerge provided it is such a great idea?
Why would it ever emerge if never emerged before?

I don't want to turn it into a heated debate, so I will help you a bit ;)
Because not all market players are profit driven!
Once they accumulate enough wealth to enjoy all the material values they can ever dream of they begin their battle for power and control because they become afraid of loosing what they have achieved.

So either we eliminate all the fear on this planet or we need another way to keep those who are still in fear contained within what the rest of us agrees to be acceptable behavior.

Certainly not in recorded history. Some civilizations have come close, but none have achieved a truly free market. There's always been some interference by government, usually in the form of taxes or regulations. The closest in recent history would be the American industrialist period, one of the most prosperous time periods in American history, with more millionaires per capita than any time before or since.

Because every time it comes close, the State stomps it down.

And it is emerging now, because enough people have woken up. They reject the failed systems of the past. They reject coercion as a viable method of making decisions.

If all individuals preemptively and voluntarily agree to obide by the outcome of the election and no violence was used to coerce the minority into compliance and if such an arrangement falls under the scope of the definition of democracy than i have nothing against such this type of demorcay. Sounds like it could be useful in certain contexts.

I agree that new technologies will bring us closer to the goal and the difference in understanding that we had comes from the fact that I wanted to be all inclusive from the perspective of free market and considered the state as its equal participant (state is the creation of people after all).

So by definition of free market it should provide an alternative solution to the state that would outcompete it. The system described in this thread might be one of the alternatives that would emerge on the free market as long as there is a need for it (as long as there is a state).


Yes, we already have consensus-based system in its smallest iteration - it's called family.
No one has obligation to marry anyone and no one has to stay married if they no longer agree on how to live together. You probably don't need provable voting for consensus in a family, but as families merge and get bigger they might evolve into a large enough group that will become self-sufficient (grow food, defense, medical help).

Large enough consensus groups would be able to defend the land they occupy and that would give rise to the land ownership without state. Provable voting system would then counter-balance any attempts to acquire and centralize power over that group (a leader might emerge from within the group to attempt to take over). Further structure and topology of society would then solely depend on the consensus of people and their desire to merge and get bigger or to split and form new smaller groups.

Indeed, creating an alternate system to the State and subsequently out-competing it is the goal of Agorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism). That system is Anarcho-capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism). You're simply re-inventing the wheel, with the same flimsy spokes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum).... It won't take long for the wheels to come right off.

Thanks for the links, but I prefer to be practical and focus on how things work rather than how things are called and what labels are being put on them.

In my view, we have always had a free market and it is our ability to compete on it is what changed over time. From the looks of it free market didn't prevent concentration of power and formation of states. Therefore you cannot blame states for the lack of free market because free market is what created states in the first place. You see, nothing prevents you from putting limitations and regulations on states today the same way they do it upon you. It's a matter of competitiveness and coordination of little pieces of power into a bigger piece of power that allows them to succeed.

You need to create a bigger structure to compete with the state, you cannot just say free market will destroy it (because it created it). I do agree that the emergence of sound money like Bitcoin would weaken the state, but without sound alternative on how to proceed working together states won't go away.

I still have a few practical concerns with your view of free market as I understand it (as a collection of specialized companies working to maximize profit):

1) What would prevent building literally dozen of bridges in the same area provided that all the competitors start at roughly the same time and firmly believe that they will accomplish the job first.
The problem is that only one or two bridges are really necessary and the rest will be unused and go bankrupt wasting resources and hurting the environment.
Consensus-based solution: large enough consensus group would be able to determine the actual number of bridges that is necessary before doing the actual job.

2) In your arbitration example you say that production company would give arbitration company an authority over itself. What would prevent the formation of literally dozens of small arbitration companies all coming to the same or different factories and charging them damages for some alleged complaints from some people somewhere. It would seem like a very profitable business to me.
Consensus-based solution: large enough consensus-group would be able to present the factory with the following alternatives: a) join the group and comply with consensus, b) pay the damages and think again if it's still profitable to continue pollution, c) face violent response from consensus group provided that the group is large enough to prevent factory from hurting the environment, d) small consensus group incapable of influencing the factory might seek to merge with other small groups or leave the area peacefully.

3) Consensus-based groups would tend to be self-sufficient and therefore more stable/peaceful while specialized companies on the market might have a hard time surviving when there is not enough demand for their services. Think of the following case: private defense company is having hard time to find customers because the area has become peaceful and nobody needs protection anymore. If they are profit-driven they might consider creating diversions or false flag attacks so that their services are still needed.

Well, that's nice and all, but if you don't read the information provided, you won't know how things work, regardless of the names put on the systems.

False. States are successful protection rackets, nothing more. Paying a fixed fee to one group of bandits who have decided to settle down is preferable to losing large chunks of your economy to whichever roving band comes along. Think of it as the "criminal agricultural revolution."

Well, putting aside the fact that it's highly unlikely that a dozen road companies would try to build bridges at the same time, for any given stretch of river, there are only a few spots where building a bridge would be economical. The narrower, and thus easier to traverse, sections of river would be claimed first, finished first, and more profitable one completed, because of lower maintenance costs. Furthermore, road companies know this, it's their business to. Additional bridges would only be built if demand required them enough to make them profitable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

What prevents lawyers from knocking on your door and presenting you with alleged complaints from some people somewhere now? Oh yeah, no clients. Seriously, look into how arbitration works. You're clearly arguing from ignorance, and it's hurting your case.

I see, so we're back to "might makes right," eh? There are more of us, so we can force you to do what we want? Your system shows it's true colors at last.

Indeed, this might be a problem. Of course, it would be in the best interest of those harmed by the attack to discover who did it, so they can collect damages. When the trail leads back to the protection company, suddenly all those profits they were making evaporate.

The concepts you linked to were invented before the advent of Bitcoin and related technologies, so going back into the past in an attempt to understand how things could have worked back then and why they failed might not be quite relevant today.


It doesn't matter what you call them. It's the most competitive way to survive that people have figured out given the technologies they had. I'm not saying it will stay that way, though. You see, in the beginning there were just people and they were free to discover whatever ways are best for their survival. So you can say we already had a free market in the beginning and it led to the creation of states.


Your argument isn't much stronger. It might or it might not work. Road companies might discover that demand for bridges isn't that high, but we still might end up with dozen of bridges if it would mean going out of business for those who don't succeed.

Because in our attempt to compete with the state on the free market we failed and we had a choice to either die from starvation, go rogue or trade whatever we have left (our freedom) on whatever terms the successful competitor would be willing to accept us. This is how free market works. Is this really what you like to promote? I guess what you have in mind is a free ethical market, but you would need some sort of consensus system to determine what the word "ethical" means in the environment you find yourself in.

In the arbitration example above, the consensus group would at least be able to present cryptographically provable evidence of the achieved consensus of a large group of people to the factory prior to taking any actions violent or otherwise. This proof might have more weight for the factory than claims of some self-proclaimed arbitration company.


So you prefer to not have might and bow down to those who have?
Isn't that what you're doing right now in relation to state? I thought you didn't like it.
Consensus-based system is the way to distribute might but still have it, rather than give it away and bow down.


It all boils down to what happens when a company doesn't succeed on the free market. What is the choice?
Just die? Gather into street gangs to get their way through violence (very viable alternative for a private defense company)? Go to your competitor and ask for help? And what if your competitor is the state and it asks for your freedom?

Contrary to the profit-driven corporations on the market, consensus-based groups would tend to become self-sufficient thus they won't suffer too much from the market conditions. They might still engage in a free trade with other groups or individuals if it's more efficient for them to buy stuff on the market than to do it in-house, but generally they don't have to. By being self-sufficient and no longer profit-driven consensus-based groups would concentrate on improving their quality of life, developing new technologies advancing science and entertainment.

I agree with myrkul. Calling a taxed population  "a free market" is a mistake. Saying that the outrageous accumulation of power and influence caused by favoritism in the laws is "the fault of the free market" is a mistake. These conclusions are not supported by observable reality and, as such, I do not accept them, nor should you.

As I've already mentioned, I'm not very interested in how things are called, but rather how things work.
If you can provide a good explanation of how the system that you are defending would work, I would be willing to engage in a meaningful discussion.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - Santayana
 Adding computers to a system based on a logical fallacy won't make the fallacy right. It will only make the wheels fall off faster. Here, a Sci-fi example of what might happen in your system: http://www.johnjosephadams.com/seeds-of-change/?page_id=66

No, we had a market preyed upon by criminal gangs, some of whom decided it would be safer to farm their plunder than to hunt it down.

Mine is at least an argument, rather than a fallacy. Do you not think that road companies know that building extra, unprofitable bridges would spell their doom?

Again with the ad populum, now mixed in with your ignorance of how arbitration works. Please, before you reply, at least read the wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration

No, I prefer to reject might-makes-right, rather than simply being on the larger side of that equation.

You mean the way to force the smaller group bow down to the larger, whether or not the larger is "right."

You do know that companies go out of business now, right? And don't riot in the streets? The employees go their separate ways, usually finding employment with their former competitors.

Those two bolded statements contradict. Please correct. Either they would no longer be profit-driven, or no longer care about their quality of life.

Did you read any of the articles I linked? They explain how those systems work. Here, the link again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

Frankly... in my observation, you don't seem very interested in understanding how things actually work. If you can't distinguish a free market and an unfree market - which appears to be the case here - then there is no way we can have a meaningful conversation about the topic.

I am giving you my honest feedback here. I hope you accept it as such.

Keep in mind that this is the same person who started the remote-viewing thread... I don't have much hope for his bullshit filters.

oh this is the I can see the future guy?

Mmhm.

By proposing the system that relies on new technology that never existed before (cryptographically provable voting) we will have much less chance of repeating the history compared to attempting to defend the system which could work before but failed. Please understand that consensus-based system is not anti-free-market in any meaningful way. You are free to join/leave any consensus-group or stay alone. Your disliking of it won't prevent others from forming voluntary consensus groups, so by not creating this system we would have achieved nothing.

And no, sound money isn't enough. We've already had gold as a sound money and that didn't prevent the society from derailing itself into a fiscal abyss.

So the model of free market you are so vigorously defending is vulnerable to the attack by criminal gangs?
No surprise it never actually manifested. There is no point in attempting to do the same thing the same way again and again expecting different results. That would be repeating the history. Why not leverage the new technology instead and see what happens? Maybe this time it will actually work.

Yes, so you still have a problem of solving "doom" scenario in your model of free-market.
What if you find yourself in that situation, what would you do?
What if the company you worked for that went bankrupt was the last of the two competitors in this area of expertise and the one that remains in this business already managed to buy enough land and a few media companies slowly turning into a state? Would you join them?

Would you please elaborate on how my argument is fallacy?

If reading through that article didn't empower you to answer my question in a meaningful way, why would you suggest me reading it?

Your reply doesn't provide any constructive solution to the problem in question.
The consensus-based system doesn't force you to be with the larger group and it doesn't imply that the larger group would always achieve consensus for a violent resolution with regards to smaller groups.
In contrary it is a way for peaceful people in that group to have more influence in the decision making and serve as a counter-balance to those people who strive for power and tend to be more aggressive to attempt to maintain power and extend it by any means (violence not excluded).

So you're likely to have less violence with consensus-based system rather than with centrally-managed pyramid-structured profit-driven corporations very afraid to not be successful and therefore being aggressive or they would otherwise face the "doom" scenario, that you still haven't come up with a solution for.

If majority of members in the larger group which might consist of family members with children and their elders would vote for a violent resolution with regards to a smaller group, yes that would be a result.
You cannot change people's morals with the technology, but the technology will allow those with higher morals to be heard and listened to, so that violent resolution of any conflict would have less chance manifesting.

So we will find ourselves in a situation with fewer and fewer competitors which become more and more self-sufficient and gradually turning themselves into a state?
You see, you continue to defend the system which leads to the situation that you don't prefer.

Those statements only contradict if you outsource things that you depend on to other participants on the market. If you have a family garden and a farm which is capable of producing enough food throughout the year, you will have a lot of free time during winter to engage in many other activities that would benefit your performance next year. For example think how to improve the machinery that you use to work more efficiently, so that you could spend less time working on the farm and more time entertaining yourself.

Don't get me wrong, profit and competition isn't a bad thing, but it's the experience that you get throughout your life that matters most and too much concentration on profit would lead to greed and that in turn would lead to fear of loosing what you have so that you become obsessed with power and control.


If reading those articles didn't empower you to produce any variant of a meaningful answer to the questions being discussed or at least a simple approximation of an answer, then what makes you think that me reading those articles would produce a different result?

I'm not against backing up your claims with other sources, but I'm not very comfortable with just sources and no claims.

If a group voluntarily decides to make it's decisions based on the popularity fallacy, yes, I can't stop them. Unless, of course, that decision is to use force to appropriate others' resources. Tell me, what's to stop the group from splintering, after the vote, with each group going their own way? And if nothing, how is that different from each person going their own way in the first place?

No, the model of a free market I am defending includes protection against criminal gangs, which you would know, if you had bothered to read the goddam article. Small agrarian societies are vulnerable to attack and takeover by criminal gangs. Which is what humanity was when the State got it's start.

I say again, adding computers to a fallacy only makes things go to hell faster. We programmers have a saying: GIGO - Garbage in, garbage out.

Ever hear of entrepreneurship? Going into business for yourself? And how, exactly, is a company going to "slowly turn into a state?"

Your logical fallacy is... (http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon)

It has empowered me to answer your question in a meaningful way. However, Why should I repeat information that is there for you to read already? Would you like me to copy/paste to save you the trouble of clicking a link?

Dafuq are you talking about? If by the "doom scenario" you mean the fact that companies know that building extra bridges would drive them out of business, the answer is for them to not build the extra bridges. The companies that get the land that is most profitable (narrowest span of river to cross) build the bridges first, and only if there is sufficient demand do more bridges get built.

As for "centrally-managed pyramid-structured profit-driven corporations," what makes you think that all businesses in a free market would be structured in such a way? Corporations, after all, are a creation of the state.

You mean it will allow those with higher morals to be shouted down by the majority.

Right, because rejecting state violence inevitably leads to state violence, while accepting "might-makes-right" leads to peace and freedom from oppression. ::)

You're starting to sound like Dank, my friend. Self-interest is what keeps you alive. Not all profit is monetary.

Again, would you like me to copy and paste so that you don't have to click the link? I'd just be repeating the information found in that article.

Myrkul, the guy refuses to read the information provided to him.  It's clear he doesn't want to have a conversation about the subject (except perhaps if the conversation makes him feel good by confirming what he already believes).

My humble opinion: Don't bother.

I'm leaning that way myself. I'll give him one more chance.

I think I understand now what we actually disagree upon - it's what people are going to do in any particular system or structure. That solely depends on the people and is generally unknown, so there is not much to gain to continue to discuss what our imaginary people are going to do.

if we introduce any kind of system to a group of rogues it will probably fall apart no matter how good it sounds in theory. At the same time any system would tend to work, even centrally managed one, when introduced and operated by people who value life and prefer to co-exist peacefully.

So think of the provable-voting system in question as a way to raise awareness of what other people think is acceptable behavior or what other people think they prefer to see manifest in their society.
It's not about forcing anyone to obey anything, it's about collecting provable information that might help in resolving certain situations in a better way than without this information.

More information is always better than less information, wouldn't you agree?
Here is a few examples of how this system could be used to benefit even those who tend to live and work alone.

1) With distributed peer-to-peer network it would be easier to communicate information about any incoming attack from violent groups approaching from other locations and quickly achieve consensus on how to coordinate actions to defend themselves. Without provable way to do it the centralized communication system might be covertly hijacked by attackers before engaging in the attack. After the attack is successfully diverted, community might proceed as they did before following whatever model of free-market they prefer.

2) If a large factory started to pollute the river nearby the community, then the provable-voting system can be used to collect provable information about how many people disagree with the situation. That might serve as a valuable asset when arguing with the factory about resolving this conflict, either personally or via arbitration company from free-market. There is no point for us to argue and determine how exactly the conflict would be resolved, but with more information about the situation I believe it will be easier not harder to resolve it in a peaceful way. After the conflict is resolved, community might proceed as they did before. Even if you live and work alone resolving the conflict about polluting the river you drink from would benefit you regardless of whether you want to work with other people in the community or not.

3) The same applies to building bridges or schools. Information collected through provable voting might become a valuable asset to the road construction companies operating on the free market to determine the demand for bridges in the area. It also might serve as a feedback system after the bridge was constructed to determine whether the road company did a good job or not.

So thank you guys for engaging in this valuable conversation (it was valuable for me). Without it I wouldn't be able to highlight and explain the properties of the system I'm proposing.

Ha.  Of course it is about that.  Why, then, are we non-voters forced to obey the orders that the voters (allegedly) gave everyone?  You think I can just stop paying the tax used to murder human beings abroad, and not be put in a cage?  How is that not force against me?

So, what you propose is a provable opinion poll? A way to gather information?

I guess that's fine. Democracy with no teeth can't bite you in the ass.

Yes, if that's the case, that would be fine.

Of course, a futarchy would be even better.  People can pony up money on their polls.  That usually makes them more accurate and cautious about not saying idiotic shit.

The technology itself cannot be responsible for people's future decisions to force it upon someone.
Who knows maybe one day we will be forced to use Bitcoin.

This thread was more about the technology rather that the model of society based on it.
I decided to include a reference model of society to just provide some examples of how technology could be applied. In this reference model people who voluntarily join the consensus group would be either forced to comply with the consensus or forced out. I think it's fair, but I can't possibly account for all variations of how said technology can be used. I've already proposed it for adoption in Bitcoin Foundation thread and Gavin said that it was a great idea. However he said that they would have to think more about voting and would probably use something simpler in the beginning.

While discussing certain examples above I expected more arguments than contradictions from you guys (if you go up through the page you will know what I mean) but nonetheless I enjoyed every bit of this conversation. Here is the gift for you two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkzjBfTDH20
;)

As I said at the beginning, if joining is voluntary, and voters explicitly agree to go along with the decision of the majority, then I have, and can have, no problem with it.

But I feel that it's rather pointless to have a majority rule system that can splinter after the vote. You may as well just let each decide for themselves.

The important property of a consensus group is that by crossing a threshold of a certain size it becomes capable of defending the land it occupies. This gives rise to the land ownership without the state.

So by leaving a certain consensus group you would loose or significantly weaken your ability to defend the land you think is yours. That consideration along with other benefits that consensus group might provide would create a necessary degree of stickiness, so that it doesn't fall apart too early.

You can also use the information derived from provable voting procedures to gauge the level of acceptable behavior of society you find yourself in (regardless of whether it's forced or not) and to make a determination for yourself whether it is representative of your values and you would like to continue to support the group or it's something that you don't prefer and you'd better leave the group and not contribute to its cause.

It's also possible to imagine a loosely tied consensus groups in which individuals proceed fairly independently on a regular basis but are capable of forming a larger group very quickly to consolidate enough power to deflect any outside attacks or make an important decision about environmental issues which would affect anyone anyway. Whether achieved consensus is going to be forced, ignored or taken into consideration by anyone individually would solely depend on the people of that society.

EDIT: Regarding questions about being profit-driven and how it works with consensus-based groups, my vision would be that individuals within or outside of the consensus groups might very well be profit-driven. However consensus would determine what would mean to be "ethical" while still remaining profit-driven.
Whether "ethical" behavior needs to be enforced and how would be for consensus group to decide.

So instead of looking for protection on the free market and paying private defense company which might be quite expensive actually, one can seek like-minded people and stick around them so that together they will be able to defense themselves by their own means when the need arises. And that behavior is very well in line with being profit-driven as it might be cheaper that way than outsourcing everything to free market and pay for it.

Regional monopoly? Guided by democracy? Held together by threat of conquest?

Yeah, that's a State. Sorry.

You might call it that if you wish, but it would be a different kind of state :)
You see, you keep calling things names, while I explain how things work.

In any case, with this system you will have "rules but no rulers". Sounds familiar?

"Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?" - Mather Byles

I like your knowledge of history and popular quotes, but you keep making assumptions about intentions of people around you and their level of morality and ethical behavior. As we've agreed this is generally unknown and there is no point arguing about it.
If you find yourself in a street gang or on a remote island populated with cannibals that quote might be applicable.

Instead of making assumptions about people the provable voting system will allow you to know with a good level of certainty of their understanding of ethical behavior. And as I mentioned before having more information is better than having less. You might even pretend for awhile that you agree with them while finding your way closer to the border and once you get close you make a run from that nightmare.

But why think so bad about people? Would you think a population of a large country would directly vote to initiate a war against another country while not being under direct attack? I doubt it.

Also as I edited one of my posts above, it boils down to what is more profitable. Think of it as what would you like to outsource to free market compared to what you would like to keep in-house. Would you outsource defense or judgment about ethical behavior to a random company on the market and pay for it or would it be cheaper for people to consolidate resources and do it by their means in-house?
Initial clustering of people by their understanding of ethical behavior would produce more peaceful society that clustering people by their motivation for profit which is what your model of free market would imply (as I understand it).

Also things like states and democracies exist not because some crazy people invented them, but because that's how things work. That's how stars form as well, matter in a dust clouds start to coalesce and form clusters of gravity which accumulate more and more mass until pressure and temperature becomes high enough so that thermonuclear reaction becomes self-sufficient. You might not like it but power on free market tends to consolidate and form self-sufficient clusters the same way. It's simple physics.

So instead of arguing with gravity how about we improve technologies so that those clusters of power which would form anyway won't get easily corrupted to grow out of proportion and turn into a tyrannical black holes? See where I'm going?

"...envy is the root, the seed that gives life to the tyranny of the majority. Democracy satisfies this covetous nature while sanitizing the evil – creating a false legitimacy to the end result of envy, that being theft and destruction." - "Bionic Mosquito" (http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/tyranny-of-the-majority.html)

"A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’" - Robert A. Heinlein

And a personal favorite, H.L. Mencken:
“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
― H.L. Mencken, Gist of Mencken

Every person will always vote themselves a bailout. All it takes is a convincing speaker, and for someone to put it to a vote. Then greed and envy take over, and by virtue of Democracy, each person's hands are clean when the army enters and slaughters the other territory.

I forgot to mention that topics to vote on in the consensus-based system are submitted by individual peers and are assessed and approved for voting by the rest of the peer-to-peer network. So their is no central body who would decide what people are going to vote on or which topics are welcome and which would be suppressed.

It doesn't mean that people would have to vote blindly, they can discuss the matter with themselves or listen to experts in their society before making their choice. And even if achieved consensus doesn't seem to satisfy what people have originally thought it would do there is no limitation that would prevent some peer to raise this question again and see if the previous decision can be overturned. There is no 4 years period of taboo on voting in this system. If something doesn't work change it.

Also remember as I've explained in my other thread, all versions of reality already exist, even those where quotes that you provided are true. It's all about sticking to a time track that you prefer, but you need to be representative of that vibration or you won't be able to perceive it.

...and with that, reality is left behind. Tell you what, why don't you shift to the time track in which I agree completely with you? That way, we're both happy.

+1000
I'm sticking to that time track as much as I can, throwing anchors around left and right :D

/sigh... No, my friend. You have no anchor. That's the problem.

it's funny how statists say that they want to replace the state but end up proposing... a state. it's like tribalism is baked in their brains and they can only offer solutions that make use of organized violence.

So you'd rather bow down to your boss while working in a "peaceful" and "non-aggressive" company on a "free" market, than working in collaboration with like-minded people in a consensus-based system striving to achieve self-sustainability and therefore being not dependent on market conditions?

Don't you see that big businesses of today control the market and make rules? The trick is that they call it "democracy" so that people like you would be utterly opposed to it and never even look that way again.
Please understand that the last time we had real government and democracy was when we used gold and silver as money. The problem is that technology at the time wasn't good enough to keep the structure sustainable, so it was taken over. Today everything is private, money is the property of a private bank and the thing that you call government is a private TV show to keep the rest of you entertained and utterly oblivious of what is really going on. So if you would like to call what we have today a "democracy" and you are so utterly opposed to it, I would applaud your ignorance. This is where name calling approach leads you guys, you play with those nice words and labels, while the reality about how things actually work slips away. The free market ruled by private companies is no longer a wet dream it is a reality of today, welcome!

Would you go pay to one of those triple-letter agencies for your protection if they were private defense companies that you guys are all dreaming about? And who would you pay to protect yourself from those agencies?

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there a middle ground between centrally-managed pyramid-structured profit-driven cluster of power and the one where people listen to each other's opinions first before rushing to take any action, which is what consensus-based system proposes?

You can't argue with gravity and prevent clusters of power from forming, the only thing you can attempt to change is how those clusters are structured, so that they don't turn themselves into a tyrannical black holes eating everything around for breakfast.

So is there a middle ground?

EDIT: If you find yourself offended by the sharp-edged sentences that I used above, please understand that I needed to express myself within those frequency bands that are most representative on this forum, so that they can form a constructive interference in a way that you will be able to perceive the ideas and we can have an argument. You can look at that as a reflection to gauge where you're at on the frequency spectrum.

First of all most people dont bow to their bosses. The only people we have to "bow down to" are agents of the state. I can tell my boss to go fuck himself and never have to see him again any moment of any day i feel like. Of course doing so may mean that i have to take a slightly worse job but its worth it to me for the freedom it gives me (like for example the freedom to utilize his capital in order to increase my productivity), freedom i absolutely do not have in my relationship with the state.

so down to brass tax, do you or do you not support the imposition of a monopoly on the legitimized use of violence with in a geographical region (a state). if you do than tell me how peoples relationship with such an institution would not necessitate "bowing down" at least in some metaphorical sense (which i believe is the sense you used it in originally)

If you do not support such an institution that what specifically is your disagreement with anarcho-capitalists? If you just want some other sort of voluntary system, like for example you want to homestead your own little community and have everyone who lives there agree to literally actually sign a real physical social contract or else leave the group i dont think any of us would have a problem with that.

P.S. dont give me any bs about how its the capitalists fault that people have to work inorder to survive

As yourself why that is. What entity has allowed them to do that (http://www.geke.us/EconQuizWM.html)?

You know, it's funny. I don't see ADT shooting it's customers, nor Brinks. Private companies on the free market don't get ahead by shooting their customers. Violent monopolies sometimes have to to keep their monopoly.

Yes. Each individual doing what and as they see fit, cooperating or competing as they choose. Though I wouldn't call it a "middle ground," more like a "third option."

Opening your comment by putting words in my mouth, or asking me "have you stopped beating your wife yet" types of questions, does not exactly constitute an incentive to address your questions.  It makes me think "well, it's unlikely that this person will actually process whatever I say, so why bother".

Ok, lowering the frequency in my previous post caused much better interference with this medium of exchange, very good! I'm hitting the spot! ;D

When talking about centrally-managed structure, be it a company or a state, it's not as much about bowing down (even though that too) as it is about simplicity for top tiers of each pyramid to collude and come up with secret agendas that the rest of the personnel won't even be aware of. It's about transparency of decision making.

Yes, you can change companies, but if CEOs of a few dozen major businesses are secretly working in tandem, it won't matter which of these companies you join. You will always contribute to the same agenda without even knowing about it. Ever heard of the Bilderberg Group? I'm not saying free market will always lead to this situation, but without mechanizms specifically designed to prevent it, nothing will prevent it and what we see today is an example. Please don't tell me that we don't have a free market today because of the states. The states as we know them are long gone, but those in charge like to keep a holographic illusion of it to detract the majority's attention from where it needs to be. Watch couple of these, they are precious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojmOESqVeak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

So, let's consider two cases where people form clusters of power in a different way and see what's worst that can happen in either case. I'm not considering best-case scenario here, because as I've already mentioned any kind of structure would tend to work when introduced and operated by people with high morals.

1) In the first case, where voting procedure is clumsy and not very transparent, people would tend to vote rarely (if at all) and delegate most of the decision making to a single person or a group of persons they think they trust. This leads to a formation of centrally-managed clusters of power in which power continues to accumulate in the center over time until it reaches a threshold that causes complete disconnect in its decision making process from the rest of the participants. That's what we have today.

2) With easy-to-use provable voting system, some people might still choose to opt out due to their lack of understanding of technology or based on their emotional experience with the word democracy that has been heavily misused for that particular purpose of causing disgust and utter rejection. So they will continue to form or participate in a centrally-managed clusters. However statistically there will be those who will decide to take advantage of the new technology and build clusters where power cannot be accumulated in a single point, but may continue to grow in a distributed fashion. It is much harder for two clusters of this kind to collude or come up with any secret agenda whatsoever, because of the transparency of the decision making process. As clusters of new kind grow in size and power they will eventually reach the point where they will be able to compete with the centrally-managed ones. Since participants of this new system don't have to bow down to any other participants, but instead only follow commonly-agreed rules, those who are still inhabiting centrally-managed clusters might become incentivized to flip sides. Please pay attention that roughly half of the population of some consensus-based clusters may be women and by allowing them to influence the definition of ethical behavior might greatly contribute to a peaceful resolution of many conflicts. Individuals might still remain profit-driven while staying within the confines of an ethical behavior. By the way, is it ethical to force an ethical behavior? ;)

3) Regarding the "third option", where each individual doing what and as they see fit, cooperating or competing as they choose, I can say this - it can only be stable when every individual is a self-sustainable cluster of power himself/herself. The fact that you are so attracted to this idea means that the reality where this is manifested in fact exists. It implies the level of technological advancement which allows any individual to have necessary amount of energy to grow food (or to be not dependent on food via genetic manipulations) in conjunction with availability of devices capable to produce strong energy shields so that individuals can protect themselves from each other (or alternatively achieve the level of morality that would prevent them from attacking each other to begin with). So this is all coming, but we are not there yet. If we don't use stepping stones that become available to us as we go, the Universe will see no point in providing us with more information and technologies than the ones that are already available to us.

That's like saying that since people could theoretically swallow razor blades and since there is no mechanism specifically designed to prevent them from swallowing razor blades so nothing will prevent them from swallowing razor blades. Some things just dont require mechanisms to prevent them from happening. you first need to demonstrate why we might expect that this WOULD naturally occur before it can be assumed that we need systems to prevent it.

Why might we expect capitalists to collude in a free market? Do you expect that capitalists would benefit from colluding with other capitalists? to what end? They couldnt collude to hold down workers wages because then those workers would be bid away by other capitalists. They couldnt collude to artificially raise their prices because even if they had every existing widget maker in the economy religiously adherent to the scheme new widget makers would enter the market since it would be easy for them to undercut the artificially inflated prices.

Probably workable with some sizable portion of the population have decent financial situations... I think the issue is that it wouldn't work on the macro scale. There would simply be too many people who weren't able or inclined to contribute. It's called socialism. Works well in the micro where everyone's equally invested (like blood related) but fails miserably in the macro.

Then it would be done on lots of little micro levels, or not done at all. If there aren't enough people who want to contribute to a project, then "society" doesn't want that project done.

Exactly. This whole "capitalists collude" is just a made-up victim complex fantasy that losers use to explain away the fact that they can't contribute much value to society, thus they get shitty wages.  Whenever there's collusion to depress wages in our modern world, it's always, without exception collusion involving the government.

No, there is a big difference.
There is no incentive for you to swallow razor blades whatsoever, your survival doesn't depend on your swallowing of blades, quite the opposite actually - you are more likely to survive if you don't swallow them ;)


I have explained the mechanizm several times already. It's called physics.
You probably know that charged particles are attracted to each other to form neutral ensembles.
The same way specialized companies on the market would tend to form unions (or sign special trade agreements) so that together they become more self-sustainable. Being self-sustainable is a more stable state than being specialized and depend on market conditions and demand for your services to survive.

So there is an incentive to collude, because it improves your chances of survival. People participating in a self-sustainable clusters can relax their fears of not surviving and express themselves more creatively, contributing to science, technology and entertainment. The same way self-sustainable clusters of gravity called stars give off light and heat to those who decided to stay outside, so that they don't freeze to death fighting in the dark alone.

Thus forming of self-sustainable clusters is a natural and life-supporting phenomenon and everybody should strive to achieve this status. But until individuals themselves become self-sustainable, these clusters would consist of multiple individuals or even multiple sub-clusters. And the way these clusters operate doesn't depend on how you call them, but rather on how they are structured, hence the topic of this thread.



Yes exactly, I firmly believe that consensus groups would work best if they start small, with family being the smallest example. But they can be formed along different lines of specialization as well, think of a consensus group of core architects in the company. This way it will be a consensus sub-group within a larger consensus group. Also, if people in the group don't seem to contribute much, they can be voted out by the rest of the group.


I have already explained how "capitalists collude" mechanizm works and the fact that it works today only supports the point. Also please understand that small company on the market, small state, bigger state or multinational mega-corporation are all examples of evolution of the same centrally-managed cluster of power. Yes you can blame governments for being an easy target for capitalists to take over and thus contributing to the situation at hand, but remember that we haven't had a government "by the book" for almost a hundred years now. So you're really barking at the wrong tree. If you watched Man In Black first movie, the situation can be best described as "we have a Bug in town and it's wearing an Edgar... err Government suit" ;D

I'm not defending the idea of government here, because it failed long ago and it is one of the examples of a centrally-managed cluster and those beasts are known to mutate rapidly and grow out of proportion. You can continue putting different labels on these monsters, but the way they work only depends on how they are structured, so let's concentrate on that part more. I'm open to discuss other structures as well, but I'm more sympathetic to an idea of voluntary consensus groups because now they can be supported with technology and may prove to be more stable than previously thought.

PS:
By the way, I will be traveling soon and won't have access to the Internet for quite some time (about 3 weeks). So you guys may continue to keep this thread alive on your own if there is still anything to discuss.

I do really appreciate your analogy relating economy to physics. It sounds very accurate and based on coherent definitions.

Few users will never understand your proposal since they cannot cope with scientific laws (e.g. Law of Gravity). If you tell them that gravity represents the natural human tendency to form central governments (or central leadership), they will subvert the core definitions of physics only to support their delusional ideology.

Your proposal is quite reasonable and could offer to a democratic society an efficient method to develop or to change norms. I agree with your premise that the Bitcoin protocol offers an unique trust-free model to an organized society reach a consensus over any subject discussed.

Thanks for support and your interest in this topic! :)

"No, there is a big difference. There is no incentive for you to swallow razor blades whatsoever, your survival doesn't depend on your swallowing of blades, quite the opposite actually - you are more likely to survive if you don't swallow them"

the point i was making was that mechanisms specifically deigned to stop things from happening arnt the only factor in determining whether or not something happens, a point which i still believe the previous post effectively conveyed. never qualifying by saying "there are incentives for capitalists to collude and these are the incentives", you asserted "without mechanisms specifically designed to prevent it, nothing will prevent it" what else am i to conclude from this other than you believed the only thing that could stop something from happening is a mechanism specifically designed to prevent it.

"It's called physics. You probably know that charged particles are attracted to each other to form neutral ensembles."

C'mon guy i know you are smarter than this. Economics isnt physics and physics isnt economics. You cant base assumptions on the premise that they are. Just because there happens to be a physical law that happens to correlate to the way that you think (incorrectly but thats neither here nor there) a free market economy would behave doesn't demonstrate in any way that your hypotheses about how a free market economy would behave is sound.

"The same way specialized companies on the market would tend to form unions (or sign special trade agreements) so that together they become more self-sustainable"

Companies on the market form trade agreements not for the purpose of creating a self sufficient unit, they do it to avoid taxes lol. They would rather keep things simple and use money but the state complicates things as usual.

"Being self-sustainable is a more stable state than being specialized and depend on market conditions and demand for your services to survive."

i hate to sound like a liberal here but what the hell. I see capitalists is being far more interested in profit than self sustainability, which are two ideas that are mutually exclusive since the wealth of our modern economy is a direct product of the level of specialization in the division of labor that we have achieved.

"People participating in a self-sustainable clusters can relax their fears of not surviving and express themselves more creatively, contributing to science, technology and entertainment"

Ok but since it isnt in the interest of any person other than the person who is relaxing with out fear of surviving for any person to be relaxing with out fear of surviving we should expect the natural state of things to reflect the interest of the super-majority. Admittedly this claim makes the state by definition an anomaly. Even i must admit that religion does strange things to people. But religion has presumably been around since the dawn of time and i believe there is good reason to believe that a society free from it would likely not re-adopt it. If you wonder what religion i speak of its statism which will likely be the very last one in the world to go if we do happen to ever overcome religion.

"Thus forming of self-sustainable clusters is a natural and life-supporting phenomenon and everybody should strive to achieve this status. But until individuals themselves become self-sustainable, these clusters would consist of multiple individuals or even multiple sub-clusters. And the way these clusters operate doesn't depend on how you call them, but rather on how they are structured, hence the topic of this thread."

Sorry guy but a lot of us arnt interested in the poverty that would result from self sustainability. Thats cool if you are, i respect your right to legitimately acquire a little plot of land and never make contact with another human soul ever again. Or joining a little group and doing that with the group. Or w/e as long as you guys arnt hurting anyone, rock on! Its also cool for you to direct all of your wealth towards creating mechanisms for personal sustainability while still being very socially active. Just understand that some other people would rather have fancy play-stations and satellite tv then a personal hydroelectric power system. You preference for self sustainability isnt objectively superior to other peoples preferences.

ill say what i said to the other guy in case you dont read it.

Economics isnt physics and physics isnt economics. You cant base assumptions on the premise that they are. Just because there happens to be a physical law that happens to correlate to the way that you think (incorrectly but thats neither here nor there) a free market economy would behave doesnt demonstrate in any way that your hypothesys about how a free market economy would behave is sound.

That was not proposed.


The discussion is not about "free market", but the consensus of an organized society.


His hypothesis are valid because there is empirical validity for the models he used as example.

that is presicely what was proposed "I have explained the mechanizm several times already. It's called physics."

so than you do not believe that actors in a free market would behave in the manner that was described? If you are saying that it would happen in any form of society than surely a free market society would fall into the category of any from of society...

if there was such evidence than sure fine. His claim however was not that it provided a suitable analogy but that the science of physics applies to the field of economics. A claim that you very vocally supported.

Everything is in a sense physics, people's thoughts, emotions and therefore relationship are no exceptions, it's all about vibrations and resonance. If you check out my other thread, you will know what I mean ;)

I checked that other thread.  You vomited quite a lot of woo woo on that thread!

yes thats true. but its a bit like saying there is no distinction between a computer programer and a electronic engineer since all computer programs are executed by hardware.

Philosophically, that's know as a "vacuous truth" -- "true, but pointlessly so".