Author Topic: A BitShares Constitution?  (Read 17397 times)

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Offline Ander

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(Even if you didn't, wouldn't you want inclusive language written into your constitution, being as we are in the 21st century?)
+5%

Yes, we do!


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Offline Ander

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Offline bytemaster

Of course I meant mankind inclusive of the ladies
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Offline mira

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We hodl these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and Property....

Could we change the nouns?
Do we finally have a lady around? That would be cool!

Yes, you do.  Greetings!

(Even if you didn't, wouldn't you want inclusive language written into your constitution, being as we are in the 21st century?)

Offline xeroc

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We hodl these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and Property....

Could we change the nouns?
Do we finally have a lady around? That would be cool!

Offline mira

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We hodl these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and Property....

Could we change the nouns?

Offline bytemaster

Enshrine it the protocol/blockchain since that is the constitution that underpins our community.

This would create investor confidence and is a much simpler message to communicate to cautious outsiders.

If there's a genuine emergency need for funds then hard fork.

Code cannot describe intent and can have bugs.  Code is not accessible by the average man.  The code should follow the spirit of the constitution.

What the code allows people to do speaks for itself.  Adding another layer of politics into the system is a weakness.  Users of bitassets don't need bitshares to have a constitution, neither do shareholders (they've been fine so far), delegates will each have their own mini-consitution. 

Bitshares will end up being governed by the most popular delegates and their constitutions, combined with the code.

Who is this over-arching constitution for?  If 3i will become delegates then there is no organisation that is bitshares that has a constitution.  There are just delegates, BTS holders and bitasset users connected by financial incentives in a decentralised network.

It would be a non binding expression of core principles and vision.   It would not be a set of rules... the rules are enforced by the code and the market.   

We hodl these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and Property.   That to secure these rights social consensuses are adopted that apply equally to all men and the highest convention is that no man shall do unto another man that which he would not want done unto himself. 

We recognize that property rights are essential to the security of life and liberty and that the primary purpose of social consensus systems is to establish property rights that are indisputable or quickly resolved without using the threat force or coercion.   

We recognize that no man shall be compelled to join our endeavor and that each man shall have an opportunity to profit from our common venture proportional to their contributions to this venture and that all shall share equally in the costs funded by issuance of new BTS subject to the approval of existing BTS holders.

We recognize that a common stake known as BTS shall be used to track each individuals contribution and that the holders of BTS shall not have the power to redefine property rights in other asset classes.  (this gets tricky... but probably needs to be addressed).

... just some thoughts...  this document should be something that all delegates publicly support like all senators are expected to support and defend the constitution.    When evaluating hard forks they should be evaluated in light of these principles.

I prefer to stick to principles over rules and procedures wherever possible.   Principles rarely change, but rules and procedures sometimes need to change to hold to principles. 




 
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Offline xeroc

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it depends on which words you choose
example:

- Will will not be more than 21M Bitcion
- Bitcoin will not have more than 21M units

see the difference? If you choose your words correctly no freedom for INTERPRETATION will be left!

Offline matt608

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Enshrine it the protocol/blockchain since that is the constitution that underpins our community.

This would create investor confidence and is a much simpler message to communicate to cautious outsiders.

If there's a genuine emergency need for funds then hard fork.

Code cannot describe intent and can have bugs.  Code is not accessible by the average man.  The code should follow the spirit of the constitution.

What the code allows people to do speaks for itself.  Adding another layer of politics into the system is a weakness.  Users of bitassets don't need bitshares to have a constitution, neither do shareholders (they've been fine so far), delegates will each have their own mini-consitution. 

Bitshares will end up being governed by the most popular delegates and their constitutions, combined with the code.

Who is this over-arching constitution for?  If 3i will become delegates then there is no organisation that is bitshares that has a constitution.  There are just delegates, BTS holders and bitasset users connected by financial incentives in a decentralised network.

« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 10:28:48 pm by matt608 »

Offline Empirical1.1

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A constitution is meant to be social glue. It's in writing and is "official". Eventually people start to almost worship it like a holy book; so I see merit in having our own. As mentioned previously, the first rule should be that changing the constitution requires a 75% supermajority, otherwise inflation is fixed. You get the best of both worlds this way: investor confidence and the ability to tackle both known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

Agree whole-heartedly.

Cap inflation and require a 75% majority to change it.

Huge boost to investor confidence, including my own.

A written and public constitution with a few simple and hard rules would be a novelty in the crypto space and may garner substantial publicity.

I would highly recommend modelling the language of the constitution on the Declaration of Independence.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.

Man would that resonate... freedom rising from the ashes of a corrupt and crushing system.

The 75% super-majority is also an excellent mechanism for establishing the ground rules while providing a robust mechanism for altering them.

The code is the constitution.  Nothing more is needed.

Very true...

Perhaps what is needs is a plain-English summary of the main philosophies the code realizes and the basic framework of rules that will require a super-majority to alter.

I still like the DOI tie-in.

Perhaps a Declaration of Economic Independence?

 +5%

As Bytemaster brought up we have recently changed on a dime. So personally, I would prefer to give ironclad dilution rules, 'Defined dilution, full stop' vs. 'Defined Dilution, caveat'
Though I think a 75% super-majority in a constitution is a big improvement as to what's needed for this market.

Other ideas.. Something about minimum collateral for creating a BitAsset?

In the real world collateral gets reduced to dangerously low levels so customers are really taking enormous risks without realising. So maybe giving BitAsset users, (especially when the financial system collapses) some confidence about the initial BitAsset backing never being below 100%.

I believe for this market, that the community, shareholders and users should feel that BitShares is about more than just business on a blockchain. It's something people should feel good to be a part of imo. Of course it could limit us, but what you gain in trust, confidence & loyalty in this market, particularly given the direction the world is heading, could be worth it imo.


Offline Ander

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If that is the case this needs to be emphasised!  Why did BM say 8% was the maximum today on mumble?  People are making valuations and selling based on what they think the inflation will be.

Because bitcoin is around 8% right now and he was emphasizing that it was lower than that maybe?

Also because math is hard. :D

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Offline matt608

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I thought the maximum annual dilution is 8%? 

The way I calculate it, it is 6.3% right now.

50 bts per block * 6 blocks/min * 60 min/hour * 24 hour/day * 365 day/year = 157,680,000 shares per year.

.15768B / 2.5B = 6.3%


If that is the case this needs to be emphasised!  Why did BM say 8% was the maximum today on mumble?  People are making valuations and selling based on what they think the inflation will be.

I dont think our schedule needs to be the same halving per 4 years though.  A smoother decline would be preferable to a disruption at a certain date.

Agreed.


[A constitution is] also a marketing document outlining the vision, so that people can understand what bitshares is trying to do.

I'm all in favour of a marketing document for 3i and other delegates to use to use for marketing and to guide their marketing decisions.  But that is not a constitution.  A constitution requires getting everyone to agree, and requires everyone to obey it afterwards.  It comes with an aweful cost - everyone who disagrees leaves.  It's completely unnecessary.  I am a huge dreamer when it comes to startup governments, direct digital democracy etc, but bitshares doesn't need it.  This will send the Chinese away in swathes, but we do need a hard cap on dilution coded in which reduces to stay well below bitcoin.

I must emphasise, the code is the constitution!  That is what we all agree on, that is why we buy bitshares.

Individual delegates will effectively have their own constitution, but there need be no overarching constitution other than the code itself!

Offline bytemaster

Enshrine it the protocol/blockchain since that is the constitution that underpins our community.

This would create investor confidence and is a much simpler message to communicate to cautious outsiders.

If there's a genuine emergency need for funds then hard fork.

Code cannot describe intent and can have bugs.  Code is not accessible by the average man.  The code should follow the spirit of the constitution. 
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

julian1

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Enshrine it the protocol/blockchain since that is the constitution that underpins our community.

This would create investor confidence and is a much simpler message to communicate to cautious outsiders.

If there's a genuine emergency need for funds then hard fork.

Offline starspirit

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Having the ability to change the dilution rate with some established process that is deemed "hard but not impossible" is what is needed.

I agree.

I think that modifying a constituiton is "hard but not impossible". 

It should be hard enough that people have confidence that it should probably not happen, except in an extreme emergency where everyone agrees it must happen.

Extreme emergency or extreme opportunity.... I think we can put this kind of thing up to a vote that requires 75% stakeholder approval and allows stakeholder to buy/sell their approval would do the trick.
The essential problem with dilution is that it is a coercive tax, and the antithesis of voluntary action, especially for smaller stakeholders. I would prefer a constitution built around freedom.

I disagree about it being a coercive tax for the simple reason that you can use BitGold to trade and save in and never have anything taken from anyone combined with the following:

One person has $100 and contributes it to create a company and owns 100%.
A second person has $100 and contributes it to build a company... how much does each person get as far as ownership rights?  50/50...     You went from 1 share to 2 shares.  Assuming the money was kept in the company the value of each share would be $100.  Thus no wealth transfer, no tax, no threat of violence.
I've started a new thread on this, here https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10835.0. "Is dilution a coercive tax? - and voluntary alternatives".

In essence I think you are correct only if each party agrees on the value of the capital being contributed. If each contributed $100 to a company, that's easy. If the contribution is in the form of skill, users, network effect etc, that's subjective. Please refer my thread.