Author Topic: [Proposal] We need to decentralize knowledge. We need an academic journal.  (Read 1928 times)

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Offline xeroc

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Before we can know what the biggest problems are we need a list of unanswered questions.

One of the questions answered by Satoshi Nakamoto was the question of how to make a currency that is both counterfeit proof yet completely decentralized. We now have questions such as how can we bring privacy to users without total secrecy while keeping accountability, how to do decentralized reputation, how to create true crypto-corps or decentralized autonomous corporations which produce jobs for human beings and can pay human and machine alike.

These are problems which have multiple approaches which must be weighed. They are tough theoretical problems. It's not good enough just to have a bunch of programmers making a bunch of altcoins cut and paste because anyone can do that. We need a strong theoretical foundation so programmers can actually use the latest research when designing their DACs.
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Offline luckybit

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We need to decentralize knowledge.brings me to ask about a wikipedia blockchain!

Besides that, wonderful ideas

I think there are a lot of really bright people on this forum. But while each of us has a lot of knowledge in a certain domain and it may even be highly specialized, the incentives are geared mostly towards implementing rather than conceptual. This means almost all the ideas are coming from a few people and usually only Stan or Bytemaster are in the position to fully grasp the big picture.

It is my opinion that the theoretical foundation is as important as the execution/implementation. The genius of Bitcoin wasn't in the source code itself, but in the entirely new ideas, the elegant conceptual design. Bitshares offers similar new ideas but if I wanted to spend 6 months just focusing on solving one really tough theoretical problem is there any incentive for me to do it? Or for anyone else?

Before we can know what the biggest problems are we need a list of unanswered questions.

One of the questions answered by Satoshi Nakamoto was the question of how to make a currency that is both counterfeit proof yet completely decentralized. We now have questions such as how can we bring privacy to users without total secrecy while keeping accountability, how to do decentralized reputation, how to create true crypto-corps or decentralized autonomous corporations which produce jobs for human beings and can pay human and machine alike.

These are problems which have multiple approaches which must be weighed. They are tough theoretical problems. It's not good enough just to have a bunch of programmers making a bunch of altcoins cut and paste because anyone can do that. We need a strong theoretical foundation so programmers can actually use the latest research when designing their DACs.


« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 04:56:17 pm by luckybit »
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Offline xeroc

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We need to decentralize knowledge.brings me to ask about a wikipedia blockchain!

Besides that, wonderful ideas

Offline luckybit

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To describe what I think we need.

1. An academic journal on decentralized autonomous networks. This journal should give prizes to good ideas, brilliant new theoretical approaches, brilliant whitepapers, even if the ideas are not implemented just by rewarding their creation you create a better environment where ideas and knowledge have value. In the community today there is no reward for generating new ideas or new knowledge. If it's a good idea then someone will probably use it but the originator wont get the credit. There is no economic value attached to a good idea so there is no incentive to share knowledge, ideas, theoretical concepts, and I think this is pushing us into a culture of knowledge silos and competition where cooperation is better.

2. Beyond just giving incentives to visionaries and theoretically inclined researchers we should develop some formality and decentralization to the process. The forum was sufficient for putting new ideas about DACs into the public and I've put several of my ideas onto the forum, but it's not a very scholarly environment. If an idea is good it's not peer reviewed with the level of scientific rigor which in the future will be necessary. The knowledge isn't all in one place, it isn't searchable, you would have to literally either scan the entire forum or select certain thought leaders to follow in order to track the new ideas (this is not sustainable).

An initial solution I am proposing is based on a solution I offered up for Peercoin called "AskPeers"(I had a Devcoin version called "AskDevs" also). The idea is to have a question and answer site where anyone can sweeten the bounty to have any question answered. The people who answer the question best are voted to the top. The top results are paid the bounty.

Now that Invictus exists and has the money to build sites how about a site like this so that we can decentralize knowledge while simultaneously rewarding people who generate knowledge? It would be open, accessible to all, anyone could make a bounty, anyone could answer or ask a question on the topic of DACs, voting is allowed.

I don't think we can seriously build a new industry if we don't attract and reward the generation of knowledge. If you look at any industry there is an academic journal with loads of great research articles, whitepapers, books, etc. This is where people test and develop out new concepts like Zerocoin, the zero knowledge proof, the proof of work, we need a theoretical foundation for decentralized autonomous networks.

« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 04:27:31 pm by luckybit »
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