OTNS: Scaling Collective Action for Millions of People
The Blockchain Socialist | 2023-10-01 | 57:53
In this episode we spoke to co-founder of DAO Stack now working on Common, Matan Field who joined us at Zuzalu. During the discussion we talk about the need for scaling collective action, using fractal organization, and moving beyond economically based interdependence. Check out a previous episode to learn more about our framework for out network state alternative, coordi-nations. JOIN THE BLOCKCHAINGOV DISCORD SERVER HERE IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN THE CONTINUED OVERTHROW AND CONTR...
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Transcript
Speaker 0
0:14 – 1:31
Alright. Hello everyone. You are listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. I'm Josh and I'm here with my co host, Primavera. We are back for Overthrowing the Network State. And for this interview, we are speaking to, Matan Field. He was a theoretical physicist back in the day, but, he is now, known for having been a cofounder of Lazooz, which was a ride hailing application that was built on Bitcoin, Backfeed and DAO Stack which he co founded with Primavera and now, most recently a project called Common. Matan is known for having been very early with a lot of the many ideas that have been sort of explored in the crypto world. And he was also with us at Zuzalu where we sort of built out the conceptual framework for coordinations which we've used to, bring as an alternative to the network state from Balaji. But yeah. So, Matan, would you like to, say hello and give an introduction to yourself? And, I'm wondering I think it'd be interesting to maybe recount, the story of DAO stack as well because I think that's kind of sometimes sometimes, lost in the, in the crypto history.
Speaker 1
1:33 – 9:17
Okay. Hey. Hey. So thanks for having me here. Yeah. So as I said, I've I've I've practiced theoretical phys physics for quite a while. And in 2013, I was doing my postdoctoral research. And during that time, I had an idea to do a ride hailing social ride hailing app just as a hobby, as for fun. And through that project, quite quite from the first week, discovered the blockchain. And back then, it was Bitcoin blockchain. And and at the same time, Vitalik came with the idea for smart contracts in Ethereum, and I and I get really excited about that. And a few months later, I decided to quit the academy and focus on on on this on this area. And firstly, with Lazuz, the decentralized ride sharing project, but quite soon after, I really got fascinated with the notion of DAOs, which was back then just a kind of, like, vague idea. And and together with Pimavera, we founded, Backfeed to build technology or platform for for DAOs. And and around 2016, you're ask you were asking about our stocks. So around 2016, we both kind of, like, ran out of funding. And roughly at the same time, DDAO that some people may remember came out, burst out. In the beginning, it it it had a lot of problems or issues which which were acknowledged, around, like, protocol issues, around, like, game theoretic, I would say, like, wrong incentives. And and then we started to still this was still in back field. We were start we started to to work on on proposing a new governance system for the DAO. And what you know, quite right, like, right after what happened was the the big bug and and and the hack. And and and then the the whole space was was kind of like, I would say in a post trauma. I mean, if you just set a DAO, nobody was was, you know, was wanting to hear about the DAO. And at the same time, we ran out of funding, and it seemed almost impossible to raise any funding for a DAO, you know, initiative at that time. And yeah. So that's and then the second half of twenty second. For me, I was all like, already then, I was three years into this journey and all all in interested and passionate about DAOs, and it was clear that I would continue the journey. So, for about six months, I was trying to, take lessons from back feed and, you know, and trying to understand what what would be the next, building block or next thing to start from. I mean, maybe to say in back field, we've we've tried maybe five different products to to develop and and all of which I mean, still the technology, the blockchain, the smart coin technology was still, very, very early. So then looking at all of the insights taken from that journey, after, like, six months, I I've started again, and that was DaoStack. That was started with a few few cofounders. And and, yeah, so that was that was early seventeen. January 17, we started. Back then, I will I there was this like, kind of like the the peak of the hype of the ICO hype, And I really felt bad about it in some sense, and I, like, I had, I don't know, had dual dual attitude towards it because I wanted to raise funding and and, you know, and develop technology, but then I felt bad to raise funding by white paper alone alone. So we decided that we are we will only start raise funding after completing a pilot of the technology. So for, like, about a year, we worked to build technology, the baseline technology, and we started from already then probably we'll get back to that, but already then we we realized that we we were we were interested to focus on, on large scale coordination. So how how how do we scale a million people, let's say? And we realized that this landscape of DAOs is so big, so vast that you each DAO will need different governance system. And and also within a single DAO, you'll have many different sales likely meeting different governance system, and also appreciating or acknowledging the fact that we are so early that we have no idea of what governance system will actually work. So what we decide to build was to build a framework for governance system. So, like, like, a smart like like, smart contracts for any code. So here, a high level framework on top of the smart contracts of Ethereum. So high level framework for different governance system, basically, for any governance system. So it was really like a language for how to build governance systems. And on top of that language, on top of that framework, we've built a first interface that it shows how to utilize that framework. And we launched and we built that technology. And around at the at the 2018, we both made our own token sale, and raised a bunch of funding and also launched at the same time we launched the first version of this app. It was called Alchemy, with the first DAO experiment. Back then, I think it will I think it was the first on chain, like, significant significant DAO experiment was mid twenty eighteen. We called it the Genesis DAO, and it was practiced I mean, today, to sound, like, funny, it was we were practicing this DAO with, or playing around with this DAO with, funding of $50,000 a month. So over a course of eighteen months, I think it was between half 1,000,000 to a million dollar funding. You know, to in today in today's scale, it's, like, minuscule. And back then, it was, like, huge. It was people thought that we were crazy to play with so large funding, with this early technology. So that was, like, the the first part of of Dowstack. And then during the last few years, we we made some shift more I mean, again again again, learning more insights from from this first wave, and then we turned a bit more to the social impact, direction. And, also, I would say, also developed, or or started from from other angles to to deal with large set coordination. I'm I'm not just running through it, and probably we go we can go back to it. But, basically, we we both touched upon a large scale decision making protocols that we call the holographic consensus. And nowadays, we are focusing on on a common app, which is focusing about the the way that a large scale organization is is is looking more like an organism. So it's not really a single body that agrees about everything altogether. It's not a single governed system, and it's more like an organism that can be made of organs, which themselves can be made of suborgans, which themselves can be made of, you know, suborgans and eventually cells. So this whole network structure or fractal structure is something that we are now manifesting in a in the in the in the common app. So this is this is the this is a short, I guess,
Speaker 0
9:18 – 9:28
you know, fast forward of Yeah. I think we'll we'll talk about common more definitely in a bit. But I'm curious. Primavera, how do you feel having your your fellow cofounder from DaoStack on?
Speaker 2
9:31 – 11:26
Very happy. Yeah. I think that, with Matan I think the the reason that we started working together is because I went to we didn't have yet the terminology. We've been a bit obsessed by figuring out this question of, how do you help people coordinate themselves, without having to rely on central authorities. Right? And and I think that's that's that's what partners to the blockchain to begin with. Right? So, so yeah. I think, like, it's it's interesting because now that we can have a retrospective, and now that we are developing those new, I guess, theories or concepts, around network state and network sovereignty, the the the path that we've taken actually start making a lot of sense. And yeah. I don't know if it was like it I think it was about, like, being too early, and trying to provide DAO tooling at that time in which DAOs didn't mean anything to anyone. But also, I think the world not only was not understanding DAOs, but I think the world was also not as greedy as it is today, to understanding the possibilities of new networks of entities. And, and and it seems that now the the ground is actually very fertile for her for both of those. And in fact, now there is demand for those technical tool because there is demand for those, for those new governance structures that, you know, that DAOs can be an answer to. So, yeah, I think, I think now we we can we can we can start the walk finally.
Speaker 0
11:29 – 12:26
I think I think one of the things that, for me, the network state is kinda like a sign or a symptom of now, I guess, a a larger mass of people being more interested in these types of things and questions, that you guys were just, like, much earlier, and much before, for example, Balaji was was thinking about this. But, yeah. So maybe I don't know. Next, would you like to talk a bit about, because I think the question that I think, like you said, that attracts a lot of people to Blockchains is how do we scale coordination of more and more people? How do we scale millions of people to be able to coordinate with one another to achieve, you know, shared collective goals? Where do you even start, like, with with that question? Because it's it seems like it's a massive one.
Speaker 1
12:27 – 16:30
Yeah. That's actually a really good question that we often skip. I mean, I personally believe that that's the most important task right now, mission to be done, and that's why I I I that's this for me, that's my motivation. And I also have to say that that driver has been changing in the in the past decade, but in a way that just made it much more urgent. So when when I started, it was more from the place of seeing the potential fit. I just it was obvious to me. I saw I looked around, and I said I saw there is so many there are so many causes that people would like to organize around. If they could if they just could, they don't think about it because they don't have the, you know, the idea that it's possible. But if they just could organize easily a thousand people, a 10,000 people, a 100,000 people, a million people, there are so many causes that will be, be, executed on. And I would just saw I would just it was it was obvious to me that the world will be, you know, a thousand times better. I think what changed over the course of the past decade was that and that we did this I I I personally didn't see that ten years ago, but now I think it's very, very obvious and that in the past, I don't know, five, seven years that the whole system that we are now tapped to, you know, the regular state system, the regular corporate system, the regular economic system and global system we are tapped to is completely, you know, fault and collapsing and and driving off the cliff. And I think now it's actually a matter of of existential matter. I think that the only way that society can correct itself is if a million people would be able to organize or self organize together for action. It could be both, you know, a a one time action for a specific cause or an ongoing action like a nation. And, I mean, I think it's now understood very well how the current system are captured. The current system are corrupted even though they are trying to be somewhat decentralized. You could say democracy is decentralized in decentralized, but, actually, people have captured the seats. And and the only way to uncapture that is if the the next step in the next step society, the economic power, the the the center of gravity or the mass where the mass is in terms of economic power, would be held by by large networks and not by centralized authorities of any kind. Because large networks in their nature, they take into account for wider interest, for wider incentives. They are less capturable, or corruptible. So I've now I I really see that as a necessity. Like, it's not just any any longer a bonus that we may increase the potential of humanity. I actually think that's that's the only thing that will, you know, in a way, free us from the from the from the, you know, the the the trainer is now running off the cliff at this moment. And I think every year is just accelerating. And and, of course, there is much, much more theory about how this acceleration, this running off off the cliff. I'm not I'm not going to talk about that more because I think there are there there are people who are, you know, teaching about that much better and just learning from them. But people like, like Daniel Schmachtenberger and Jordan Hall and and many others, I think, are have beautiful, writings and podcasts and everything and videos explaining, the the current problem. And I think by now there is quite a consensus that the only logical solution of that is is a large scale coordination.
Speaker 2
16:31 – 19:34
And I I yeah. I I wanna add something to this because in some way, like, I think it's also the the institutional structure that we use is, is very delicate. It's like it's very important in the sense that, you know, the the the core the core problem is like how do you achieve collective action. And and it's not that it's not that we haven't tried. Right? It's like, we have companies, we have organizations, we have governments. Those are all created in order to actually achieve collective action. And the the challenge though is that many times when you create those institutions then the institutions become this kind of alien being, which which actually brings people to do things that they will never do otherwise. Right? And and it's very interesting like because you know, I I I I resonate a lot with what you said that if we had people like most people are good people and if those good people were to to to do collective action, good things will come out of it. But the the the good people that will do that are the same people that today are actually doing, like, harsh competition, exploitation, wars, and so forth because of the institutions that have been created. And and and for me, like, when we're talking about coordinations and network sovereignty and so forth, there's also the question of how do we ensure that as we create a new structure, a new institution that enables people to engage into collective action, how do we ensure that this doesn't actually lead to the same outcome of distorting somehow the collective action problem into creating something that the institution is, doing for its own benefit as opposed to actually instrumental in being instrumentalized by the collective action that the people want to do. Right? And I think when we're thinking about states and governments, the the origin is is a greater origin. It's like we want to live in a society, we want to coordinate the society. And then we create those institutions that those students live with acquire a life on their own and then, you know, can become very oppressive to the people that actually, created it. So it's like I think it's not enough to just talk about collective action because I think we need to admit that we have achieved very large scale mechanism of collaboration. But somehow they are they are easily corruptible, and they are corrupted by the institution itself. And and I think when we're talking about those new types of coordination and network sovereignty, we want to avoid this. And so we we need to design the institutional fabric in order to to remain true to the original intention of why the inst institution was created to begin with.
Speaker 1
19:35 – 23:23
Yeah. I agree. I agree. I would just say I mean, I agree that the the problem is not people. The problem or to large degree, the problem is not people. The problem people mostly are good. I think the the bad thing is not people. It's the is the institute. It's it's the system. However, the way that the institute collapses is through people. So some people capture and abuse, the structure, and and a structure that we thought that is fairly decentralized as people's capacity to impact other people has increased. Some people learned how to use it in a centralized in a very centralized manner. So even bodies or institutes that we thought before are pretty decentralized, I. E. Democracies, I think are now are very very capturable, much more capturable than we thought they are thirty years ago. So so the question is really so so one way I mean, it's not the only way we can ask you, but one way, I think, to phrase your question is, how do we build new infrastructures or new systems that are not that easily capturable or that are not capturable or even antifragile to captureability. That's even better. Right? And so that's one way to look at it. I think there are other ways to look at it. For example, another way to look at it is from from alignment of incentives. How do you create a system that automatically align incentives? For example and and I think all all these things are somewhat similar to when we look at organisms. Right? So for example, in organism, you're not asking, whether an organism has a line of incentive. It's it's it's built into the system. Right? The collective, in a way, pains or feels the pain of the cell. Right? I I'm the being. I'm the collective. Me, the consciousness, I'm the collective. And I feel the pain. I literally feel as my pain when my cells are burning, and and and the opposite. Right? The cell is feels pain when I'm sick. Right? And and there is there is some this there is some sort of built in alignment of interests. We we'll probably touch more about this, but I also think that and I will just just mention in the title and then let go. I also think that this fractal nature of things is and and the right balance balance of forces is very, very critical for this organismness to appear. And when I say balance of forces, what I mean is that if you see the if you look at this nesting and this fractal of organs and cells, you all you can look at the at the at the balance between at at at every level, you can look at you can ask to what degree the the the child is autonomous versus is responsible to to the higher level. Right? There is always like, if it's too autonomous, if it's totally not responsible for anything else, you just get tons of sales which which which is with zero responsibility, you get chaos. But if it's too much if it's too less autonomous, it's too much responsible or or under the power of the parent, you get author authority authoritarians. So you need to find a way to create the balance, the right balance between, you know, the the independence and and and and sovereignty of the cells and organs and the responsibility and the alignment of interest between the organs and the cells in in a in a certain level. I think all of these are kind of like different ways of Yeah. And in some way, this is this
Speaker 2
23:23 – 24:46
is highly correlated with, you know, point, point seven of a recipe, which is this this type of alignment of interest is achieved by inter interweaving. Right? If if I am if I am interwoven with another actor, then I cannot but but wish for this actor to do as well as possible because then I'd also do as well as possible. And so in some ways, like, the traditional way of of scaling up is centralizing things, because decentralization leads to potential conflict of interest or competition. And and what we're trying to do with this coordination system is actually how do you scale up while maintaining the alignment and while actually increasing cooperation as opposed to competition between the fractalized nodes. And, and my my hypothesis will be that these mechanisms of excessively, intentionally creating additional interdependencies, is one of the solutions that will ensure that you can scale fractally while ensuring that every single fractal node in the network is acting the interest of itself and the far of the whole.
Speaker 1
24:47 – 26:45
If I can add on that, I I totally agree with that. And but also wanna add that it's actually critical that you scale up in a fractal way. Because you're you're talking about interdependence and you sometimes you call it sharing blood. Remember in Zuzalo. And and at this sharing let let me just make an example. If you share if you try to if you have no fractal, let's say you take a million people and they're all in a single vessel, and then you're sharing blood. Sharing blood means that the, you know, some success or damage of the collective is is corresponding with success or or damage of the individual. Right? And then you're saying, okay. So now I have the interest to make the collective success. But we all know that that doesn't work because of tragedy of the commons, because that individual says, okay. I you know, everyone else will take care for the success of the collective. And if if just me if I if just me is not gonna do that, you know, I will I will gain both my free energy that I just reserved and as well as success for everyone else. But the the the tragedy of the coin is that everyone said that, and the whole interest gain collapse. So but that's not true when you have fractal. You have many levels, and then each level is actually quite intimate. So then then actually you get, you that actually that that actually fixes the the tragedy of the commons. So it's so the sharing blood or the interdependencies and actually, in reality, I think it's much more complex than just a tree, a nesting nested tree. It's actually more like a graph because, you know, different organs can be sub organs to to several components and different cells can be sub and cells can be sub or sub system to different organs. So it's really like a whole mesh network, such that from at each level, the alignment of interest is actually quite intimate to some degree in an economic sense. And so
Speaker 0
26:46 – 27:14
speaking about this, I think it would be interesting maybe as well because you're working on a project called Common, and this is you're you're basically referring to a lot of the, I think, concepts that are crucial for, the applications that you guys are building there. Would you like to talk a bit more about, about Common and how you see, you know, scaling coordination fractally via technological infrastructure, I guess, or using the blockchain?
Speaker 1
27:15 – 35:27
Okay. So firstly, I wanna say, it's it's we we we tend to think about that in terms maybe I mean, I'm I'm a bit detouring, but just it's it's common, and then and then I go go back to what what you were asking, but it's related. So we are talking about nesting or fractalizing. Right? And usually when we think about that, we think about it in a in a physical sense. So for example, you have different states, and in different states, you have different cities. In different states, you have different neighborhoods. In different neighborhoods, you have different blocks. In different blocks, you have different buildings. Different buildings, you have different apartments, you know, all the way to the cell. So this is this is a let's call it a physical fractal, and it can be very distributed, but still it's a physical, like, it's a lesson, you know, it's smaller and smaller. It's in the in in the communities in the community space, community dimension, in the people dimension. And other way, what another chapter another idea I wanna I wanna I wanna bring in is that we're also talking about the fractal in the content dimension, in the common scape. If you want to if you want to collaborate across a large number of people, it means that the collaboration, the action, the collective action that you're generating is very complex. So that collective action can be broken down to sub actions, which can be broken down to sub actions and so on and so forth. And that's not exactly the same. They're related, but they're not exactly the same. You can do a fractal in people's scale and space, and you can do a fractal in content space, and that's not quite the same. And I think that that's actually important, note. I think that the right way to scale up a large scale corporation is is by doing a fractal on the content dimension. It, of course, naturally will organize to some sort of fractal at the people direct dimension, but not exactly quite the same. So that's maybe one comment. Going back to, like, asking, okay. So how that relates to technology, how that relates to an app, to a platform, to user interface. So, I mean, we we we all have we all have a notion of, we all have a notion of of a group, you know, groups from workspace. So so the, you know, the most example the most exact the most the most simple example would be a WhatsApp group or a Telegram group. Right? So if you want to have now a scope of a certain scope of action, you would open a Telegram group. If you have a slightly more complex scope of action, you might open a Discord channel because then you can embody, 30 groups, 30 channels in there. And and now, by the way, Telegram has a new feature of school topics, so we can embody inside the Telegram group 30 topics such topics. So in a sense, I think it's not very different from that. So we we need to start from something like that. We need to start from notion of, I call I like to call it a space, but you you can call it different words. I mean, you can call it a group. I don't like the notion of group that's connected to the comment I I said before. I don't like the notion of group because when you say group, you are hinting that this the encapsulated space is differentiated by the people in it. And, actually, I wanna say that the encapsulated space is differentiated by the content scope in it. So that's why I like less the wording of the group for that. But from a technological application purpose, it's the same. So imagine that you have a space, again, like a like a Telegram channel, a group. You have a space for specific content, Right? Or specific scope, specific missions, specific, yeah, specific scope. I think that's the most general terminology. And now in the sense of that fractal, imagine that you cannot now have daughters or children to that to that group or to that channel or to that space. So now you have subspaces, which are then, encapsulating a smaller and narrower part of the scope. We only have yet subspaces and subspaces all the way until you have, you know, the most tiniest scope. And so firstly, with that, you can span a very large scale collaboration. Maybe I should say, okay. What what do you have in in each node on that graph? What do you have in each node on the graph? You have a scope of action. That scope of action can contain the regular chat that you're used to, you know, just a chat room, that's basically. But it can also have a gov its own governance system, membership system, funding, in incoming funds, outgoing funds, you know, anything. So anything is basically every node on that graph, every node on the graph is what you would call a DAO, basically, or a sub DAO. Now when you have this fractal of nodes, you can both go you can I think usually we are we are tending to think how powerful it is that we can go upward? We can go to a broad scopes because we can build up, you know, certain small scopes into a bigger scopes, certain bigger scopes into yet bigger scope, and so on and so forth. I think what we are less what is more surprising is actually that we can break break down further downward. I think that's actually more surprising, although it's actually more trivial. What do I mean by that? It means that the thing that you're usually you're usually thinking about them as a single group, you know, the the usual scope that you think would be in a single group, you can actually broke break down into 10 subspaces. And even then, you can find out they can tell break them down yet to more subspaces all the way until eventually the the the cell, the very cell of a scope, is that scope is very, very focused. You're you're just having a single conversation in that cell. Like, if you if you just think about any Telegram chat that you've seen, you know, recently, you you remember that there is dozens of dozens of conversations are trying to, trying to merge in that room. And because of that, they're all, breaking each other, and none of them is actually have you seen have you ever seen a single conversation going on for a month in a in a Telegram chat? I've never seen such thing because the conversations are stepping on each other. And if you actually wanna have a space which a specific scope, which has longevity, that you can go on and on, and people can come in and go out, and it's open, and a 100 different people who don't know each other can all contribute to the same scope. If you want that, you need the scopes to be the most well defined they can be. You know, a single conversation until it's saturated. So I just in that comment, in I I think it's small it's small but important comment. I just tried to I was trying to say that just as this fractal structure of of of sales, of spaces that maybe would look like Telegram channels, or Telegram groups, Just as they are powerful that you can scale them up, they're actually powerful that you can break them down into a very granular cells of action. So, eventually, if you're asking how that looks like, it really looks when when you're standing on a single node, what you see is just that activity of that node. You see a chat. That chat is the chat of that node. You can see the tasks of that node. You can see all of the daughters of that node. You can see which daughters, which sub scopes are connected to it. You can see the parents of that, which parents this node is part of. And you can see also the, of course, the dynamics around that. You can see incoming transaction, outgoing transaction, evaluations, and so on and so forth, contributions made, and so on and so forth. I I totally get it that it's abstract, you know, in that way. So I hope that it conveys something. But but but I'm talking about a very specific u in user interface.
Speaker 0
35:28 – 36:25
Yeah. I mean, I think maybe, maybe an easier way to explain that would be to just say kind of like a Wiki, but it's also, it is, not just one direction, as in you're not just creating fractalization in one direction, but things are also being related, almost, like, horizontally as well. So that there is this kind of, like thus, you create this kind of hierarchical, diagram of related topics and concepts or, yeah, things that are that are related to one another because and which is similar to on a Wikipedia, you can, you know there are links to horizontal things on one single Wikipedia page. You don't necessarily go just in one direction deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole down, but you also go you explore the expanse around it. Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 1
36:26 – 37:40
And the other difference is that it's actually a it's a living So it's cell or organ. So it's it's not just the static page you're coming and reading, but you can have a conversation in there. People can, you know, peep different people that don't know each other can find themselves in that node and have conversations. They can open new conversation. And it's then it's very dynamic. I mean, you could you could say that also Wikipedia is dynamic, but it's slowly moving. This is very fastly moving. You're coming into a node. You're just proposing a new question, new sub question. And like that, there is a new node with a new conversation, a new outcome, maybe new purpose, you know, maybe new definition of done if it's a project, and new sub task, and so forth. It's a very dynamic system. It's a living system. So it's like a collaborative we could no. Not collaborative about just writing yeah. It's like real time. It's a real time Wikipedia. Something like Wikipedia, time Telegram channels, times channel, something like that, you know, times governance of each node. Oh, yeah. I I think kind of like that's kind of like the max I can I can try to explain the UI without showing a UI, but that's,
Speaker 0
37:41 – 37:56
Yeah? So it's it's a a knowledge management system to keep to be able to create a a kind of collective intelligence to where people can, have context about certain things and certain specific things if action needs to be done or, understood.
Speaker 1
37:56 – 38:01
Yep. Yeah. Plus the live conversation around all that context and content and actions.
Speaker 0
38:03 – 38:52
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Speaker 2
38:54 – 39:59
Yeah. I think I think maybe we can also discuss a little bit, like, to me, like, it feels like like we discussed the tools. But I feel like, Matana, I would love if we can hear more, of your, protocol thinking about, yeah, this, like what are the various ways in which you think that this fractalization, the scaling of the fractals, can be done? And, like, what are the various ways in which this interweaving can be enabled via blockchain or without via blockchain? I don't know. Like because I know we we spoke we spoke mostly about the tool for, I guess, I mean, I I guess that's deliberation. But I think we need to sort this out, but we also need to sort out, many other technicalities. And, yeah, I'm I'm curious if if you have, like, some ideas or some suggestions of what are the what are the various ways in which interweaving can be achieved given specific communities, of course.
Speaker 1
40:00 – 45:04
So one, I maybe a a a pre pretext to this to answering that. So I tried, you know, in the even in the previous, let's say, exercise, I tried to exemplify how how a large scale coordination or, you know, a complex donation would be broken down, would have structure, right, and then a fractal structure. That's what I was trying to, give example for. So the outcome was sort of the graph. And as you pointed out, it's not just a nested graph. It's really like a what I call dark or descent. Not I call. What people call directly the single graph so they can have different trajectories, to the same point. So and then we and then the next step is gonna send okay. But what is the point on that graph? And I try to kind of, like, explain what is the point on that graph. And I said the point is like a space with a certain scope with a con with an with a place for conversation, deliberation, and maybe also a place for tasks, missions, funding, and everything you need to have, like, for any any any part of the collaboration. Right? So I describe what the point is on the graph. And then the next question is, okay. If we understand what the point then what is a link between two points? Right? What can link be? And that's that's related to interweaving. Now the link can be I think I understand what you were asking, Prem. So you you were more interested about the interdependence, the shared the sharing blood piece of that, the protocol part of that. So I'll I'll I'll come to that in a minute. But just to say that the link is is a more is a more is a wider concept than that. That's part of the what a link is. And some parts of the link are are are very technical, let's say. Less protocol, but they're also protocol in a sense. Let me give you examples so that it's it's that's doesn't stay too abstract. For example, let's say that the subscope you have a subscope of a bigger scope. Right? The notion of membership is is actually quite tricky. For example, you could say that the the link, the relationship between this node and that node, this node decided if someone is a member of the a member of some sort of that node, I want him to be automatically member of that of that node of this node. So membership inheritance is actually a part of what we define as link. The definitions of membership inheritance. If someone is a leader in that node, we want him to automatically be a leader in that. Some has some reputation x in there. We want to account for reputation y x in there and so on and so forth. So so everything around membership and, you know, and properties of membership such as reputation and the inheritance between nodes, this is part of this is part of the the notion of a link. For example, another part of the link is is is reputation of one node inside the other. So if one node has governance rights, the collective wrong that node has a governance rights in the in the other node, that's also something which is part of that link. Then you can go to interweaving to to to I mean, that's also part of interweaving. But then then you could go to interdependence, for example. And I think the most easier the the easiest I mean, the thing the first thing that comes to our mind is economical interdependence. I mean, the problem with that is I think it's we are we are too much driven into economic interdependence, and I I think we're not thinking enough about noneconomical interdependence. But nevertheless, it's the easiest to think about. So let's stay with that for a moment. So we think about economic independence. So for example and then then there is a lot of ways to manifest that, but the simplest way and, again, I'm I'm trying to be to say the simplest at at every at every chapter. So so the the simplest interdependent economic independence between nodes that's they think about them as part of this child is thinking that we have the token of the parent. You have the token of the child. Right? You have the the way of the token of the parent. You have the economy of the token of the child. And now and now imagine that they token swap in some sense. And there are different ways to do token swaps or something like a token swap. You can also say that the only way to mean the token of the child is by staking a token of the parent. That's another way. There's there's some different ways, but they're all they're all different manifestation of some sort of token swap, basically. So if you token swap between parent and child, of course, you know, a success of the economy of the token of the child token derives a success of the parent and vice versa and and and and and also failure too. So I understand that that's the not most general and maybe not the best way to think about interdependence between nodes, but it's definitely the easiest way to think about it. So I think that's the Yeah. Exactly. I think you see the baseline, especially when you're thinking in in a DAO model.
Speaker 2
45:05 – 46:01
That's Right. That's the that's the low hanging fruit, I would say. And then you can choose which which are the token that are being interchanged. Is it, like, economic tokens? Is it governance tokens? Is it whatever? You know, is it, is it is it a particular type of token which actually lead to, you know, interesting, critically, creating interdependency on some aspect, but not also. So there's, like I think the token is the I would say it's it's almost the means by which most likely things can be done because the token is the representation of something. Right. But, yeah, I think I think there's a lot of, thinking to be done in in terms of what are the consequences of, sharing a particular resource rather than another, And, what is the optimal combination of, interdependencies that can be designed?
Speaker 1
46:02 – 49:33
Yeah. I I think we are very far from understanding optimal or anything like optimal. I think we can just start playing with building blocks and seeing what's happening. But let's if we want to make all this very tangible, not not not stay abstract, let let's take a a very, very particular example. Let's say that you now have a DAO and that the or a collective, whatever. A collective that collective is trying to is competing against whatever other collectives maybe and in a hackathon. Okay? In a big hackathon. And it needs to to achieve certain goals, certain to build something. Okay? And if it wins, if it's successful in building that something quickly, then it gets a million dollar. Okay? So now imagine that that's something that's something that you're building has three components. Right? And then so you're building the a component, the b component, the c component, and maybe there's a d group that connect all those components together. And now imagine that each such component is a sub is it's subconcept. It's a sub scope. It's a subgroup, if you wish, subdau, whatever you call that. Okay? But then I don't like it to call it the subgroup because then I you know, people can play also here and there and be in some several groups. It's not really a subgroup. It's more like a subscope. So there is the scope of building a, scope of building b, scope of building c, and the scope of connecting a, b, and c, which is d. And then imagine that you have a way to sort of define eventually and let's say that eventually, if they win, right, they get the million dollar, but there is also this understanding how that million dollar will be distributed towards the contributors of a, b, c, and d. Right? And this is something like holding a token of the parent. Right? The notion of how much value you've accrued, how much value you've contributed, and how much value you will see back upon a success, you can manifest that with holding of the token of the parent. So now so now if, you know, if I'm working on a on a on a on a on a on a on a component c, right, I mean, I could be very successful but successful, but then if component b is not achieved, I will see nothing. Right? At the end of the day, I will see nothing. So I have the interest to help. So although I'm kind of, like, competing with component b to get a larger share of the win, I'm also and and, you know, to try to to make be be bigger and get larger share of the win. I also have a very strong incentive to to make b and a and d successful. Otherwise, I will get nothing. Right? So that's that's a very although it's a maybe you can say scoop example, but it's a very particular example where we see kind of interweaving economic independence and alignment of interests happening. And and and and if you break it down to manifestation, it will go down into some sort of token swap or token hold or mutual token holding and so on and so forth. Something of that sort, yeah, I think will be appearing more and more, but but I the problem will be different manifestation, different combination, different value evaluation mechanisms, different, you know, different stakes, so on and so forth. And I don't think there is, like we're not even close to I don't think it's even in the in the stage right now to think about optimization. It's the the the state we are at is to think about building blocks
Speaker 0
49:34 – 50:59
in particular use cases Yeah. Trying to find I think a lot of the things that that you said and that you kind of explained, I've seen similar things in other, other types of crypto applications. I think there is this trend more and more towards, fractalization. People like to use the term subDAOs as a way to explain a a sub team inside of a DAO, basically, it sounds like to me. But, yeah. I think it's it's this need to keep things to to allow a human to be a human because humans can only interact within a particular sized scope, while also trying to control for what is being reproduced, at scale. So picking so understanding how at the kind of the level of of the human is able to, interact with, other humans because that's the only way we can really, like, reinteract with other humans. That's the that's what comes naturally to us, I guess. But how that can be translated into larger collective action using, you know, this communications network that we now have over the Internet and using blockchains to, facilitate those types of interactions. Yeah. I think, I don't know if Primavera, do you have any other, questions you want to dig into with Matan? We've talked a lot about coordination.
Speaker 2
51:02 – 51:06
Yeah. I mean, no. I think, I think we covered a lot of accounts.
Speaker 0
51:07 – 51:53
I think what I like about when you were explaining coordination, which is in line with, some of my some of my writings in my book, which is now out, is that a lot of that, like, coordination for me is not just, like, you know, people working together. It's also, like, acknowledging, I think, power relationships and the fact that there is authoritarianism in the world. And, we don't coordinate just to coordinate, but we coordinate to achieve goals and and acknowledging kind of, like, the power the power imbalances that exist in the world already, is what makes coordination worthwhile or useful. Necessary, in fact, for, like, climate change and all these other large problems that we have, hurdling towards us.
Speaker 2
51:53 – 52:16
I mean, I think it's a a way of reconfiguring power. Right? Because right now, we have a lot of power accumulated into a few actors. And, if we find ways to engage into proper collective action, then we can reconfigure power dynamics, so that what the majority of the people want actually gets done.
Speaker 1
52:18 – 56:42
Right. I mean, it's also it's also the I think it's both that and also utilizing much better the resources we have in terms of humans and good intention that right now just cannot coordinate, to produce better results. But, yeah, it's it's both these are both different sides of the same token. I think what's I'm trying to think, like, what's the the I don't know if it I would call it a lesson, but I feel and and that's very much related to what I've been doing in the past year or so, maybe a bit less with mostly with common with the work on common. There is pretty much pretty much now getting out, I mean, as a product, is that I mean, we were talking about I mean, Prem, you you definitely you would agree with that. I mean, we were talking about these fractals and nested and subdials. We're talking about this, like, I don't know, like, eight years ago. Right? And we've heard so many people talking about them, but it always stays abstract. Always stay like, you can say a fractal a thousand times. It doesn't make it more concrete. I mean, you can say, okay. It's kind of like Wikipedia. It's kind of like Reddit. It's kind of like, you know, other things. If you know workflow, for those who know what's workflow, it's like workflow. It's like Roam Research. If you know Roam Research, it's like a nested bullets. Just just they ask, okay. But what is a bullet in that sense? What I came to appreciate when starting to work in common is was saying was how do we bring that I mean, it's it's enough talking about that, but how do we bring it into the ground? Like, how do we actually make it a UI? Something that actually can people organize with can really people can organize with interaction. And and it's really I mean, eventually and I and I don't know yet. Right? There is the the product will be out soon, and we'll see if people can use it to to achieve large scale goals or not. And and and I don't know. We'll see the future. But only when I was only when actually asking you know, looking at the screens and, you know, saying, okay. This we need a platform to do that. And then and then suddenly, there's so much so many question come ups. So many question come up when you're actually trying to make it from an abstract idea into an actual user interface that interact with you. Yeah. I I now now I appreciate that. I appreciate that trying to build something to actually make it work. No. We're even if it don't if it wouldn't work, like, really fighting that battle, like, fighting that battle to bring this abstract ideas that we're talking about so many times into an actual interface that you click and it changes, and you click and interact with people and seeing what works. And I think that's something that, yeah, we have to go through, and I really believe in that. Like, I really, I don't know. I can't wait to play with that. That's what I'm saying. So, for example, the first thing we're going to do, literally, that we are starting, you know, next week just happens. The first thing that I managed to do is to start work as a common to continue developing common, like, to practice and to eat our own dog food. Like, I just can't wait to play with the product and and see what doesn't work, what works, what missing. You know? I just feel that this is this kind of, like, complex product making, you cannot make without playing with it. You cannot make there's all there's so much you can achieve. And, likewise, I'm I'm saying that also in regard to your question about the about the about the protocols. Like, I just feel that there's just so much you can go talking about in theory before actually taking, you know, a real world example and and breaking it down and building a bad protocol and changing it to a better protocol and and so on and so forth. So I I'm just so my my bottom line is that I I just can't wait to take a real world community, a real world scope, real world collaboration, you know, and so on, and start playing with such products, these or other products. And and and even if it's, like, manually device protocols, rewarding protocols, anything, I'm just really playing with that on the ground. That's that's that's what I'm really passionate passionate about right now. Cool. Yeah.
Speaker 0
56:42 – 56:54
I wish you the best of luck with common. Maybe the last thing for people if you want to leave, places where people can can find you, your work, and keep up with common as well. Sure. I
Speaker 1
56:54 – 57:24
mean, the easiest place just to get to the home page, which is still the old home page, but nevertheless, it's common.io. There is a link there to the app, but, yeah, you need you need a link to a specific, common to yeah. Actually, I'm I'm going to write a blog post about it, so you can also just follow me on Twitter or anything, or you can also just mail me if you wish, Matan@Daustak.io or Matan@common.io.
Speaker 0
57:25 – 57:33
Cool. Great. Well, thank you so much. And, yeah, it was a pleasure to have you, in Zuzalu to help us with the workshopping, for coordinations.
Speaker 1
57:34 – 57:36
Thank you so much. Thank you, Anton.