In studying the initial game theory and sacrifice phase of Pulsechain I arrive at the word "sacrifice" and the phrase "sacrifice points". In addition to these phrases I see the ultimate mission behind these points in the phrase: " Each sacrifice point represents how strong you believe that blockchains are speech and speech is a protected human right."
Why is that phrase so relevant to the moral calculus? Not everyone believes in Free Speech or that Blockchain Technology defends Free Speech. Not everyone believe Free Speech is a human right. We can see right now in congress that there is a battle going on where different demographics of people in different industries have differing opinions on the value of crypto technology. Some see this as nothing more than a giant pyramid scheme where the rich get richer, but in my discussion I'm going to ask a different set of questions.
Can Blockchain technology like Pulsechain be leveraged to defend human rights?
To receive Pulse you must go through a process I will label "Proof of Sacrifice". From a game theoretic perspective this makes sense. Every participant has an ability to signal by their transactions how much they value free speech as a protected human right. The Sacrifice phase applied gamification to this process including a leaderboard to show that not only do you get to prove how much you care about that value statement but you also compete in the rankings with other participants to sort of prove you sacrificed more.
Let's take this all at face value, and assume the sacrifice is from the intention of protecting human rights? Let's also consider that The SENS foundation was also chosen as a recipient of donations as an alternative tax efficient means of doing the sacrifice. So not only does the game rank who sacrificed more but the game offers participants a way to express their intent in a tax efficient way. This is something the makers of Pulsechain did not have to do and is itself a signal of the values the team has. The use of the leaderboard would be an example of gamification for the greater good which in my opinion is one of the best ways to use the tool. It also illustrates that the tool itself is not "evil" and it's all about how it's used.
Signaling theory and sacrifice as a signal
There is a theory which aligns well to help analyze the sacrifice phase of Pulsechain called signaling theory. Signals are everywhere and if we look at the quote from Wikipedia we find:
"In Spence's job-market signaling model, (potential) employees send a signal about their ability level to the employer by acquiring education credentials. The informational value of the credential comes from the fact that the employer believes the credential is positively correlated with having the greater ability and difficulty for low ability employees to obtain. Thus the credential enables the employer to reliably distinguish low ability workers from high ability workers. [1] The concept of signaling is also applicable in competitive altruistic interaction, where the capacity of the receiving party is limited. [3]"
What are we seeing with the Pulsechain sacrifice phase? We are seeing one of the first instances of competitive effective altruism. Rather than simply ask people to donate to SENS, the game theory created a competition where people in order to win the game will compete to see who can donate the most to SENS. SENS benefits all participants who like being alive or who have children or loved ones who they want to protect and extend the healthspan of. So we can make a clean argument that donating to SENS is both rational, and moral, from either an entirely selfish perspective (I want to live as long and healthy as I can), or from a more altruistic perspective (I want everyone to live longer and healthier).
The use of game theory in this way shows me that whoever is behind Pulsechain has some understanding of consequentialist ethics. They have some understanding of effective altruism enough to understand why to choose the SENS foundation. By their choices in how they design the initial rabbit hole portion of the game, we can also get some signals, and some clues to what the values of the creators might be.
The value of the Origin Address controlling the token supply depends entirely on the ethical paradigm the Origin Address chooses to follow
I am not one of the people who will say it's always bad if this or always good if that. I see the Origin Address as a tool, the Pulsechain as a tool, the Pulse token as a tool, language itself as a tool, as means to some end. The question becomes what agenda or intentions does the Origin Address have? When the Origin Address sacrificed 14 billion USD in Pulsechain if we take the amoral cynical interpretation of this event then we can see it as the Origin Address trying to enrich the owners of the address in some sort of scam. This cynical outlook or narrative is where the "it's a scam" or "it's a pyramid scheme" accusations emerge from. What if the Origin Address is ethical?
What if the Origin Address is ethical?
If the Origin Address is ethical then the question of "when rug pull" doesn't make sense. A rational and ethical OA would have sacrificed for the same reasons other ethical participants sacrificed which is to play the competitive altruism game. The OA by pledging in their donation, is expressing that the founders behind Pulsechain believe that blockchains are speech and that free speech is a protected human right. In other words, all who sacrificed are ethically aligned in the fact that they do not think crypto should be banned or that censorship of speech is okay.
The carpet ride and taking gamification to the next level
If we see these events as signals like in signaling theory, and if we take gamification to the next level upon launch of Pulsechain, we can see that the OA address can decide to take seriously every statement in the Pulsechain sacrifice manifesto. The key points in the manifesto under the Goals section:
- Increase Ethereum's value
- Enrich ETH users
- Enrich ERC20 and NFT users
- Improve game theory
- Empower PulseChain holders
I highlight these specific parts for a reason. Let us assume the "Goals" section is the social contract between the developers and the community. Let's also assume that the OA is part of the community and expressed agreement by signing the social contract via the donation? If we think of the donation as a sort of pledge or public agreement with the goals, and if the OA is ethical enough to use it's resources to best facilitate achieving these goals, I do not see how this concern about supply from the political/ethical perspective would make sense.
In the situation where the OA sees Pulsechain as a tool to promote those goals, then any transactions from OA could be to support those goals. Let's say OA decides to do a buy back and simply buy the circulating supply of Pulse? Would these transactions violate the goal of enriching ETH users? It would really depend on which tokens get sold. What about empower Pulsechain holders? It would depend on how that power is measured and what influence Pulsechain holders have, but if OA believes in free speech then it's in the interest of the OA to empower others who have strategic shared interests.
There can be many types of competitions which the OA could facilitate by controlling 90% of the supply. For example the OA could reward validators for any reason in ways we cannot predict. If we ask the question what is the most ethical rational thing the OA address can do which would benefit Pulse, then we have a lot of possibilities.
Conclusion
From what I can see from all the transactions the OA has ever committed, there is no evidence that the OA is unethical or immoral or amoral. The OA does not seem primarily focused on enriching the OA at the expense of every other participant. If the OA were to play that strategy then Hex would have failed massively. If we look at Pulse right now it is too soon to know for sure but if the OA continues following the strategy it followed from Hex then can be ethical while also encouraging the achievement of the outlined goals in the Pulsechain manifesto.
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