The winds of change
In any community or society after enough time we typically can expect to see attitudes and opinions change. Trends on the grand (macro) or small (micro) scale are taking place at any given time. If we look at things in a historical context we can see that old systems of governance such as European feudalism had went out of fashion by the period of 1500–1850s. The French revolution was a trigger event which abolished feudalism in France. The philosophical and political shift is commonly thought to have been triggered by the Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment there was in most of Europe a feudal society where there was a King, Lords, and a class of nobility.
The United States itself was born as a result of this shift in trends which ultimately resulted in "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." which was a pamphlet written by Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson wrote in this pamphlet this quote:
To render these proceedings still more criminal against our laws, instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, his majesty has expressly made the civil subordinate to the military. But can his majesty thus put down all law under his feet? Can he erect a power superior to that which erected himself? He has done it indeed by force; but let him remember that force cannot give right.
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate: Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.
In this quote we see a very brilliant and in my opinion philosophical breakthrough for that time period. That the government and the king are given authority to serve the people rather than to own them. That the laws are what make up the government not the royal bloodline. Thomas Jefferson laid out the precursor to the declaration of Independence which can be interpreted as an early human rights document from which all the trends of that time pointed toward. The declaration of Independence included this important and memorable quote:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The two key words found in this quote are Safety and Happiness. Other key words are Life, Liberty, and Happiness. In my opinion it is important to note that from this document we now have the birth of a new form of government where the existence of the government itself is to protect the rights of those governed. We also have the very critical phrase which reveals how and where power should be derived from which is specifically from the consent of the governed. So from this document we know where power comes from and why it flows in a certain direction. We see that sentiment is central to this kind of governance because of the emphasis on happiness rather than just safety. In essence the declaration of Independence lays out the philosophical and moral basis for why a government should exist and who it exists for.
No document is perfect but we can see that this document led to the birth of the United States of America. This document also had a great influence on the birth of other similar governments and ideas from this document influenced the French as well who overthrew their feudal lords in the French Revolution years later.
Monitoring the winds of change
How exactly do we monitor the winds of change? I'm not entirely certain as to the best way to do this but I'm convinced that in order to do governance the right way it will likely be necessary. Some use anonymous polls to try to capture sentiment. Some rely on anonymous surveys or collect anonymous statistics. Some who have experience trading crypto or stocks are aware that there are data analytics methods of capturing possible sentiment of the crowd and that these data signals can help traders to make better trades.
How does any of this relate to Tauchain or the Tau Alpha discussion platform? In a well functioning discussion platform we should in my opinion have the ability to capture the sentiment of the participants. Tauchain according to the current intended design is supposed to include the property of self amendment, the property of being able to capture the worldviews of the participants, the property to adapt to these worldviews without requiring any elections, or voting. Theoretically if the aggregated worldviews of the participants change then in "real time" the Tauchain is supposed to be able to adapt it's code along with these changes in worldview.
Adapting to the winds of change
How exactly would Tauchain adapt to updated worldviews and new trends in thought? The discussion platform would allow people to debate ideas including ideas on how to best adapt to an increasingly fast changing social environment. Opinions today are changing faster than they ever have in human history and this is because the amount of information people have access to along with the amount of connectivity allows for rapid changes in thought. For example, thoughts on cannabis legalization in the United States have changed substantially in the last five years. Also for example, thoughts on criminal justice have changed substantially from where things were 10 years ago in the United States.
In the United States, when poll results show that public opinion on a certain topic has changed then there is a delay or lag between when the public opinion changes and when the government policies change. Some of this has to do with the fact that it's hard to actually track public opinion and then write up laws which adapt to it. The process of doing it the old slow way is also difficult as not many people can write or read the language of political law.
On Tauchain the process can be dramatically refined, such that the discussions people have can actually reach a conclusion. So a debate can be had about a particular topic in a very structured way, and because of the reasoning elements which Tauchain can bring in it should be possible to reach a state where the majority of the current participants reach agreement on some particular aspect of the debate. One agreement at a time, the pieces to the puzzle can be filled, and agreement in Tauchain can become formal specification which can then through code synthesis become code. I cannot speculate on how smooth this process will be in the beginning as a lot of it is currently only theoretical but the general idea is that everyone who has access to a discussion can contribute to it in a meaningful way.
Some topics for discussion on a platform like Tauchain
- What criteria should be applied to justify the flow of power and authority?
- How should we measure trust and what are the limits (or risks) that come with decentralization of power and authority?
- How do we deal with the question of responsibility which comes with power?
- Who and what will we serve if we serve something greater than ourselves?
- How do we measure the quality of service if we serve others or if we are in it for ourselves only then how shall we handle our own human failures to protect the network itself from those failures?
These are just some questions to promote a direction for what I hope to see when the Tauchain Alpha platform gets launched. I think these kinds of discussions are how we can determine why Tauchain should exist, who and what Tauchain should serve, what mechanisms should we use to protect ourselves, the network, and future participants who don't know it exists yet, and most importantly to document for the future what our thought processes were so that any future generation can know what was originally intended.