Hello EOS family…and anyone else who has stumbled across this,
My name is Chris and I participated in the first trial run of what could be the most disruptive concept/technology Daniel Larimer (aka bytemaster, aka one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and intriguing minds in the cryptocurrency space) has created.
Now those that know of Dan but not of EdenOS will scoff at this statement considering he created the first DEFI platform (a decentralized exchange called Bitshares), then the first crypto based social media platform (Steemit/Hive Blog), and finally EOSIO (the underlying code of the EOS, TLOS and WAX blockchains).
Brenden Blumer (the CEO of Block.one) gives us a glimpse into what EOS is here:
And he also outlines what is made possible by EOS here:
Ok so back to the point of this story, EdenOS, and who better to summarize what this is than the folks at EdenOS themselves:
This tweet was to Jordan Peterson who had asked about what this “new process for democracy” was. From this I think many of us would like the universe to deliver a conversation between Dan and Jordan…lets hope it’s listening.
The question you might ask yourself is “so what…who cares about this fractal governance thing?” To answer that let me ask how satisfied are you with your current elected representatives? Do you feel like you have a meaningful voice in selecting these representatives? Does your vote matter? Do you like the options on who to vote for? Do the current democratic systems around the world hold our elected representatives to account? Do our elected representatives do what they say they are going to do, and stick to their promises?
My answer to all these questions is a hard NO!
So the question is, how can this be fixed? Is there an alternative to traditional democratic governance that empowers the individual to not only participate, but to be heard? Fortunately the answer to that question is YES!! Yes there is and it is found in Dan’s book, More Equal Animals.
Now back to where all this started, the first ever trial run of this “political playoff” system took place on May 13. The playoff is similar to any other playoff style competition with a bunch of participants competing in a series of rounds to eventually crown the winner, or “Satoshi of Eden.” This initial trail run started with 64 participants randomly split into 16 groups of four individuals each. Each group had 50 minutes on a live Zoom call (all of these recordings can be found here) to debate and come to consensus with a 2/3+1 (greater than 66%) majority on who would move on to the next round and thereby represent that group. If consensus wasn’t reached (so the votes fell below the 2/3+1 threshold) then no one would move on from that group to the next round. This process repeated with the second round having 16 participants that were again randomly sorted into four groups of four. Finally, the winners from those groups met one last time on a final 50 min Zoom call to debate and decide who was to be the winner, the “Satoshi of Eden."
The prize for this trial event was 1000 EOS (~$10k USD…depending on when you look at the chart). To make a long story short I ended up being the lucky winner. And I say lucky deliberately as there is undeniably an aspect of chance in this game.
I happen to be a lover of strategy board games! In my geeky youth years, chess was the only competitive sport (using the word “sport” here very loosely) I was good at and actually won some local tournaments that came with trophies. Had it not been for chess my trophy shelf would’ve been empty. All this to say the strategy games I love best are the ones with zero luck involved. Chess and Puerto Rico are two of my favourites since winning has nothing to do with chance and everything to do with your actions and therefore merit.
Chance in the EdenOS political playoff comes from the random distribution of participants into their respective groups. So had I ended up with other individuals it is highly likely the outcome would have been different. This isn’t to say that I didn’t earn the prize as I did need to come with a plan, and an ability to execute that plan.
Considering there will be many more of these competitions, with far larger prize pools, I will attempt to summarize what in my mind are some key points for future entrants to consider as they prepare.
Have a Plan
What I mean by have a plan, is try to be as specific as possible with what you will do with the available prize in the event you win. How exactly will you spend the funds, and more importantly, how exactly will your proposal benefit EOS. Keep in mind these EdenOS playoffs are meant to promote and support the EOS blockchain community. So how for example will your proposal support the growth of EOS as a currency? How will your proposal support the expansion of the EOS ecosystem? Will you be embarking on a project to educate those who are less familiar with EOS and therefore will help to grow the community with new users? Will you be creating material that will help to onboard individuals in different regions of the world with different languages and access to technology? Will you be launching a targeted marketing campaign to improve the sentiment around EOS and increase it’s adoption rate? Will you be building an application on EOS that will be of benefit to the community as a whole? Will you build an application on EOS that will provide passive revenue that will feed directly back into the EdenOS system so it may become self-funding?
As you can imagine the number of possibilities is only limited by your imagination. By having a clear and deliberate plan you will greatly improve your chances to convince others to not only see your vision, but to trust that the funds you would receive will be put to good use.
Listen to What Other Say
This sounds obvious. Of course you should, and will listen to the others in your group. The key here is to listen well. The better you listen, the more you hear. The more you hear, the easier it becomes to understand the needs and desires of those you are listening to. Through this process you will hopefully find ways to articulate clearly to those in your group that you have been listening and understand what you’ve heard. Too often our minds are working on how to respond to someone instead of taking the time to first hear them. By hearing what others are saying and reflecting this back to them, they will instinctively start to like you, because you care. When the others start to like you, they will more intently listen to what you have to say, and therefore give you an advantage in convincing them to see things your way. This isn’t to say you should be disingenuous…hopefully you actually do care. Afterall these are members of your community. If they vote for you to move forward it will be expected that when you do so you will be representing them too, and not just yourself. How can you do this if you don’t know what they think because you weren’t listening?
Focus on 2/3+1 Consensus
This one is certainly the most obvious as this is after all a game of consensus building. But what does it mean to build consensus and why is this 2/3+1 important? Simply put, if you have all the votes you need in your group to move forward but not ALL the votes, don’t sweat it. Don’t exert more energy than what is needed to proceed to the next round. Don’t give away unnecessary concessions. By paying close attention to where the vote in your group stands you can be more precise and targeted with your attempts to persuade. If you’re not where you need to be in terms of the vote simply ask those that haven’t voted for you yet if they are firm with their vote or if they may be willing to change their minds. By being direct and upfront about this you can gain knowledge on who you should focus your energy towards. If they concede that they may change their vote, be up front and ask what it would take? You could spend dozens of minutes blabbing away, when it might only take 15 seconds to find out what they actually want.
Have Fun
In the end enjoy yourself. You are among friends in your community so don’t get too nervous and don’t get too stressed. You will communicate more efficiently and effectively if you are relaxed. Take deep breaths. If you find yourself stuttering, and unable to find words, just stop for a moment, reset, and start again. No one will judge you for starting over, but they will if they can’t understand what you’re saying.
In the end what do I know anyway. I’ve only done this once, and I’m not a psychologist or have any other special training to really know what I’m talking about…lol. These are just my random thoughts after having participated once, so take them for what they’re worth and if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading 
In closing, we have an opportunity to not only send EOS to the moon, but more importantly demonstrate to the world that there is a better way to select our representatives and leaders. Spread this method far and wide. Learn it and find ways to use it wherever hierarchical structure exists, and leaders need to be selected.
Go EOS!!
Chris
