Society is not ready for an AI world: any platform that does not guarantee anonymity will be of limited utility for social discourse in a world lurching towards authoritarianism, and any platform that does guarantee anonymity can no longer reliably distinguish human from ai; not that that should matter when it's ideas that are being debated.
But the bigger issue is the control of money: hierarchical institutions disintermediate workers from the way the fruits of their labor are put to use. Money spent or paid in taxes is aggregated and misused by third parties against the wishes and against the providers of that money. Essentially, your labor is used against you. This is true regardless of where someone is on the political spectrum.
A platform for debate or voting isn't going to resolve this fundamental problem.
I agree on the importance of anonymity for social discourse. But if a tool/platform like Polis is some equivalent of a local 'town hall meeting', where there is no anonymity (and you as a citizen publicly appear, state your name, make your argument, etc), then why is lack of anonymity a threat in this specific context?
I believe we can solve both anonymity + proof-of-humanity using zero-knowledge proofs that act as intermediary between a trusted identity provider and the service provider. I.e. you get a digital id but you use it to generate proofs rather than handing out your identity.
What are some strategies a platform like this can take against spam or influence bots? Tying real life identities to users would certainly limit that(though identity theft and account selling could still happen), but that adds friction to joining, poses security risks, and many people might feel less comfortable putting their opinions openly online where backlash could impact real life.
We really need proof of soul systems to exist, extended to also have a proof of citizenship. While the proof of soul systems can plausible be done in a decentralized manner, proof of citizenship is much harder, and in my opinion this is one of (the few) things the government should really do.
Sorry the term of art is really soulbound identity right now, I use POS but it's less common. Definitions vary but I say a useful system must allow people to endorse statements with evidence they are a) alive b) not able to be represented by more than one identity (id is linked to your entire soul, not a persona or facet of your being) c) a kind of socially recognized person (human in the expected case)
and then layer on citizenship on top if you want to use this for polling, voting, etc.
For many purposes, we need anonymous authentication. I haven't heard about much innovation on that and similar privacy fronts in awhile.
Off the top of my head, a possible method is a proxy or two or three, each handling different components of authentication and without knowledge of the other components. They return a token with validity properties (such as duration, level of service). All the vendor (e.g., Polis) would know is the validity of the token.
Man the name really threw me for a minute. Polis is the correct spelling for police in my native Swedish and I got through the first 2 paragraphs wondering what any of this has to do with law enforcement.
Then it dawned on me.
Edit to add: I think the white and blue theme helps. Those are police colours in Sweden...
Interesting, but how's it work out when people believe in "alternative facts"? That seems to be a pretty big problem in many places.
I think I can find some common ground with people who have different views on corporate taxation if we both go over some data and economics and think about it and consider various tradeoffs. Especially if we chat face to face to avoid any 'keyboard warrior' effects.
I probably can't find much common ground with people that believe that condensed water vapor formed by the passage of airplanes is actually a mind control device from the planet Zargon.
IIUC, this was a finding when they ran the Polis experiments in Taiwan: when you map the arguments of the different sides, there are actually large areas of agreement. In other words, the median person who disagrees with you is a "potential common ground" guy, not a "planet Zargon" guy.
> Interesting, but how's it work out when people believe in "alternative facts"?
I think the first step is always to separate a fact (I.e., X happened), from why did X happen. Afterwards, you move towards the steps that could prevent X from happening, or reactive protocols to X that minimize the chance of conspiracy theories, etc.
Of course it will not work with all, but, in my opinion, with enough of “alternative facts” lovers that it will be sufficient.
I don't understand "why did X happen?" presupposes X happened. We seem to be at the level of X pretty obviously did not happen but people believe it did.
How does it defend against corruption by the folks operating it? I'm especially thinking of biased seed statements, source bias, and burial of important items in irrelevant gublish.
These are the genre of consensus tools I would like to see used in SM. Just imagine: a system that actually helps people exchange atomic, clear arguments and come to an informed consensus.
The internet could have really been a great tool to bring humanity together, if it was structured in that way for the common good. Instead we get SM where mud-battles and the resulting polarization are part of the perverse business model: engagement drives revenue, and there's no better way to keep people engaged than with a loop of extreme emotions and comments shouting the same shallow arguments at each other all over again without any meaningful progress.
Only imagine how quiet those platforms would become if discussions were actually structured for consensus instead of dissensus. I mean, yeah, a huge win for society - but a big loss of money, distraction and control for Elon, Zuckerberg and their BS billionaire friends.
Jokes aside, this looks interesting. I have my doubts about the grandiosity of the claims re: helping entire "cities, states, or even countries find common ground on complex issues," but I'm somewhat captivated by the idea of using it for local issues in cities or small towns like mine.
I don't understand the utility of this. Maybe it works for things like noise ordinances, but I can't imagine finding common ground with people who want me dead or imprisoned simply for existing.
Those people came to those views somehow. I'd hope that a less radicalizing social media platform might move them away from those views. Finding common ground isn't just about figuring out where people currently agree, it's also an act of persuasion convincing people to change views to then-mutually shared views.
Wanting people dead or imprisoned simply for existing is the sort of inconsistent view that is likely easiest to change by moving people out of radicalized spaces...
Every Body Corporate Strata in Australia basically goes through something like this at least once a year (by law.) Questions are posed about what to vote on and you either vote for, against, or abstain.
Something like Polis would be good for putting forward ideas throughout the year leading up to the vote, as it would find a consensus of ideas and help shape what you eventually vote on (you decide as a body corporate.)
Society is not ready for an AI world: any platform that does not guarantee anonymity will be of limited utility for social discourse in a world lurching towards authoritarianism, and any platform that does guarantee anonymity can no longer reliably distinguish human from ai; not that that should matter when it's ideas that are being debated.
But the bigger issue is the control of money: hierarchical institutions disintermediate workers from the way the fruits of their labor are put to use. Money spent or paid in taxes is aggregated and misused by third parties against the wishes and against the providers of that money. Essentially, your labor is used against you. This is true regardless of where someone is on the political spectrum.
A platform for debate or voting isn't going to resolve this fundamental problem.
I agree on the importance of anonymity for social discourse. But if a tool/platform like Polis is some equivalent of a local 'town hall meeting', where there is no anonymity (and you as a citizen publicly appear, state your name, make your argument, etc), then why is lack of anonymity a threat in this specific context?
I believe we can solve both anonymity + proof-of-humanity using zero-knowledge proofs that act as intermediary between a trusted identity provider and the service provider. I.e. you get a digital id but you use it to generate proofs rather than handing out your identity.
Right?
What are some strategies a platform like this can take against spam or influence bots? Tying real life identities to users would certainly limit that(though identity theft and account selling could still happen), but that adds friction to joining, poses security risks, and many people might feel less comfortable putting their opinions openly online where backlash could impact real life.
We really need proof of soul systems to exist, extended to also have a proof of citizenship. While the proof of soul systems can plausible be done in a decentralized manner, proof of citizenship is much harder, and in my opinion this is one of (the few) things the government should really do.
What about Zero-Knowledge Identity? Use zero knowledge proofs to prove that I have an eID without actually providing my identity.
Worldcoin tried to solve that. Any solution for this will be similarly creepy.
Either I'm not sure what you mean by soul, or you are all-in on dualism.
Sorry the term of art is really soulbound identity right now, I use POS but it's less common. Definitions vary but I say a useful system must allow people to endorse statements with evidence they are a) alive b) not able to be represented by more than one identity (id is linked to your entire soul, not a persona or facet of your being) c) a kind of socially recognized person (human in the expected case)
and then layer on citizenship on top if you want to use this for polling, voting, etc.
For many purposes, we need anonymous authentication. I haven't heard about much innovation on that and similar privacy fronts in awhile.
Off the top of my head, a possible method is a proxy or two or three, each handling different components of authentication and without knowledge of the other components. They return a token with validity properties (such as duration, level of service). All the vendor (e.g., Polis) would know is the validity of the token.
I'm sure others have thought about it more ...
The x.com/twitter "Community Notes" feature is based on this algorithm, BTW.
(Disclaimer: I'm on the board of the org that runs Polis.)
Man the name really threw me for a minute. Polis is the correct spelling for police in my native Swedish and I got through the first 2 paragraphs wondering what any of this has to do with law enforcement.
Then it dawned on me.
Edit to add: I think the white and blue theme helps. Those are police colours in Sweden...
Ditto Scotland.
Interesting, but how's it work out when people believe in "alternative facts"? That seems to be a pretty big problem in many places.
I think I can find some common ground with people who have different views on corporate taxation if we both go over some data and economics and think about it and consider various tradeoffs. Especially if we chat face to face to avoid any 'keyboard warrior' effects.
I probably can't find much common ground with people that believe that condensed water vapor formed by the passage of airplanes is actually a mind control device from the planet Zargon.
IIUC, this was a finding when they ran the Polis experiments in Taiwan: when you map the arguments of the different sides, there are actually large areas of agreement. In other words, the median person who disagrees with you is a "potential common ground" guy, not a "planet Zargon" guy.
> Interesting, but how's it work out when people believe in "alternative facts"?
I think the first step is always to separate a fact (I.e., X happened), from why did X happen. Afterwards, you move towards the steps that could prevent X from happening, or reactive protocols to X that minimize the chance of conspiracy theories, etc.
Of course it will not work with all, but, in my opinion, with enough of “alternative facts” lovers that it will be sufficient.
I don't understand "why did X happen?" presupposes X happened. We seem to be at the level of X pretty obviously did not happen but people believe it did.
Are there any details on how they managed organised bad actors?
The moderation stuff seems targeted mostly on keeping a lid on trolls and tempers.
This is incredibly cool tech built on an idea of participatory, consensus-building democracy that I want to believe is possible and sustainable.
More at https://compdemocracy.org/ and source code at https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis.
The Taiwan experiments were pretty interesting! for example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-h...
How does it defend against corruption by the folks operating it? I'm especially thinking of biased seed statements, source bias, and burial of important items in irrelevant gublish.
These are the genre of consensus tools I would like to see used in SM. Just imagine: a system that actually helps people exchange atomic, clear arguments and come to an informed consensus.
The internet could have really been a great tool to bring humanity together, if it was structured in that way for the common good. Instead we get SM where mud-battles and the resulting polarization are part of the perverse business model: engagement drives revenue, and there's no better way to keep people engaged than with a loop of extreme emotions and comments shouting the same shallow arguments at each other all over again without any meaningful progress.
Only imagine how quiet those platforms would become if discussions were actually structured for consensus instead of dissensus. I mean, yeah, a huge win for society - but a big loss of money, distraction and control for Elon, Zuckerberg and their BS billionaire friends.
> atomic ... arguments
Why is that especially valuable, according to your vision?
SM?
“Social media”
> Building on a foundation of simple but solid statistical algorithms from a decade ago
I wonder what algorithms they are talking about? Can't find any papers referenced :(
Looking at the clustering code it looks like they are using kd-trees with knn. Old skool!
Damn you governor polish! /s
Jokes aside, this looks interesting. I have my doubts about the grandiosity of the claims re: helping entire "cities, states, or even countries find common ground on complex issues," but I'm somewhat captivated by the idea of using it for local issues in cities or small towns like mine.
Cool. Deploying ClawBot(s)... 3.. ?... 1
I don't understand the utility of this. Maybe it works for things like noise ordinances, but I can't imagine finding common ground with people who want me dead or imprisoned simply for existing.
Those people came to those views somehow. I'd hope that a less radicalizing social media platform might move them away from those views. Finding common ground isn't just about figuring out where people currently agree, it's also an act of persuasion convincing people to change views to then-mutually shared views.
Wanting people dead or imprisoned simply for existing is the sort of inconsistent view that is likely easiest to change by moving people out of radicalized spaces...
And while trying to find common ground may be hard, and it may even be a long shot, it's worth it considering the eventual alternatives.
Radicalized spaces are offline too. You can't cure anyone of being irrational while they still live in a cult.
Every Body Corporate Strata in Australia basically goes through something like this at least once a year (by law.) Questions are posed about what to vote on and you either vote for, against, or abstain.
Something like Polis would be good for putting forward ideas throughout the year leading up to the vote, as it would find a consensus of ideas and help shape what you eventually vote on (you decide as a body corporate.)
Some Strata are hundreds of people in size.
Are you referencing a body corporate vote on trans rights or something?
Hundreds of people is a village. I don't feel this is responsive to GP's point.