<< > Following up on the crypto angle, there's also a technology called
> "group" or "threshold" signatures, which requires a group of people
> (or some subset) to work together to create a signature. Years ago I
> suggested the ultimate democracy, Anything Boxes which would only create
> objects which were signed by a threshold signature meaning that (say)
> 80% of the human race approved that design.
That's a good take on it. Or just a signature system that's open to
public authentication and relies on enough people agreeing that the source
to some new object is clean.
Trouble is, how do you make a system that can cope appropriately with
a group like, say, Aum Shinryko, membership in the tens of thousands, who
want to immanetize the eschaton (by building grey goo), without denying,
say, smaller groups like, say, Alcor, membership somewhat smaller,
who want to build their ressurect-o-mat(TM) (for all the corpsicles in
their freezer)? >>
Instead of a majority vote, how about a majority veto? A proposed design is
sent out to everyone, and is approved after a length of time unless a
majority of people vote against it. This way you don't have to have the
approval of anyone, just their indifference. This would likely allow
projects perceived as harmless but of interest only to a minority to go
forward, but block those projects that might be truly dangerous. If you
wanted to be more cautious, you could set the percent needed for a successful
veto even lower.
Glen Finney
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:03:40 MDT