[Phase 1] HIP-11: Establish a set of Guiding Principles for Proof of Humanity

[ludovico]

I think that, like Clement you misunderstood Principles with rules.

[clesaege]

@ludovico

The issue with banning “hateful” ideas is that who would decide what is “hateful”? I think systems are better designed at classifying different kind of speech to prevent people from being exposed to speech they don’t want to be exposed to.

I did not understand how can you “classify” speech and also how you would “prevent people to be exposed” to it. Saying racial slurs for example it is morally wrong and does not constitute what free speech is all about, and it is not a matter of audience, it is a matter of it being allowed or not, and I think the proponents mean examples like this. But again this is just a principle, the exact definition of what is hateful or not can be reached through consensus in the community

The same way as a large part of internet is handling porn. You can switch on/off your filter and choose not to be exposed to it without preventing those wanting to access it.
Filters are quite a good way to prevent the ghetto-ifyication you mentioned.

Racial slurs are in general morally wrong (as they are directed at individuals) but their harm is order of magnitude less dangerous than censorship. The problem is that if we put some some line about what is acceptable speech, it will generally be used by those in power to censor minorities.
An example coming to my mind is the “calls for boycott” prohibition made with the intend to avoid people from boycotting some minorities which are now use to prevent people from boycotting products of colonies in Israel (in opposition to the occupation of Palestine). So a censorship law initially made to protect minorities is now used to prevent the protection of such minorities.

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky

@ludovico

I believe that part of the misunderstanding here is that you think that these are actual binding rules, effective immediately, but they are not. Of course that in the short term we are bound to english, but for example the contents themselves of the phrase are not the weapon against sybil proofness. A statement in sylables not belonging to any languages could do the trick as easy as the phrase in English.

Yeah, but that would decrease the overall user experience. It’s basically a type of fairness which doesn’t benefit anyone (make the experience worse for some without making it better for any).

@ludovico

How about auditability? All decisions should be able to be audited, or something similar to that.

Yeah, would look good.

[Nachobr]

I also support this idea

[waly_hh]

Art 16 derechos humanos inciso 3
Familia si
Familia no

[ludovico]

Resurrecting this thread, based on a new post about the path forward:

A path forward for PoH

The recent events have been a stress test for the DAO as a whole. Is up to the community to come out stronger from this. I see a way forward and I would like to outline some ideas that can help us move on. We need a set of principles An underlying theme in the recent discussion was “What’s the purpose of PoH”. Parts of the community focusing on UBI, others on Dapp integrations, and others on the security of the registry. I believe that a statement of principles from the MB would set a precede…

[sengaa]

What a post @marcwinn! I missed it back then!

But what a great moment to resurface this discussion. Interested in knowing if our MB would back this (with the relevant adjustments).

@santisiri @clesaege @0xjean.eth

[marcwinn]

Thank you. A project like this cannot succeed without a governing set of principles that are more important than the technology or the component parts. Hopefully, with the recent breakdowns, we are starting to see why this is important. Trustless rules-based governance does not work because the law is the law rationalised way of building fundamentally and doesn’t understand what it means to be human. It just leads to a toxic culture which is what we are seeing now.

I wish I had more time to dedicate to seeing this through but my 4-year-old non-verbal autistic daughter has taken a lot of time and financial resources. Incidentally, she is not currently regarded as human by this ecosystem so far.
Ultimately she is exactly the sort of edge case that fundamentally challenges this community to go through a death and rebirth process it needs to in order to achieve its founding goals.

The methodologies and governance so far have failed because they are willing to leave a single human like her behind.

In the end we can leave no one behind.

[green]

she is not currently regarded as human by this ecosystem so far

Does she have her own key? If she doesn’t, and someone else will be handling her own key and web3 identity, then that someone is a sybil.
It’s not clear yet if PoH is inclusion-first or sybil-resistance first. But, if sybil-resistance goes first, then someone that’s not in control of their own keys should not be allowed in.

[marcwinn]

It isn’t a proof of humanity protocol in that case. It would be something like a proof of individual human autonomy protocol.

[Mads]

For me, Sybil-resistance comes first, inclusion second.
Inclusion is also very important, but sybil-resistance is the main pillar of the entire project. Without it everything falls apart and we have no project.

[marcwinn]

I’m not sure how you can have a proof of humanity protocol unless it can prove that every human is human? Only being able to prove that say 95% of humans are human by design means that you kill a whole wave of future applications. Especially in the AR realm. If you cannot guarantee 100% access then it won’t ultimately be useful and will be replaced by what is useful. Trying to solve sybil resistance from a mechanistic, trustless, reductionist and individualistic lens doesn’t even play to the best of human strengths. Any human can work out that my daughter is human. For me, this project has reached a dead end which is why I disengaged. The model of innovation just isn’t able to handle the complexity of what it means to be human and thinks it is OK to reject any human that cannot use a computer or smartphone themselves. It just isn’t a project in all integrity that I can be part of. I’m sure many people would feel the same which means the humans who value inclusion won’t take part as well as the people who are not included. That will reduce adoption even further. My daughter and any newborn can get a passport and therefore the state will continue to win in the arena of identity (for better or worse).

[nohaytrompeta]

I am new to the community, so I might be missing a lot. But I can´t help feeling that defining the ethos of POH before laying an explicit and actionnable purpose can be more soul-pampering than actually beneficial.
Even if the Principles would eventually be probably the same, making them the starting point could turn them a moral absolute to measure the people involved in the community rather than a a functional compass to serve as a decision making toolkit to achieve a common goal.
I think the future of POH would be better served if the principles were distilled from a clearly defined purpose, and probably even better if treated as a short term / long term purposes to make the discussion as actionnable as possible, and open to future shift.
I dont want to sound destructive, just very interested in purpose on the blockchain arena, and wishing to avoid future Inquisitions and politically-correct sterile conversations.

[marcwinn]

Yes, this is necessary. There isn’t clarity of purpose as yet in this community. There are two factions that have different objectives. The question is whether the Venn diagram overlaps into a common purpose? Is it possible to have a Sybil-resistant proof of humanity that includes all humans? I personally believe it is which is why I’m willing to hold the creative tension for it. I’m not sure the current methodology can achieve that because it willing to exclude humans to maintain a linear and mechanistic model of dealing with Sybil resistance. In many ways, the principles are the creative doorway to a common purpose rather than something to foster political correctness.