6 pointsby ikhrabry4 hours ago5 comments
  • voakbasda39 minutes ago
    Great example of a technical solution for a real world problem… which simply won’t work as intended. Aside from the obvious use as a tool of repression, the real problem will be one of adoption: the only way everyone will adopt this is with it being shoved down their throats by their government. At that point, we have circled back to the point that they would only push such a tool if it benefited the status quo.
  • viraptoran hour ago
    Ok, I'm really curious. Is this just a troll? Phishing attempt for information about specific groups? Then again, the requirements would filter out serious responders, so maybe just spam?

    The post/project itself is an obvious scam. The first point is already impossible to do. The rest don't make much sense for the use case. And nobody would solve those issues without a serious lit review that doesn't require further asking HN such questions... after you have a solution... after years spent. Or hide their identity if they're doing PhD.

    So is this just a funnel to get some people to check their domain? (For some voting system nowhere close to the description) Or is this some more interesting campaign?

    Edit: And the repo is gone now. I hope whatever was the goal didn't work.

  • ndriscoll2 hours ago
    Nerd stuff aside, no voting system for socially significant decisions needs to scale to the planet. Democracies don't (or rather, shouldn't) scale. e.g. if the US and China or India formed a democratic superstate, the effect would be that the US would just become a vassal of the much larger entity.

    If larger or more powerful groups want to impose their will on smaller ones, they can go ahead and unilaterally do that, and own their behavior. Doing it "democratically" is just victim blaming.

    • ikhrabryan hour ago
      You are absolutely right. However, covering the entire population of the planet is required not for making democratic decisions at a global scale, but for guaranteeing the absolute uniqueness of every single human being within the network.It is designed to allow anyone to enter and leave the system from any device as a unique, anonymous identity while seamlessly returning to the exact same session. Socially significant decisions themselves can still be confined to any local community, even one consisting of just 1,000 people
      • conartist6an hour ago
        Such a "universal human ID" is so explosive that having it implanted subdermally would be no less invasive than what you are already suggesting.

        What would even be the point of democracy once privacy is gone and with it free speech?

        I think the closest real world model would be China, where the government gives you a "happy shiny society member" score for how little you ever dissent and how well you can recite propaganda. ...and of course if you ask the CCP they will tell you that the will of the people is absolutely being done, and the ID-powered surveillance is just helping ; )

        What's your ID by the way? Will you tell me? Would you?

        • conartist6an hour ago
          If your goal is not to create communism or fascism, I just can't even imagine what this would be for. It would be a solution in search of a problem, unless the problem were a lack of authoritarian government
      • ndriscollan hour ago
        Why do all individuals need to be in one network? There are literally zero decisions about my life that I want to allow people in China or Iran to vote on. I should hope they feel the same. There are almost no decisions (as someone in the US) that I want someone in California to have a vote on, and I'd be okay with zero. In fact I think California itself should really split into smaller, independent states (but that's of course their decision). The voting network partitions already into sovereign entities. Those entities negotiate with each other at a higher layer.

        A global political voting system can only be used for evil, so why would you want it?

        • viraptoran hour ago
          Save your time - this is not real. The requirements are impossible and there are many other issues with the post.
          • ndriscollan hour ago
            That's why the nerd technical stuff isn't all that interesting to me; it's likely useless. But the idea that more democracy = better is an insidious one that I see often. Democracy is a means that applies in specific conditions. Self-determination is the good we're seeking. This should be obvious but somehow is not.
  • conartist62 hours ago
    You know there's a relevant XKCD... ... Right? Also this article: https://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising...

    I fear you might have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the world is really like, and what people are really like.

    After all, the system you describe would not be used for democratic voting, it would be the ultimate playing field in which to weaponize surveillance capitalism and fascist control over societies. If you can't see how that could be true, then you cannot have given much if any serious philosophical thought to technology, because all attempts to fit the messiness of the world into an abstraction and "throw away the trimmings" is a violence you do to the real lives of real people

  • Varniva3 hours ago
    [dead]