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Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

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Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#91

Post by rmaus »

masukomi wrote: post #71

ignoring the tech, i think many folks here are missing the point. Assume you really want to quit smoking right now, and you are also pro choice. With a system like this you can say "I will quit smoking in 2 months or this $5000 will go to an anti-abortion charity." now THIS system doesn't do that BUT the core point remains, if you can attach "significant" loss to NOT achieving a goal it can help motivate people (not…

Did something similar to this at a previous employer. We had a problem with a particular weekly meeting starting on time, so we all agreed on a $1 late fee, per minute. At year's end, the collected fees were gifted to one of the firm's wealthy executives whom we all disliked. The meeting's on-time rate skyrocketed.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#93

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

superkarolis wrote: post #61
jesperht wrote: post #59

Awesome job building your idea! Took at a look at the source code an found a few bugs and put them here in a post: https://medium.com/@jesperht/dont-go-freaking-do-it-5da4df4d... Feel free to get in touch with me if you need a hand fixing any of this!

Hey, thanks for the thorough inspection. I now realize there are several flaws in the implementation that will need fixing. V2 release of the contract will come soon!

Why did you say that it was verified safe?

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#94

Post by gnicholas »

dreeves wrote: post #85
gnicholas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> StickK’s anti-charities seem the most egregious, actively harming the world. That assumes that (1) there are "good" charities and "bad" charities, and (2) that most of Stickk's users are good people who end up benefiting "bad" charities when they fail. Point (1) seems hard to prove and point (2) is impossible to prove without detailed info about how Stickk is used. It seems like you're in this market, so perhaps yo…

Good points, but I don't think we need assumptions that strong. For example, if democrats donate to the republican party as an anti-charity and republicans donate an equal total to the democratic party, then probably democrats and republicans would all agree that that's strictly worse than nobody donating at all. But more to the point, I'm just viewing it from the individual user's perspective. From your point of vie…

It is useful to distinguish between the individual user's perspective and the global perspective.

You want to focus on the individual user, and that makes sense. But to him/her, they're using an anti-charity because they want to increase their odds of accomplishing their goal. So when thinking about whether it is "good for the world" or "bad for the world" that people do this, we have to factor in:

1: the x% probability that the user will fail, and money will be donated, and

2: the y% chance that the user would have failed without the anti-charity option, but succeeds instead because of it.

When you consider both of these aspects, it is not at all clear that the anti-charity option is bad for the world.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#95

Post by jameslevy »

masukomi wrote: post #71

ignoring the tech, i think many folks here are missing the point. Assume you really want to quit smoking right now, and you are also pro choice. With a system like this you can say "I will quit smoking in 2 months or this $5000 will go to an anti-abortion charity." now THIS system doesn't do that BUT the core point remains, if you can attach "significant" loss to NOT achieving a goal it can help motivate people (not…

That's a very interesting idea, although it would be pretty tricky to implement in a way that didn't require self-reporting. The main obvious benefit using a smart contract could provide is automatically making the donation unless you actively lie (or tell the truth) that you didn't smoke at all, and the UI could play that up by asking you if you're sure you aren't lying.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#96

Post by gt_ »

gnicholas wrote: post #76
danpalmer wrote: post #47

I don't really understand the trend of solving all problems with "smart contracts". This just seems to limit the potential market to people who care about smart contracts, and complicate an otherwise simple arrangement, without providing any benefits. You still have to find a supervisor your trust, why not just give money to a friend instead?

Agree. This seems like Stickk [1], but with "smart contract" branding. There may be other differences (and I'd be interested to know more about them), but I had the same initial reaction as you. 1: www.stickk.com

www.stikk.com also has an inspirational nature/valley overlook cover image. I don't get it. When I see these images, I am only reminded of nice it is to not focus on my goals and go dick off in nature for a day.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#97

Post by onion2k »

cableshaft wrote: post #90
onion2k wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gain nothing from achieving goals, v.s. you lose money if you didn't One solution to that would be having the app share the money from the losers between all the winners (less a fee for running the app if you wanted to monetize it).

Then every customer would have a financial incentive to always lie and say they completed their goals. It's already iffy with the 'lose money if you don't meet them' approach, but if you could actually get a piece of all the users moneys, yeah, you might as well say you're a winner (or only create goals where you can easily win) and game the system.

That's the hard part of the problem, and the bit that makes it worth solving.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#98

Post by jMyles »

harrumph wrote: post #67
jMyles wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentive structure you are describing is a huge part of the problem in the statist/industrial paradigm of human existence. Blockchains and smart contracts purport to lift of out of these conditions, but, as you point out, this one seems to suffer from the same flaws.

>The incentive structure you are describing is a huge part of the problem in the statist/industrial paradigm of human existence. You misspelled "capitalist".

Sure, call it that too. I think that that word is a bit unwiedly in today's political dialogue, because it means something different to everybody.

To some, "capitalist" is an attribute of a society that resist state intervention in economic collaboration. It is equal to the phrase "free market" and viewed with great skepticism.

To others, "capitalist" is more tantamount to greed and cronyism; it is understood in a way that's contrary to traditional anarchic theory about the state.

You might detect that I usually find myself in the second category.

Because of this dichotomy, I like to think of the procession of ages of humankind represented by the dawn of the internet being from "statist/industrial" toward "humanitarian/information-driven".

But you can also certainly think of it as being from "capitalist" to "humanitarian" or whatever may go in that second slot, sure.

Re: Show HN: Go Freaking Do It – Smart contract for reaching your goals

#99

Post by mulmen »

rmaus wrote: post #91
masukomi wrote: post #71

ignoring the tech, i think many folks here are missing the point. Assume you really want to quit smoking right now, and you are also pro choice. With a system like this you can say "I will quit smoking in 2 months or this $5000 will go to an anti-abortion charity." now THIS system doesn't do that BUT the core point remains, if you can attach "significant" loss to NOT achieving a goal it can help motivate people (not…

Did something similar to this at a previous employer. We had a problem with a particular weekly meeting starting on time, so we all agreed on a $1 late fee, per minute. At year's end, the collected fees were gifted to one of the firm's wealthy executives whom we all disliked. The meeting's on-time rate skyrocketed.

Did you send a card along with the money explaining this to the executive?
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