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Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

pol.is

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Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#51

Post by gpm »

goda90 wrote: post #12

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.

The invite-tree they discuss is likely an effective measure. It provides a way of tracking back influxes of bots to responsible pre-existing account(s) and banning them too. And if someone is responsible for inviting many of the pre-existing accounts them too... Making the game of whac-a-mole winnable.

I'm assuming it's equivalent to lobste.rs implementation: https://lobste.rs/about#invitations

The cost of this is adding a ton of friction to joining.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#52

Post by tamimio »

Assuming this platform ever get popular, it will succumb to the same problems that we see everyday on social media, botting, shilling, manipulation, fear tactics, celebrity following, you name it, and I am not sure we can get rid of these on a technical level, rather, on culture and education levels.

Also, the graph feature, it seems a bit suspicious, it feels like it will be used to see where the majority of opinions about something then used by candidates to manipulate the public about the XYZ popular opinion, which is affirming our current politics right now, instead of actual leadership that changes the public opinion. It’s similar to those YouTubers who usually start with decent contents only later to change it to title clickbait cringy ones because they are following the audience.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#53

Post by worldsayshi »

Zaskoda wrote: post #45
worldsayshi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Related: https://www.proofofpersonhood.how/

> PoP makes it possible to prove "I am unique" without giving up privacy.

Ah, very nice! I have been trying to figure out if this was possible!

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#54

Post by Lerc »

acgourley wrote: post #26
Lerc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 laye…

Do you believe you are capable of doing that yourself?

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#55

Post by tamimio »

eikenberry wrote: post #2

More at https://compdemocracy.org/ and source code at https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis .

What I am more interested in seeing, hopefully, in the future is the ability to cast citizens' votes directly on any matter, act, bill, etc., and get rid of the representatives in parliament/congress/etc. It is more transparent that way, and end lobbying with all the corruption it has. No more traditional voting for a "person" anymore and relying on trust; rather, you trust no one and vote directly. We have the proper digital infrastructure and technology to make it happen. We are far more connected than we were back when these ancient processes were created. That way, it's truly the power of the people compared to the power of whoever can get the wealthy to support their campaign. If this won't work "because a lot of people are ignorant!" then you put effort into educating them. Otherwise, it also means our current democracies are nothing but a charade to fool the public with a false illusion of choices.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#56

Post by acgourley »

worldsayshi wrote: post #38
acgourley wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes that's the idea, once you have the soul-bound eID the ZK part is trivial, but the eID with the guarantees I outlined is not at all trivial.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#57

Post by throwup238 »

Lerc wrote: post #54
acgourley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 laye…

Do you believe you are capable of doing that yourself?

All you have to do is flip the tortoise back over.

> You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#58

Post by acgourley »

frogperson wrote: post #49
worldsayshi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Zero-Knowledge Identity? Use zero knowledge proofs to prove that I have an eID without actually providing my identity.

Something like a cert chain, but it would need to be both simple to use and secure. Those two requirements are greatly at odds with each other.

Yeah one reason I think the government has to offer this is usability. While you can imagine a purely p2p protocol between cypherpunks, for everyone else there needs to be a way to social workers, DMV staff, etc can deal with edge cases (such as your id being stolen and needing a reset). Furthermore it helps if it's super illegal to tamper with this network (consider how rare check fraud is, despite being easy).

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#59

Post by renato_shira »

goda90 wrote: post #12

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.

[dead]

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#60

Post by ninjagoo »

worldsayshi wrote: post #37
ninjagoo wrote: post #35

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 disi…

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?

Is that even feasible? Thinking of it like security certificates for humans. Can there really be anonymity if a cert signature chain has to be trusted? CAs and intermediaries can always trace certs back?
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