
Cicada: A Distributed Direct Democracy and Decentralized Application Platform - dustingetz
https://github.com/the-laughing-monkey/cicada-platform
======
Confiks
First of all, regardless of all the claims made in the document, I find it
awesome to see such a gigantic writeup that tries to be at least a bit
internally consistent. It reminds me of Bit451 [1][2], although that one was
simply insane.

So about Cicada: the document quickly notes that the 'human unique identifier'
is at the core of the proposal. It is claimed that it "allows us to prevent
Sybil attacks and ensure everyone has a voice in the system". It promises to
do this with cryptography and 'biocryptics', a word which isn't really that
widely used in the research community. It seems to mostly refer to anonymous
biometrics authentication systems [3][4]. In that field I can find nothing
about preventing Sybil attacks.

Additionally, preventing Sybil attacks in a decentralized system, by relying
on a biometric measurement that is fully under the control of an attacker
seems doomed to fail. No matter how much cryptography you throw at it.

There must either be some central party designating trust in a certain
(anonymous) biometric, or there needs to be a web of trust that is
sufficiently connected and resistant to manipulation. A combination, with good
checks and balances and distribution of power, seems to be the way to go most
of the time.

[1] [http://bit451.org/](http://bit451.org/)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8728231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8728231)

[3]
[https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/publications/article-1462...](https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/publications/article-1462.pdf)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_biometrics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_biometrics)

~~~
andrewla
Personal identity seems like a generally intractable problem, despite the
lofty goals stated in the introduction. And without it, the document is built
on a foundation of sand.

An argument that I find myself having quite frequently about Bitcoin and
pseudonymity is that pseudonymity and concealing identity is not a feature of
the system, but rather that defining two-way identity in any sort of useful
way is such a difficult problem that solving it would be a bigger achievement
than Bitcoin itself.

Seeking a biological equivalent to a non-portable key in a TPM is pretty
hopeless, and that's what you'd need to get a HUID -- not just a hash
fingerprint that anyone can appropriate, but an internal signing mechanism to
allow zero-knowledge verification of identity. And the inverse problem, the
Sybil problem, is just as intractable, and as far as I know has never really
been solved without a centralized issuing authority or reliance on a scarce
resource (like proof-of-work, which even there solves only a weak variant of
the Sybil problem by conflating the unit of "identity" with a unit of "work").

~~~
anigbrowl
We know multiple ways to reliably identify someone using biological markers
with near-perfect accuracy. Yes, that lack of perfection leaves open the
possibility of subversion, but so what? You'll grow old and die waiting for
the perfect solution.

~~~
hueving
And those are not subject to replay attacks?

~~~
xg15
This seems to me like the whole misadventure of putting finger print readers
in door locks and phones: Someone noticed that fingerprints work quite well
for identifying people in customs and law enforcement and simplified that
thought to "fingerprints can identify people" \- ignoring the circumstances of
_how_ fingerprints are taken when they work.

------
erispoe
Governments take thousands of decisions. Can we really expect people to
dedicate their time to vote all the time on these decisions? We risk ending up
with a "democracy" where the power is really in the end of people having
enough time and / or skin in the game to actually vote.

Voter fatigue is already a known effect where places that vote the most are
also the ones with the lowest turnout. California and Switzerland vote twice a
year, they barely ever go above 50% turnout.

That kind of system would be interesting for signature collection, however. It
would then be easier, more fair and more secure to collect signatures to put
something on the ballot. Today you really need money to do that.

~~~
tom_mellior
That's why systems like Liquid Democracy have delegation features. You don't
elect representatives, but you can delegate ("lend", if you will) your vote on
certain issues to them. And revoke the delegation at any time.

Maybe Cicada could be equipped with something like this, but sentences like
"The concept is so new that the word representativeless does not even exist.
We had to invent it." don't look like the authors have done a lot of research
on the topic.

~~~
aaron-lebo
This is a github post that tries to pass itself off as a "paper" (because it
sounds official, right), and ends with "And that can change the world". Wow
that's academic and objective.

Why are we upvoting delusional content that lacks a real understanding of
behavior, politics, and law? Because if you want to change the world, a basic
understanding of that might help. He could start with Plato and Xenophon and
the Trial of the Generals and then progress to Reddit if he thinks crowds are
wise and democracy without flaw.

 _The next time there is an Arab Spring, the people will be able to replace
their leaders with code._

Is this serious? It's every bad _Silicon Valley_ joke wrapped up in a
document. In the real world, politicians, and armies, and people with power
that you don't even know of have been ruling the world for a long time. If you
want to break that you gotta be more realistic than quoting a science fiction
book and a Github paper.

 _To create something scalable enough to run an entire nation with no
representatives, we created two cutting edge technologies to serve as the
foundation of the platform_

Is it reasonable to make this statement without showing any code? They seem to
have not scaled beyond writing thought on paper. How do you go from that to
"leaders being replaced with code"? Is there not a massive gap to be bridged
before such audacious claims are made?

Why isn't there more skepticism of something like this?

~~~
vertex-four
Primarily because HN is very libertarian-leaning, and has a lot of people who
do not understand people or societies as a result.

~~~
reitanqild
I'm not sure if these idea is very libertian though.

Also really not sure about HN and libertarianism. HN seems to be more
interested in (Scandinavian style) socialism IMO.

~~~
anigbrowl
HN has political clusters which are mappable (and if someone would like to
help me in that venture I'd appreciate it, I can be contacted via gmail).

There is a very strong libertarian contingent, a moderately strong centrist
contingent, a moderately strong socialist contingent (ie the Scandinavian
social democracy model you point to) and small extremist contingents
consisting of a few fascists and a few communists. Some of the libertarians
are anarchists/voluntaryists but being anarchists they reject labels :)

------
skummetmaelk
Do people really think pure direct democracy is a good idea? Why?

We already have a problem with legislators not understanding anything about
many areas they are expected to create policy on. Why would Average Joe do any
better?

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
1\. It's harder to bribe all Joes.

Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people. Actually, you may
just have to bribe 100 or so, enough to tilt partisan things in your favor.

2\. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to.

You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net
programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat
drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower
regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending.
You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code.

3\. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as
they start ruling

4\. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch,
meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic
person.

5\. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA,
direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information
available, more means to communicate available, decent education available.

6\. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer
can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You
stole my idea". etc.

~~~
dbcurtis
> You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net
> programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat
> drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower
> regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending.
> You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code.

Well, you can. But will that really happen? Especially in the area of civil
rights, it is difficult to defend a right of interest to a minority group from
ill-informed or simply emtionaly-driven majority opinion.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
I didn't say it was full proof. It was the best compromise given how the world
works.

Supreme Court can still function to validate laws against founding
constitutional rights.

But, I do agree, majority will have its way most of the time. If minority has
a grievance, it has to address the same way people holding any other minority
of opinion would deal with it... make majority see things your way.

Gay partners should be able to adopt. Make majority see it your way. We should
have not criminalize marijuana use. Make majority see it your way.

In fact Civil rights have more advantages than people with majority race,
ethnicity, religion but holding a minority opinion e.g. euthanasia. At least
for Civil Rights there are courts to go to, majority has agreed to have that
as a recourse just for Civil Rights opinions.

I honestly think minority Civil Rights are only possible when majority is
doing good, economically and emotionally. Because, Civil Rights need to be
enforced through education, and might of the state, which is the majority at
the end of the day.

Sure, Gay rights and no slavery exists in USA, mostly because majority sees it
that way. In Saudi Arabia or in ISIS territories those rights don't exist.

Civil Rights only exists where majority agrees that Civil Rights deserve to be
honored. If they didn't, it wouldn't. We can feel as uncomfortable as we want
about it, but that's just how the world operates. Unless there are
technological advantages where one assumes god position enforcing Civil Rights
of each individual without any external dependency, I don't see if that way of
how the world operates could ever be changed.

~~~
tptacek
That's explicitly not how our system works. If you have a claim to a right
rooted in the Constitution, you _do not_ need to convince the majority to see
things your way. Your rights emanating from the Constitution (and further from
the Constitution of your state) trump the majority.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
You could have Supreme Courts without representative Democracy.

You could have direct democracy on issues (Brexit e.g.) within representative
democracy.

Majority agrees with this form of government including Supreme Court and
Constitutional Rights. If 99% of USA agreed to not follow constitution, would
Supreme Courts be able to enforce their opinions? Majority agrees to give that
power to Supreme Court and is upholding it everyday.

If you think we gave our constitution to ISIS today, they would function the
same way, without buying into it?

------
clarkevans
I suggest the people who want to "fix politics" get involved and start very
small: look at a single ward within a city. Don't try to replace
representative democracy -- enhance it, automate it. If you've got a theory,
start small, and run on it. Go out and get votes. Then, once you've been
elected actually see the real world problems that exist. Or, even simpler,
volunteer in a local state representative's office for a good few years till
you understand the actual challenges. Make their job and their constituents
involvement better. Radical change starts with modest beginnings.

~~~
bb611
The scale of government which interests people is a direct product of the
issues that interest them. Want to influence school policies? Almost 100% a
local ward/district issue. Want to have a meaningful impact on almost anything
else? It all happens at the state & federal level. In some states (CA being a
prime example), a huge amount of even normally local education policy issues
have been taken over by the state because of the way schools are funded.

I have known plenty of people who went into local government and left after
3-5 years, because the fights are just as hard as at the higher levels, but
the chance to engage in meaningful policy creation is almost nil. The
professionals use it as a training/credentialing circuit, and the regular
citizens generally seem to leave permanently.

------
olalonde
> A new Distributed Proof of Work (DPoW) backed blockchain that is immune to
> centralization because of a unified client/miner with only one miner allowed
> per person, linked anonymously to a HUID.

The whole blockchain thing is built on the assumption that we don't have this
HUID thing which solves Sybil attacks. Now that Sybil attacks are no longer a
concern, surely there must be a more efficient algorithm than PoW to secure
the chain.

> This ID is not centrally controlled, which will virtually eliminate all
> Sybil attacks, along with the vast majority of problems in peer to peer
> networks.

It's trivial to stop Sybil attacks in a centralized system... Making the ID
decentralized certainly does not help in that department.

> A HUID generated through the intersection of revocable biometrics and
> cryptography.

Aren't biometrics (and by extension, identities) trivial to generate?

------
hhw3h
As banach mentioned the key to making direct democracy work is making it
liquid as well.

If you can delegate your voting power totally or granularly on a per issue
basis to other individuals--while maintaining the ability to revoke your
voting power from said individuals you can get the benefits of representative
democracy and direct democracy at once.

Would love someone more informed to discuss the cons of liquid or delegative
democracy.

------
lvoudour
>A true Direct Democracy (DD) requires representativeless government. The
concept is so new that the word representativeless does not even exist. We had
to invent it

I think non-representative would suffice and it would sound better. Anyway,
the project looks cool but I have a strong aversion towards direct democracy,
referendums, etc. when millions/billions are involved

------
reitanqild
Is this linked to the "cicada" where people solved riddles to find clues and
apply for membership in something very secret?

~~~
HalfTOXIC
I was thinking the same

------
goodroot
Of all places to be cynical, a den of code-oriented and clever people with the
ability to propagate major social change shouldn't be one of them.

A commendable and inspiring effort. Cicada is bafflingly ambitious; any system
that proposes a 7billion person user base is hopefully geared to fight a very,
very long and arduous battle.

Good luck! I will happily root for anyone brave enough to tackle the
inevitable problems of the future with an open and articulate vision. Shoot,
maybe I'll even throw in a PR or two.

------
5trokerac3
> Nearly impossible to duplicate or steal

So, if this was actually implemented as the one source of power and control in
the world, somebody would figure out how to duplicate or steal it.

------
homakov
> initially utilizing both irises as inputs) to create public/private
> keypairs, we can generate a unique ID for each person on the planet

wait, what?

------
smokeyj
If we were to talk about human organizational models the way we talk about
network topologies the conversation would be so much more productive. We could
talk about uptime, failover, backups, consensus and other objective qualities.

No matter what form of government you support, I think the organizational
model can be represented as some form of game (in the game-theory sense) that
can be replicated and compared to other organizational models. For example,
imagine a wide scale battle simulation where players join a team based on how
the chain of command is organized. This would allow you to test
centralized/decentralized/hybrid models or organization in a way that gets
better over time.

My prediction is that a hybrid model would win. Instead of a pure top-down, or
bottom-up model - you'd have something like a RAFT protocol organizing the
squads. This way there's no general you can take out, and there's consensus
among what the battle plan is.

------
pmlnr
This is a nice, long, well organised document on plumbing. Is there anything
running to demonstrate at least a portion of it?

------
KaiserPro
Hands up who has looked at twitter, and thought, I know, that'll be a great
place to put unlimited power?

no, not me either.

------
azinman2
Forgive my cynicism but...

“The next time there is an Arab Spring, the people will be able to replace
their leaders with code.“

Aside from security, Luddites, equal access, hardware failures, trust issues,
power shortages, and many other issues with depending on technology for gov to
function...

How does code beat guns?

~~~
dkarl
> How does code beat guns?

How does anything beat guns? In theory, the U.S. armed forces could depose the
government, but culture and tradition ensure that it defers to democratic
institutions. In a country with a history of coups, especially coups that have
deposed harmful regimes, coups are regarded in a more positive light. They are
thinkable and therefore possible. In the United States, given our history,
things would have to change a lot (even much more than electing an
incompetent, incontinent buffoon as president) before a coup would become
possible. Direct democracy would be tenuous at first, perhaps assuming more
and more responsibility over time under the watch of a representative
government that gradually became a caretaker bureaucracy, with the trust and
respect held by representative democracy institutions gradually transferring
to the direct democracy institutions.

------
kodfodrasz
Does this have anything to do with Cicada 3301?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301)

------
kstenerud
I thank my lucky stars that this will never get off the ground. The last thing
we need is another naive idealist defining the structure of our government.

------
gasull
Without a monopoly of violence you don't have a direct democracy, but an
opinion survey.

This system doesn't enforce whatever is voted and decided.

~~~
mirimir
Well, decision makers in current governments can't personally enforce anything
either. You need a hierarchy that respects their authority. It'd also work
with this system.

------
uptownfunk
From the readme

>Cicada is a revolutionary distributed direct democracy (DDD) platform that
will unleash the true power of the people, allowing tomorrow's Founding
Fathers to run an entire nation from the palm of their hand. It's powered by a
radical new blockchain that's completely immune to centralization and pays you
to secure it with a practical Universal Basic Income.

------
xg15
If the past years have shown anything then that blockchain software - like any
software - needs continous development, maintaining, bug fixing, clarification
of edge cases, etc. In a world where "leaders are replaced with code", where
does that place the Cicada developers?

------
LukeB42
Sounds cool. When are we expected to start tattooing HUID QR codes into
eachothers hands, foreheads? /s

~~~
mhluongo
It'll be implanted RFID chips, duh!

------
thatcat
A hybrid direct-represenative sort of organization could be formed using
votebots to make decisions for people who don't have time to participate, but
who could review the decisions later and change represenative bots if they
don't like it based on their historical performance.

------
fiatjaf
I imagine this thing doesn't have a way to determine if the State is itself
legitimate, or a way to achieve consensus on which State (of multiple ones
that may exist in each geographic area) is the master-legislator.

It probably assumes and hardcodes the current State.

------
fiatjaf
This is too complicated. If a simple thing like Bitcoin fails to be mainstream
because most people don't even want to start thinking through it, imagine
THIS.

Also, there will be so many room for bugs that the number of issues will make
GitHub servers explode.

------
acd
The underlying decision mechanism of distributed democracy is Wisdom of the
crowd which means that together as a group we are much smarter than a single
individual.

"The classic wisdom-of-the-crowds finding involves point estimation of a
continuous quantity. At a 1906 country fair in Plymouth, 800 people
participated in a contest to estimate the weight of a slaughtered and dressed
ox. Statistician Francis Galton observed that the median guess, 1207 pounds,
was accurate within 1% of the true weight of 1198 pounds.[8] This has
contributed to the insight in cognitive science that a crowd's individual
judgments can be modeled as a probability distribution of responses with the
median centered near the true value of the quantity to be estimated."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd)

~~~
splintercell
Ah, the wisdom of the crowd which accurately predicted in 2016 the Brexit and
election of Donald Trump.

------
wadeboggs
Cool readme, let's check out the code!

Oh.

------
c-smile
Let's start from applying DDD to, say, W3C.

Will we have better and faster arriving specs?

------
try_sincerely
It's unfortunate this thing is so long on HN front page

------
narrator
Gee whiz... everybody's really down on democracy in this thread. Ok, so when
is someone going to write a distributed app for running a one party state?

------
agentultra
If someone were to go forward with an implementation it'd be nice to see a
strong proof of the protocol to accompany this informal specification.

------
gt_
my new favorite README.md template

------
harel
I've been advocating blockchaining democracy for a while now. At the time I
even bought a domain for this (continuousreferendum.com, which lapsed by now).
Never had the time to learn enough to do this. I'm really really glad someone
did. The future is right there. Now the real hard stuff is to get governments
to transition to being 'pilots' and not 'navigators'.

