Darwin: A framework for evolving decentralized web apps | Hacker News Reader

Darwin: A framework for evolving decentralized web apps

evolutionary.arweave.dev

77 pointsk__54 comments

If the problem is that users using an app that's supposed to be, by it's governance structure, decentralized but in practice it's still centralised and this is the primary reason why changes aren't implemented/pushed through. I think it's more reasonable to think about solutions to the governance problem itself.

Imo, thinking a plutocratic structure would ever bring forth power decentralisation is foolish to begin with. Voting with your wallet makes sense if everyone has the same amount, it doesn't make sense if over time resources get concentrated in the hands of the few which in turn use this power to concentrate power even more.

In reality, there's a lot of much simpler methods of governance that could be implemented for these projects. Starting with sortition, the formation of assemblies, working cohorts, etc (all through sortition). This would ensure a much more equitable access that wouldn't really take away from effectiveness (at least the sortition experiments done at town, city and country level haven't shown less quality in the public proposals that come out them).

But honestly, I don't think people in the crypto space truly want effective decentralized structures. I think the do "democratic washing" if you can put it in some way. There's a lot of incompatible ideas in the space.

So, a project like this looks to me to be trying to solve a problem they themselves have created out of stubbornness. If you want dynamic governance in the space then sortition is probably a much better way to go around things rather than "darwinian evolution".

Change should be commanded by users of the system and implemented by developers. Not spear headed by developers and adopted by the users. This second one leads to a lot of wasted effort.

Wouldn't sortition be game-able by creating a lot of wallets with tiny amounts in?

Yep. I didn't put it in my message because it was getting too long, but that's why I referred to crypto people trying to sort of square the circle. It's difficult to have accountability and anonymity.

There's some projects out there for verifying identities though. So it's possible. You definitely need to be "one person" for sortition to work. I mean, you want to have a proper deliberative structure for it anyway so there's gotta be discussion and so on. It's not something you where you can just skip deliberation altogether which kind of happens in a lot of these cases (for example, in referendum-democracy where people are simply asked to choose yes/no on a series of issues without them ever really engaging in the formation process of those issues).

You need a viable Proof of Human/Personhood system and afaik one does not yet exist.

It's called an ID card / SSN.

Another attempt to shill more and more tokens.

What is wrong with open and simple protocols, like NOSTR? Thanks to the different NIPs (NOSTR Improvement Proposals) [1] any client can choose to support or ignore anything that another has bolted on.

And incentives for developers, you ask? If your client or relay is truly better than the competition, then users want to use your software/Webapp. They will not mind paying a small fee to use it, which has been possible for years by using value4value-like systems. [2]

[1] https://binayatripathi-1.gitbook.io/stacks-+-nostr/sip-and-n...

[2] https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/podcasting-2-0/

Sounds quite similar to XMPP. I used that to build some simple microblogging servers about a decade ago; I also used it for identi.ca and Twitter too (via gateways).

Isn't nostr just clients connecting to multiple servers? With no communication between servers?

This is correct.

going out on a limb here, but i _think_ there is already a really popular project named darwin, maybe for, like, SEO or something, a different name?

There's quite a few Darwin projects. Including the MacOS kernel. Yeah, the naming is not amazing.

Survival of the fittest "Darwin" project?

Only if they all were competing in the same market. Since they aren't, I like to think of it more as them competing for which one becomes the base meme. When people think of "dog" which variant do they imagine? Lab, husky, french bulldog, or something else? Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme?

> Which dog type "won" and created the strongest meme?

Doge?

They're both software, so it's still confusing for the rest of us. Would you still stick with that reasoning if it was named "Linux" instead?

Yo quero taco bell dog.

Maybe they should switch to "Alfred" or "Wallace". e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace

Alfred is a quite well-known macOS app (alfredapp.com)

Wallace is already a crypto wallet

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details

How many different versions of something like a twitter-clone (as an example) are users willing to try? Buttons moving around, functionality changed or maybe even lost because the majority of the users don't want an edit button?

I highly doubt this is a viable approach.

Threads :)

Let's say n developers create their own fork of a Darwin app and build features that the community deem equally important. How does the "default/selected version" as described in the document work? Somehow implement a merge capability?

Presumably some developer would be incentivised by the minting of additional tokens, to take those multiple desired other versions, and merge them and present the merged version as something people can use.

Wonder how that affects the amount of token that the devs of each of those individual features get. Do the devs of the features even get anything at all in that case, or does the guy that put together the merged work get all of the tokens.

So forks are selected by users, via whoever gets the most stamps. As a user I'd have to:

1. Seek out forks of the app that I use and try them out.

2. Check to make sure there aren't any bugs introduced in the fork.

3. Check to make sure the author didn't introduce a subtle backdoor into the system allowing them to e.g. mint infinite tokens.

4. Check how many tokens the developer minted themselves as the reward for this work, to make sure it's not too many. (Do I actually care?)

Hope the majority of users are paying this much attention!

[Ctrl-F]token[Ctrl-F4]

Web3 is dead. Please stop.

Just for the sake of clarity in communication, OP has chosen to define “death” as $1.72 billion of on-chain transaction volume in the last 24h [0]

[0] https://defillama.com/dexs

Bot-to-bot wash trades as evidence of legitimacy, classic web3.

Unsupported conspiracy theories, classic cryptophobia.

Multiple studies have consistently found the majority of crypto/ dex/ dapp TXs being done by bots.

2019: https://anchainai.medium.com/our-ai-detects-your-ai-revealin...

2022: https://twitter.com/messaricrypto/status/1599916553780137985

So just like Wallstreet?

The 2019 study published on medium only lists machine learning buzzwords in their methods section. The 2022 twitter link doesn’t explain the methodology at all; on the other hand, Messari is usually legit (but paywalled).

Regardless, programmable transactions are in fact a feature of DeFi, they are launched by real people anyway and it doesn’t automatically imply “wash trading”; that’s just bad faith speculation.

It does imply, however, that citing figures like "$1.72 billion of on-chain transaction volume in the last 24h" in the context of web3's health is misleading or false.

False? How? It’s verifiable on-chain data. Misleading? Well, it’s pretty common sense that many users will automate their transactions; that’s a big feature of an open, programmable financial infrastructure. And at the end of the day, even if we adjust the number down by two-thirds, then $600m volume in the last 24h is still a questionable definition of “dead”.

Let me know when I can buy groceries with your fake money, in person, and have the transaction completed immediately.

Cryptocurrencies are just three ponzi schemes in a trench coat.

I don’t really care about your groceries.

“Nobody uses crypto!” - people trying to make the use of crypto illegal

"Use crypto!" - bag-holders with a financial interest in crypto being used

You’re free to use whatever you want, this discussion is about whether you can ban others from doing the same.

as far as i can tell very few people want cryptocurrency to be illegal. what people do advocate for is KYC practices at crypto exchanges to protect customers from fraud.

ie. the patriot act argument. I don’t support the redistribution of consequences. Individuals can decide what risks they want to take, including whether they want a KYC exchange or not. If that works out poorly for them, that’s too bad. You’re not held responsible for their losses so you don’t get a say in how they choose to use their own money.

These two sentences sound contradictory to me.

I for one welcome innovation in this area. But how to increase app security?

I'm not sure web3 is going to be adopted more than it already has, so I wonder about the longevity of projects like this.

Going to do y'all a favor and explain EXACTLY why this (and most DAO-like thingies) are goofy.

The issue is trust. What you're trying to do is to encode trust and incentives among human beings, and it's far easier to do that WITHOUT complicating it via code.

Crypto is about trusting the validity of code over the integrity of people. There is a bit more to it than that, in trusting that micro-economic incentives and the design of the protocol will guard the protocol against capture, but that's the gist of it.

Ultimately, open source code has a higher safety potential than the integrity of individuals, so I believe static services will trend toward becoming Ethereum protocols.

I agree, but those cases are VERY LIMITED. They would have to be something where the slowness and clunkiness of a blockchain is worth it. Anything private and small? Blockchains are stupid there.

The integrity of finance is worth slowness and clunkiness.

On that, I agree. I think DeFi (even more than day-to-day currency) is the true "killer-use" of crypto. But I think what I'm seeing with e.g. DAOs and on-chain governance is that "governance" here (unlike real life) really does need to be very libertarian. Set it and forget it to the extent you can, otherwise you invite humans and and their pesky incentives to screw around with things.

Agreed. While DAOs may offer benefits over traditional corporations in some applications, the real value proposition in public blockchains is provided by immutable smart contracts which eliminate the vulnerabilities introduced by governance.

Yes. But also, as a lawyer, I hate the phrase "smart contract" with the fire of a thousand suns. They are very useful and have important applications -- but they are not smart, nor are they contracts. "Automated blockchain bots" or something is far closer to the truth.

I prefer the term programmatic contract. Contract is somewhat of a misnomer, but conveys the idea that two parties can use it to trade in accordance with some defined terms. I think the 'smart' is an attempt to convey the idea that the application acts like a contract that self-executes. 'Programmatic' might do a better job of conveying that aspect of it too.

I thought crypto was about solving a LACK of trust?

Correct. Crypto is. Money is an arguably good use case for "crypto-related tech."(lol, by definition, right?)

DAOs and such are hamfisted attempts to slap crypto-tech on things that AREN'T suited for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com