Absolutely, if there is a way. This fact has not been ignored when thinking of this proposal.
So, the trick is how to make such thing unfeasible. It’s basically one of the first things and most important things to address.
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As dirvine says, it is an interesting area with fixed goals.
Up until now, fixed goals is what we have all been working with.
In the SAFE Economy Explorations topic, I approach this from a few angles. The challenges met in designing an algorithm with great clarity and avoidance of side effects, has been increasingly steering me towards looking at other systems.
In this system, we assume that the fixed goals are difficult to discern, and more so discerning the outcome behavior of them as well. It’s even unclear if it’s possible, let alone feasible, to get the desired behavior that way.
I’ll take a step back and look at this. See if you agree with the reasoning, or can maybe nuance it:
The fixed goals we were previously looking to reach, were those of percent storage filled and unfarmed currency supply.
I don’t think we can say that we had a goal for the reward or store cost, those were supposed to be derived algorithmically from the fixed goals. So, no upper or lower limits.
There was no goal for network size, rate of growth or any time based parameter, fiat value.
Everywhere we tried to make this fully dynamic, we ran into the dependency of some static number, some assumption about future numbers that was not very likely to be correct, and therefore not resilient.
The conclusions I have arrived at, are that there is no easy way (maybe not even a difficult way) to reach a farming reward and store cost that is perpetually aligned with fiat valuation of the network currency, by measuring the available parameters in the network, such as percent storage filled and unfarmed currency supply. We have worked with the idea that there is a source for this information which is the actual participants in the network itself, and that this source can be tapped, as well as managed and contained.
The part I in the PA systems series does not attempt to show this can be done. I cannot say that it is certain part II will be able to show this either. But we are working on ways to get more clarity in this area.
Edit: Sorry, now that I read the post you replied to, I think you were not talking directly about PA system, but specifically about bidding / voting for the bidding rules, which is of course something different. So, you can just consider the above to be directed to no-one specifically.
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Can we get some data from pool with option of Bid like 0-50k, 50k-150k, 150k-350k, 350-750k, 750-1,5M range of nanoSafeCoin what would you set as your GET reward if the SafeNetwork would start with current price ?
You do not know cost of PUT and frequency of GET request.
Btw: Just imagine the inflation if torrent groups would move to SafeNetwork with target to increase the NB together with average UL/DL ratio 1/100 of each torrent.
How you would stop inflation to not reach 100% of available coins ?
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Interesting idea, and great to see this major thought emerging from the community, especially @mav and @oetyng. Hats off to you guys.
I am struggling to grok it - always slow 
- so wonder if you could give me some bones to start putting flesh on. In the form of bullets on what you are aiming to achieve here, and then also what you think you have probably achieved / nearly there but not quite good enough / undesired and want to be rid of?
I can see some hints about this wrt separating concerns, but it isn’t clear to me what exactly and how these things are being achieved, so would welcome that being spelt out. Maybe a contrast table with the current proposal would help too.
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It’s an interesting new take but I worry if we throw too many SafeCoin ideas up it might push the date back when we see the first test implementation… But that’s hardly a reason to keep good ideas down. Just my first gut feeling.
But very well thought out and explained. Major kudos for the effort here 
(and very cool, futuristic name 
)
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It’s quite fantastic to see what the vault/node structure begins to enable once it starts to stabilize with Parsec.
I like the feel of a number of independent levers that combine to decide the rewards/costs, with a bias for sticky but with movability and swing limits. Game theory is great. Just watch for the Black Swans, perfect storms, etc.!!
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No injection of wisdom from me there, was just choosing the opposite of governance and democracy that mav is enthused by. I’m for the network aware stuff, network improves itself, or at least rejects governance and democracy from the humans 
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I just run for the hills when anyone pushes ‘governance’ probably just poor word choice for this topic (I hope) it implies the very elitist control mechanisms this network is looking to sidestep.
Technically, I’ll just watch @neo pick away at your RFC…he’s the best at that 
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I find this idea pretty interesting. My initial impulse is that PA gets us into game theory and nash equilibriums that I think better represent evolving towards more and more adaptive behaviors. But maybe there is a way to “play god” and have an algorithm just do it without all the messy mistakes in that kind of random evolution.
edit: having meditated on this for a bit I think PA should be the “nature” we live in. That is not to say you couldn’t employ algorithms to determine you strategy in PA. So one could say the algorithms CAUSE the price but the arena where this action happens is PA. Then instead of trying to get the right algorithm in 1 try, it is a competition with rewards for success many players compete in to try to find it.
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What’s scary is the precedent this creates. A financial incentive is one of the strongest motivators for collusion. Once behaviour like this becomes almost fundamental to participating in the network, I can easily see this extending into other areas.
Vault operators having collusion experience from day one would be more comfortable colluding for other purposes. Social media would the vehicle used to manipulate already colluding node operators into shaping the network the way they see fit. The principles of the orginal design of SAFEnet quickly disappear.
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well its kinda like the prisoners dilemma (Prisoner's dilemma - Wikipedia) … If people can’t assure somehow the other party will collude (and likewise somehow they have you in check to) the best strategy is to never collude. I don’t see how I could know for certain no one is going to betray for profit in this proposed system other then 1 thing… over many repetitions you could reward people for colluding last time and punish them for not. If we only play the game once always betray is without a doubt the optimal strategy. But we are playing it quite a few times which does make this something of a concern.
I think the counterpoint here is that assumes you will be playing the same opponent next time. So the concern is most valid when the network is small. When the network is large it would be very difficult to exert enough influence that people truly felt coerced by your rewards/punishment to cooperate with you.
was just reading though all the older comments here and @neo pointed out that perhaps an APP might emerge that mandates collusion. I just don’t see how it gains traction though. As an self-interested individual I just keep on betraying and gaining a larger slice of the pie. If some fools want to work together to pay a cost and make the pie bigger why do I feel compelled to participate? I am just like ya thanks for all your work now I will profit from it and not participate in the cost part.
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I imagine it this way. Upon introduction to SAFE I am almost immediately made aware of profit manipulation via collusion. A few months go by and a world shaking event occurs in relation to SAFE. All are called to arms. At first a proposal to shut down SAFE is presented. Being too profitable or useful the plan is then switched to world wide collusion for the sake of censoring. 80 percent of the developed world glued to their screens now exposed to the strategy more readily participate due to their perception of the source being valid. The collusion event being successful now opens the door to more and more data manipulation the network. SAFE dies. 
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ya true it is a new way humans are touching it so now there is a point for us to be irrational and mess it up 
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+1 to this, I am all on board with constantly thinking on these and iterating and coming up with great ideas. But I think the community and MaidSafe need to realize an end to end product that meets the initial fundamentals in the very easiest to design/implement manner possible. It may not be perfect or pretty but if it does what the fundamentals set out that will be a win. Then with a basic network in place and growing, people see it can exist then fund the iterations of newer major versions with major overhauls that add insane cool functionality. Same idea other successful cryptos take. Look at ETH, they launched a network that ran into many scale issues but they got out there and it paid off huge for them as the 2nd legitimate project, not your average grand pappy’s “altcoin” realistically at this point. Then they have been iterating on ETH v2.0 with POS now. That’s how projects should be ran that don’t intend to get left behind.
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I am not too worried about this. The dev team has made a decision recently to basically release use cases as quickly as possible. That’s why Fleming is now exciting to me as an investor and not just like oh good for you another boring test.
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In prisoner’s dilemma this is only true if there is no mechanism to punish the “cheater”. In other words, cheating is the strategy that strictly dominates so long as there are no repeat games and there’s no way to enforce negative ramifications for disloyalty. Take the mafia, for example. Cheating (i.e. testifying) is often punished by execution, so people are often willing to go to jail and not testify rather than take the plea deal.
If farming evolves like mining in which there are massive farming collectives that know their constituent members (e.g. mining pools like Antpool or Slush) then it is possible to punish “cheaters”. This, in turn, reinforces collusion.
We know that monopolies, oligopolies and other anti-competitive structures are inefficient (i.e. generate deadweight loss), but people practice them anyway because wealth and power are relative. People are willing to limit the overall size of the pie if it means they can have a larger slice.
If the door is left open for collusion, it will happen. Quite likely, there may not be any feasible method to inhibit all forms of collusion on the SAFE Network, but the design should at least try to avoid systems that are easy to game. This forum has a lot of smart people. If they can so quickly dismantle the system to find an easy loophole for exploitation, I think that should give us all pause.
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I agree with all of this… except that this system actually offers a viable way to punish cheaters without already having a partial-monopoly where it is no longer really a decentralized system anyways.
unlike blockchains there is not incentive to join a pool to farm on the SAFE network (as far as I know) and even if there was I would join the betray the other pools pool. If the number of players goes down collusion does become more feasible but I still think it is no where near easy.
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Why did you claim it is incoherent just because you disagree. Its pretty simple to see. You did a hand wave to belittle the problem. It is a real problem and I will reiterate the problem below so people reading the topic can see it for themselves after you handwaved it away
When people realise that if enough vaults join a coordinated group then they can raise their bid prices then there will be one or more APPs written to facilitate this coordination.
The simple method is for the APP to do the coordination, the people use the APP
- when enough in one section are using the APP then they can be the majority and push the bid price up
- The APP will be talked about on social media
- People who were on the fence about running a vault will now see they can help manipulate the reward amount to make a lot more then minimum amount.
- YES it will require enough on each section
- YES there will be some sections that take a long time to get enough and there will be others that will have enough quickly.
- Once its shown to be working the APP will go viral and basically most people will use the APP.
- Image you made an APP that could manipulate the loto so everyone could get similar wins and done by enough people using the APP.
- once it was shown that it worked
- everyone would jump on the APP and loto would have to close down.
- Of course you cannot do that to loto, but imagine you could.
Maybe because if a method/premise allows the abuse then is there any use for the whole system.
But handwaving away the abuse of the system when it is very much a valid point of discussion. If you disagree then thats OK too. And if you want to discuss “Part II” then do so and I have not discussed that with you at all so I am not dismissing part II. But while you discuss my points then I have valid reasons to continue the discussions. That does not mean I have or have not any opinions on “Part II”
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Overall, I don’t think we disagree either. How centralizing forces might lead to gaming of the Network is a question I’ve raised before, and @Neo helped address:
That being said, it sounds as though the ability to prevent collusion is dependent on network size and composition (i.e. is the network large and distributed enough?) as well as how MaidSafe designs the reward structure. Most people seem to prefer expending the least amount of energy/effort possible. So, I think it’s only natural that the Network will trend towards centralization as a “few” people who are willing to exert more effort than the average person end up providing a larger proportion of the resources (i.e. farming) to the Network. We can’t expect the Network to naturally grow in a fragmented rather than concentrated fashion unless the reward structure sufficiently dis-incentivizes such. This brings us back to the matter of designing a reward structure that can’t be so easily gamed.
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For attacking the network then I would agree. But for raising the reward amounts then the issue changes to most (nearly all) ordinary people wish to earn more and an APP would allow this for a bidding system such as this.
And this also makes it viable for the google (data centre) attack to work since they could flood the network with lots of coordinated vaults and see some sections able to have their reward amounts manipulated. They do not need to be elders since it is a super majority decision of the bidding nodes.
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