PLEASE NOTE:
The demo on my personal site works. However, actions must be taken daily. To demo the full app would take 30 days. You can see how it works over the full 30 days using the figma link. The other link is the github repo for the smart contracts and roughly styled react frontend.
Also, I'll be launching a more involved crypto project soon. If you'd like to here more about that you can add your info to this google form. https://forms.gle/87cFizoPCQnMKbrw5
Thank you for taking the time to review this submission!
Inspiration
In defining the social contract, Rousseau argues that unrestrained force is morally illegitimate. He goes on to argue that the body politic is composed of aligned personal incentives. Like well-informed participants of any prisoner's dilemma, we voluntarily cede our natural right to steal property through force, in order to afford ourselves a legal protection to our own property.
Interestingly, Rousseau also argues that authoritarian regimes are more likely to take hold when populations are spread out. Sufficient density of population makes conspiracy and revolution easier for would-be subjects of a regime based on force.
With the rise of surveillance capitalism, the question of surveillance economics becomes ever more pressing. The ability of cybernetic systems to both act and communicate at a distance, upends the geographic dynamics that laid the foundation for the politics described by Rousseau. It is clearer every day that a new form of governance is emerging.
The techno-authoritarian model is clear. In China, if you say enough anti-government rhetoric, your social credit score will fall so low you will no longer be able to buy plane and train tickets. You become locked in a prison cell the size of land you can walk to. This is not a hypothetical. China does this today.
The American and democratic model is still emerging. A democracy is required to survey the will of diverse populations; therefore, it requires more intricate managerial structures to exist. While a decree from a ruler needs only a single pen, parchment for officials, and the execution of that command by an enforcing body, a democracy needs a pen for each voter, analysis of opinions, and compilation of diverse views into a single body of law prior to enforcement.
However, I believe we will soon see the emergence of techno-democracy. A fascinating area, which may prove the garden of this governance, is crypto.
Democracy and decentralization are sibling signifiers. Their signified meaning is both multiplicitous and emergent. They are also upheld voluntarily and can, at any point, devolve to violence and force. It's only alignment of values and voluntary submission that keeps bitcoin from forking, and keeps democracy functioning. If you doubt the political truth of this, consider the legality of weed in several American states, despite its federal ban.
For that reason, it is interesting to construct a voluntary tax system using cryptocurrency. A playful toy-example—which alludes to both the state-of-nature violence, and personal restraint and discipline, which so characterizes collective submission to government—can be built to encourage people to exercise.
What it does
More specifically, we can build a simple crypto-currency app, in which people voluntarily contribute a tax to a special-interest-government. In this case the special interest is the physical health of the body politic. Membership in this government is global, as crypto is, and voluntary. It has a flat-tax of $1 a day for all party members. It incentivizes maintenance of the commons—physical health—by providing exercise grants to party members that exercise daily.
In simple terms, you commit to work out every day for 30 days. You spend $1 a day to do so. If you don't work out, your money is gone. If you do work out, you get your money back, plus money from the people who didn't work out.
How I built it
The idea comes from my brain. The smart contracts are written in solidity. I made the design in sketch. The front-end is written in react.
Challenges I ran into
Number one, I'm starting this two days before the deadline. So that's interesting. Will I finish? Only time will tell.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I haven't done anything yet... but like... I think it's a cool idea.
What I learned
Yeah... still haven't done anything... If you're reading this I just forgot to update the submission text before sending my code and all that.
What's next for Gym Bounty
The gym is a simple form of commons and voluntary taxation. I'd like to buy a park or city and make it a voluntary-government. Maybe a school. Basically, if this works I'll look for a part of government which could be rebuilt using the same approach, and I'll rebuild it.
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