CRISIS IN GOVERNANCE OF OPEN-SOURCE BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORMS

Hoskinson, Buterin, and other brilliant technologists have founded organizations in the blockchain space that are now struggling to deal with issues of governance. As I've been watching the Ethereum community struggle to be inclusive as it evolves the code base, particularly within the core developers group facilitated primarily by a delegate from the Ethereum Foundation, argument is subtly muted in order to arrive at consensus. As other vested interests show up at the calls, such as representatives from the "magicians" group, the tone changes and a competitive edge changes the tone of the call. If Vitalik shows up, there is an implicit deference paid to him and his input. None of this is due to any of the actors being mean spirited or attempting to subvert open discussion. The decisions to be made, such as the current problem of determining whether to address whether generic or specific processing hardware to mine (essentially add links to the chain and thus be rewarded with Ethereum tokens that have real value) is really a discussion about how much free market forces should be given free rein in a world where capitalists might cheat and centralize power similarly to how Facebook and Google have turned into behemoths that co-opt user data and overwhelm innovators. 

In the late sixties and early seventies, NTL and other training organizations in the US and folks from Tavistock in England experimented with leaderless groups. In that era, a good many cooperative living experiments were tried. Some therapeutic communities also experimented with leaderless groups. I was active in that era as we developed a leaderless therapeutic community within the Virginia Penitentiary system. It was a hard slog. Many of our paid staff abandoned the project for less conflict laden work and some of our community members did not succeed. Of course, our hope was that the best decisions would emerge and the best ideas for growth and development would rise to the top. And in may instances that was true; but here is what we found we had to do.

1. The temporary convener or designated leader or coordinator would be term limited. Every three months, the community selected a new person for the role. You can imagine the initial resistance of the folks who had the role. They argued that their effort and awareness of the various forces and interests were needed for continuity. The surprise was that there were others who had been watching and thinking about better ways to do the "work", and they would step into the vacuum. I think Vitalik is trying to do this with his role, but others in the Foundation are unwilling to draw back and offer space.

2. Nobody would be allowed a free ride when conflict emerged. They would have to defend their position until they agreed to forego it in the interest of the group or leave the group. They were not faulted for leaving. They were not faulted for disagreeing. It was a forced consensus and it was tedious and stressful; but the group moved well once the conflict was resolved. However, the community would schedule a review of conflict areas every six months or so in the event new information surfaced, new insights had occurred, or lobbying had changed the balance of power. Those who lost in a conflict knew they could continue the fight later if it was still important to them.

3. When it was clear there was a conflict that threatened to splinter the group, the group would call in a mediator with expertise in the subject matter who would provide a list of pros and cons for each position and how any other organizations had resolved it and the consequences of that resolution.

4. The purpose of the group was not for fun (personal pleasure) or self-promotion, or narcissistic gratification. It was for work. We did not entertain news about life events or outside interests in the course of our work; that was done outside the process of the group. If the purpose was violated, one of us would simply say..... "That is not why we're here. Let's get back to our agenda."

5. Because praise and approval are a need of every group member, we concluded every session with a validation of the actual and real contributions made by any of the participants. Sometimes this would be contaminated by personal alliances or conflicts or other agendas. If that were the case, one of us would ask the purveyor of contamination to be more specific about the praise. This rapidly shut down the extrinsic noise. 

I own Ethereum. I support the goals and the mission as I understand it. It is time for the processes in the organization to grow and mature.