Proof-Of-Merit - Part1 The prequel

Hello guys,

I'm sick and have to stay in my bed but I can't keep myself unproductive, so I would like to share with you the first part of my vision behind the Proof-Of-Merit, the ethical overlay for Steem. I'm thankful to my friends and particulary @cnylmz who inspired me and participated to my monologs to help me to go forward about this subject.

I'm not good philosopher as kebabist (so consider this like a draft) but I always had some strong conviction about justice, freedom, and you will know today why I came up to the conclusion that there is no possibility to have collective freedom without any justice and why I decided to build an ethical overlay for Fundition.

1. THE SCHOOL - THE FIRST EXAMPLE

The school is conceived as an institution and it tends to be a democratic and meritocratic system, following the conception of equity and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Unfortunately, I had not the chance to have an academic learning, my family model and my social environment forced me to leave the school when I was 13-14 years old. That gave me another prism of vision and some unwanted experiences, but today with my entourage and my experience I can question some aspect and factors of academic success.

Do the merit permit us to success and/or do we always obtain merit when we success?
Are our personal efforts or the social environment?
Are the chances of success equal for everyone?

Everyone can have different answers to the two first questions. But there is no doubt about the answer to the third question and about the chance to success at school depending on the answer to others. Furthermore, school is also a place to select the future elites of our system and by the way triggering social inequalities. It would be probably different if we had only one school for everyone but this is too much utopist to be developped here.

1. THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN - THE SECOND CASE

Steem provides a scalable blockchain protocol for publicly accessible and immutable content, along with a fast and fee-less digital token (called STEEM) which enables people to earn the currency by using their brain, what can be called “Proof-of-Brain”.
In the field of crypto-currencies, the unique properties of STEEM make it both “smart” and “social”compared to others, such as bitcoin and ether. This stems from two new token features. The first is a pool of tokens dedicated to incentivizing content creation and curation (called the “rewards pool”). The second is a voting system that leverages the wisdom of the crowd to assess the value of content and distribute tokens to it.

My first account was created in July 2016 when my friend @ekitcho told me about it, I can say I misunderstood Steem and his ecosystem, leading me to continue to work on my side as consultant for big companies. Since the last year I paid more attention to the blockchain and specifically to Steem, and in result I'm like many of you.... thinking about how to improve this great system.

So in a second time I can question some aspect and factors of success on Steem but they look pretty same as the first example of school since Steem tend to be a democratic system.

Do the merit permit us to success and/or do we always obtain merit when we success?
Are our personal efforts or the social network?
Are the chances of success equal for everyone?

Depending on your experience, one more time, you can have differents answers to those questions and even if inequalities are present on Steem (distribution, circle jerk, etc..), we are on the same level for most of us and so, have the same chance to success, according to our merit and to the value that we bring to others/our mirrors.

1. PROOF OF BRAIN - THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED
   The current posting/voting system tend to privilege the social network, but it also put limitation for many new users.
   The Proof of Brain, as abstract concept, is the first incentive which push people to user their intellectuality to gain money. But this does not guarantee any deontology in the approach bringed from the user.
   Following the last point, there is also no real ethical or moral guidelines on Steem. In consequence people are totally free which is a good point, and in fact they can abuse of the system (so abusing from all the community) without any fear of being caught.
   Finally, Proof Of Brain does not guarantee any sort of community value, nor any sort of justice, it privileges the individual value rather.

2. THE MERIT
   The idea of ​​merit: "Being deserved" is being rewarded with regard to the quality of the contribution, or the efforts made in relation to the difficulty of the task. "To have deserved it" is to be rewarded or, on the contrary, punished for the same reasons.
   Commonly, saying "you deserved it" is like saying "you got what you merit, what is just! "

An important point to get clever, there are two essentials factors (but that not all) which contribute to merit: the talent and the effort of individual, which can be used in different proportions (ideally the quality of the efforts of the individual allows him to take benefit from the talents he owns). Our societies, democratic for most of them tend to be labor societies where values are equality and freedom.
In this context, the value is placed on the work rather than the gifts and so even the merit itself.

To say "to each according to his merit" is to suppose three things:
a) Rewarding someone for his efforts or the usefulness of his talents.
b) Men are free and equal in fact they have the same rights and their natural abilities are not so far apart, we can even say they are less decisive than their efforts. If you are good but you do not work you will be less successful than if you are less good but you work a lot.
c) In consequence there are some inequalities, that there are legitimate inequalities: which originate from personal merit.

The qualities of merit seem obvious to humanity: it appears the most just, the most moral and the most useful based on the principles of true justice.

Aristote pointed out that if being fair is to respect equality, it is not to give everyone the same thing, but to treat everyone the same way: it would be unfair to give the same salary to two individuals having worked or unequivocally successful, or who have unparalleled skills or responsibilities.

But we can also mention John Rawls in the Theory of Justice.

John Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition, although he takes a different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves, so they cannot tailor principles to their own advantage: "...no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance." According to Rawls, ignorance of these details about oneself will lead to principles that are fair to all. If an individual does not know how he will end up in his own conceived society, he is likely not going to privilege any one class of people, but rather develop a scheme of justice that treats all fairly. In particular, Rawls claims that those in the Original Position would all adopt a maximin strategy which would maximise the prospects of the least well-off. In chapter forty-seven, Rawls makes his final clarification on the principles of justice in one paragraph: "First Principle: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. These principles are lexically ordered, and Rawls emphasizes the priority of liberty. The first principle is often called the greatest equal liberty principle. The second, until (b), the difference principle and the final addendum in (b) the equal opportunity principle. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle.

The stipulation in (b) is lexically prior to that in (a). This is because equal opportunity requires not merely that offices and positions are distributed on the basis of merit, but that all have reasonable opportunity to acquire the skills on the basis of which merit is assessed, even if one might not have the necessary material resources - due to a beneficial inequality stemming from the difference principle.
It may be thought that this stipulation, and even the first principle of justice, may require greater equality than the difference principle, because large social and economic inequalities, even when they are to the advantage of the worst-off, will tend to seriously undermine the value of the political liberties and any measures towards fair equality of opportunity.

The concept of the veil of ignorance has been in use by other names for centuries by philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant whose work discussed the concept of the social contract. John Harsanyi helped to formalize the concept in economics,[4][5] and argued that it provides an argument in favor of utilitarianism rather than an argument for a social contract.[6] The modern usage was developed by John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice.[7][8]
Source : wikipedia

Can we substitute another principle, and if so, which one? Is the formula "to each according to his needs" more just and desirable, given the ideals of democracy? If this is not the case, what solution can be given to the problem of social justice in democratic societies?

In fact a need can be identified or satisfied by some material or some services. Thinking to need is supposing that human can be happy with what the society have to deliver him.
If we act like that, we forget the human and his infinite desir possibilities. I mean there are tons of desires which cant be satisfied by some materials… starting by mines.

1. PROOF OF MERIT - THE OVERLAY FORMULA

What is right is to reward everyone at their merit, so basically what is right is merit !

What can be the principle of justice of a system like Steem? Saying to everyone take what you need, giving a way or a tool to each individuals to express himself, making them blossom, instead of formatting them with some random criteria,is to be humanist and generous but this can be also be devastator..

In my opinion the merit is the most useful criteria for a society. A practice of egalitarian retribution would have detrimental effects on its economic efficiency, thus on the well-being of individuals and on the opportunities offered to them. When everyone is assured to get an equal pay regardless of their personal involvement and performance, they are all decentived to give their best.
In contrary, the competition of each individual induces emulations that society will benefit from.

A society, therefore, has every interest in giving merit to its principle of distribution of income and social positions, which is also a peaceful way of regulating the natural rivalry of individuals. It therefore seems well-established that in democratic societies there is an identity between justice and merit; and that consequently all the inequalities are not unjust, since those which originate from the merit of the individual are legitimate.

It happens, however, that individuals fail, having given their maximum; so can we ignore the influence of the social network in the success or failure of some?
We must then examine whether success is attributable to the individual and to himself alone, if it depends only on his will to succeed or fail, and if the form of democracy implied by the meritocratic principle gives all an equal chance to succeed.

a) Is the formula still right, if we consider the case of the one who fails by having done everything possible or in contrary the case of the one whose success is favored from the beginning by an advantageous social network situation? How can it be right as long as there are inequalities?

b) Is the formula still true, considering the social network factors that promote or hinder success, which casts doubt on the idea of responsibility? More generally, are the behaviors of social actors free or determined by the system?

c) Is the formula still morally sustainable if we consider that the merit produces and, above all, legitimizes inequalities that will have the consequence of excluding from the exercise of power those who are less successful and depriving them of the mastery of the conditions of their life?

d) The veil of ignorance? How to adapt the formula to the Steem Blockchain while keeping the principles of freedom?

To continue...