This is a writing in progress around combining consiounsness of humans and how we want to elevate it, and compare it to the systems we ourselves put in place to work as communities.

The two are not seperate. Self development needs to be possible in groups, like we all know teh balnece in a healthy community is fragile and can be disturbed by anyone that does not feel uplifted and growing as a person within the group.

Reputation systems have always created a bad gutfeeling in me. I had a hard time pinning down what it is clear enough to be able to explain it.

I gonna give it a go, since I for one love to have conversations about this, and this is just one point of view that probably raises more questions than answers.The answers we will need to find together.

Maybe its best explained with a story.

Ok, so it's Christmas, and the year 2023 is ending. My Christmas traditions change over the years, but there is one thing that I keep wherever I am. It's to watch the Christmas Carol. It's not about religion, it's not about santa claus, or any other fairytale. It's about choosing love over fear.

You might be asking yourself what does a Christmas story by Charles Dickens from 1843 have to do with reputation systems in DAO's?

Excellent question, and I will try to explain my view on this...(with mor questions.. ;)

DAO's (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations ) are a great playground and laboratories of how humans can organise, and put part of their trust system into automated "rules' of the community. Rules about decision making, ownership, contributions and value distribution. How do you decide who decides? and in what way, the existing voting systems of which the voting weight often is linked to the amount of value or ownership you have. Many DAO's are experimenting with decision weight based on other things than value distribution, systems like reputation. Reputation systems are highly dependent on the kind of behaviours or experience is valued in communities. A lot of people are thinking about universal digital reputation systems than you can use cross DAO's and in all your digital (wallet-linked) actions in the web3 world. Especially now when formats like soulbound and other non-transferable tokens come into play. You can mark different domains linked to your digital reputation. For example if you want to apply for a job, past diplomas and contributions to github or other demonstrable learnings can be useful, But for a regen community your count of hours dedicated to permaculture gardens could be more relevant. Soulbound tokens (or any other digital reputation system) can split up your reputation in those different domains and only show those things that are relevant.

As soon as we really start to standardise reputation systems, Like the regen score or gitcoin passport (which is more a verification than reputation in fact) My question always becomes philosophical. And am always very cautious if we are judging humans by their past actions. We do this in analogue society too. All the time. But here comes the link to Ebenezer Scrooge.

There is nothing more powerful than true change. I believe it connects us to our deepest knowledge of our human soul, that when you change your mind, everything changes.

How can we create "reputation systems" where your past actions do not weigh more than your current actions. Or even "staking" on future actions?

It works both ways. The person in prison that from the moment he or she is locked up, creates a tight community inside the prison walls around education and knowledge sharing.

Or when you have always been a "good" girl and did law school with excellent grades, but at some moment you decide to go against the system and take a bribe from a prosecutor.

We need to have the freedom to change, our minds, our behaviours and our lives. This is essential for human evolution. But how do we truly do this when society is counting on our "reputation" for future success? And in the way that for example, google is anticipating our behaviours, so even our future behaviour is manipulated based on our past "digital" actions thoughts search terms, conversations and all digital and analogue data input, that shapes googles version of your "personality". Are you truly free, when your current thoughts are partly shaped by anticipated behaviour patterns, from your google or meta digital "you".

Photo by Kultar Ruprai on Unsplash