We all know politics is a nasty thing. Once we are in dynamics of power, nothing else matters. That's interesting to watch people commiting every imaginable wrongdoing just to get to or stay in power. It's like a race in which wins those who enact humanity while loosing it the most. Supposedly, if you are good in that skill then you should be good and wise ruler. However nobody is superhuman, and the whole endevour is just a meticulously constructed theatre. In fundamentally anarchic and jungle-like environment of global politics, we are entering with the fall of US hegemony we can see these truth magnified. It pays off to be the most ruthless motherfucker out there.
I used to be mad at this when I was younger. I detested I despised politics in any shape and form, and it took me some time to make peace with this reality. I considered another optics. Hierachical structures exist not because are fair, but because are extremely efficient in certain conditions. Even more. I started to fell gratitude towards people who decided to play the game of power, since everybody knows it is a dirty and ungrateful way of living. The more power you want the more is there to sacrifice. Getting to position of power is in some way comparable to voluntarily giving up your sanity. Why? Paraphrasing words of Robert Anton Wilson: everybody lies to people in power, some are afraid and others want to gains something. This creates detachment from reality. In extreme cases of absolute power people end in absolute madness. Do you have somebody on your mind right now? And since somebody had to do it, then it's really nice of suit-people they do that for us, right? That's how I put that together building my inner peace.
A big part of this peace, was ability to put that in the past tense. And that wouldn't be possible if I wouldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, I can see ideas that can free us from power dynamics in the long run. Of course breaking thousands years old dynamics can't be done in the matter of weeks, and these ideas demand testing and improving on. And luckily here we are, and here we have bunch of people believing in the better world to come. At the same time we can see clearly that old ways are not going to be successful anymore, this is the end of the cycle. No, I don't mean crypto here.
The new world must be built to be safe from the old world threat. Hence, decentralization, cryptography, redundant validators around the world, multiple frontends, ability to fork out the network. Safety and security is necessary to build further on it. It nice when it's there by default.
HIVE
The first big change brought to power dynamics by Hive is (finally) some accountability. Anybody in the position of power can be voted off in the matter of minutes, there is no election cycles, empty promises or pardoning your family (lol). In the other words, there is no incentive to be a bad player. This is similar to the idea known as liquid democracy and keeps people at check. Connect that with verifiable track record kept on the blockchain.
When we are at incentives, here comes second big change. Sometimes you can see allegations that Hive is oligarchy. Sure, Gini coeficient here is rather high, but the issue here is more complex. It's much harder here to use your financial advantage towards your personal goals. Why? It doesn't really matter how much you have, it's more important how much are you willing to stake, and since there is 13 weeks locking period (crucial for the network security) anybody wanting to influence the ecosystem needs to make sure it won't harm the community. Otherwise, coins of that person are at risk too. This introduces ownership mindset and personal responsibility in the realm of power. Something unheard of before, right? BTW, this is why I believe only witnesses with significant stake in Hive are worth our votes.
Another interesting aspect is openess of the political scene. New players can come and go and in relatively short time they can create their name and position on their own, simply by contributing to the network. It's very rare in legacy politcs, where system is maintained by gatekeepers. Since there is no way to censor Hive, political contenders cannot be silenced or removed. The game is much clearer for stakeholders. Yes, I like to think about citizens as of country's stakeholders.
And there, finaly comes the last crucial thing, the decisive algorithm. We have 20 consensus validators and one random guarding the law. Code is the law, so version of software dictates frame and structere of Hive. There comes additional incentive for people in power, 10% of inflation for validators. Big treasure to be lost in case of some malevolent action. So even if 17 of these 21 people would decide to create a coup, it wouldn't pay off because of the risk of being exposed by other players. In these case, potential wrongdoers would be voted off the validators list. Again it doesn't pay to be a bad actor.
It's crucial for the health of such ecosystem to maintain these features. However, since we don't live in an ideal world, we can see some problems. Hivers know what does it mean do be attacked. It's almost five years since Justin Sun found out you cannot buy a community. This was a big win for Hive, and luckily quite quickly we managed to patch the security breach that allowed such attack in the first place. However, there might be some threats, where the enemy is not that clear and obvious. Some problems might be hidden under the cover of unaligned incentives. Still, none of the validators is incentivisied to vote for code changes that would lessen their power.
Some numbers seems to be chosen completely arbitrally. Let's discuss witness voting. More votes than elected position creates this weird dynamics where several strong accounts hace disproportionally high influence on the outcome. 30 votes per person seems to be creating highly centralized outcomes in the environment without strong and numerous middle class. Yes, numbers show Hive is more and more decentralized in terms of stake. Unique and brilliant coin distribution system works as intended. However the pace of middle class growth is far from satisfying in this context.
Another thing is ammount of consensus witnesses, random witness is chosen to verify only once in 21 blocks, any higher number would create giher incentive to run nodes.
I'm not ready to defend these idea, this is just an example based on some half-baked intuitions, my point is different. It's about finding blindspots. It's about exploring scenarios. It's about flexibility and system theory.
Taking into account what's possible with Hive, this is still very early and experimental tech. Does it have all necessary flexibility? On-chain governance is like a constitution, it's not something that should be changed lightly or often. Hive is by for on top of solutions to problem of power dynamics and misaligned incentives. However, I believe that these topics should be visited from time to time to reconsider validity of procedures and parameters.