Lessons From A 10-year DAO

--- tags: web3 --- # Lessons From A 10-year DAO ***Learnings from a decentralized civic organization*** The answer is no, DAO has not existed that long. “The DAO” was created by a few members of the Ethereum foundation in 2016, the project didn’t survive, but the name did. DAOs might not have been around that long, but the concept of decentralization has been mentioned many times in history, the word “décentralisation” first appeared in French literature in 1820s, later also mentioned in the French Revolution, the history lesson can be found on Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization). The concept may have been around for long, but very few in the world can be considered decentralized organizations before 2016, g0v was one of the few. g0v is a decentralized civic organization that has had many successes in the realm of open data and civic innovation. The organization was started by a group of Taiwanese hackers in Oct 2012. At its 10th anniversary event, several were brought back to a panel to review how decentralization has worked for g0v in the past 10 years. The panel was moderated by Isabel Hou, a long time g0v contributor, joined by the founder of g0v, CL Kao, the minister of digital affairs, Audrey Tang, and the organizer of da0, Noah Yeh. The topic of the panel is “g0v as a DAO, 10 years of exploration”. The audience of this panel is the g0v community, and the main goal was to bring the questions of decentralization within the community to the panelists for discussion. This article you’re reading is not a transcript, it is a summary mainly written by Noah, in case of bias. ## Why and how did g0v decide to become a decentralized organization? g0v had many choices, it could have been an association or a legal entity for the convenience of operations and resource seeking. But due to the inclinations core members had adopted from open source communities, the desire to have bigger impact, and the insistence on diversity, the community chose to become a decentralized organizations over others. ## What was the source of g0v’s momentum for the past 10 years? CL Kao along with a couple other early contributors wrote an article right before the event https://matters.news/@ipawei/341336-%E5%8D%81%E5%B9%B4%E8%A7%80%E5%AF%9F-g0v-%E7%9A%84%E5%97%A8%E8%88%87%E9%AC%86-bafyreidlyoqitilfyjsw4kj4yqgyjn3452a6xarrho7kioer7hc665lzrm reviewing this 10-year journey of g0v. “High agency” individuals were mentioned as a concept in the article. Such individuals has the tendency to take actions first, this characteristic is usually rewarded by participation of other community members. Building on top of each other’s open source projects without permission was the norm, the initial milestone for these individuals are also minimized in expectation of future collaborators, together it made building easier. High agency individuals have always been the main source of momentum. ## Is decentralization still important to the g0v community? Noah’s recent research and interviews with core g0v members have shed some light on this question. The level of belief in decentralization varies in the community, however the motivation for most contributors start with self realization. Contributors want to grow into the type of person they’d like to become, and decentralization gives the most room for everyone to do so. Building a decentralized organization is like growing a forest, a forest does not interfere with the growth of a certain tree, but there’s still the problem with resource allocation. If we want to build a decentralized organization, we should minimize interference with self realization, inspire with collective missions, and explore appropriate ways to allocate resources. ## What are the challenges of g0v now? Challenges include bringing decentralization to the Taiwanese society, situational shifts between centralization and decentralization, and reliance on centralized communication and documentation tools. After 10 years g0v is still trying to bring more public opinions into the government, vTaiwan was a success and now we need new ways to accomplish this goal. The shifts between centralization and decentralization, while being a must, still causes controversies and confusion from time to time, whether there is a balance is yet to be discovered. The reliance on centralized tools can seemingly be solved by the adoption of web3 technologies, transitioning g0v community to such tools then becomes the challenge. ## In 2019, g0v changed its manifesto describing itself as a polycentric instead of a decentralized community, is this admitting to failing at decentralization? If we ever believe “This is decentralized enough.”, then we’re moving towards centralization. Only if we believe more is always merrier are we moving towards decentralization. Centralization and decentralization will always be relative, the manifesto declares the hopes for appearance of more “centers”, we are facing the right direction. Utopia translates to “No place”, but it does not mean we should not pursuit ideals. ## Is centralization always evil? Is decentralization always better? In Vitalik’s article “DAOs are not corporations” https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/09/20/daos.html , he pointed out decentralized and centralized decision making are appropriate under different scenarios, during time of crisis there might not be room or time to reach consensus, and without decentralization we might not be able to come up with innovative precautionary measures that would make scalable impact. Taiwan has not forgotten about the White Terror Period, every time this topic is discussed the people would lean a little more towards a decentralized world, but we don’t know what will happen in 50 years. ## Is g0v a DAO? Should we lean more towards web3? Whether g0v be called a DAO might not be important, by definition it can certainly be a DAO, and a very successful and sustainable one, the worst thing da0 can possibly do is to change what’s already working. However web3 can certainly help resolve some of the challenges g0v is facing, including incentivizing contributors, which da0 consider to be a strength of web3. The tricky part is not to change g0v’s culture by introducing web3, web3 needs to find ways to help, not to web3 for web3’s sake. ## Is Web3 just singing the same old song? J.C.R. Licklider or Doug Engelbart both have written about similar topics extensively long ago, now new contributors are using new technology to realize the dreams Audrey and CL had years ago, possibly with less friction, we believe this is a good thing. Whenever we encounter new possibilities towards the same mission, we can either give up or try again, the key is to learn from the past, I believe we will choose to try again. ## What is decentralization? Panelists talked about decentralization being an inclination, a tool, an ideal, it can be implemented technically, socially, eventually becoming the democracy layer of society. In the end, decentralization is an option, an option g0v is still choosing. Video of this panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zegRf_BmmA&t=1006s --- # 十年 DAO 的經驗教訓 ***去中心化公民組織的十年歷程*** 答案是『不』，DAO 並沒有存在那麼久。 “The DAO”是由以太坊基金會的一些成員在 2016 年創建的，這個專案沒有存活下來，但 DAO 作為一個名詞卻被持續使用。 DAO 出現的時間可能不長，但去中心化的概念在歷史上已經被多次提及，“去中心化”一詞最早出現在 1820 年代的法國文學中，後來在法國大革命中也有提及，如果想上歷史課的話，可以在維基百科找到更多資訊（https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization）。去中心化組織的概念可能已經存在很長時間了，但在 2016 年之前，世界上很少有團體可以自稱是去中心化的組織，而零時政府就是其中之一。零時政府是一個去中心化的公民組織，在開放數據和公民創新領域取得了許多成功。組織於 2012 年 10 月由一群台灣黑客發起。在 10 週年紀念活動中計畫了一個論壇，重新討論過去 10 年零時政府的去中心化如何發揮作用。小組討論由零時政府長期貢獻者 Isabel Hou 主持提問，參與人包括零時政府發起人高嘉良、數位發展部部長唐鳳及 da0 發起人葉向林。小組討論的主題是『g0v as a DAO, 去中心化社群十年探索與未來追尋』。這個論壇的聽眾主要是零時政府社群，目標是將社群內對去中心化的疑惑帶到論壇討論。妳正在閱讀的這篇文章不是逐字稿，而是主要由葉向林撰寫的摘要，也做提醒以防內文有偏見。[這裡你可以看到完整的討論錄影。](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zegRf_BmmA&t=7s) ## 零時政府為什麼決定成為一個去中心化的組織？零時政府當初有很多選擇，可以創建協會或法人單位，方便營運和也容易尋求資源。但由於核心成員對開源社群的偏好、希望產生更大影響力、以及對多元的堅持，當初的成員選擇成為一個去中心化的組織。 ## 過去 10 年零時政府的能量主要從何而來？高嘉良和其他幾位早期貢獻者在十週年活動開始前寫了一篇文章 https://matters.news/@ipawei/341336-觀察-g0v-的嗨與松-bafyreidlyoqitilfyjsw4kj4yqgyjn3452a6xarrho7kioer7hc665lzrm 回顧了零時政府的十年歷程。文章中提到了“嗨咖（High agency）”的概念。嗨咖們偏好不管先做的行動主義，這個特質通常會因其他社群成員的參與而得到回報。未經許可的狀態下在彼此的開源項目上堆疊建立成為常態，同時也讓初始的目標被切小、更容易一起達到，因為有其他人一同努力。嗨咖一直是社群能量的主要來源。 ## 去中心化對零時政府社群仍然重要嗎？葉向林近期的研究和對核心成員的採訪讓他看到了部分的答案。社群裡對去中心化的相信程度有高有低，但是大多數貢獻者的動機都是從自我實現開始的。貢獻者希望成長為他們想成為的那種人，而去中心化為每個人的自我實踐提供了最大的發展空間。建立一個去中心化的組織就像種一片森林，一片森林不會去干擾一棵樹的生長，但資源分配仍然是個問題。如果我們想建立一個去中心化的組織，我們應該盡量減少對貢獻者自我實現的干擾，用願景及使命來激勵引導，同時不斷探索最適當的資源分配方式。 ## 零時政府正面臨哪些挑戰？近期挑戰包括如何將去中心化更深入的帶入台灣社會、中心化與去中心化之間因不同情境而需作出的轉移，以及對中心化溝通及記錄工具的依賴。 10 年後，零時政府仍在努力將更多的民意引入政府，vTaiwan 當初雖然取得了成功，但現在我們需要新方法來重新實現這個目標。中心化與去中心化的情境選擇雖然是必要的，但仍不時引起爭議和困惑，是否能找到平衡仍然是個未知數。對中心化工具的依賴似乎可以利用 web3 的技術來解決，屆時將零時政府社群轉移到此類工具上就成了另一個挑戰。 ## 2019 年，零時政府修改了宣言，將自己描述為一個多中心而不是一個去中心化的社群，這是承認去中心化失敗了嗎？如果我們曾相信『這已經足夠去中心化了』，那麼我們正在走向中心化。只有當我們相信更多總是更好時，我們才是在走向去中心化的路上。中心化和去中心化永遠是相對的，宣言宣稱希望出現更多的『中心』，代表我們正朝著去中心化的方向邁進。烏托邦可以直翻為“沒有這個地方”，但這並不意味著我們不應該持續追求理想。 ## 中心化總是邪惡的嗎？去中心化總是更好嗎？在 Vitalik 的文章『DAO 不是公司』https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/09/20/daos.html 中，他指出去中心化和中心化的決策各自適合不同的情況，危機時期多半沒有有空間或時間達成共識，但如果危機時期外沒有去中心化的想法，我們可能永遠無法提出更創新的預防措施。台灣沒有忘記白色恐怖時期，每次討論這個話題，人們都會更傾向於去中心化的世界，但五十年後會發生什麼，就沒有人知道了。 ## 零時政府是 DAO 嗎？我們應該追逐 web3 嗎？零時政府是否被稱作 DAO 可能並不重要，根據定義，它肯定可以被稱作是一個 DAO，並是一個非常成功且可持續自主營運的 DAO，da0 可以做出最糟糕的事情大概就是改變已經成功運作的模式。然而，web3 當然可以幫助解決零時政府面臨的一些挑戰，包括貢獻者的激勵機制等，盡力善用 web3 的優勢。棘手的部分是在引入 web3 時要注意不能改變零時政府的貢獻文化，web3 需要找到幫的上忙的地方，而不是為了 web3 而 web3。 ## Web3 只是老調重彈嗎？ J.C.R. Licklider 或 Doug Engelbart 很久以前就廣泛地撰寫過相關的主題，現在 da0 的新夥伴正在使用 web3 新技術來實現唐鳳和高嘉良多年前的夢想，我們相信這是一件好事。每當我們在同一個使命中遇到新的可能性時，要麼放棄，要麼繼續嘗試，關鍵是要吸取教訓，相信我們會選擇繼續嘗試。 ## 去中心化的意涵是什麼？論壇聊到去中心化是一種傾向、一種工具、一種理想，它可以在技術上、社會上實施，最終也可能成為社會的民主層。最後，去中心化只是一個選項，一個零時政府仍在選擇的選項。 Video of this panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zegRf_BmmA&t=1006s