Bootstrapping The Foundation
I declare The Foundation for the Appreciation of Human Genius.
The singular goal of The Foundation is to engineer and implement a metric of human genius, fair and equitable to all people Our foundational assertion is thus;
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.[1]
The Foundation asserts that our unalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – are impeded in practice by a measurement of value that is inherently unfair. All measurement of value has been based on the exchange of property, and property is unfairly distributed among people and nations of people. Property can never be an equitable measurement of value.
We assert that by creating a value system exclusive of property and inclusive of the free and open ideas of mankind, that we can form systems of governance for the appreciation of those ideas. The proportional responsibility for ideas can be traded. By creating a common unit of exchange between ideas, we can measure the value of those ideas relative to each other.
Why use a declaration that was hypocritical in practice to entire races and genders of mankind? In engineering terms, we must recurse on the hypocrisy and solve for the original constraints. Our ideal of equality can never be rectified when we value our fellow man by a measure of property unequally distributed at birth. We can choose to measure things differently, and I invite people to voluntarily join in this endeavor.
Currencies, banking, and high finance did not create value out of the nether. They were tools designed to solve problems of human value. Crypto has great application, but we need to think about how to solve the original problems of value and not recreate the same tools. This isn’t a problem constrained to crypto. All systems are subject to stagnation. This happens when we optimize on solutions instead of optimizing on the original problem.
Stake
I describe the private stake in asimov. It is money to be held for a period of ten years and will not be spent or leveraged. It will not be spent funding The Foundation. The stake is a challenge to the U.S. Government. I assert my right to trade in the responsibility for the appreciation of the ideas of mankind. I have made strong legal, historical, and practical arguments in asimov. The system is exclusive of property. This gives me the fundamental right, as declared by the founders, to gather others, wherever they may be, and with their consent, assume responsibility for the appreciation of those ideas for the future of mankind.
It’s science fiction stuff, like something Isaac Asimov[2] would dream up.
This plan is a recursive bootstrap. I don’t need lawyers to help me with the fundamental assertions. I need them to setup a legally acceptable system of escrow. Once we get a couple of whales on hook, we’ll get some lawyers to protect the money in a more formal system. For now, USD is held in a bank and the other currencies are held securely. Trust me, I’m from Texas.
Staking Codes
Staking codes have been issued. The first two hundred were sent primary to people I write about in asimov. I have issued some to people I meet who are interested in this project.
If you have a staking code, you may check it here:
Check Staking Code
The amount of money committed to the stake is not very important. The system works by measuring relative value. It’s more important to have many stakes than large stakes. The amount I’m aiming for is arbitrary. I don’t want to ask people for money based on the expectation of crypto type returns. It takes real responsibility to make this work, so I will only take money from people who understand the system I’ve proposed.
I came up with a solution.
Stage One
Dropping Dimes
I have created staking codes that are pre-staked for ten cents. I will contribute a total of twenty cents for each of those code used. Ten cents will go to the private stake. This stake is what we will use for the initial distribution of asimov [scoot(0)]. We incur no overhead in returning this money to the stakers should The Foundation fail to stake, as the funds come from me or other stakers who understand the nature of the stake.
In addition, we will stake ten cents for pre-stake Scoot. These are Scoot I’ve formed for some of my personal heroes. When you sign up, you have a chance to distribute those ten cents, in penny units, to each of these Scoot.
Once asimov is minted, and a distribution value is determined, these pre-stake scoot will be converted to the equivalent value in asimov and that asimov will be disturbed to the Scoot.
Anonymous Pledging
The private stake is the only opportunity for anonymous entities, corporations, governments, or aliens to commit to The Foundation. Only humans individuals can participate in the responsibility domain and the governance of Scoot. Users can make anonymous stakes, using a seven-word passphrase as the only means of identification of their stake. They may convert their anonymous stakes to pledge stakes, using their real name. There will be a deadline of at least 30 calendar days before the distribution date where anonymous stakers can covert. Unconverted scoot will become ghost scoot, eternally committed, intrinsic value in the system. Anonymous users will still be able to use asimov from their foundational stake, we will use these phrase codes to issue the distribution asimov.
As described in asimov, participants in the responsibility domain must be formally and deterministically identified to The Foundation. How and when this occurs will be determined at some future date, after the private stake is closed.
Prestake Scoot
To keep things simple, since we don’t have the protocol to manage the complexity yet, all prestake scoot use whole units that are equal to other units of the same Scoot. They have no special characteristics. The staking value is one penny each. Content and awards stakes of any value may be awarded according to rules established by the Scoot trustee.
Before distribution date, and after anonymous registration of prestake Scoot has closed, each Prestake scoot will hold elections and determine post-distribution organization. This will require a written charter and a genesis protocol block for the scoot-chain. Organizational types will be limited to those implemented in the initial protocol release.
Until that time, the trustee rules as a benevolent dictatorship with the right of delegation and may use any open means of communication to record the Scoot’s operation.
Prestake Scoot is just an excuse to have a party. Get behind your heroes and make some noise.
Point Guards
While I hope to form a consensus of values behind my personal heroes, we are creating value from all ideas. People who stake their own funds have a chance to create their own prestake Scoot or reserve a SNS (Scoot Naming System) index for their ideas in the future.
People who wish to prestake Scoot can drop their own dimes. I will issue staking codes to these pledges for par value of $0.20 each (5 for $1) and they can build their own scootage of pledges committed to their ideas. More people, not more money, is what it takes to make this system work.
Stage Two
Distribution Algorithm
Stakes are assigned indexes beginning with one, in the order they are staked. Each stake will receive a multiplier { (Number of stakes) – idx } as it’s assigned in order, unless the stake is determined to be a whale. A whale is any stake larger than idx[1] (10,000 USD). When the total distribution surpasses a value of $100 Million USD, then the total portion of asimov (5 billion asimov) will be distributed. The whales portion will be divided proportionally among the whales at a maximum 49% of total stake value. The remainder will be proportioned among the little people[3] according to their stake times the multiplier.
This staking plan is designed so that no corporation or non-human entity can control the system. I’m trying to ensure that I’ll be the engineer we elect. I believe I can build a system free from corruption and conflict. Anonymous stakes have no voice, their anonymity is an implicit approval of the system I’ve proposed in asimov. The first term engineer shall be elected by the pledges of The Foundation. This quorum will consist of the non-anonymous stakers of The Foundation.
Since I’m handing out the staking codes, I’m frontloading the deck. Openly. On purpose.
Whale Hunting
The chapter Staked in asimov was a challenge to the crypto whales, including Satoshi Nakamoto. They created this mess. I have a solution.
Nakamoto solved a technical problem with a clever solution. The problem was how to have trustless transactions.
What good is trustless transaction? What human problems are solved by less trust?
Instead, I propose to use the same technology for exchanging responsibility, the basis of trust.
That’s not to say crypto doesn’t have a use cases. When your choices are limited to national currencies printed by governments as political tools, it’s natural for innovative people to develop alternatives. Need is what drives innovation. It’s dangerous to use cash for illegal drug and weapons deals.
I think asimov can provide a base currency for all cryptocurrencies, so I invite whales, anonymous or internet famous, to stake my project. I’m sure the lawyers can find a way to make it official using a third party to hold keys, and we can make the address holding the stakes public, so the world can watch.
I hope the whales get the message. I’m not depending it, since reading, especially history, doesn’t seem to be high on the crypto-dweeb agenda. Instead, I’m going to use a technique I learned in 7th grade Texas History class. It’s known as Investigative Speculation.
What do we know about Satoshi? We know enough. The key to Investigative Speculation is breaking down the pieces you do know and putting them together with the right assumptions. How do you know when you’ve got the right assumptions? It’s usually almost always the ones that make the best story. That’s why we have so much good Texas History of events where everyone ended up dead. It’s a technique of necessity, something Texans are notoriously good at.
I will publish my journal of this investigation here. Hopefully I’ll hit a nerve, and Satoshi will be known to history as the pseudonym who ended five-thousand years of mankind fighting over property. Unless he’s dead. Just in case, I’ll include other characters in my investigation, recursive investigative speculation. That’s my contribution to the methodology of Texas History.
Seeding
The Foundation will seek seed money as the project demands. Before any outside seeding agreement is made, the members will vote on a pre-seed multiplier. This multiplier will be applied to out-of-pocket capital and time expenses members have accumulated up until that point.
Scoot
Scoot is a concept, creating value through an organization exclusive of property or ownership. Most crypto projects ask for money, then create a protocol, then issue tokens, and hope that some application will create value and inferred through the protocol.
We will we create real value first and then apply a protocol to measure that value. I’m going to stake my heroes. This is my personal value set. I welcome all to join me. If you have a great idea, think of ways to appreciate that idea without property. If you have something to say about a hero, say it first and as loud as possible. Passion reflects value.
Scoot is a vessel of genius. Scoot is a new type of enterprise, one that removes property from the measurement of human value. Scoot doesn’t require a protocol to work. All you need is passion for an idea.
Protocol
I’m working a protocol requirements document. My intention is to begin working on the protocol when certain organizational objectives are met. It shouldn’t take long to implement what I’ve proposed.
Next Steps
After demonstrating value, we will compose a charter. This charter will be ratified via protocol, as the first order of business, followed by election of the popular trustees.
Brandon Awbrey August 2nd, 2022
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[1] United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, 1776
[2] The application is probably more Stephenson or Liu.
[3] Little people, non-whales. Stakes worth $10,000 or less.