The Tragedy of Truth
Trokt’s Ostrom approach to rewriting blockchain
Truth is the most valuable common resource underpinning our society. Good-bad, right-wrong, rich-poor, fair-fraud all depend on society accepting that truth exists. Truth is a resource that everyone has access to, yet becomes depleted when overused in support of individual interests. In our digital world, truth is currently in short supply.
From “Alt-Facts” to “proprietary data” to “Fake News,” the concept of truth as a common resource that we can all depend upon seems elusive. Of the more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that will be created just TODAY, most will exist in systems that are unaccountable to those they impact. Today IoT systems will tell us how comfortable we are, Social Mapping will tell us who we like, while Big Data will tell us if we are trustworthy, before potentially giving us completely different “truths” tomorrow. Technology is creating and rewriting histories without the shared anchors that build community.
Blockchain is supposed to change this fluidity of our technological reality. By making data immutable, blockchain can bring permanence to shared data. Yet current governance models that allow those with the most resources to define access skew reality for the unrepresented. When a supermajority of blockchain network hashrates are dominated by a handful of actors, the outcome will always be inequitable. When used as the basis for our digital reality, inequitable “truth” provides little more than shadows of agreement.
We built Trokt to remake the vessel that holds our communities’ truths. We saw truth in the digital world suffering the same fate described as the tragedy of the commons. From the mountains of data we create daily, many over use, some over share, and most overpower reality with manufactured positions. Our inability to believe our digital world due to the overuse of our seemingly endless supply of data is becoming our society’s tragedy of truth.
That is why we built Trokt to create a new public accountability grounded in the Ostrom principles that can protect the shared value of our digital truth.
The Neopublic Constitution of Truth
Trokt believes that digital “truth” only exists when it is collectively protected. This protection must rely upon a community consciousness of digital value, respect for privacy, and balanced progress. To achieve this protection, Trokt is a neopublic blockchain network that operates under the following principles.
P1. Trokt is a Network of pre-approved operators providing governance and ledger oversight (referred to as Nodes) that are complying with the terms of the Trokt Network Agreement.
P2. The Entity responsible for ensuring proper Node operation must be real and known.
P3. The Network administration costs paid each year by an Entity to ensure Network viability must be defined using a free-market methodology.
P4. Consensus on any Network decision is found when a Node’s Influence is accepted by other Nodes.
P5. Any Node may prevent any other Node from taking any action that would reduce Network value.
P6. Each Node Entity must establish a Node Governance Committee that takes actions on behalf of its Node.
P7. Any individual or organization who is authorized to submit data to the Node must have access to join its Node Governance Committee.
P8. Consensus on any Node Governance Committee decision is found when a Member’s Influence is accepted by other Members.
Chris Draper is the Managing Director of Trokt, and represents Node1 on the Digital Truth Governance Committee (DTGC) chaired by Prof Angie Raymond. Please click for more information on the Trokt Network or Contact Trokt to help the DTGC explore the benefits of Ostrom governance for community truth.
