True censorship-resistance by decentralizing neuron removal proposal type

[wpb]

Thanks for starting this conversation Jordan. I have a few preliminary thoughts…

@lastmjs

But the direct provisioning of the Internet Computer Protocol is still directly controlled by DFINITY/ICA based on my observations and understanding of the voting power DFINITY wields.

I think this is a true statement. Basically, if Dfinity were to cast votes on any topic that falls under the All Topics Except Governance “catch all”, then there is an Absolute Majority of votes cast through liquid democracy (actually almost 100%). The only two topics that I know of where this is not true currently are Motion proposals (which have no code change as you mentioned) and Register Known Neuron proposals, both of which fall under Governance topics.

@lastmjs

I also propose we increase or keep (not sure what it’s at now) the threshold for adoption on that topic and methods to 50%.

I think what you are trying to say here is that you think the rules of Absolute Majority should apply to proposal topics that enable removal of cannisters. That would require greater than 50% of total voting power in the NNS to vote Yes in order for it to happen. I don’t disagree, but this extremely difficult, if not impossible, based on current voter participation rates. I’ll explain more below.

@lastmjs

DFINITY has only been wielding ~25% voting power on the governance topic with default following disabled.

This is true for governance motion proposals. Dfinity actually owns about 22% of total voting power in the NNS according to @diegop in this forum topic.

The best example we have at this time of decentralization of the IC is the Governance topic. The most votes ever cast on any governance proposal since proposal 34485 was implemented (by way of code changes in proposal 44974) is 46% of total voting power. We have reached a plateau at this level of participation with the current tokenomics incentives. Hence, it is not currently possible for a Governance proposal to result in Absolute Majority because the incentives have not moved us to that level of decentralization yet.

I think it is important to ask how we arrived at the current level of decentralization for governance proposals because it helps foreshadow what types of changes that would be needed to enable this proposal to succeed. It’s not just removal of default following for the specific topic. There are 3 events that are required:

1. Removal of the topic from the All Topics “catch all” category
2. Weighting of that type of proposal topic higher than all other forms of routine business
3. People not following Dfinity on the proposal topic.

The first two events by themselves motivate a large portion of the governing body to re-configure their Followees for that topic. However, if the last event doesn’t happen it defeats the purpose of the first two events in regards to the decentralization objective you are describing.

I can think of only 4 reasons why people would not follow Dfinity on a specific proposal topic:

1. Dfinity routinely abstains from voting on that topic (which they did on the Governance topic from genesis until late Feb 2022)
2. Remove Dfinity as a named neuron in the NNS dApp
3. Disallow other neurons from following Dfinity.
4. People follow another neuron because they “believe” in decentralization.

Dfinity owns their votes and can use them however they choose. However, all other named neurons have to earn followers, which means there needs to be a reason why people would choose to follow a neuron other than Dfinity. So far reason 4 above has not proven to be a strong enough driver…or at least it’s not as strong as tokenomics incentives. Nevertheless, if people don’t follow neurons other than Dfinity then we won’t achieve decentralization.

I think you are bringing up a great point about what could be the next topic to move us further in the direction of decentralization, but it won’t happen if we don’t use the tokenomics to incentivize participation. Removing default following of this topic by itself won’t produce a measurable change. People need to be incentivized to change their Followee designations in a way that leads us to the highest voter participation possible and the highest degree of decentralization.

Edit: I also want to give credit where credit is due. All 3 events described above that I claim have moved us toward decentralized governance were orchestrated by Dfinity. They have stated since genesis that they want a decentralized governance system and they have pushed us in that direction, sometimes without the community recognizing that it is happening. Perhaps this proposal is a logical next step, but perhaps it is also too early. I just want to make sure we are being fair to Dfinity in the language we use because they have really done a lot to move us in the direction of decentralized governance.