I’ll echo that I’m very much in agreement with Shawn on this. One-person-one-vote systems (loosely-termed “democratic”) that include the voice of “everyone” (define that?) equally are not typically associated with arriving at the best outcome, however that be measured (economic, technological, …).
However such systems have two major advantages over stake or merit-based voting schemes:
- All individuals feel equally heard and included. This mitigates the possibility of “revolt” in the case of a controversial decision.
- Enables and empowers a lot of “minor actors” in decisions, thus massively reduces the possibility of the targeting of individuals by malicious actors.
I can certainly imagine a number of governance primitives which could be adapted with the arrival of a pervasive, strong and private Sybil resistance scheme to better ensure the resilience of the network and realise a number of important services much closer to their ideals.
Quadratic voting may be an element of this, but I see it by no means as the most exciting thing should the problem of Sybil-resistance be cracked.