Aiming for a fairer society. Will DAO change society?
Introduction
My answer to the question in the title is “No”. I think that DAO is just a tool and how to use it depends on the person using DAO. Therefore, I believe that applying DAO to activities and communities that do not have any awareness of changing the current system and do not have the idea of improving society will not bring about anything. For example, I don’t think it will work if you try to use a DAO to manage an organization within a company, without any intention of changing the organizational philosophy, decision-making mechanism, profit distribution method, etc. I think the same thing can be said not only for companies, but also for all communities in society.
I think the exact opposite can be said.
Due to various problems, we are not even able to build a community right now, but if there is a community idea that makes society better with a new philosophy, there is a possibility that those communities can be built and empowered by DAO. However, the possibility is still in the dark. Those who cannot believe the possibility will say: What is that community? Does it exist in the world? Please let me know if you have any specific examples.
I think all these points are correct. Various challenges continue here in Japan, but I don’t think there is yet a big success story that can say, “This is an example of a new community using DAO.”
I’m not sure if “a community empowered by DAO will make society better” can be realized. But I want to believe.
This time, I would like to think about what kind of community it is and what kind of use cases are possible.
Is “Co-op” a DAO?
I don’t know if this is the correct English translation, but do you know “Co-op”? According to Wikipedia, “co-op” originated in England in the 19th century. In addition, according to the Japanese “Co-op” site, the intention of its establishment was “to purchase safe food at a low price by ourselves, which had become unfairly expensive“. The “Rochdale Principles” have been enacted and include the following clauses:
- Voluntary and open membership
- Anti-discrimination
- Motivations and rewards
- Democratic member control
- Autonomy and independence
- Concern for community
If you read this Rochdale Principles, you will find that it contains multiple elements necessary for a DAO. I believe that early “Co-op” was an autonomous community, where members had autonomy and made decisions through impartial voting by members. And I correctly suspect that this was the archetype of the DAO.
In this way, we can see that the function of building a self-governing community and improving society was already implemented in the 19th century, in response to the lack of social functions. I think that DAO is, so to speak, the implementation of this 19th century invention of “Co-op”-like community on the Internet.
What is a community that makes society better?
I will say it from the conclusion first, but I do not know now. Food is unreasonably expensive in Japan, and there is no situation where you can’t buy food at affordable prices. Therefore, we are not in a situation where “co-op” is necessary like in England in the 19th century.
However, there are many social problems. There are relatively serious problems such as child poverty, loss of educational opportunities for children, large numbers of adults unable to work, food loss, and climate change. There are also problems such as the decline of local cities, the inability of Japanese companies to compete globally, and the inability to deliver parcels on time. There are also lighter problems. For example, the problem of not being able to obtain the information I want by searching the Internet, the problem of not being interested in tourism resources that were created when the Japanese economy was booming, etc.
Can all of these issues be resolved by the community? As I said at the beginning, I don’t know the answer. I think there are problems to be solved at the national level and problems to be solved at the level of local autonomy. And there are problems that cannot be dealt with at the above two levels, and I think we need to create a community to solve them. Just like “Co-op” was born in England in the 19th century.
Everything below is hypothetical.
For example, suppose there is a community of restaurant owners who want to help society. Suppose there is a community of people who want to solve child poverty. When these two communities meet, can you imagine a future where “only children can eat for free”?
For example, suppose there are adults who wish to improve the imbalance of educational opportunities for their children. And suppose there were low-income parents who only wanted their children to get a better education. When these two communities meet, can you imagine a new educational space that is neither a school nor a cram school?
For example, when a community of foreign tourists meet with people who want to preserve the culture and cuisine that has been handed down from ancient times, is there a possibility that new tourism will be born?
I would like to answer “YES” to all these questions.
I don’t know if what I’m saying is correct. However, I believe that everything starts not with an individual, nor with one community, but with the meeting of two or more communities.
Community Protocol
If my assumption that “communities meet to create new value” is correct, the communities should be listed, searchable, and the access path to the community immediately discoverable. should have value.
I plan to implement a smart contract with the following features.
- Create a community on the Internet as a DAO. This function is implemented by “DAO Oriented Protocol”.
- A community member can remain a community member by carrying out activities in the community for a certain period of time. Conversely, those who do not take any action will be expelled.
- Ability to list communities.
- A community can be maintained by maintaining a certain amount of activity. Communities with low activity are removed from the list.
- Ability to distribute rewards for member contributions.
- A community can earn rewards for as long as it remains on the list.
Next Step
I see web3 as the new IT infrastructure. I believe there is value in using this new infrastructure to implement applications that were difficult to implement with the existing infrastructure. However, at this time, I don’t think that an application that says “this is the correct answer” has yet been implemented. I don’t know the correct answer either. Still, I believe that it is worthwhile to keep trying.
