Editing DGF transcendent values (section)

== Comments ==

=== Overview ===
DGF values individuals and groups, and so we seek their good. This is our primary transcendent value, which we take for granted as an idea that cannot be formally codified. This forms the basis of the further elaboration of our values stated above. 

We seek to implement decentralized organization in the service of the good of individuals and groups for the following reasons. Individual members have greater average power in a decentralized group than in centralized groups. Individuals have greater average freedom within their group. Individuals have greater opportunity to assert their power and freedom in service to their values and goals.

Decentralized groups are more powerful than centralized groups because they have greater stability in the long term. This is because decentralized groups do not depend on any particular individual members. Individuals are integrated when the group is organized so information at the edge is incorporated, so decentralized organizations tend to make better decisions for the common good.

Decentralized organization requires stable [[governance]]. Wise choices are necessary in designing each DAO's governance structure, to serve individual and group interests. Matching governance decisions to a group's values is crucial for the long-term harmony of a DAO. Therefore an analysis of the consequences of governance decisions on the explicit results of the reward mechanism in a DAO is crucial. Such an objective analysis is a major purpose of [[reputation tokenomics]].

Centralized groups are more efficient in short-term behavior because decentralized organization requires maximum redundancy. In a DAO, every member must monitor and regulate the behavior of every other member because there is no central authority. So historically, centralization has outcompeted decentralization in many situations. 

The only reason we have the potential to create DAOs at this point in history is because recent advances in IT tools are giving us for personal power over the storage, processing, and communication of digital information. P2P tech is emerging which can achieve this maximum redundancy at scale.

Centralization's very quality of efficiency leads to instability ''<small>–</small>'' the lack of redundancy makes it fragile and open to disruption. Decentralization is more sustainable. Its redundancy and connectivity allows information-at-the-edge to be communicated to the entire group. Decisions are made with more perfect information.

=== Discussion of points ===
The specific statement of DGF's transcendent values was chosen, at this moment in history, for the following reasons.

Individual privacy is enabled by cryptography. In particular zero-knowledge proofs, including public key asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures, allow DAO members to participate and share knowledge with the group without revealing personal information. 

Group transparency is necessary in a DAO. Inasmuch as decentralization of power is enacted, the protocols and software and IP of the DAO must be held as common knowledge, i.e., open source. Transparency of group information is important for preventing group oppression of the individual.

Open decentralized ownership means: 1. anyone can join at any time and use their talents and resources in service to the DAO's goals, and 2. anyone is free to leave at any time, taking their talents and earnings with them. 

The term ''essentials''  in "equity control of essentials" means all the material or immaterial resources that the group believes are necessary for each member to thrive in the group. What this means depends on the group. For example, from a global perspective on humanity, most people would agree that air and water and food to prevent starvation are essential. From the perspective of a citizen in a developed democratic country, education and access to government power and justice are considered further essentials. In a for-profit DAO focused on a narrow job, equal opportunity to using the REP tokens they own to participate in the [[Work Smart Contract|work smart contract]] and [[governance]] is essential.

Inessentials are everything not essential. There is competition for all inessentials in free markets. However, the freedom of these markets is limited to protect what the group believes are essential.

==== Tensions ====
Each of these values are in tension with their paired opposite. The group and the individual need each other for their very existence. Giving the group greater power makes it possible for them to suppress individual freedom. Giving the individual more freedom threatens group cohesion. The group and the individuals are both served when both are more powerful. But when one side wins, they both lose. Therefore formally defining the distinctions is dangerous. 

For example, what is public information that should be transparent vs. what is individual information that should be private. Formally defining the distinction leads to group competition over the definition, which undermines the stability of the group. Instead the members should protect the value of maximizing both ''<small>–</small>'' maximizing what is public information and maximizing what is individual privacy.

This essential tension holds on many scales and is a foundational idea for many political theories, from the beginning of philosophy. Aristotle developed this idea as the [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#DoctMean Doctrine of the Mean], in Book II of his ''Nicomachean Ethics.''