Before anyone gets the wrong idea, no, I’m not talking about the movie/show The Watchmen. I’m referring to the ancient philosophical question “quis custodiet ipsos custodes” or “who watches the watchmen”. Go read up on that elsewhere.
For those of you who don’t know and need a summary here, it’s a question often posed in reference to the fact that the person or people in charge of making sure the rules are honored have nothing preventing them from disobeying the rules. There’s never anything preventing the person guarding your treasure from stealing some of the treasure, for example.
What’s the best remedy to this that you can think of?
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your treasure over multiple watchman, each holding only a part. Keep a public reputation system for each watchman. Make the loss of reputation more costly than the total of treasure they could steal.
More than one group of custodians, ideally with conflicting interests, watching one another? Essentially some system of checks and balances?
full accounting transparency helps… according to the blockchain believers.
Anarchism.
Group with most weapons takes all, then infighting begins?
Tell me you don’t know anything about anarchism without saying it
What’s your definition of anarchism? How do you see it playing out?
The same as everyone else’s - a society without hierarchy.
I see it playing out perfectly fine, just like it has throughout human existence in numerous societies across the globe. But it takes a lot of work to get there.
I dunno, but did they see the gorilla?
Dr. Manhattan, obviously.
