CIP - Cardano Professional Society

Precisely so. Because IOG/CF have already made the foundational decision to implement an MBO (for example) or to pursue constitutionalism in governance (another example).

These are centralized and arbitrary decisions. And this undermines any claims by Cardano to have decentralised governance (because the design has already been set by central players). For example the decision to pursue MBOs was taken in workshops between IOG/CF in Spring 2022 not by any community.

All other issues such as CIPs are downstream to this. Because participants are free to contribute to CIPS as long as they have accepted the given CIP process (a given) or be part of the MBO as long as they have accepted the MBO concert (a given).

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Ye, fair point.
Seems often to be the case that IOG makes their decisions and community engagement & interaction then hits in at a very late stage to “legitimise” already made decisions. Not sure if that is a healthy approach on a long term approach.

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Things are changing.

CIP1694 governance will allow multiple competing/cooperative governance actions. IOG can make a loyal hierarchial centralized MBO and submit a governance action for treasury funding. A functionally divided Cardano Professional Society can also submit a governance action for treasury funding.

Ultimately, voters should decide on treasury spending and parameters.

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Worth to mention that “Cardano Community receiving the keys to the Treasury” is an analogy for “there are no keys”. There are several Governance Actions (explained here) that people/groups/organisations can submit, and one of them is a “treasury withdrawal”-action.

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There are a myriad of ways as to how MBOs can be designed, from plutocratic, meritocratic or DAO based voting. For plutocratic voting assuming that the amount of ADA determines the value in such MBO structure, the question is how centralised is the current ADA supply. Given that centralised exchanges hold a significant portion of ADA, this makes plutocratic voting vulnerable to external vested interests.

Meritocratic MBOs as based from the merit of positive/negative of community members can lead to popularity contests. With the major influence in the media of currently affecting political voting by shifting the agenda of what topics are discussed while these institutions are not not held accountable for inaccurate reporting, these communication systems can also impact the outcomes determined by meritocratic MBOs. See: foundational agenda-setting theory research & mass effect theories (CH.16).

How IOG/CF decide how to implement the model(s) of MBOs, I propose that a bill of rights and responsibilities for Cardano holders and MBOs be proposed to protect against external influence that may hinder short and long term growth of the ecosystem. The bill of rights and responsibilities of Cardano is to outline each member’s obligation to prioritise the interest of Cardano, and not external influences, whether it is from other institutions, nepotism or personal gain. Also, it would be beneficial since that MBOs have the role of managing Cardano’s sustainability, structure, treasury and committees, that each Cardano holder is to have their rights and freedoms outlined in the bill of rights and responsibilities.

I propose that the bill of rights and responsibilities should be its own independent document to specifically protect the right of ADA holders and MBOs from nebulous constitutional amendments. The existing Bill of Rights and Constitution serve different purposes as OpenAi states that:

The Constitution is a framework for the organization of the federal government and the distribution of power between its three branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial. It establishes the basic principles of government, such as the separation of powers, the system of checks and balances, and the rights and responsibilities of each branch.

The Bill of Rights, on the other hand, is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which were added to protect individual liberties and limit the power of the federal government. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedoms such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press; the right to bear arms; the right to a fair and speedy trial; and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

While a bill of rights and responsibilities for Cardano cannot be mathematically expressed on-chain due to the subjectiveness of such interests, it will nonetheless assist in safeguarding the MBOs and the Cardano ecosystem from external threats.

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MBO is not a sect, but there are potential problems that I see.
I propose a CIP that will introduce a self balancing incentive to counter the network effects and create a stochastic feedback channel between the delegates and the delegators.