Solving the Paradox of Decentralized Coordination

Paradox!

What an interesting, cool-sounding word with pharmaceutical undertones. However medicinal it sounds though, this word is more likely to cause you a headache than cure it.

Simply put, a paradox is a self-contradicting phenomenon. For example, a very popular scientific paradox is what is called the grandfather paradox. It is a time travel problem that goes like this:

"If you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, how then were you born before you traveled back to kill your grandfather?" You must now be getting the point.

Paradoxes are common in many intellectual fields, and most recently, the advent of decentralized technology e.g., web 3 has given rise to a couple of paradoxes of its own. In this article, I will be dwelling on what I call the paradox of decentralized coordination. This explores whether it can be possible for decentralized systems to coordinate without losing their decentralization.

Here is a formal statement of the paradox of decentralized coordination;

If a system is decentralized, then the component units are self-governing. Hence, how can they coordinate to achieve a common goal without having to form a centralized body thereby losing their decentralization?

We'll explore this conundrum as we go along.

Coordination Is World History

Humans have always been social creatures. Even though each person is fundamentally an autonomous agent, we've evolved to function in groups for our survival and development. For example, reproduction explicitly depends on the coming together of a man and woman to produce offspring and continue the human race. Also, people live together in villages, towns, and cities for safety and resource sharing. Thus, it has always been necessary for people to coordinate.

In the caveman days, our ancestors organized themselves into closely related tribes and villages often led by the biggest, strongest person. This allowed for easy governance and decision-making.

As people became more populous and diverse, together, with other changing circumstances, there was a need for more sophisticated ways of coordinating human societies. Hence, newer political systems like monarchy, feudalism, oligarchy, democracy, nation-states, etc. were developed to help human beings organize themselves. Even religious and moral institutions are also instruments of coordination.

Hence, the entire world history from creation stories to evolution, tribes to empires, priests to politicians, spiritism to science, wars to civil rights movements, etc. is nothing but humans struggling to coordinate themselves amidst constantly changing conditions. Thus, the importance of coordination can not be understated.

Types of Coordination

There are broadly two ways for autonomous agents (e.g., people) to coordinate themselves.

1. Centralized coordination: This involves a central figure (person or group) developing and enforcing the plan through which people work together. Here, abilities and responsibilities are delegated as the central authority sees fit, thus, it is easily vulnerable to tyranny. Examples include autocracy, military, religion, and centralized finance.

   
   

2. Decentralized coordination: This is a more idealistic system of coordination where the autonomous agents who are trying to coordinate organize themselves without centralized control. This form of coordination has been recently driven by web3 technology (blockchain, crypto, Defi, etc.) which seeks to circumvent the tyrannical tendencies of centralized coordination.

Instruments of Coordination

Considering the critical role of coordination in human development, people have evolved several instruments to enable coordination effectively which will be analyzed here.

1. Sentiment:

   Sentiment is a natural tool that enables human beings to live and work together. We have a natural attachment to relatives, friends, and countrymen which serves as the basis for group coordination. In a family, for example, everyone tends to have a strong bond which helps them stay together even after many years, and even if they have to live apart. Also, the natural order is generally established by seniority and sex and everyone tends to instinctually know this allowing for smooth, organic coordination.

   
   

2. Logic:

   This is another natural tool that usually comes into play when there's a more diverse population needing to coordinate. Political systems are a product of logical coordination. This is perhaps the most critical instrument of coordination as it can be used to create other man-made instruments of coordination which are subsequently discussed.

   
   

3. Language:

   This is another natural tool evolved by humans and other animals to coordinate. Coordination often involves communicating a desired action to individuals, and this is where language comes in. Be it verbal, written, or visual, language allows people to pass messages to each other and work together.

   
   

4. Groups:

   Different kinds of groups e.g., political, religious, professional, social, etc. are created by humans when trying to coordinate for a common goal. Groups enable people to work together effectively.

   
   

5. Devices:

   Last but not least, we have man-made tools that enable people to coordinate effectively. These artificial instruments are necessary because the natural instruments for coordination are often limited by factors like distance, time, language differences, rules, etc. Man-made tools like written works, translators, phones, the internet, web 3, etc. enable people to coordinate across time, political domains, and long distances.

Technology for Coordination

As discussed under the last instrument for coordination, humans have needed to create tools for more advanced coordination. The most primitive would be written works (cave paintings, scrolls, tablets, books, etc. which enable people to spread ideologies over large distances and over many generations. Most recently, more advanced tools like telephone, radio, television, internet, social media, AI translators, etc. also enable people to coordinate across time, space, political divides, and cultures.

Most technological products listed above are for centralized coordination where one body or group controls the organizational plan. However, a more recent technology called web3 (decentralized internet) seeks to completely decentralize the coordination process. This was made necessary by the tyrannical and unfair operation of centralized coordination systems.

For example, autocratic leaders and institutions have often leveraged their central position to unfairly profit off the commonwealth of people, usually at the detriment of the people being led. A very good instance is the 2008 financial crisis caused by the overlending of money by banks to the higher class, causing a lack to the lower class as discussed in my previous article.

While decentralized coordination sounds good in theory, its practicality is challenged by the paradox being discussed here. How can autonomous agents work together without anyone calling the shots?

Can people truly coordinate without centralized control?

Here lies the problem.

How do people work together to achieve a common goal if everyone is hell-bent on maintaining a decentralized, fair system with equal authority? Who drafts the plan? How are roles and responsibilities delegated? Who ensures that people are sticking to the plan and on schedule as distractions arise over time? Is this even possible?

Well, web3 has made a great leap in moving this kind of coordination from the realms of idealism into reality. Democracy took a solid dig at it also. The people get together periodically to appoint their leaders, dictate the powers of their leaders, and reserve the right to remove the leaders if the people are no longer well-represented. However, democracy can not be said to be truly decentralized since a central government is maintained. Only the people in office are switched however the centralized government positions remain.

The great victory of web3 is that through open source development, decentralized operation, and distributed storage, it has been able to achieve a system that no central figure owns, runs, or controls respectively. Hence, it’s a practical trustless government infrastructure. This is no small fit.

However, how are rules to be drafted and implemented for coordination?

Well, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are groups being developed by various web3 companies to enable people to come together are draft action plans through a voting system.

But someone has to create/own the group right? Wouldn't voting eventually create a united ideological majority who capitalize on their dominance to effectively form a centralized authority?

Well, both questions above are valid.

Groups can just be created and not be owned though. Thus, everyone only joins if they approve and get an equal right to say in the group till a consensus is reached by voting.

As for the second question, the answer is more philosophical, right? Do humans really have the behavioral capability for decentralized coordination? I guess we will find out. From a technological standpoint, we can only rejoice that most of the work for a practical decentralized coordination system has been done. We will see what we do with it.

To Conclude:

Like time travel, decentralized coordination is haunted philosophically by a demonic paradox that guards the gate. However, from a technical standpoint, things are looking promising as technology systems have been developed which gradually wear away at the impossibility of these concepts.

For example, rocket companies have proven that incredibly fast shuttles shot into space make astronauts age slower than their biological twins on Earth, effectively proving time travel. Also, auth labs, a web3 company, has developed several practical web3 protocols e.g., DAOs which enable technical decentralized coordination.

Come visionary! Join this great mission to solve a paradox by exploring their tools.

Boldly go!