DAO Citizenship
This kind of global metaverse will attract a wide range of people – from those who are mildly interested to those deeply involved in every nuance of a virtual world’s DAO.
Early on, some may poke around in it for 20 minutes a day. Others may be involved 10 hours a day. And many will lose themselves in that comprehensive DAO completely, right from the start. If a person wants to remain relevant, though it will be increasingly important that they engage in the metaverse – just as being off the IT grid today can make a person seemingly non-existent.
Our engagement in this metaverse will be monitored, and our true selves will become apparent. As with the physical world, we’ll see all types of personalities: hard workers, observers, innovators, leaders, followers, specialists, givers, takers, criminals, saboteurs, and anarchists.
Our personality types will be recorded and transparent, modified automatically over time as new activities are recorded. On a more immediate basis, our deeds will be rewarded or punished using a point system linked to cryptocurrency. The best metaverse citizens may even be able to make a decent living by being very, very good as resources are shifted to them and away from the penalized participants.
Criteria for Gamifying Citizenship
The standards for an ideal measurement of a person’s contributions to society require that the system it’s based on reflects current realities is objective and is all-knowing. A metaverse-based system meets those criteria.
As I noted in my 2018 column, citizenship algorithms should be adjusted over time, continually redefining what constitutes good and bad behavior based on current needs and situations. Similarly, the relative value of rewards and penalties should be regularly tweaked based on measured supply and demand. The metaverse, with its nearly infinite access to information, can accomplish all this and more.
With regard to the need for objective observation and the transparency of personal actions, blockchain technology will be the “Big Brain” behind the metaverse making all that possible. It will record participants’ activities and interactions and meter out the rankings and the rewards related to that activity.
Citizens of What?
One last thought on the future of citizenship. Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and the Internet itself transcend government-set boundaries. Increasingly each of us will be “living” in one or more DAOs and then ultimately within a comprehensive metaverse.
Our actions in the metaverse will ultimately be as important in evaluating us as a person as anything we do in the physical world today. And the evaluations will be ruthless and not subject to manipulation or coercion, providing a strong incentive to do the right thing among our global peers.
That said, for those who cannot live up to the rigorous demands of an unforgiving rules-based system, we will likely see underground movements and even gorilla groups forming to fight back against the “tyranny of the DAO.”
No, there is no such thing as a perfect system.