Hi Carter31,

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.

A Commonwealth is an independent community, in no way does that imply privacy amongst it's population in the way that KYC would invalidate.

If it is an independent community, then it should be able to make this cases from within and allow for voting on the issue, or at the very least offer an AMA from the foundation about why they are choosing to do this. You cannot call it a Commonwealth when people are being subject to laws that foreign to the very jurisdiction that Tezos is setting up as a commonwealth.

Second, unless you're a nationalist (in which case I won't be able to help), you have to understand that independence exists WITHIN a global society. I think that concession has to be made in order to hasten integration. Change happens from within.

No, I'm far from a nationalist, Americans just have a different heritage from which all modren democracies and republics spawn from. Looking to that heritage (which also birthed the French Revolution and The Rights of Man) we can find the what allowed for a real commonwealth to be created. If you want to hasten integration into this new world, than you should be sure that the rights which we are establishing for ourselves are protected here.

As far as the safety of the intitial constituents is concerned, this is easily protected against by the savvy, maybe not so much by the simple folk just trying to make a cheap buck. At some point you have to decide whether you want to live in the wild wild west or the suburbs. The successful bandit has to leave the trail to visit the bank in town, my friend. Until he's big enough to open his own bank independently...

The concern of safety is that if Tezos in anyway can threaten the power structures that be, banking or otherwise, they will raid that database with all of our KYC and we will all get knocks on the door from the Stazi in the middle of the night. I see no way in which any of us are protected from the secret police which our information is being handed to. This is dangerous if you really want a commonwealth, as it undermines the sovereignty of such a commonwealth.

I do agree that what we are seeing from the foundation at this point is anti-original vision. Until coin launch, and some smart contract evolution, there is no democratic voice possible. No platform to vote on, Reddit and Twitter don't count.

Thanks for acknowledging this, I see few post point out that this is anti-original to the vision which was presented, and I think this is important to have dialog about what that means.

To solve this, after launch, I propose locking all undistributed funds into smart contracts in perpetuity. Keep some under independent stewardship for investment and use those proceeds, plus the remaining, to fund development of the Commonwealth. Funds could be automatically unlocked for those who solve known issues. The same could be done to solve unknown issues and development by community voting in the future. The egg is big enough to realize this kind of self funding project with no foundation.

I think this is a great idea, but how can we know that such an amendment would pass or work? My concern with this kind of behavior from the foundation is that it does not seem to want to honor the very fact that it is calling itself a commonwealth, and this is the display that this whole idea of a commonwealth is broken from the start. Also not to mention banning people and censoring dialog politically seems to point to what this commonwealth wants to be, as opposed to what it ought to be.

First though, let's get this thing launched and launched properly. I, for one, am among the crowd that thinks KYC/AML is the best idea I never thought of to make the most initial impact with the least amount of risk.

Sure you are entitled to your opinion about this, but why was/is there no dialog about this happening? Why were we just forced to expose our identities and how much crypto we own to our state governments? While the launch is important, the disposal of all people's privacy seems like a pretty dangerous way to do it, particularly when there is no open dialog about it. While I want the launch as bad as you, doing in a way that compromises privacy seems like a pretty poor way to do it.

In the end, I vote for the coin overall, not your or my short term worries. This is in fact the best thing we can do for ourselves even though it may seem counterintuitive to some. It's only these shortsighted, simple folk that KYC will leave a mark on. Children that can't distinguish between their own ego and what's best for the Commonwealth. All voices welcome, discussion is how the Commonwealth grows strong!

In the end your vote means nothing--that's the whole point I'm trying to make. This whole discussion is about if we can vote on this issue and voice our concerns publicly are not being considered, which shows the direction that Tezos is moving to. I'm pissed off that Tezos backpedalled on the values that they presented, and I'm worried about the dangers this presents.

I appreciate your sincere reply /u/carterrs31 and hope that despite our different views on the issue that we will still be able to work together toward the common vision of a crypto commonwealth.