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PHILOSOPHY
Past Experiments
Contracts
Legal
Introduction
Solving fake news by admitting uncertainty
More facts won't solve fake news
No matter how many "facts" we know, public narratives are inevitably a matter of opinion:
- OPINION: What's the best interpretation of these facts?
- OPINION: Which facts should we include, or exclude?
- OPINION: Who decides when something is certain enough to consider it a "fact"?
Solving fake news is not a question of "What are the facts?" but "Whose opinions deserve our trust?"
Ideamarket is an experiment in:
- accepting every opinion on every topic
- tracking changes of opinion over time
- letting the public decide whose opinions deserve trust.
If Bitcoin is money without banks, Ideamarket is credibility without media corporations.
The Ouroboros of Scientific Evidence, by Slate Star Codex
How it works
The court of public opinion has 3 main parts:
- Cases are like "posts." They're Ideamarket-native NFTs designed to become cultural artifacts as influential people rate them (like a baseball signed by many MLB players). Create cases with the most potential for cultural impact. You will be able to sell cases you create, on OpenSea.
- Rate cases on a scale of 1-100, on-chain. Ratings create a permanent track record of public opinion. This makes it easy to see who had good judgment in the past, using data. You can edit any rating at any time, but the history of your edits will be on-chain.
- Stake IMO on a Judge to increase their influence on Composite Rating of every case they rate — those are the big blue numbers on the homepage. Staking involves no capital losses or gains. (Eventually, stakers may receive shared income from Bounties.)
Unlike the verdicts created by media corporations, Ideamarket's Composite Ratings are
- provably fair
- constantly evolving
- credibly neutral, and
- backed by skin-in-the-game.
The credibility layer of the internet
Our story
Alexander Schlindwein built the initial smart contracts, and did a spectacular job — they passed Quantstamp audits extremely smoothly. (Alex would go on to win 3 of the largest bug bounties in the history of Ethereum.)
Kelton Madden took over as Lead Smart Contract Developer in 2021. Kelton wrote the contracts for Milady Maker NFTs, and holds a Master's Degree in Quantum Computing from UPenn.
Philosophy
"Facts” always require trust in a third party.
The word fact is shorthand for certain enough to believe without question. But judging such certainty is a matter of opinion! Establishing “facts” always requires deciding whose opinions to trust — or trusting a third party to make those decisions on your behalf.
Read our founder's essay on the illusion of facts:
Wittgenstein’s Revenge
ribbonfarm
Trusted opinions about us
Common objections
"Doesn't this mean only rich people can influence public opinion?”
That question already describes today's situation. But today, the connection between money and public influence is hidden, and available exclusively to those with access. Ideamarket makes the connection between money and public influence explicit, and gives the public the same tools for “financial speech” as the elites. At the very least, this is a significant net gain over the current system.
"Isn't this just a popularity contest?"
Ideamarket is only a popularity contest to the extent that there aren't terrible consequences for being mistaken. Given there often are terrible consequences for being mistaken, people are often forced to distinguish between popularity and credibility.
What success looks like
The goal is not to explicitly prevent lying and falsehoods — it's to make integrity and honesty the only financially feasible path for influencers of public opinion.
Full Docs
To see the FAQs, smart contract audit reports, philosophy details and more, open the table of contents in the left panel.
The Docs table of contents looks like this on mobile:
Last modified 7d ago