Distributed Collaboration Protocol

A protocol/tool for collaboration without needing to see the bigger picture. Research on optimizing simple interactions for complex results.

I've spent 15+ years studying complex systems with a focus on how primitives in language design can simplify the process of building them.

Basically, my plan is to write a book beginning with an outlining of both beneficial and destructive properties in distributed systems from biology, physics, computer science, language, and culture. Category theory gives the ability to classify and technically define abstract structures from many different fields and see how they fit together. Taking the insight gained from the process of defining structures in these terms, my goal is to put together a minimal set of rules to govern a good collaborative experience and produce efficient results without the need for top-down control of the process. When you look at a functioning ecosystem in nature, all the organisms involved live in a balance between competition for resources and symbiotic relationships. No one creature has to act outside its natural behavior, and yet, the lives of all species continue. There are constraints on the capacity of adaptation in biology that aren't present in more abstract systems like human collaboration, so assessing which ones help provide beneficial structure and which inhibit innovation is an important distinction to consider.

I should also be able to work on some code to simulate these ideas, and get started on a proof of concept implementation of the resulting protocol.

Timeline:

Three Months: A good part of the writing should be done within this timeframe and some code samples to simulate ideas may also be available.

Six Months: The document and protocol specification should be complete, though it may take more time to implement it.

Twelve Months: I should be able to continue working on an implementation even after the funding period. Anyone else should be able to do the same, and hopefully the ideas generated by this project will improve the collaborative experience of the Cardano community 

 (Depending on the acceptance of my other proposals, timelines would be subject to change, and I reserve the right to interleave work on each project as I see fit. Some of the research I do for the other projects could give direction to this one and vise versa.)

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Elm-Integration-with-Plutus/370150-48088

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Plutus-Integration-with-Pony-Lang/370089-48088

All my progress will be available under open source and creative commons licenses in the linked git project.

I'm currently living in Malawi, in southeast Africa, and can easily live off of $1000 a month if I need to ($1000 * 6 months). The budget is for six months of work, beyond that, I'll probably just continue working on this project for free, because it will be useful for other things I want to do in the future. I've been living off of my savings in Ada since April and devoting most of my time to studying the Cardano platform and related topics. It would be nice to have an income besides bull runs in the price of Ada, so that I can focus on building free tools.