Byzantine Fault Tolerance in Social Design

There’s an idea in Distributed Computing Systems called the Byzantine Fault Tolerance. It essentially defines the threshold for how many node failures a system can endure before it collapses, and a strategy for combating the failures before they become catastrophic.

I came across the concept reading through white papers for trustless protocols and have been thinking about how it applies to social systems too. The engineers in the papers would reference 3 different types of actors in the system that must be accounted for if you want your system to be stable. They are the Altruist, the Rational, and the Byzantine.

In the simplest terms, the Altruists are players who always act in the best interest of the system. The Rational players respond directly to the incentives presented to them and can be counted on to act in their best interest according to those incentives every time. The Byzantines in the system are the players who are unreliable and act against the intended desire of the system.

Something that’s important to note here, is that these terms do not inherently carry value of “good” or “bad”. They are relational to the system they operate in. To demonstrate what I mean by this, let’s consider the different players under capitalism.

The Altruists are the players who uphold and advocate for the system. They are the capitalism-or-die conservatives who are all too willing to perish with their beloved system.

Most players though are Rational. They directly respond to the incentives of the game. There is no loyalty to the system itself and they will adapt however they need to for their own survival. They’ll say things like “yeah capitalism bad but I gotta eat” or “capitalism who? idk any capitalisms. What’s the protocol for getting food and shelter?”

The Byzantines are us. The social justice warriors, changemakers, impact entrepreneurs, activists, movement makers. The ones actively working against the system to dismantle it. And when we shift our position to the solutions we are building for dismantling, we become the Altruists within the context of those new systems.

This is where I think a lot of good intentions lack impact. They focus too heavily on building solutions for their Altruists. Any Rational player who doesn’t immediately click is “misaligned” with the community values and shunned. So they’re literally out there creating closed bubbles of people willing to pledge their unquestioning loyalty. And I get it, it feels safer, less triggering. And there’s value in having a safe space for people to retreat. But can we make systems change in hiding?

Sometimes, these niche communities do break through and reach the masses. Sometimes it’s through intentional, deliberate strategy execution, and sometimes it’s a kiss of luck from the roll, rewarding all the players for doing their individual part. Either way, the incentives change enough to engage the Rational players.

But what happens every time a movement gains momentum? There’s a period of backlash. The purpose gets diluted. The incentive goes away. Because the existing system has effective strategies in place for combating the Byzantines before we can bring the system to the point of catastrophe.

And honestly, as it should be. Because we can not expect people to give themselves when we haven’t even planned for their protection in our new system from such attacks. It’s irresponsible to insist people abandon the home they know without giving them a safe and stable alternative. It’s displacement in the worst form.

To properly design new socio-economic systems, we need to consider the Byzantines because it gives us insight into our resiliency. How many malicious players can infiltrate our system before collapse? What are the risks of infiltration and what are our strategies for combating it? Every player in the system has to agree to a concerted strategy. Then appeal to the Rational players with the proper incentives to maximize impact.

I know there are communities that are already doing this. And it’ll become more and more evident by who’s left standing amongst the ashes, somewhat unscathed because they’ve been preparing. They’ve properly insulated their communities from the fire. They’ve been developing social infrastructure in the shadows without fanfare. Social infrastructure to support the building of new systems that we now need to bring to light. Systems with deep consideration for both form and function, to fortify their players from threats to the system they play in.

They are laying the foundation for our new society and I want to meet them.