The upcoming Special Council elections represent an important point in DAO history. Not just ApeDAO history.
We’ve got some pretty KEWL names running for ApeDAO Special Council! Like, WOW, man! Imagine if we had so-and-so running **** around here! Here’s the problem: They coast in on previous accomplishments that have nothing to do with the actual job — accomplishment mostly based in volume of social media follows — ignoring completely the actual mandate of Special Council, which is DAO risk management.
Manage risk. That’s it, folks. Not appeal to whatever social group, not bring in massive partners, not get celebs to come to parties, not direct the DAO’s vision, not flex around on Twitter. This a no-flex zone. But I guess since Rae Sremmurd “ain’t poppin’” no more, y’all actually don’t know better.
Do you think these pseudo-celebs want to spend time away from their flashy lives digging into DAO risk management? I urge you — go back into the threads of these SC candidates. You don’t have to read the whole thing. Just cmd-F and search “risk management.” If the term doesn’t show up, strike that candidate from your list.
Another red flag — if you see unanswered questions under the candidate’s profile, auto strikeout.
All that other stuff about hooking the DAO up with this or that brand cuz i’M fRenS Wi’dUh oWnur — this is stuff you do off-hours, which more easily facilitates the negotiation of that nice bag of personal benefits to yourself for the effort, by the way, SC candidate sermaam. But that’s not SC DAO business. What is? Risk management. You got one job. Risk management. That’s it. Bears repeating.
Or don’t, and elect your friend who campaigned off partnerships, representation, parties and Twitter follows, and watch the SEC swoop in on us faster than Ooki DAO.
My issue has always been how SC candidates will connect low level devs to high level Yuga influencers to highlight buidlership. You’ll see it if you go back to candidate threads; I ask this question repeatedly. But even this isn’t the job, and I check myself on that. That’s not DAO risk management.
Thoughts on Cartan:
Nothing about the open letter justified an expansion of services. Although I agreed with many of the thoughts, the way forward is not to assume the community cannot take on added responsibility, especially when the information needed to shoulder that responsibility is gated behind NDAs and closed-door meetings.
I haven’t seen any efforts towards real decentralization from Cartan, though the letter pays it lip service. Efforts from individuals in the community are often overlooked because the folks who share the most in Discourse need to reach out to whales to have a chance of passing big initiatives. I believe this reality was mischaracterized in the open letter as laziness from the community, which is simply not true.
With that in mind, I can’t vote for the Cartan extension as it stands, especially not with the sticker price mentioned. I’d need to see Cartan get community members who obviously want to be involved more involved in the process. Until that happens, I think there will continue to be fractionalization in the DAO and a lack of real synergy.