---
# System prepended metadata

title: DeathGuild<>MolochDAO Funding Proposal
tags: [DeathGuild, MolochDAO]

---

---
###### tags: `DeathGuild` `MolochDAO`
---

# DeathGuild<>MolochDAO Funding Proposal

### Project Title
DeathGuild

---

### Description
This grant will support the ongoing operations of the DeathGuild Dialogues project, initiated in August 2021 with the support of a MolochDAO grant. 

DeathGuild is an outcropping of Guild #1, the inaugural guild funded January 2021 to address the operational necessities of MolochDAO that have now blossomed into the ReallyBoringGuild. In contrast to the more mundane purpose of the RBG, DeathGuild is a dedicated *divergent research* guild of MolochDAO, having identified the need for visionary inquiry to elaborate the pertinent and prescient topics involved in expanding the Web3-DAO ecology. DeathGuild is dedicated to advancing the prerogatives of Ethereum-based social products through radically experimental approaches, making innovative use of practices borrowed from tech-adjacent institutions and industries whose fertile resources typically are neglected within the technosphere.


---

### Manifesto/Vision
We sense that certain approaches are over-applied as dogmatic methods, rather than people pausing to interrogate whether a certain approach or practice achieves their goals. This calculated logic needs to be brought into proportion with gestalt thinking-practices to avoid constraints upon innovation. 

We have been trained in centralized, linear, rational, top-down, hierarchical control protocols. How might we *unlearn the dogmas* of methods and re-train ourselves to apply these methods anew or rearrange them toward the creation of altogether new methods? We must adapt towards distributed, granular, intuitive, middle-out, diffuse, hybrid self-reliance strategies.

Scaling, privacy, governance, and resource management are interrelated concepts that cannot be cleanly disentangled. We will isolate elements into their constituent parts while restaining to prescribe a unified product. *Decentralized research is granular.* We will look at each particle as a fluid node in a modular lattice network of liquid associations. 

The *death* in DeathGuild signifies the end of a world, but not *the* world. We are aligned behind optimism, maintain hope that we might actively manifest a new way of worlding, and will never stop asking-after better questions.


---

### Problem
**Research is currently focused on pragmatic problem solving.** There is no platform for contemplating the looming philosophical issues at play in the Web3-DAO ecosystem that are inclusive to non-technical perspectives. The community needs a forum to publically ruminate upon the complexity of this pivotal moment of global coordination successes and failures. We need to meditate upon *what we are optimizing for* to understand the values being perpetuated by our mechanics and to ensure they don't get thrown under the bus.


---

### Solution
DeathGuild is dedicated to articulating and preserving a dialogue for radical contemplation, **refraining from the temptation to offer quick solutions in order to *stay with the trouble.*** Through carefully nuanced Socratic inquiry, DG will trace the origins of concepts to the foundational desires they are built upon, *to the source.* **DG is dedicated to asking better questions.** Asking questions in different ways allow for a shift in our patterns of mind, instigating an ontological shift of our perspective. 


---

### Product Features
Phase 2 will be Moloch-centric. **DeathGuild serves as a funnel for non-technical communities to find a new way of entering into the Web3-DAO space.** The strategy avoids widespread rapid generalized onboarding in preference for very delicate and deliberate guidance through the complex labyrinth of Web3-DAO problems. We are motivated  to craft communities full of subtlety and nuance through a sustained meditation on *how and why we build.*

**Phase 2 topics:** 
* Ruminations on Ethereum based on Vitalik's prompts of retroactive public goods funding interpreted to a larger non-technical audience.
* Deep dive into Kevin Owocki's post-doomism solar punk utopian ethos.
* Exegesis of Scott Alexander's *Meditations on Moloch* in relation to contemporary philosophical discourse on similar subjects.
* Correlations to Benjamin Bratton's *The Stack,* ruminations on AI vision and knowledge making, and the speculative vision of total automation.
* Development of a theory of blockchain epistemology:
    * How does information on-chain shift our relation to history? 
    * How are our models of governance perpetuating an inherent visual and cultural bias? 
    * How can we use transmedia artistic research to shift our perspectives?
* Coordination as a choice that begins with the individual: corporeal coordination, eye-hand-heart coordination.
* Gathering perspectives on NFTs from the legacy artworld: 
    * Curated contributors from the California College of the Arts (San Francisco), the School of the Art Institute (Chicago), and the LungA School (Iceland)

**Additional Features:**
* This project serves as an entry point for onboarding new high quality thinkers and makers into the Web3-DAO space, using MolochDAO as a funnel

*See Deliverables section for more details*


---

### Progress
#### Phase 1: Discovery Phase - 3 months *Completed*
DeathGuild will explore the problem space where the primary research objectives intersect. We will conduct heuristics into member interests and clarify the complex mechanics that result in project failure. 
##### Topics: Governance modalities, treasury management schemas, privacy as autonomy+anonymity. 
##### Consultants: non-technical academic (humanities) researchers.

#### Phase 2: Design Phase - 3-6 months *This proposal*
Pending the results of *Phase 1*, DeathGuild will begin generating designs to detail recommendations for a comprehensive program. This might include the crafting of user stories, userflows, information architecture, and supplemental audio/visual deliverables deemed necessary to communicate a minimally viable solution/strategy. 
##### Consultants: Web3-DAO technical researchers and non-technical humanities researchers.

#### Phase 3: Implementation Phase - Variable *Q3 2022?*
##### Details determined by learnings from Phase 2


---

### Team
#### Researchers
* [Travis Wyche](https://medium.com/@traviswyche): Lead Researcher
* [Curtis Tamm](https://unframed.lacma.org/2020/05/14/how-make-ones-self-siren-acoustemological-mix-curtis-tamm%E2%80%94part-1): Co-researcher, Sound Artist

#### Contributors
* [Benjamin Bratton](http://www.bratton.info/) (philosopher)
* Vitalik Buterin
* Griff Green (Giveth)
* [Lasse Hogenhoff](https://www.lungaschool.is/) (artist)
* Holly (MetaGammaDelta)
* [Kara Joslyn](https://karajoslyn.com/home.html) (artist)
* Joe Lubin (ConsenSys)
* Kevin Owocki (Gitcoin)
* Ameen Soleimani (Reflexer Labs)
* Peers of the [European Graduate School](https://egs.edu/)
* And more! TBD based on final budget


---

### Grant Request $

* Work will begin in February 2022 and extend to approximately July 2022.

*1hr interview
8hrs transcription/editing
1hr polishing/publishing
= 10hrs per text installment*

*1hr audio review & prep
8hrs editing/mastering
1hr publishing/posting
= 10hrs per audio installment*

*= 20hrs @ 150/hr = $3000 per installment x 25 installments =* 
* **$75k for the content**

*$100 per interview x 25 interviews =* 
* **$2500 for contributor compensation**

* **$2500 for podcast/audio gear, content hosting, travel**

* **Total = $80k**


---

### What the Funds Are For: Deliverables
![](https://i.imgur.com/H6CnzQ6.jpg)

#### Text Component: Blog
* 25 installments
* 1+ season recap/overview

#### Audio Component: Podcast
* 25 installments
* 1+ season recap/overview

For Phase 2, we will enlist a sound artist and theoretician to handle the conversion of the interview content into an experimental podcast format. One podcast will be produced for each interview, amounting to 25 podcast installments. This will be overseen by Curtis Tamm (bio above).

---

### Help Requested

In addition to the grant, DeathGuild would greatly benefit by being included in MolochDAO marketing, outreach, and PR via existing social channels. We hope to have the content generated from this proposal hosted on the MolochDAO website to further the explicit reciprocal relationship between DeathGuild<>MolochDAO.


---

### Additional Resources, Links, Portfolio
https://medium.com/@traviswyche

http://curtistamm.net/

https://unframed.lacma.org/2020/05/14/how-make-ones-self-siren-acoustemological-mix-curtis-tamm%E2%80%94part-1








