# Hack for Freedom
## Video Script

This is the Research Collective's video demonstration for the Hack for Freedom.

Esteemed Judges - Adoring Fans:

**The Future of Science is Open**

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The Research Collective is a community at the intersection of crypto and do-it-yourself bio.
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We believe that scientific progress has been kneecapped by antiquated incentives, and only through the application of distributed ledgers may it be freed.
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There is a chasm preventing viable treatments from actually reaching people. Whether it be through infighting or overregulation, profits and risk aversion reign over healing and truth.

The Research Collective is building a bridge over that chasm.
More specifically: a platform that enables communities to organize and come to consensus on potentially controversial and censorious topics such as gene therapies, using DAOs and verified credentials.

For MetaCartel's DragonQuest, [DragonQuest.png], the Research Collective built a curation system using Aragon. The idea was to allow both named and pseudonymous entities to curate content related to Covid19.
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Following that hackathon's conclusion, my co-founder Ian and I spent weeks interviewing people in the scientific and biomedical communities. [calendar.png - x.jpg over dates if you have time] [zoom.png gets larger ? ] [sweat1-3 appear on sides as Zoom gets larger?] We confirmed that science is dysfunctional - and determined that we should next work on a decentralized IRB - an 'institutional review board'.
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One of the people we interviewed had just received IRB approval for their citizen science COVID vaccine trial - after nearly 3 months of full time work and around $3000 spent. [3 months - $3000 as text] IRB approval is one of the first hurdles preventing new treatments from ever reaching people.

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Besides lower costs and shorter times for citizen scientists, a decentralized IRB would allow academics to experiment pseudonymously; to push the boundaries of science without fear of upsetting their peers or tenure board.

For this hackathon, the Research Collective built a plugin to the popular forum software, Discourse.[discourse.png -> discoursess.jpg] This plugin allows people to propose experiments as a thread, create a DAO vote via Aragon Connect, and then vote directly on the proposal from the thread. Proposals that are approved end up being displayed on the Research Collective's website.

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Additionally, this plugin allows people to request to become a moderator from a thread that initiates a Token Request.

Ian will walk us through that functionality now:

[Discourse Demo Video (Mac is working on this)]
[React Demo Video (Tristan will deliver this around 1, 2pm)]

Taken together, we believe these technologies allow DAOs to grow meaningful communities that can reach consensus on contentious topics, all while being resistant to hostile takeover by unsavory administrators.
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That concludes the demo, but if you have a few minutes I'd like to dive into our next steps, the bigger problems we're solving, and a little backstory about why I am here before you.

Way back in 2016, I was involved with a group of crypto anarchists called BitNation,
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Through them, I was introduced to the biohacking community. And through this, I ended up testing out an experimental gene therapy for HIV that, truth be told, someone had made in their shed.
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The first one didn't seem to work, but through it all I helped set up a lab that actually created a viable gene therapy [lactose.jpg] for lactose intolerance...
But was shut down weeks later due to infighting between the CEO and the researchers
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I came across a lot of problems that weren't unique to me during this process:

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1. Conflict between the researchers and the other stakeholders; ill defined ownership structures

2. The gap between "it works in a couple people" and "how do I fundraise stage 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials"

3. The shelving of negative results, wasting untold millions of dollars of research

4. Cancel culture, preventing new ideas from ever taking off

The first problem can not be solved, but it can be ameliorated through wrapping up new experiments in a hybrid entity;[etherize.jpg] an LLC DAO that is able to maintain intellectual property rights while also making it clear who owns how much of the project.

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The second problem, of fundraising, might be solved by a platform such as Molecule which allows token issuane on a bonded curve to facillitate collaboration between stakeholders.

The third and fourth problems will be solved by knowledge markets, that allow people to take positions for and against hypotheses. These knowledge markets would allow researchers to make a profit even if their experiment refutes the hypothesis; instead of our current system whereby scientists are incentivized into being shills.
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How, might you ask? Well, by taking a position on the knowledge market before releasing their data to the public, a researcher should be able to make some profit regardless of the experiment's outcome.
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All of this hinges on a robust web-of-trust, so that it is not worth potentially tarnishing one's reputation for publishing false data.

We believe that these second-order knowledge markets will disrupt how science is done, and truth be told, we can't wait.

Thank you for watching. If you felt moved by this video, don't hesitate to reach out.
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Experimental Review Process

What it is:
Methods & Materials
Experimental Framework
Backing Theory and Literature Review

Purpose:
Legitimacy
Reducing Redundancy
Ethical Implications for Consideration
- Is there free and informed consent from participants?
- Is there deception involved in the study, and if so why? Placebos?

The idea is to create a novel submission that really hones in on the following key points
🗝- User Experience : +1 for doing user interviews !
🔑- Uniqueness : +1 for something that's never been done.
🗝- Impact: +1 for something that aims to help people, the planet.
🔑- Early Adoption: +1 for having users already asking to use or pay for your project.

More specifically, our model permits:
Pseudonymous researchers

Peer Review:
This process can be generalized towards peer review

'Official' IRB:

Additional Resources
[Link to Notion w/ Full Docs]