The rule, exactly. Before an election each citizen chooses: to vote — or to take a payment and not vote in that election. The payment is a percentage of the median income, set by referendum; there is no fixed sum. One ballot is one vote, with no multiplier in the count; the vote is amplified only in that each ballot's share grows as others step out. The budget pays under law; a candidate never pays. Only a referendum of all citizens — simple majority, no quorum — introduces, changes or repeals the rule.
The protocol has been introduced nowhere and no pilot has been run: shares, turnout and outcome figures in the chapters are estimates, and the protocol promises nobody an election victory. If a chapter says otherwise, Exact Answers and the Charter are correct. For a candidate: ten questions and ten steps. For a citizen, a mayor, a finance officer, a donor, a journalist, a scholar, a lawyer: answers by role. Everything in force in one file: llms-full.txt.
The Pre-Launch Referendum as a Game: Three Equilibria, Six Chokepoints and Who Is Against — in Percentages¶
Chapter: 03 — Theoretical Foundations File: 03_013c · v1 · 17 September 2026 (Grok dialogue, session 15-09-26) Source: an analysis of the referendum on adopting the protocol as a game rather than an opinion poll; a decomposition of opponents and losers in percentages; historical parallels. Supplements 013b.3 (one-shot → repeated game), 045 (campaign economics), 046 (detonators), 059e (the underdog campaign). All percentages are model estimates, not measurements; see 037b.8.
How to read this chapter (note of 02.10.2026). The text contains wording that is easy to misread: sums and formulas with coefficients are worked examples: the size of the payment is set as a percentage of the median income approved by referendum; "a x2 vote", "x3", "the weight of a vote" are the arithmetic of a share, not a multiplier: every ballot counts as one. The exact-answers sheet 1d and the charter 048m are in force.
1. Two different games¶
The incentives inside a working protocol are strong: everyone has something to take — money or a heavier vote (033c, 015b). But the referendum on adoption is a game before launch, and the sides have different payoff structures: for opponents the system's defeat = preservation of current power and norm; for supporters the system's victory = future money or future weight. The benefit is future and conditional, the costs of turnout are present and guaranteed. This is the classic problem of "private benefit tomorrow against private price today, while the result depends on the actions of many" — collective action with a threshold.
| Player | What he wants | Stake |
|---|---|---|
| The apathetic | Money | High personal benefit, low readiness to act |
| Pragmatists | A heavier vote, more rational politics | Medium–high |
| Ideologues of the old norm | Keep "the vote is sacred" | High symbolic |
| The political machine | Keep the mobilisation of the apathetic | Very high: money, power, profession |
2. Structure and three equilibria¶
A game with a cost of entry: to get the future benefit you must now understand, believe, turn up, vote. Each player has three strategies: for, against, stay home. The type is a mix of three known structures: assurance game (it pays to join if you believe others will join; "it won't pass anyway" — and many stay home), collective action problem (the benefit is spread widely, each bears his own turnout cost — rational to want others to go), asymmetric stakes (the machine and the ideologues have a concentrated stake, the apathetic a diffuse one: each gets his thousand, nobody is responsible for the overall result).
Three stable outcomes:
- Equilibrium A — "for" wins. The apathetic believe the chance is real; pragmatists mobilise; the idea reads as "money + a stronger vote", not as a threat.
- Equilibrium B — "against" wins. Opponents set the frame first ("buying democracy"); the apathetic doubt and stay home; ideologues and the machine turn out densely.
- Equilibrium C — a loss on turnout. The idea is popular in the population but loses at the polling station because of the difference in turnout discipline. The most unpleasant for the protocol and the most typical for reforms with diffuse benefit.
The formula: the winner is not the one who benefits more in the future but the one with the better ratio of stake × willingness to bear the turnout cost now. The referendum is won not by the slogan "either money or a x3 vote" but by whether future benefit can be turned into sufficient turnout today.
3. Six chokepoints where the narrow core strikes¶
A referendum is the highest form of adoption, but between "beneficial for the majority" and "adopted" stands a chain, and the small core of losers strikes not at the theory of popular sovereignty but at the practice of conducting it.
| Stage | What they do | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Wording | Break the text, complicate it, make it legally vulnerable | Bad wording = easier to kill in court |
| Signature collection | Disrupt, contest, raise the price of a signature | The question can be kept off the ballot |
| Media frame | "Vote buying" | Many decide not by incentives but by fear and norm |
| Mobilisation | They turn out almost all, and knock down the apathetic | At the polling station the minority becomes heavier |
| Courts | Suits before, during and after | Even a victory can be stalled or annulled |
| Implementation | After victory, sabotage the rules, the fund, the payment | A victory on paper ≠ a working mechanism |
The formula of strength: the losers — few people × very high stake × high discipline; the beneficiaries — many people × medium stake × low discipline. In politics the first often wins. Answers by stage: wording and implementation — 042, 059e.3 (five statute parameters); signatures and courts — 059e.3, 051; the frame — 040c; mobilisation — 052 (the challenge as a mini-referendum).
4. Who loses¶
| Group | What it loses | Share of population | Share of the active political system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Party machines | The model of mobilising the apathetic | < 1 % | Very high |
| GOTV, political technologists, consultants | Turnout budgets, micro-targeting, "delivery" | < 1 % | High |
| Polarisation media | Part of the emotional audience | 1–2 % | High |
| Populists living on the apathetic | Easy mobilisation through fear | 1–3 % | High |
| Activist structures of mass turnout | Influence through "bring our own" | 1–2 % | Medium–high |
Direct losers by interest — 3–7 % of the population; the hard core (money + power + profession) — 1.5–3 %. Not losing directly: the apathetic (money), pragmatists and ideologues (weight), ordinary voters (one or the other). The losers are not "the people", not "the poor", not "the rich" as classes — those whose power is built on managing the apathetic mass.
5. Who is against — a decomposition¶
With a fully clear formula "$1,000 in your account or a x2–x3 vote":
| Group | Share of the electorate |
|---|---|
| Lose power and money on mobilising the apathetic | 1.5–3 % |
| Principled: "monetising exit is inadmissible" | 4–7 % |
| Don't believe the mechanism even with a clear "money in the account" | 3–6 % |
| Total against | 10–16 % |
The first estimates of 18–28 % and 33–42 % contained those who "didn't understand", who heard only "vote buying", and who vote against out of general distrust without analysis; after the clarification "in the US, $1,000 is not a symbolic sum" a narrow core remained (037b.5). Three reasons to vote against, if they vote at all: they want neither at the price of changing the rule; they don't believe the benefits will be real (the vote won't get heavier, they'll cheat on payments, they'll hollow it out, the rich will win); they lose power if the rule changes. For them it is not a choice between $1,000 and x2 but an attack on the familiar order.
Among the poor, with a clear formula, 7–12 % against: principled "I don't sell my vote" 2–4 %; didn't believe they'd be paid 2–3 %; under strong network influence (church, NGOs, volunteers, social workers) 2–3 %; frightened by a "trap" and loss of rights 1–2 %. A poor person votes against not because he does not need $1,000 but because fear, norm or someone else's influence outweighed the sum. If simplicity is broken (040c), against among the poor — 25–40 %.
6. The current balance in percentages: "one or many?"¶
| Player | Share | What pays for him now |
|---|---|---|
| The apathetic, non-voters | 40–50 % | Not going: the vote decides almost nothing |
| Voting by habit or mobilisation | 25–35 % | Turning up, but without calculation |
| The conscious, highly motivated | 15–25 % | Participating, but influence is diluted |
| Machines, technologists, status beneficiaries of noise | 3–7 % | Preserving the old game |
The bad equilibrium rests not on 1 % of villains but on a bundle: 40–50 % apathetic for whom not going is rational, 25–35 % softly mobilisable, and 3–7 % who earn from it. The system is stable because for the majority individually breaking it does not pay — a stable but inefficient equilibrium: bad for everyone in sum, deviating alone does not pay (013b.1). The share of electoral dynamics living on noise and apathy — roughly 60–80 %. The protocol changes the payoff matrix: an explicit plus for the apathetic for honest exit, weight for those who stay, a fall in the return on noise for the politician; the old equilibrium stops being an equilibrium (015c.4).
7. Historical parallels and how they were received¶
Ideas with the structure "large groups have something to take, against them a narrow but organised minority": the secret ballot ("it will destroy accountability and public control"; resistance from parties and machines that controlled open pressure); abolition of the property qualification ("the poor will plunder property"); women's suffrage ("it will destroy family, morality, politics" — decades); the Alaska PFD ("handing out money"; it held because almost everyone has a direct interest). Such ideas often lose at first and win later: personal benefit becomes clearer, fear of novelty weakens, the opponents' organisational advantage stops outweighing the numerical majority. None was accepted easily:
| Change | How it was met |
|---|---|
| The secret ballot | Resistance from machines, masters, local elites |
| Women's suffrage | Decades of struggle, moral panics |
| Independent central banks | Politicians gave up the lever very reluctantly |
| Transparent procurement, budget rules | Constant sabotage by those who lived on the carve-up |
| The Alaska PFD | There were disputes, but personal benefit quickly created protection |
| Containerisation | Resistance from dock unions |
| Mass vaccination and sanitation | Fears, religious and everyday protests |
Two different claims: "it benefits people" — may be true; "therefore it will be accepted easily" — does not follow. The precise formula: not "since the logic is such, the referendum is inevitable" but "since the logic is such, the idea has an anomalously high potential to pass, as soon as the first serious carrier and a clear frame appear". Inevitability begins not in theory but when someone makes this the main theme, delivers the fork without distortion and holds it against the attack of the 10–15 % losers.
8. Weak point of the section¶
Equilibrium C is not removed by incentive mathematics — it is removed only by organising turnout, and in the dialogue the model under pressure stopped mentioning it; here it is preserved deliberately. All percentages are projections from incentive logic in the absence of a before/after baseline; their role is to set orders of magnitude and structure, not to predict a result. The estimate "don't believe the mechanism — 3–6 %" in §5 refers to a working automatic payment; for a promise that depends on a politician's will, measured distrust is an order of magnitude higher — about 60 % (059c.5), and until the first real tranche the protocol is closer to the second case. And the parallels of §7 concern the adoption of ideas with mass benefit, but none of them paid the citizen for exiting participation; the analogy is by payoff structure, not by mechanism. 🟡
Related: 013b.1, 013b.3 (prisoner's dilemma; Axelrod) · 015c (change of sign, balance in %) · 037b (Grok: forecast drift) · 045 (campaign economics) · 046 (detonators) · 042 (poison pills) · 059e (the underdog campaign: three iterations) · 052 (the challenge) · 040c (how simplicity gets killed) · 048g (rollback) · 039 (opponents)