> Proof-of-brain is proof-of-work

Maybe it is supposed to be, but in reality (currently, whether n^2 or n) it is not. That is probably the biggest part of our disconnect on this. The system  needs at a minimum tweaks and at a maximum a major rework so that it does actually function like that. 

(There are other issues here, like I'm not even sure what proof-of-brain being proof-of-work is supposed to accomplish. Cryptocurrencies don't increase in value simply because (proof of) useless work is performed; it takes more than that to give them value. That's kind of a story for another day though.)

> Under superlinear reward, the biggest whales can shower themselves with rewards to the point of concentrating an ever growing amount of Steem to themselves causing the free market to either act rationally and the demand for Steem will dwindle ...

This is not a good thing!  

> If people can simply upvote their own posts/comments with bots, equal to infinitesimal work for the best potential rewards then we can say proof-of-brain will leach away free Steem and that's obviously not a desirable thing.

We know that under linear rewards the system can devolve into simple interest  (ignoring downvotes, so somewhat unrealistic). I have said this before and I've never gotten an answer: How bad is that? All it means is that inflation is reduced, yet nearly the entire value proposition of the blockchain remains: People can still post and comment. They can still transact, conduct business, and build games. New members can join. There are successful blockchain projects without inflation (or without much). If Steem is one of them, how is that a big problem, or even a problem at all? 

Under a 'simple interest' (actually 'reduced inflation') mode, the 'proof-of-brain' rewarding scheme is (mostly) neutered, but it was never all that effective anyway, in accomplishing much of anything. (Did it reward the best content? Did it help create a very effective system of content discovery? Did it reliably reward new unknown users with valuable contributions as a way of encouraging rapid viral growth? The answer to all of these questions is "No".)

This hardly seems catastrophic. I don't even see why reduced inflation is worse _at all_ compared to higher inflation which gets given (under assumed 'legitimate' proof-of-brain voting) to weak contributions of questionable value.

Thanks for mentioning me here, fascinating conversations still happening on this post which I think is amazing.

I wanted to chip in my 2 sbdcents since you mentioned my post, what my current ideas are surrounding it.

What is interesting to note is that in my post, the conclusion that I come to is actually regardless of n^2 or linear or even anything in-between or around, it's nicely summarized in the following quote:

>While the Bitcoin system is proactive in that the transaction will be rejected immediately, right now, the only system we have is retroactive. The only way to reject value going towards a double spend, is for the community to retroactively remove the value on that transaction. This is a round-about way of saying that the post must be downvoted to remove the reward. Upon this, the transaction in a sense was not rejected, but rather simply not rewarded.

I have been thinking a lot about this recently with the current situation on Steem, and I think that this is the most important facet to getting "proof of brain" to work right. I don't think you can simply change the reward distribution and hope to solve the problems, no, I think we must ***reject*** things that do not satisfy 'proof of brain'.

I have been a strong proponent of separate voting power pools for upvotes and downvotes, because this mentally removes the opportunity cost of downvoting something (as it currently 'costs' an upvote). You would have your pool of upvotes for incentivizing good behaviour, and your pool of downvotes for disincentivizing bad behaviour. They should not be mixed pools, as both are needed.

I think if people started freely downvoting these super bid-botty trash posts, economic incentives will have to find a new equilibrium. People who bid-bot garbage might very well lose out when 'proof of brain' starts working, and brainless posts are rejected -- and if they spent money and got nothing due to being downvoted and rejected, it's an even more direct influence on their behaviour.