God's Imitator
Chapter 61: The Most Stable Structure
Cai Zhiyuan paused slightly and continued, "Our community follows the same principle.
"The worst-case scenario would be the entire community splitting 6:6, forming two highly organized small groups.
"In that case, we’d just be waiting to die, and the community would never have peace.
"Think about it: today Group A would win over one person from Group B, gathering seven votes to pass a proposal; tomorrow someone from Group A would get unhappy and defect to Group B, again gathering seven votes to overturn the previous proposal.
"That kind of internal strife would be endless."
Fu Chen thought for a moment, "In that case, wouldn’t it work to just establish a solid seven-person group?"
Cai Zhiyuan shook his head, "No, because that would be an inverted pyramid structure that would collapse!
"Seven people oppressing five people, this kind of tyranny of the majority might be maintainable in the short term, but you have to understand that these seven people couldn’t possibly be a monolithic bloc either, they would have internal disagreements too.
"For example, imagine a company with a thousand people total, where 700 are management and 300 do the actual work. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous?
"Even if such a company existed, it would definitely be bloated, inefficient, and completely uncompetitive.
"The actually stable structure should be a proper pyramid:
"A company can only have one person responsible for making final decisions. He directly manages several executives, these executives each correspond to dozens of middle managers, and then control the bottom-level employees through these middle managers.
"Of course, I’m just giving an example, the proportions aren’t accurate, but that’s the principle.
"So, for our community to be stable, we first need a small group that controls the core of power. This small group can be three people, four people, five people, but absolutely cannot exceed five people, because going over that would create problems with the distribution of speaking rights.
"If a so-called small group accounts for half of the total, what kind of small group would that be?
"And through this small group, we would selectively bind 2 to 4 people from the remaining 7 who share similar ideologies with us, are relatively easy to control, and unlikely to defect. Only this way can we ensure that the proposals we want to pass will definitely pass.
"In short, according to community rules, we must have seven votes, but these seven votes are absolutely not seven votes with equal power, because once they’re equal, it could never be stable."
Fu Chen quickly understood Cai Zhiyuan’s explanation. He was silent for a moment, "So, this small group you’re talking about is actually you, me, Li Renshu, Officer Cao, and Lawyer Lin."
Cai Zhiyuan nodded, "Yes.
"Actually, before bringing in Lawyer Lin, I hesitated. Because I could only choose between him and Wang Yongxin.
"But ultimately I could only choose Lawyer Lin.
"Because any capable, influential person, if not incorporated into this small group, could potentially form a new power center after being left out.
"I could only kick Wang Yongxin out because his ideological differences with us are the greatest.
"Moreover, judging from Wang Yongxin’s personality, his ecological niche is that of a leader. Our small group doesn’t need another leader, so we have both ideological and structural conflicts with him.
"He’s indeed very smart and very capable. I also considered bringing him in, but after thinking it through, it wouldn’t work.
"I can’t quite figure out Lawyer Lin, but as long as he has no intention of becoming a leader, he can be absorbed into the group. Additionally, I instinctively feel that if we leave him outside, the destructive potential he might have would far exceed that of Wang Yongxin.
"As for the others, Li Renshu is a very mature and rational manager, and Officer Cao’s identity as a criminal investigator can give everyone a sense of security. He doesn’t need to do anything to have sufficient influence.
"So now you understand? If we brought in an elderly doctor, he would naturally have extremely strong speaking rights, just like Officer Cao, this would be determined by age and profession.
"At that time, who among the five would you plan to kick out?
"Should we two kick ourselves out? If you really think that way, I wouldn’t mind.
"I could also choose to assist Wang Yongxin in becoming a second core. For me, although this wouldn’t be the optimal choice, it wouldn’t make much difference.
"In any case, whether this doctor isn’t brought in, or any one of us gets kicked out, it could form a new power center with Wang Yongxin and others. The worst case scenario is that our community would split into two 6:6 groups, with endless internal strife.
"But if we look for a young doctor, a doctor whose ideology is close to ours and who’s easy to control, our community structure would be more solid.
"So, we actually only have one choice, which is a young male doctor, preferably one with relatively simple thinking.
"As for his actual medical skills, for now it’s enough as long as they’re adequate. Of course, surgical skills would be best."
Fu Chen thought for a moment, "What if it were a female nurse? Wouldn’t that be easier to control?"
Cai Zhiyuan looked at him somewhat helplessly, "Are you sure?
"Yang Yuting and Jiang He are both emphasizing that we don’t need to limit gender. Do you think they truly don’t care about the new player’s gender, or do they hope more to make the community’s male-female ratio 5:7?"
Fu Chen was stumped and momentarily speechless.
Cai Zhiyuan stood up, "Alright, that’s enough for now.
"I’m going to discuss this with Li Renshu. Think it over carefully yourself."
...
After dinner.
Everyone gathered around the long table in the hall again to discuss the unfinished proposals from the day.
Only this time Li Renshu was the first to speak.
"A day has passed, everyone should have thought things through clearly, right?
"Time is pressing. Tonight we have three proposals to discuss. Everyone stay alert, let’s try to resolve these as quickly as possible.
"The first proposal is the ’supplementary proposal’ for the ’Community Protection Fund.’ The specific rules are as follows:
"1. When earning less than 20,000 minutes of visa time in a single game, no Community Protection Fund contribution is required.
"2. Players whose personal visa time is below 24 hours can borrow 20,000 minutes of visa time interest-free from the Community Protection Fund. Further borrowing is only allowed after full repayment.
"3. The Community Protection Fund pool will reserve a maximum of 100,000 minutes of visa time to ensure basic community security and interest-free loan operations. When it reaches 220,000, the excess 120,000 will be returned equally to all players."
Li Renshu paused slightly and continued, "The second proposal is the ’Medical Supplies Management Rules.’
"We will vote to select a ’Medical Supplies Manager’ who has the authority to freely use the Community Protection Fund to purchase any medical supplies. These purchased supplies can be freely circulated and used among all community players.
"When the cumulative expenditure reaches 10,000 minutes of visa time, the details must be submitted for review by all members. Only after the review is completed can another 10,000-minute quota be opened.
"If seven people vote against, the manager can be dismissed and re-elected.
"The third proposal is community recruitment. I favor a young male surgeon.
"Alright, that’s everything."
Jiang He was a bit confused, "Slow down, slow down, I didn’t catch all of that."
Li Renshu smiled, "I know. The reason I went through it quickly was to give everyone a general idea first. Now let’s go through them one by one.
"First, the supplementary rules for the Community Protection Fund.
"Simply put, there are three points: first, set a 20,000-minute exemption threshold; second, establish 20,000-minute interest-free loans; third, after exceeding 100,000, every additional 120,000 gets returned equally."
Xu Tong couldn’t quite understand for a moment, "Why return it?"
Li Renshu explained, "Because when we collect contributions, 5% is actually a rather conservative figure. Based on the current rate of earning visa time, this pool will keep growing.
"The consumption rate of this pool is fixed, 80 minutes per day for each person. So the excess portion can’t be utilized, which is also a waste.
"If there’s too much excess, of course it should be returned to everyone.
"I also know that equal distribution isn’t fair to players who contribute more visa time, so if anyone has a better method of distribution, please speak up."
Everyone looked at each other, but no one spoke.
Wang Yongxin somewhat helplessly shrugged, "It’s fine, let’s do it this way. Consider it like everyone getting a year-end bonus every so often."