Share enough to work together

The question

How can independent participants coordinate while keeping sensitive information under their own control? Too little information can make a plan unreliable. Too much disclosure can expose private details and concentrate power.

RootKnow studies whether useful coordination can work through selected information and permitted questions. The proposed RealMaker Node would help a person or organization understand and act on its own situation first. Sharing would serve an additional purpose the owner chooses, rather than becoming the price of receiving private help.

Small example

A workshop receives a request for a part. Its owner needs to check machine time, existing orders, material and contractual obligations. A local system could examine those details and answer a specific question: can the workshop accept this job under these conditions?

The buyer might need a delivery date, price and evidence of capability. They may not need the workshop’s customer list or other contracts. The factory case shows how separate owners could contribute to the same plan.

What we are testing

The proposed shared World would connect the information participants permit others to use. Where private detail is necessary, an owner-approved local check could examine it locally and return an appropriate answer. The system must state when information is unknown, outdated or unverified.

We would test whether those answers are sufficient to form reliable commitments. We would also examine misleading claims, information revealed by combining answers, verification costs and whether participants can withdraw access without losing control of their own work.

A factory’s Node could examine its private contracts and stock, then return an authorized answer: the quantity it could supply, the earliest delivery and any missing working capital. The shared World needs that useful answer, not necessarily the raw contracts.

What would change our mind

If useful plans repeatedly require more disclosure than participants can accept, this design needs revision. Selective sharing would also fail if its costs or leakage exceed those of existing arrangements. A private system that cannot coordinate is incomplete; a coordinating system that quietly exposes private detail has failed a different, equally important test.

RealMaker is in early development. This note states a research question and idea being tested.