(On Legitimacy of Blockchains - 13)
The aforementioned means of consensus are often referred to as PoI (Proof of Identity), which is problematic in its own right because it does not necessarily grant the benefit of anonymity to its participants. Some critics may dismiss the potentially disastrous implications of this by saying, "Why would you want to be fully anonymous, if it is not part of your intention to commit an act of crime?" However, it is my persistent conviction that such a direction of reasoning, whether it has been devised intentionally or unintentionally, bears in it a subtle form of gaslighting.
One's right to choose not to become part of an authoritative body's domain of supervision does indeed possess its own set of pragmatic disadvantages (such as more chances for criminals to undertake their underground activities), yet it is oftentimes a necessary condition to guarantee the preservation of one's freedom of choice because identifiability opens up a pathway for those who have the administrative power to selectively destroy individuals whose activities are deemed "unfavorable" to them.
There are yet another myriad of alternative consensus protocols, of course. PoP (Proof of Personhood), for example, has undergone interesting experiments via some of the most ambitious projects such as iDNA (IDENA). The way it works is that it ensures the uniqueness of personal identities by forcing their human agents to participate in various time-bound psychological puzzles which are too tricky for machines to solve and therefore require human beings to sit in front of their computers and dedicate a considerable portion of their time solving them. This is reminiscent of PoW (Proof of Work), except that only humans can do the required work in this case (not machines). However, such a human-centered framework drains so much time and mental energy from people, that it quickly becomes a massive nuisance after the initial stage of curiosity.