"But what if a whale bought in simply to try and destroy the platform and profit from shorts (a kind of DAO scenario)? Or what if a whale had the community turn against them and they decided to just vote poorly out of spite?"

Interesting. let me come back to that.

Um. Where did I say this??

well, one would only assume that if ned and dan are using the reuptation to sabatoge this person, they have decided that they think the way he is voting is destructive right.

You are grossly misquoting me and adding your own words to mine.

I didnt quote you, i merely anticipated your answer to my first question, and based my response on that.

You have been kind enough to give me your definition of an evil whale. The basis of your definition is intent. State of mind. So what defines an evil whale is what he has in his head when he votes. Not the vote itself, but the reason behind the vote. EIther its spite or a desire to profit by destroying the platform.

It should be taken as a given that this reason can not be determined objectively through obervation. I can't look at, for example, bernie sanders vote on the DV and know for certain what the motivation behind casting his vote was. Even if he states his reasons (he did), there is no way to be sure he is being honest. Worse, there is nothing i can really use to infer the voters intentions except the vote itself.

So at the end of the day you have ned and dan, using the reputation system against other whales who vote "maliciously" because they looked at how he voted and determined that res ipsa loquiter the vote must have been cast maliciously.

But why stop at whales. Why not simply tweak the system so that the can use it against anyone who votes in a way they deem malicious. After all whales shouldn't have less rights than anyone else.