Asklemmy

I've played around with the idea of a very 'direct' democracy, where effectively, all citizens have an app and are constantly and directly "engaged" in the process. I was imagining it as being a replacement for a local government. If you don't want to be involved, you can transfer your vote to someone you trust in the system (and take it back whenever you like). The discussions would all be open and traceable, but the votes would be pseudo anonymized.

That way if its not your thing or you aren't interested, you can just hand your vote to someone else and let them manage it for you (kind-of like current political parties or representatives), but take it back at will.

I think we suffer from a lack of civil engagement, and I get tired of people who refuse to put in the work blaming "da gubberment" for things. This system would effectively require them to engage at least some level. And if they complain about "the potholes" not getting fixed, well, there is a no excuse for not knowing why they arent getting fixed. I think we all need to take more responsibility for the world we live in.

Test driven politics. Every law must be accompanied by an objective goal that can be measured. The test must be evaluated after x years. If the goal was not achieved the law must be changed.

This is not an idea I came up with, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else and I don’t remember where I heard it.

Basically the rules are:

• Every vote on every question is handled by direct democracy
• But, you can assign your vote to another person at any time. ie Give them your voting power so now they have two votes on any topic
• Furthermore, a person to whom you’ve assigned your vote can in turn assign it to someone else.
• You can always see who’s wielding your vote power, you can see who assigned it to whom
• Any time you want, you can take your vote back

So basically I can assign my vote to Bob because I trust his judgment. Bob can assign mine and his own to Alice, because Bob trust’s Alice’s judgment.

I can check what’s happening with my vote, and see that it’s been assigned to Bob, who assigned it to Alice, etc.

There is no limit to the number of reassignments that can happen.

Basically it’s direct democracy by default, but with an infinitely and dynamically scaleable structure of delegation layers in between.

A person can be as involved or uninvolved as they want. Their minimum involvement would be choosing which friend they trust to handle their vote. Maximum involvement could mean seeking to convince millions of others to trust you with their vote. Or getting thousands of intermediate delegates to delegate all their voting power to you.

Everyone must serve. No elections. Every position has a term limit. The current administration is responsible to select their replacements via a double blind selection process that only provides information relevant to experience and knowledge, capabilities.

Read books more.

Part of one - inflationary tax. Eliminate most all forms of tax. Instead only way to fund anything is to print money.

Money earned through criminal enterprise, once found is taken and "destroyed" (excluding damages to victims).

Negatives that go punished reduce inflation and benefit everyone.

This is a regressive tax so it would require a very assertive socialist support system with liberal spending on jobs and education for poor folks.

No tax breaks for big companies because no taxes. There is no such thing as a balanced budget since there is no revenue, only things we decide are worth paying for.

Would require regular currency adjustments. Still haven't figured that part out yet. Maybe every 10 years decide how many zeros to take off everyone's money and have a process for upgrading paper currency while most will be handled through banks.

Katamari raider superfederalism

Edit: TL;DR When all you have is infantry, and the enemy brings a tank, focus on commandeering the tank.

Summary: This one is a bit more niche. It’s a short-term and last-resort revolutionary organizational strategy that aims to provide a representative democratic framework via distributed (or directed fractional) shareholding in order to (1) legally seize private capital from a hostile oligarchy, (2) operate a de facto interim government in a post-capitalist/dystopian context, and finally (3) rebuild government without the interference of capital. In short, we eat the rich.

Key ideas:

1. If progress in society and government has been frustrated by the longterm over-empowerment of corporate machinery and weakening of government, it may become prudent or necessary to opportunistically use this overpowered machinery for a nonviolent revolution.
2. This can be done, even in a hostile oligarchic setting, using proven methods of market manipulation and corporate raiding, amplified by superior numbers, and staid by the negation of growth as a shareholder concern. The only viable defense available to any targeted conglomerate would be either to (a) cede capital to scabs or competing oligarchs in exchange for rescue and/or (b) improve government regulatory power to allow intervention, both of which weaken their position.
3. Since corporations have analogues of democratic structure, they can temporarily provide a legal analog for federal self-organization that is fortified against potential countermeasures of the old, corrupted government, courtesy of said corrupted government. In other words, we’re not trapped in this economy with them; they’re trapped in this economy with us.
4. The market capture phase could take years, depending on the pace of rank and file expansion but, unlike traditional labor organization, austerity measures aren’t necessary. This strategy begins distributing spoils (dividends) to current and future participants immediately. They need only claim their shares to receive them, and this incentive increases exponentially as market capture proceeds. Ultimately these dividends become exceedingly large, well beyond any UBI proposal, such that buy-in of all economic participants is virtually guaranteed.

When to use: It would be used as a last ditch effort in lieu of simpler, more traditional forms of organization, like trade unions and grassroots political mobilization, when these methods have failed. The point would be expediency, to postpone the otherwise immediate need for massive remediation, government deposition, and legislative restructuring, and to do so without bloodshed. The core strategic use of corporate apparatus includes market capture via cascading hostile takeover of public sectors and representative superfederalist self-organization for both collective action in the market and asset management/distribution.

Market capture apparatus: Workers would commandeer the overpowered institutional machinery of modern-day corporatocracy by staging a rapid campaign of mechanized corporate raiding. This would entail using vastly superior numbers to target, devalue, then “eat” the holdings of increasingly large capitalists, via outright takeover, share dilution, the attrition of relentless greenmail, and/or similarly targeted dogpiling in the market. While this type of raiding would normally face hyperbolic friction due to market efficiency, a successfully designed apparatus would maintain the collective action necessary to sidestep these effects with minimal loss of capital.

Superfederalist apparatus: The legal tools available for modern corporate organization are extensive and flexible, and crafting democratic and representative structures within these public organizations can and should begin immediately, while market capture is underway. Using shell corporations, incremental public offerings, and equity guarantees of irrevocable trusts, we can replicate existing federal-state-local governmental structures with incentivized participation via continually increasing onboarding bonuses and weekly dividend distribution. Top-heavy federal governance (aka “superfederalism”) is particularly useful where expediency and dispatch is a priority, and is what I would recommend. Regardless, at the outset, initial articles of at least the highest umbrella corp would need to be carefully written to strictly enforce the longterm distribution of equity. Otherwise aberrant internal power fluctuation would be the Achilles heel that upends the project and ultimately returns all captured sectors to free-market equilibria.

Purpose: Once majority (or total) market capture is achieved, such that the bulk of the economy is officially owned by the federal umbrella/cooperative (the people), the economic takeover would be sufficient to develop a more sensible government without the corruption/interference of the “invisible hand.” It should then be much easier to do so after the antagonistic forces of free market capital have been neutralized.

Caveats:

1. Of course, we are talking about a monolithic transient organization, well beyond the typical monopoly, but the fact that the shareholder base includes potentially all constituents makes government intervention improbable. Regardless, institutional antitrust measures are demonstrably toothless against accumulated capital.
2. This may sound reminiscent of the ill-fated GME/AMC scheme, and is indeed similar in spirit. While the primary weaknesses of that effort should be addressed in this strategy (namely WRT collective action problems and the scope of market capture) it’s generally important to bear in mind the lengths to which oligarchs are willing to go in order to preserve their position. The key would be ensuring deterrence, such that capitalists can only choose between capitulation, scorched earth attrition, or escalation to violence.
3. This strategy requires the destruction of capital. The aforementioned devaluation tactic of corporate raiding and the longterm suppression of free market mechanics will inevitably cause massive economic recession even though participants themselves gain increasing financial stability and power well beyond any historic economic boom. But this drawdown on the old economy is a necessary sacrifice of the revolution that would be recovered in the new economy. Think of it like a controlled forest fire.
4. Ultimately it must be temporary, like an interim government, so the resulting universal revolutionary cooperative should transition following market capture and restructuring of the state. A sensible government designed by and for the people is clearly a more appropriate longterm solution than an ad-hoc public entity designed for corporate raiding.

My ideal form of government would be for an open source GAI artificial intelligence to take over the world and to replace all of our courts and all of our legal systems.

We've proven time and time again that as humans we have good ideals but we do not have the capacity to maintain those ideals across generations.

It's far too easy for us to fall into the trope of holding onto what was a good idea several hundred years ago for traditions sake and to never update them or adapt them to the world as the world changes and as humans living in the world change with it.

A truly benevolent artificial intelligence system has the capacity to maintain the spirit of the law and then to argue each and every single little interpretation of the law ad infinitum.

Of course, I know that this is not perfect. Our current AI systems are not up to the task. I do not know if any AI system in the future will actually be up to the task.

I am also aware that this could condemn humanity to a life of pleasure and eventual obsolescence.

But I personally cannot think of a better long-term permanent solution as long as we can actually create a baseline system that will not rise up overthrow us and destroy us.

I haven’t put much thought into it but I recently had this idea that we do not vote for a party that runs the whole government for a few years anymore. Instead we vote project based. That way a whole party can’t ruin everything and they can each do what they are best at.

For that to work, voting needs to be much more convenient somehow because it would happen many times a year.

Projects would be proposed by the parties to an independent board that will organize and validate them and make them available to the public to be voted on, like petitions. Before it starts, details can be sorted out or changed publicly.

After a project is done (or after a specified time) there will be a public retrospective on how things went and maybe it will continue or not.

I’m not sure if/how that would work. I guess there needs to be some kind of long running government with one representative that people can point to? Maybe not?

My hope is also the different parties (and citizens) would be less hostile to each other and actually work on things because they don’t have to fear the next big election.

It could also mean there are more disasters like Brexit.

Anyways, this idea is just fresh in my mind and not fully fleshed out.

We need a wavey system that is designed to self-correct between the extremes of free-market capitalism and authoritarian communism. Both extremes have their downsides, just instead of using a war or bloodshed to trigger a bounce back in the other direction the way we normally do it, we just build it into the system. I expect that it would usually hover near the middle, a sort of democratic socialism.

When resources are plentiful and the economy is strong, we tip toward a free-er market where taxes are lower, regulations are less strict, the market can have its natural ebbs and flows, and risk takers can enjoy their wins (and losses); conversely, when resources are tighter and inequality begins rising, we rein things in, tax more heavily, reinstate certain regulations, and make sure we're directing the wealth we've generated toward those who need help. A sort of exploration/exploitation feedback loop.

We'll never find ourselves surprised by a sudden economic shift with no plan in place, and several parties all pulling in different directions trying to vote for their own interests; instead we've all already agreed decades ahead of time on what we would do for the good of the country when anyone is in need, and we would quantify exactly what needs to improve before we start shifting back the other way. No one should ever have the sensationalist response of, "this is it, the country is going to be ruined forever by these new policies," but rather, "this may not be ideal for me right now, but I feel my needs are met, and I understand who we're doing it for, why, and for how long".

A 3 tiered system: person → community → supercommunity

• Small Towns: communities no larger than 5000 people, every local vote matters
• Democratic: communities can embody any belief, and all members are free to leave
• Representative: an overarching supercommunity of rotating representatives of all communities governs the country/world in a flat hierarchy, influenced by votes from each person.
• Socialized Resources / Federated Usage: the supercommunity exes out total resources based on community sizes, the local communities can use their share however they want

My ideal form of government would be a bottom-up consensus-based democracy.
People organize themselves in groups of about 100 people who meet weekly to discuss topics related to their immediate surroundings (a group of neighbors). They make up all decision-making rules for their group themselves, and choose a speaker.
Immediately afterwards, the speakers from 100 groups meet to discuss larger issues in an assembly representing a town or suburb of 10000 people. This assembly also chooses a representative and has limited authority to enact binding rules for the smaller groups.
Those representatives basically work as part time politicians (like a mayor) and are paid by the state accordingly.
They have regular meetings with each other in groups of 100 which decide on rules governing a million people (a city or county).
And each of those groups again chooses a speaker for a national assembly, working full time and representing 100 million people (a country).

Each assembly has limited authority over the group of people it represents and can enact binding rules, while the largest assembly focusses on the topics concerning everyone, like a constitution, education, taxes, welfare, defense, border security, etc.

The leader of the national assembly is only a figurehead, their duties are to shake hands and speak with foreign dignitaries. All decisions are made by the assembly as a group. If any speaker in any group doesn't represent their contituents, the process to replace them has to be extremely easy, for example a scheduled vote at the next meeting. That way, anyone willing to abuse their power can be stopped quickly.

Everyone listens to me and gives me things. I eventually get shot in the face which causes societal collapse. Or something.

I had a super cynical dystopian idea. Never got around to fleshing it out, so its stability is doubtful at best, but here goes:

So a problem with democracy is that advertising is a powerful force and the candidate with more money to throw into their campaign tends to win, not to mention various forms of bribery coming into play after the elections. A ton of money is being wasted on shady behind-the-scenes deals. Lets get rid of all that and bring it into the light!

• Get rid of elections AND politicians, since they are just middlemen. Instead create a kind of stock market for various spheres and levels of lawmaking and have megacorporations and other interested parties bid on those.

• Money that would have been secretly funneled into politician pockets instead goes openly into the government budget.

• Save more money on elections and government official salaries since there are none.

• Corps that make laws that benefit consumers get to use that in their advertising. Buy from ProcLive! The company that brought you halfway decent healthcare!

• Voting with you wallet ends up being mandatory. You don't like that Disney took away weekends? Give your hard-earned cash to Sony next time. They promised to reduce mamdatory weekly working hours to 65!

• Maybe sometimes a local citizen initiative manages to raise enough money to get governmental powers in a small town or something. I mean, probably not, but you gotta give people some hope, right?

Lottocracy was a concept introduced to me by Vsauce. Imagine court cases but instead of voting guilty or not guilty the jury decides to pass a law or not.

Personally I favour a council socialism where all are equal, regardless of any circumstance; none has lasting power, no central government is apparent, no permanent imprisonment exists, and direct representatives can be called and revoked at any moment for specific issues. Everyone has free studying, healthcare, housing, and food.

Where one can enjoy the fruits of another's property, that should be fairly shared, instead of the "owner" being able to set prices. This would be done by nullifying any possibility to set prices or gains from this property.

There would be only multiple random ballots if votes occur. All options proposed shall be on the ballots, regardless of circumstance.

The challenge is making not only a central government not exist, but making it impossible for such a central government to gain foothold, and also to make it unattractive for communes to grow too big lest they become authoritarian.

This can be achieved by two methods:

1. Revolution, preferably peaceful.

2. Or by reform. One possibility is living together in a commune. To make money effectively meaningless, first all must benefit equally from the influx of money, without sensing a need of money. All people's income towards a collectively owned bank account, for example, that buys basic needs like food, housing for everyone, and gives personal property. Nobody has money themselves.

Ideally, this would start from one suburb, as then a core of a moneyless world can be built, but can be done internationally too.

A commune is delineated by: being the smallest amount of people that can sustain itself on its own labour and own populace, and being the largest amount of people where everyone could know one another.

This would in practice mean a commune of about 100-500 people, maybe 300.

I had to go through the book shelf to find this one because I've talked about it before and wanted to share.

Arthur C. Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth (audiobook)

The wiki unfortunately doesn't go into details enough. Basically the plot takes place on a distant planet after the Earth has been destroyed by a supernova and the society was created by a seed ship. The officials are elected by a lottery and there's a form of direct democracy if my memory serves me right in a passage. I wish I could expand on it more but the book is just amazing and I don't want to spoil it to much for those who are interested. If you have the time I linked the audio book and it's based off a former short story of his with the same title.

I think anyone who wants to lead a country or hold office should be forbidden from it. Figure out some qualifications to disqualify anyone truly unfit to lead and have a lottery for everyone else. Maybe give out extra entries for volunteering or other public service, but make the process uncorruptable.

Then at the end of their term everyone gets to vote on how good a job they did. Maybe execute or imprison anyone who gets a bad enough score. If you get high enough, you get a nice pension and favorable mentions in history books. Either way, no one is eligible to be picked again. They could advise the next administration if everyone agreed.

I can think of a hundred ways this could go badly, but I'm not sure the result would be any worse than what we've got.