Snax (OP)
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May 06, 2014, 03:07:52 AM
Last edit: June 21, 2014, 09:01:35 PM by Snax |
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[EDIT]: I realize this is a wall of text, will be truncating some of this.
"Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few." - David Hume - Pure Democracy: Distributed Online Government - The invention of the internet marked the first time in history that information could flow frictionlessly. The internet is the democratization of information. The invention of Bitcoin marked the first time in history that currency could flow frictionlessly. Bitcoin is the democratization of currency. The Online Nation will mark the first time in history that power can flow frictionlessly. The Online Nation is the democratization of power. We'll be discussing a new form of government that hasn't been implemented in any nation in the world yet. It covers major flaws and efficient solutions to them as well as a means for making this new form of government stable enough to systematically govern the entire populous of the planet. This is a fun one, so let's start. __________________________________________________ We don't have Pure Democracy in America, we don't even have normal democracy, instead we have an electoral college and a separated group of individuals that rule over us (around 2% of 1% of 1% of our total population) that we throw into a room in hopes that they will vote on laws and make decisions in favor of how we'd vote and make them. This isn't democracy, this is a weak Representative Republic. This is similar to what most "democracies" in the world have, and this huge disproportionment in power needs to change. For the sake of one day lifting the imaginary lines in the ground that we use to divide ourselves with and pretend make us different, for the sake of being able to explore and expand into space and not fight over who owns the territory, for the sake of lifting up the 99.9998% of society that has little to no political power, and for the sake of being able to gradually and peacefully transition the human race into a singular government system, this change needs to happen soon. So What Is A "Pure Democracy"? Pure Democracy Example on WikipediaIt's a system in which the people being governed have direct control over what the government does. In an absolute pure democracy, there would be no elected officials within the government, the system would sustain itself, and any decisions that needed to be made would be collaborated on by any and all people within the system, all having an equal say in it (as far as voting goes). To stop a large flow of poorly-written or deeply flawed bills being presented, there would be a system of registration put in place where in order to be a law-writer you would have to pass a legality test, a scientific literacy, history literacy, and a mathematics literacy test. The laws then made would go through an initial phase of being up-voted or down-voted to be presented in the next major voting phase in which everyone in the nation has a choice of deciding whether or not the bill is passed. Why Isn't A Pure Democracy Already In Place?Power - It requires people to step down from their already prescribed positions of rule. Intelligence - It requires people to take the time to intelligently and presciently design a system governed by the whole of the people, not an isolated group of them; as well as intelligence to propose decent laws and intelligence to vote on them. Motivation - It requires people to keep up with what their country is doing on a regular basis, and to be actively involved in it. Congregation - It would normally require everyone to meet up at the ol' Greek forum to discuss the month's topics, which is hard to do with 300 million people. Solutions To Each Problem, Why The System Can Be Implemented Now, And Why It Should BePower - This new system will start off with no one holding government power over any of the other citizens, making it so no one has to step down from their rule, and so current world leaders don't lose power but so that current world citizens gain power. Intelligence - There are, despite popular belief, an Intelligencia out there that is capable of formulating a self-sustaining system that would make this possible, as well as more practical over other currently instantiated systems. Having this type of government function off the backbone of a cryptocurrency network would mean high security and an easy, smooth transition of systems. The voting can be dealt with via a multi-pool delegation system that acts as a decentralized voter pool. Motivation - Me and almost everyone else reading this is motivated enough to take part in it, as is everyone who applies to be a citizen, and anyone who uses cryptocurrency or arguably even the internet. Becoming a citizen under this government would imply you want to take part in its affairs, otherwise why join a nation that gives you such a magnitude of control over it only to let it control you through your inactivity? You'd be defeating the purpose. Congregation - The only non-ego aspect of the reasons these systems of Pure Democracy aren't in place as current major world governments is the congregation aspect. Not everyone in the country can fly over to D.C. every month for a meet-and-greet over the war politics, and up until the last couple decades, there wasn't really a system in which large volumes of people could communicate simultaneously with each other. But you're reading this now, and you're reading this from a system that would allow a Pure Democracy to take place. The flaws in my list are human flaws, stopping us from advancing socially, so I guess they'll just be a human-hump to get over in terms of implementing a Purely Democratic system. So aside from those, why don't we try to start implementing a more democratic system like this now? After discussing this with many people, the most common objection to the idea, the only one really, is that voting over the internet can be hacked, rigged, and easily corrupted, and while this is true, voting via paper is more easily rigged than any of the major voting engines on the web. By utilizing a distributed cryptographic network, we could design a totally fortified system. There are ways to stop hacking cold in its tracks, the Bitcoin network or other cryptocurrency networks would provide an easy fix for any potential hacking. Much like you can't double-spend transactions on the Bitcoin network, you won't be able to double-vote. It would be practically impossible to poison Bitcoin's network, making this an incredibly secure system. If we use the Bitcoin network and a 51% attack is a possible threat, then using a cryptocurrency based on the x11 algo or a PoW/PoS hybrid would provide a higher degree of security. Keep in mind security only gets better and we're starting with a system that hasn't been hacked at any point in history so far. The Delegation SystemLow intelligence, laziness, or lack of time to spend on law-reviewing and voting is a major potential issue with this kind of government. To mitigate this problem, the delegation system will be used. Voting can be incentivized through tax breaks, but voting is essential in a system like this and many people (Americans especially) aren't interested or don't have the time to make educated votes, so a delegation system fixes this. If you list two people you know to have political and governance intellect as your delegates in the client, then whatever they vote on, your vote gets tacked on to; they vote for you essentially. This is like how America's representative republic currently works, however, a major difference is that centralization and power of influence over the vote cannot be maintained by delegates. If the two or more (up to an infinite amount) people you have as your delegate vote differently on a law, then your vote is not cast either way unless you manually choose to vote on that law. All your listed delegates must agree on their vote for a law, or have not voted on that law in order for your vote to be tacked on. Having this multi-pool system of delegates will remove the "mob rule" effect from systems of pure democracy. Using Cryptocurrency To Power This Kind Of SystemThe changing environment of the crypto world can potentially pose a threat to the security of this government system's network. We will need to have a platform that can variably change major aspects out without invoking a hard fork; this is critical to this kind of government being successful. For example, if the government starts off using Bitcoin as the backbone, and both the SHA-256 algo and Bitcoin blockchain become less than desirable, then the network must be able to dynamically switch algorithms and blockchains. The algo aspect currently seems impossible to do but debate on this is still open (discussion on polymorphic code has been proposed but I'm not too sure about it). An easy way to do the blockchain aspect is to have the government platform use its own blockchain as an intermediary blockchain, relaying all blockchain info from the Bitcoin network blockchain that the citizens of the government platform conduct back through the government blockchain on top of any transactions/voting/etcetera that they do on the government network. Having everyone on the government system use the x11 algos but still relay the information from the Bitcoin blockchain could be a way to allow for network meshing. This would essentially act as a mirror or latent archive system on the government networks part, but a huge advantage it would contain is being able to adopt many other crypto's blockchains into its own. Because of this nature, I propose we call this intermediary-amalgamation-blockchain the Borg Blockchain. I realize this will not be so easy to implement, but it's dynamic & variable modules like this that need to be implemented if a government system like the one proposed is to work effectively. A huge advantage having such a variable system would also offer is that any duplicated government systems that spawn from this (like the hundreds of altcoins from Bitcoin) will be able to intercommunicate, much like how all Etherium applications can intercommunicate. Talk has been had about just using the Etherium platform as the base of this government system but it seems that there may not be enough variable change allowed. Talks about this are still open for discussion. The Current Crowdsourced Constitution - First Draft started Feb. 9th, 2013 by Matthew Robert Garon. - The Online Nation's Constitution - We, the minds of the Planet Earth, and every mind of every Planet that latter adopts this government, following the principles of the Individual's Universal Liberties, the freedom and availability of all information and knowledge, and the even distribution of political and social powers under Pure Democracy, for all generations to follow, hereby instantiate this Constitution for the Online Nation.
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:: Alpha Sector :: Principles & Modus Operandi
A.
The system onto which this government platform shall be ran, and the government itself, will be ran according to the following criteria -
That no separated group of individuals may govern or hold government power over the rest of the governed from which they are separated.
That all persons within the governed body may be allowed the attempts at registration for voting on all laws related to their person, intellectual or otherwise, and for admitting their own laws into the system for which others may vote upon.
That all persons within the governed body, registered as voters, be allowed the attempts at registration for Constitutional-Court Judge to ensure a large check and balance basis for constitutional review and the enforceability of laws.
That all laws passed within this system, all laws struck from the system, and all laws submitted for review into the system, all be made available for the public to see, and that a history of these laws be recorded for reference.
That all actions of the government be totally transparent, not only to its citizens, but to all persons of the world, in accordance with the ideals of free information; that all data and methods used to collect that information by this government also be made freely available to anyone who wants it, as open-source information.
That the currency used across this government not be fiat currency, but some form of cryptocurrency, for security and stability.
That this government be ran on a network of the system's users, much like (if not exactly like) Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network, for the decentralization of political power and the dissemination of hierarchy in government.
That this government's core governance basis and any laws made under this government be made on the principals of universal liberties, freedom of information, and pure democracy, as detailed in the last sector of this constitution (omega sector).
That the final version of this Constitution be crowd-sourced in accordance with the principles of pure democracy before it is instantiated for use by its citizens.
B.
The two spots of political power any citizen may register for are Voting power & Law-Suggestion powers. No entity, citizen or non-citizen, may hold any power or influence in government beyond the two former stated powers. No such power beyond them exists.
Voting power can be exercised whenever and wherever a registered citizen can access a terminal in which to vote. The laws and regulations a citizen will be able to vote upon is limited to whichever laws and regulations happen to be presently proposed during the Voting Session, the sessions of which last one week (seven days), and continually rotate (by default).
The laws and regulations that make it to the Voting Session must undergo submission into the online government system, the submission of which must be done by citizens registered as Law-Suggestors, and be placed into a Review Session, whereupon other citizens with law-suggestion power may up-vote it, down-vote it, or vote it be held in review for another session. The Review Session lasts thirty days starting the day in which a suggested law is submitted. All suggested laws are placed into one of three categories, delineated in the next sector. If a suggested law does not get 5% of the populous from its category to vote on said suggested law, then it is automatically struck from the system. If a suggested law does get 5% or more of the populous from its category to vote on it, then the laws' outcome is determined by the voters.
In order for a suggested law to be removed from review and struck out of the system manually, it must receive more than 50% of the Review Session votes as "down-votes". In order for a suggested law to be removed from review and added to the next Vote Session, it must receive more than 50% of the Review Session votes as "up-votes". If after the thirty days of the Review Session a suggested law does not have more than 50% of the votes as "up-votes" or "down-votes", then the suggested law is held in the system for another Review Session. "Hold-votes" can be used in this way to permit a suggested law more time to be reviewed. A suggested law may only be re-entered into the Review Session, via way of Holding, five times, for a total of six Review Sessions (about six months), after which, if it still does not obtain more than 50% of the vote one way or the other, it is struck from the system entirely and must wait another ninety days until it be re-admitted. If after its second re-admission it is still struck from the system, the suggested law may not be re-admitted for another decade.
C.
The schedule of the Review Sessions and Voting Sessions may be altered province to province as each province sees fit as long as the thirty day length of the Review Session stays thirty days, and the seven day length of the Voting Session stays seven days.
Provinces hold the power of determining if they allow Constant Submission, the default cycle type, for the Review Session, or if laws suggested by citizens of their province are only allowed to be submitted during certain times, as well as the frequency for which that submission is allowed, per number of days for their cycle. Provinces also hold the power to determine the static number of days between the Review Session and the Voting Session, and vice versa, the static number of days between the Voting Session and the Review Session.
Provinces do not hold the power of determining how many Review Sessions in a row they may carry out before a Voting Session is held. The Review Sessions and Voting Sessions must alternate accordingly, never having two of the same back to back, unless the default Constant Submission cycle is in place for the province.
By default, upon creation of a new province or its admittance into the system, the province uses the Constant Submission cycle for its Review and Voting Sessions. Only until a Province-Session-Cycle-specific law is suggested to alter the default session cycle format, and passed, is that default session cycle format altered.
D.
There are three categories of laws that are possible to submit into the system, and any submitted law must specify which category it falls under. These categories are "National", "Provincial", and "Area-Specific".
National laws are laws that effect every citizen of this government, directly or indirectly, regardless of the citizens' physical location. A national law's jurisdiction is not limited by any specific individual or group of individuals, or by physical boundary, as it applies to all persons within the system. Any citizen that has been registered to vote may vote during the Voting Session on a National law. The National category has one sub-category called the Constitution-Amendment category, which pertains to laws that alter or have affect on the text of this Constitution, directly or indirectly.
Provincial laws are laws that only effect citizens of the province in which they are submitted. A provincial law's jurisdiction is limited to the physical boundaries set when the province is established. Any citizen registered to vote, who is also registered under the province to which a Provincial law applies (and citizens can only be registered to one province at a time), may vote on a Provincial law. The Provincial category has one sub-category called the Province Session Cycle, which pertains only to laws that have affect on the way sessions are cycled in the province's system.
Area-Specific laws are laws that effect any citizen within the area specified in the Area-Specific law. If you submit a suggested law into the Review Session, and that suggested law is labeled as an Area-Specific law, then it will apply (when passed) to all citizens who occupy space in the physical boundaries specified by the Area-Specific law. The area specified in an Area-Specific law does not have to be restrained by provincial boundaries. The Area-Specific category has no sub-categories. Area-Specific laws should be designed with the intent of regulating things outside of human political conduct; they should be used for regulation of things like flood control, or other element-related issues, otherwise, if they have conditions related to human political conduct, the law should be made Provincial or National.
E.
Any law that is passed that goes against what is explicitly stated within this Constitution for the Online Nation will hold no authority or power, will not be recognized by this government, and will not be enforced by this government, unless a Constitution-Amending National law is passed that alters what is explicitly stated within this Constitution.
In order to pass a Constitution-Amending law out of the Review Session, it must be up-voted by two-thirds of the citizens that are registered as Law-Suggestors. In order to pass a Constitution-Amending law out of the Voting Session, it must be voted in the affirmative by three-fourths of the citizens that are registered as Voters.
F.
A third voter-based job is available for citizens registered in the system (and it is a paid job, payment occurs by solving a vote and is extremely similar to Bitcoin mining in this regard) as Voters. The Constitutional-Court Judge is a job position that can be obtained by passing a rigorous Constitution-Literacy test on top of retaking all the previous tests required by Law-Suggestors and Voters. If a law is put into review, or is in the voting cycle, or has already been passed, at any point during these times, if at least 33% of the voters (or at least 33% of the Law-Suggestors during review) mark it for Constitutional Judgment, the law will be suspended from the review cycle for that session, or suspended from the voting cycle for that session, if it is in those sessions of the overall cycle, and be placed in Constitutional-Court Review for thirty days and re-admitted back into the start of the next review cycle (if it was pulled from there) or back into the start of the next voting cycle (if it was pulled from there) after thirty days (if the law is judged to be constitutional or not enough court votes were reached).
If it is a law that has already passed, as soon as the threshold is met (50% of voters marking it for constitutional-court review even after the law is passed) there will be a thirty day period for the law to be reviewed by the Constitutional-Court Judges as that law will still be placed in Constitutional-Court Review. There must be a majority vote in one way or another against a law being constitutional (and therefore allowed to be put through the review & voting process, and makes the law legal to enforce after it's been voted into existence) or not being constitutional (striking it from the submission cycle and making it illegal to enforce). Any and all Constitutional-Court Judges may vote on laws with either "Constitutional" or "Unconstitutional." There is no third vote option if a law makes it to Constitutional-Court Review.
The laws a Constitutional-Court Judge may vote on are scaled to their location much like regular voting is, meaning a Constitutional-Court Judge may not vote on an area-specific law that affects an area outside their registered residency, and cannot vote on a provincial law for a province that they are not registered to have a residency in. When a law is in Constitutional-Court Review, at least 25% of the registered Constitutional-Court Judges that can vote on the law in question must cast a vote on it within the allotted window in order for a Court ruling to be officially placed on the law making it constitutional or unconstitutional (enforceable or unenforceable). There is a cap to the number of citizens that can register as Constitutional-Court Judges and act as a constitutional judge in this review process. That cap is at 50% of the registered voter population. As soon as 50% of citizens are registered as Constitutional-Court Judges, no more citizens can register until more citizens join the nation or Court Judges leave.
You can relinquish your rights as a Constitutional-Court Judge voluntarily at any time. You can also have your right to Constitutional-Court Judge stripped from you if you become no longer registered to vote, or lose citizenship to the nation.
G.
There is a limit to marking-up laws as a Voter. A Voter or Law-Suggestor can only flag one-fourth the amount of laws compared to their total voted-on law number for Constitutional Review. Meaning that if you've only submitted votes on four laws in your entire voting career, you can only flag one law for Constitutional Review. Since you have to keep this 25% proportion of voted-to-flagging ratio, it acts as another incentive for people to vote on as many laws as they can. This helps support one of the core values of this system as employing the average voter with power.
H.
Low intelligence, laziness, or lack of time to spend on law-reviewing and voting is a major potential issue with this kind of government. To mitigate these problems, the Delegation System will be used.
Voting can be incentivized through tax breaks or fines, but that's not enough. Voting is essential in a system like this, however, many people aren't interested or don't have the time to make educated votes, so a delegation system fixes this.
You can list any delegation-enabled client on the network as one of your Delegates in your Delegate Pool. By default, all citizen's clients will have delegation enabled, meaning that by default they can all be listed in your Delegation Pool. You can disable your client from being delegate-enabled, which will subsequently remove you from the Delegate Pool of anyone who had you listed. Only delegate-enabled clients on the network can be added to a Delegate Pool.
If you list two people (people you know to have political or governance intelligence, or whatever your reasons may be) as your Delegates in the client, then whatever they vote on, your vote gets tacked on to; they carry your vote for you.
Centralization and power of influence over the vote cannot and should not be permanently maintained by Delegates in this kind of system. A decentralized system, where no supermajority is possible, is ideal. So to stop a supermajority from forming, if the two or more (up to an amount that is 25% of the registered voters) people you have as your Delegates vote differently on a law, then your vote is not cast. There must be total uniform agreement amongst the Delegates in your Delegate Pool in order for your vote to be carried by them and tacked onto a law. Once there is disagreement amongst the Delegates in your Delegate pool, your vote will not be cast until you manually choose to vote on the law in which the Delegates were split over. All your listed delegates must agree on their vote for a law, or have not voted on that law in order for your vote to be tacked on.
Having this "pool" system of Delegates will remove the "mob rule" and supermajority effects from systems of pure democracy.
:: Beta Sector :: Tax Handling & Economic Involvement
A.
- Baseline Flat Shared-Pool Tax Rate for all citizens (F-C tax), never exceeds more than 20% of annual income (the specific percentage of which, 0.1%-20%, is regulated by algorithmic means to balance economy). Whatever the Baseline Flat Shared-Pool Tax Rate is for citizens that year, it is multiplied by 1.75 times to establish the Baseline Flat Shared-Pool Tax Rate for all businesses (F-B tax).
- Shared-Pool taxes are used for anything ran or funded by the government system that is underfunded because of Citizen’s choices to not pay taxes for those programs (explained later). When the Shared Pool collection exceeds the amount needed to fund all other areas of government programs combined, the extra is moved to an overflow account, also contained within the government system, pending destruction, to algorithmically eliminate inflation.
- All other areas of taxation (public education, roadwork, health services, etc.) are categorized as "Non-F-C" taxes, with sub categories titled as such in the former parenthetical, and these Non-F-C taxes are made optional to the citizens. For example, if you don’t support America’s wars in the Middle-East, you shouldn’t have to pay the percent of taxes that funds the wars. So the individual taxations on the citizens is given as option, as per means of freedom of choice and information. The F-C tax would be optional as well if such a thing wasn’t necessary to sustain an efficient relationship between government and economy, or by extension, an orderly society.
- To preemptively avoid abuse of optional taxpaying, citizens will not be permitted to decline from paying all taxes other than the F-C. Instead, the number of categories they must pay taxation on as a minimum goes as follows:
{Lower End} - Citizens assessed to be in the lowest third of national average income only have to pay ⅓ of Non-F-C taxes. This means that if there are six categories of Non-F-C taxes, they must select two categories in which they must pay taxation on, the other four categories being optional.
{Lower-Middle} - Citizens assessed to be in the lower half of national average income, but above the lowest third, have to pay ½ of Non-F-C taxes. This means that if there are six categories of Non-F-C taxes, they must select three categories in which they must pay taxation on, the other three categories being optional.
{Upper-Middle} - Citizens assessed to be in the upper half of national average income, but below the top third, have to pay ⅔ of Non-F-C taxes. This means that if there are nine categories of Non-F-C taxes, they must select six categories in which they must pay taxation on, the other three categories being optional.
{Lower-Upper} - Citizens assessed to be in the uppermost third of national average income, but below the top 2%, have to pay ⅘ Non-F-C taxes. This means that if there are fifteen categories of Non-F-C taxes, they must select twelve categories in which they must pay taxation on, the other three categories being optional.
{Upper-Upper} - Citizens assessed to be in the top 2% of national average income have to pay all Non-F-C taxes with the exception of one category of their choosing. This one category is left as optional to retain some choice left to the taxpayer, but only one category is optional to show that the highest national earners have an obligation to support their fellow human. Why else have all that money if not to increase quality of life?
- If a Citizen falls into a national average income bracket where the described fraction of non-optional taxation equates to a remaining half-category then the number of categories required to pay taxation on is rounded up. That means that if there are four categories, a Lower End bracketed Citizen must pick two categories instead of just one out of the four total. This difference becomes much less significant when the number of Non-F-C tax categories rises.
- Business entities do not have to pay any Non-F-C taxes and there are no "Non-F-B" taxes. Business entities are only subject to the standard F-B tax that automatically takes into consideration the extra taxation needed by the government.
- When creating a new program that enacts a Non-F-C tax on citizens and then paying for that tax based on your Non-F-C tax category choices, National programs will not require a tax percentage higher than 1% of annual income, Provincial programs will not require a tax percentage higher than 2% of annual income, and Area-Specific programs will not require a tax percentage higher than 5% of the citizen's annual income. The aggregate sum of Non-F-C tax percents will not exceed 40% of a citizen's annual income, meaning the total possible tax on a citizen's annual income can only be 60% of the annual total after F-C taxes are added in. The amount each program takes as a percent of tax from a citizen will be proportional to the cost to run each program, meaning if you pay taxes for two National programs, and the first program costs twice as much to fund as the second program, then you will pay 1% of your income to the first program, and only ½% of your income to the second program. This entire process will be automated and done automatically in citizen's client.
- This new form of taxation and systematic regulation of the governments' internal-economy is not only much more efficient than any currently instantiated system on the planet, but it also leads to a much more stable economy without any direct regulation on market by the government itself.
:: Omega Sector :: Specifically Enumerated Definitions, Principles, & Functionalities
A.
The invention of the internet marked the first time in history that information could flow in a frictionless environment. The internet is the democratization of information. The invention of Bitcoin marked the first time in history that currency could flow in a frictionless environment. Bitcoin is the democratization of currency. The Online Nation will mark the first time in history that power can flow in a frictionless environment. The Online Nation is the democratization of power.
B.
There are three core principles this government, and the system it runs on, operate by -
Pure Democracy:
- outlined earlier
Universal Liberties:
- Liberty is defined as "that which doesn't directly affect others."
- Liberties are based on the concept of fairness.
- Intent is not a part of liberty.
- Direct physical action in close proximity to others, or direct physical inaction in close proximity to others, is what can infringe on liberty.
- The immediate and direct consequences of a physical action committed are what constitutes direct physical action, as both the action itself and its direct affect in the physical world are included.
- Applying laws to the individual and basing that law's premise on how it affects an individual is important.
- Cannot make an action illegal if that action does not affect others directly.
Freedom and Availability of information:
- All government code to be open-source.
- Net Neutrality.
- Pirate Networks (non-throttling ISPs).
- Education and Science Literacy to be the top focuses of government involvement.
- Education in Higher Modes (Formal Logic, Philosophy, Comp Sci, and the Sciences as stronger focuses).
- Public Education to be free, as knowledge should be available to everyone. Private institutions still allowed of course.
/End of the Current Crowdsourced ConstitutionFurther Specifics Of The Software That Will Need To Be MetFair Client Distribution: The client that runs this government and its network must be a "fair" client, meaning all users with the client must have the same options available to them (view all local/province/national laws that can be voted on, view news feed, etc). In order to use the client with its normal functionality, you must be registered as a citizen within the network. This can be automated like the registration & verification process of crypto exchange markets. If a citizen has rights stripped, then the client registered to them becomes non-functional. This means that yes, there will be a solid tie between your identity and your client. The only practical way I can think of to make this work with all the other aspects of the system is to have your wallet double as your client so that your wallet is your client. Losing your wallet will then mean losing your identity in the network. There are probably other ways to fix this that I am not currently thinking of, feel free to propose better ideas. In-Client Registration: In-client registration for citizenship will be required for this to work, registering on a webpage will make the government system too centralized and weak to attacks. In-client registration for voting and law-making will also be necessary to make this system work. The client must be able to dynamically update the registration processes for all these tasks based on the criteria the network agrees to standardize for registration. This means that if literacy tests become a requirement to register to vote, the client must display the literacy tests as part of the voter registration by pulling the registration process off the network. A way to make this implementation easy is to have these modules be part of the blockchain, and the most recent agreed-upon version of the module is what is loaded when attempting to register. Which version of the registration process that becomes the "most recent agreed-upon version" will be based on the version adopted via law during the voting cycles. This means the registration process will initially start with no requirements besides citizenship to the network. Code Spliced Into Client by Laws Passed Through the Network: This brings about another potential implementation issue. Laws that effect the code of the network must be marked as such, and what module of the software they target must be included in the law (in special parameters to be parsed by the clients later). If a law that says a change to the client code is required, then the proposed change in code must be attached, and upon passing the law, the clients must be able to understand a change has been made and must allow the users to update their clients to a newer compile of the code via in-client alerts or notifications. Doing this, paired with yearly client blackouts, will create a version of a "soft-fork". What I mean by yearly client blackout, is that the client software must disallow users the normal functionality after a year has passed since the software's installation. After a year, when you open the client, a window should come up saying that it's been a year and that you have to update your client to the most recent compile. By forcing client updates, it's possible to force a switch of major software aspects like from SHA to Scrypt without worrying about people not adopting the new software after the fork. This would only really come into play if a major change is made to the network or client functionality by citizen-defined law. Self-Sustaining System Through Polymorphic Code: That last paragraph made me think about something. While crypto touts being decentralized and trustless, everyone must still rely on the developers for the client in order to access the network. This would become problematic if laws affecting the code of the client or functionality of the network are passed, because the developers of this system will be the ones responsible for implementing that change for others. There's two ways to make this problem go away, the first being some government-affiliated organization is kept responsible for constant compiles and distributions of the system's code, or the initial client comes with a built-in compiler and polymorphically updates and adapts with the network. I don't think either of these options is satisfactory. If a law is passed saying a change needs to be made to the client code or the network functionality, the network in its entirety and all individual clients must be able to sense the change and know if a client isn't updated, automatically blocking the out-of-date clients so no hard forks happen. Self-blocking and self-updating clients would be necessary for this system to work. A "current network state" and "current client state" would have to match in order for your client to connect to the network, not like most crypto where you can have their oldest client and still connect. GUI/In-Client Chat: The client must be incredibly clean and easy to use even with its high amount of functionality. GUI designers will have no problem with this. If the proposed three area-types for laws is agreed upon when building this system, then the client must be able to show local-area, provincial, and national laws as clearly delineated separate categories. The window displaying a selected individual law must display two comment sections with it, one where the commenters voted for the selected law, the other where the commenters voted against the selected law. The comments will be able to be up-voted or down-voted, so citizens can see the top arguments for or against a proposed law. This type of stuff is not essential to the system, but it will certainly make the system more enjoyable to use and thus strengthen the system. Smart Contracting: Smart contracting and any other automated legal processes that can be built into the network are good, to allow for the most legal automation possible (as this is the only way to currently make an online government effective). Real-world implementation and upholding of contracts of this nature will require participants to honor the contracts, or local law-enforcement to consider this government a legitimate form of law, and to have the local law-enforcement honor the contract in place of those who don't (i.e. punish those who break the law). This also means that proposed laws must have a menu or some direct functional controls to tie parts of their proposed laws to the smart contracts of the network (if a law passes or some condition in the law is met after it's passed, then the condition for the named smart contract in the law gets met). Smart contracts must be open to "unforeseen government conditions". If a bunch of contracts are made, and a law is passed saying the contracts are invalid, the network must be able to nullify the contracts via command of the passed law. Blockchain Size: Issues about the size of the blockchain have been discussed. A network that carries currency transactions as well as voting, smart contracting, and other features will have a large blockchain. Proof hybrids seem to minimize this problem, as well as having "Light Blocks". The Light Block concept goes that if after a day you have around 20,000 blocks, you can generate a hash of that day's blocks and you are left with only one block for that day. This would make it feasible for people to use the client on a mass scale. Downloading the full blockchain can be incentivized either through allowing Staking only on full nodes, or through other methods. I am not too worried about the size of the blockchain though, let me know if I should be. Public vs. Anonymous Presence: By default, you will be fully anonymous to other users on the network, however, you can broadcast your identity, and any or all votes you make. This means your name and identity on the network can be public and also show how you voted on any law in the system. You can also be anonymous and still show how you voted on any or all laws passed through the system. This is handy for delegates to display what they represent in order to get people to tack their votes onto said delegates. The transparency of your identity on the network is entirely up to the user, the user can even make their financial transactions fully public as well if they truly wanted (like how it currently is for Bitcoin). Delegation System: When someone adds a network identity (person) to their delegate list, the delegate should get a notification showing that someone added them, and who that person is if that person's identity is public. Removal notifications should also appear. Being able to turn these notifications on and off is important. By default, you will be an available delegate, others can list your client address in their delegation pool list. An option to turn off delegation should be available if you don't want others listing you in their pool. Law-Writing System: There needs to be a tripcode or some script-proof human-input requirement when submitting a law into the system, so law-writers can't spam laws. There should also be a limitation on the number of laws a person can submit per-day and the number of laws the entire network can submit per-day so the network isn't flooded with new laws all the time beyond the point of human management. [EDIT]: This is still like half the content. I'll update again with the input some of you guys have given in this thread.
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