Side stepping nonsense governments, OpenGov can it work?

[punningclan]

I propose an online government that allows everyone to participate based on an infallible voting system (presumably a fork of Bitcoin, perhaps with built in incentives for good participation.). It would become the de-facto standard and every denizen would be born with the right to operate it once they can prove their age and citizenship.

There are hundreds of millions of folk in the country and each of their so called votes for representatives and presidents is so watered down as to appear almost meaningless. Politicians are practically unaccountable and the common folk are separated by so many degrees from the policies and bills that determine their life's as to be laughable.

The political systems of the world only ends up serving to perpetuate the slavery whether by greed, negligence or corrupt business influence. In the end democracy has been shown to work somewhat however in it's current guise it appears to require too much trust in individuals who are too easily corrupted.

I say de facto standrad since, much like Bitcoin's rejection of central control and monetary policy, this project would simply side step all governments and allow the voice of the actual people to be heard.

All issues would be represented digitally and initially would simply compare the decisions of the people versus those of their politicians.

It's likely governments would reject this system outright however with enough participation the people would see just how disjoint the decisions they make versus what their so called leaders are backing and would eventually secede.

There are good reasons to delegate since there are always so many issues at hand however I believe it would be possible to design a system that could balance this deluge and allow normal citizens to make informed choices about real issues rather than voting for someone else who may or may not end up making the choice they wanted. Perhaps private aggregated information services could provide the required information.

Open Source, why not Open Government? It only seems to follow given the importance of the decisions those people are making on our behalf.

Current governments were designed as an evolution towards stripping control from the ultimately powerful in an attempt to empower those ruled and are essentially ancient artifacts that nontheless were and are still unduly influenced by the wealthy and powerful. The British house of Lords is a case in point, the US Federal reserve another where unelected officials wield unlimited power.

The forefathers came here to escape the nonsense of royal rule and yet time has managed to bring it all back.


Current list of resources:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Namecoin
http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page
http://eprint.iacr.org/2011/677.pdf : Commitcoin

For some reason these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_effect
http://fisica.ciencias.uchile.cl/~gonzalo/cursos/termo_II-04/seminarios/EJP_Stenger-bigbang_90.pdf


Articles of interest

Machinery of Freedom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jTYkdEU_B4o#!

The author here describes the lack of online voting as a huge cyber threat:
http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=746&doc_id=246047&

[freespirit]

It's kind of funny that you propose to side step "nonsense governments" but at the same time apparently to maintain "nonsense citizenships" 

[punningclan]

It's kind of funny that you propose to side step "nonsense governments" but at the same time apparently to maintain "nonsense citizenships" 

I guess you have to start somewhere. Call the voters whatever you want? 

[fergalish]

You need to implement a secure online voting system. Look up CommitCoin, a voting protocol based on bitcoins. Get that working and widespread, and suddenly political representatives will become more-or-less obsolete.

[ribuck]

I propose an online government that allows everyone to participate based on an infallible voting system... It would become the de-facto standard and every denizen would be born with the right to operate it once they can prove their age and citizenship.

Basically you propose to automate a 51% attack, by which 51% of people make and violently enforce rules for the other 49%.

If you want to improve society, there are so many ways you could work towards a more pluralistic, less confrontational and less violent society. Trying to improve the efficiency of a defective system is missing the point.

[fergalish]

Basically you propose to automate a 51% attack, by which 51% of people make and violently enforce rules for the other 49%.
If you want to improve society, there are so many ways you could work towards a more pluralistic, less confrontational and less violent society. Trying to improve the efficiency of a defective system is missing the point.

I think more-or-less everyone on this forum would agree that the current western paradigm of government is a farce which gives sweeping powers and immunity to those who best abuse it. I hope you can at least agree that OP's proposal is a step forward.

Your post suggests you are pro-libretarian. What would your first step be towards returning power to the people? I mean your first step, so please don't reply and say "implement the NAP".  That would be the last step.

[TECSHARE]

I think the trick will be setting up a "bicoin-like" fork and then designing carefully an ecosystem for generated credits for use. For example people could be paid for maintaining local public or private property using credits earned by running the client or doing community service yourself. Each jurisdiction could have their own fork to limit abuse and support local business.

[punningclan]

You need to implement a secure online voting system. Look up CommitCoin, a voting protocol based on bitcoins. Get that working and widespread, and suddenly political representatives will become more-or-less obsolete.

I think more-or-less everyone on this forum would agree that the current western paradigm of government is a farce which gives sweeping powers and immunity to those who best abuse it. I hope you can at least agree that OP's proposal is a step forward.

Your post suggests you are pro-libretarian. What would your first step be towards returning power to the people? I mean your first step, so please don't reply and say "implement the NAP".  That would be the last step.

I agree, of course in the end those politicians would most likely start using the system however their voice would now be in proportion to all the rest.

Yes I suppose I am, certainly pro liberty. I think my first step would be posting to this forum since this is one of the few places I can often get a sensible answer!

Thanks for the link!

I think the trick will be setting up a "bicoin-like" fork and then designing carefully an ecosystem for generated credits for use. For example people could be paid for maintaining local public or private property using credits earned by running the client or doing community service yourself. Each jurisdiction could have their won fork to limit abuse and support local business.

Again agreed, it's important to have local decisions be effective locally. Politicians in London with no knowledge of local conditions in Scotland, for example, would often make ludicrous decisions effecting millions of people of whom they had no knowledge of at all. The Thatcher dynasty, for example, imposed Poll Tax on the Scots several years before it took effect in England and it was ended years after it was taken down there.

Politicians are rightly paid for their effort so in this system all voters would be paid for their votes from a fund that would be agreed upon and paid for by the system. Perhaps part of the process would see voters actually supporting good ideas by funding them with small amounts of Bitcoin?

[punningclan]

I propose an online government that allows everyone to participate based on an infallible voting system... It would become the de-facto standard and every denizen would be born with the right to operate it once they can prove their age and citizenship.

Basically you propose to automate a 51% attack, by which 51% of people make and violently enforce rules for the other 49%.

If you want to improve society, there are so many ways you could work towards a more pluralistic, less confrontational and less violent society. Trying to improve the efficiency of a defective system is missing the point.

It doesn't seem defective to allow everyone a say in the management of their world.
The current system is defective because we can't trust the arbiters of our choices in the same way we can't trust banks or governments with our wealth, I hardly see making choices on proposed issues as violent takeover.
Does anyone really believe Jeb Bush is going to make the right choices when he's president in 5 years?
What ratio would you want?

[fergalish]

Basically you propose to automate a 51% attack, by which 51% of people make and violently enforce rules for the other 49%.

What ratio would you want?

Excellent question. I'd say I'm waiting for an answer, but I can tell the response will probably be "you have to think outside the box. Instead of any one group deciding the rules for any other group, each group decides for themselves." The question to ask is whether such a system could actually work or not.

[jago25_98]

given that democracy has been turning into a convenient method of debasement

 we could do this with bitcoin right now to vote with real cash.

the winning vote could effect a change in who is able to spend the cash St the end of the affair. the whole thing could be enforced with crypto.

would get complicated pretty fast so let's keep it simple at first.

a bunch of people vote by sending btc to address a or b. after x number of blocks the greatest account effects a change, such as a payout to a number of addresses predefined.

more info and background knowledge on this ideal of democratic capitalism.

remember, voting in traditional democracy requires one vote per 'person' but proving identity not least the natural person is hard and ultimately impossible because in the end we are all one

[scribe]

To keep things fair, I would have a panel of "independent" judges from each proposed choice, who can also vote for one of the proposals other than their own.

The final decision would be based on a 50-50 split between the results of this panel of judges, and the btc-weighted "votes".

Last but not least, each proposal would be required to sing a short pop song (about 3 minutes in length) before voting opened.

Sorted.

[punningclan]

To keep things fair, I would have a panel of "independent" judges from each proposed choice, who can also vote for one of the proposals other than their own.

The final decision would be based on a 50-50 split between the results of this panel of judges, and the btc-weighted "votes".

Last but not least, each proposal would be required to sing a short pop song (about 3 minutes in length) before voting opened.

Sorted.

Nice one lol!

[punningclan]

given that democracy has been turning into a convenient method of debasement

 we could do this with bitcoin right now to vote with real cash.

the winning vote could effect a change in who is able to spend the cash St the end of the affair. the whole thing could be enforced with crypto.

would get complicated pretty fast so let's keep it simple at first.

a bunch of people vote by sending btc to address a or b. after x number of blocks the greatest account effects a change, such as a payout to a number of addresses predefined.

more info and background knowledge on this ideal of democratic capitalism.

remember, voting in traditional democracy requires one vote per 'person' but proving identity not least the natural person is hard and ultimately impossible because in the end we are all one

Perhaps signing the votes with a biometric private key, like a fingerprint, in combination with the individuals own Bitcoin address and other identifying information would solve that problem?

[punningclan]

It's kind of funny that you propose to side step "nonsense governments" but at the same time apparently to maintain "nonsense citizenships" 

I guess you have to start somewhere. Call the voters whatever you want? 
In this system Citizenship would be defined more by participation than birthright.

[ribuck]

I think more-or-less everyone on this forum would agree that the current western paradigm of government is a farce which gives sweeping powers and immunity to those who best abuse it. I hope you can at least agree that OP's proposal is a step forward.

Actually I don't think that the OP's proposal would be a step forward. As I understand it, the OP is proposing that the public can vote on each and every issue on a 51%-wins basis. That just degenerates every vote into the situation of "13 men and 12 women on an island voting who has sex with whom". The current system, corrupt and inefficient though it is, at least provides the possibility for an elected representative to show some integrity and make some tradeoffs to avoid the situation of "every decision is a 51% attack".

What would your first step be towards returning power to the people? I mean your first step, so please don't reply and say "implement the NAP".  That would be the last step.

There's not much point changing a government, either democracy-style (by voting) or Egyptian revolution style, or Afghanistan invasion style. It always boils down to "out with the old boss, in with the new".

Instead, one should strive to return power to the people by making government irrelevant.

So you shouldn't ask "what would be my first step?", rather you should ask "what steps am I already taking?".

I, along with millions of others, have been helping to move society beyond old-school IP laws by my support of and contributions to open source software, and by my support of and contributions to media freely licensed under creative commons.

I, along with millions of others, have been helping the people to obtain increased access to knowledge and information through my support of and contributions to Wikipedia, and my support of and contributions to OpenStreetMap and to other similar projects.

I, along with everyone else here, have been helping to make honest money become a reality, by facilitating the spread of Bitcoin.

I, along with some others here, are building trust by undertaking voluntary trade free of the invoked power of the state.

I have donated over a thousand bitcoins to worthy organizations who are working towards increasing people's liberty, opportunities and self-worth.

If more people would do things that empower individuals and make government less relevant, and if people bring up their children to respect the non-agression principle in public life as well as in private life, then eventually we will achieve a society where the application of the NAP is widespread.

However, tweaking the voting system is nothing more than a distraction. People should just stop voting, except for voluntary organizations. Voting just encourages those in power, and lends a veneer of respectability to their wars, their debasement of the currency, and their oppression.

[punningclan]

Actually the various ratios would also be voted on.

So I take it that you don't want folk to have an opinion? Or at least that they ought not to be able to state that opinion?

If you have a family for example you have to sometimes take opinions and address local issues, like whose doing the dishes tonight or what channel will the tv be on, and so on. If you think that hundreds of millions of people, many of whom have been to court numerous times, are simply going start working together without being allowed some place to make their opinions heard or to resolve issues then it's going to be very difficult to have this discussion.

I agree with your position that we should all be involved , as I am also, and commend you for that however why not organize that involvement in a way that can be globally and locally effective and efficient. The 51% straw-man you keep mentioning has been addressed in the Bitcoin arena why not in the Political one also?

Additionally not everyone in the world is going to sit back and relax once they've found you have no organized sense of defense or policy are they? Does China agree with your NAP for instance? However a hive mind driven by pure democracy sounds quite powerful and agile to me particularly if those voting understand the idea of doing no harm. We cut out the middle men, who have so obviously been corrupted in many cases, and go directly to the source.

There is an argument relating to the NAP and private defense somewhere, but in a way this proposal could easily make all defense private for the whole country, while the watchful eye of the public could limit it's extent, rather than the case now where a limited few spend huge amounts of our money and resources on many wasteful projects with little oversight.

The NAP can't forget that each of us is sharing this one resource we all live on, it will not silence the opposition and will not serve to remove even a single persons opinion.

I'm not talking about tweaking, this is a major change. For example I personally use so little material I rarely put my garbage out but will this society and political system ever be able to reduce my taxes because of that. I really don't think so, no one has ever been able to change that except perhaps with private removal, but then what about the old lady who can't afford it, isn't the NAP about "do no harm"? Or are you just saying don't actively harm anyone but if they suffer it's not your fault? This proposal is trying to find the system that removes the need for undue trust, which has proven necessary for Bitcoin, while allowing even the most disadvantaged a say and position. Why is this such a bad idea?

Should we for example dismantle the national parks system, since private enterprise could use the space or drill for oil, who gets harmed if we do that? Is hydro-fracking a good thing? It is if it gets us cheaper gas but what about the people whose water is being contaminated. Do we bother helping the UK if Germany invades it again?

Would New Yorkers still be able to drink from 24oz cups if the New Yorkers had actually been asked?

Even some sort of NAP based system needs a process to track difficult issues and spot places where harm is being done, at least I would imagine so? Or is it a magic word that just makes it all work? If so why didn't Bitcoin just work, why do we need all this crazy cryptography?

It's interesting to hear children talk about where meat and vegetables come from, "the supermarket daddy..". Who in your NAP society will talk to the Russians or the Chinese when they decide you've gone weak or negotiate with Mon Santo once they own all the food?

The only way the UK monarchy will ever be deposed is by referendum, this proposal allows that type of referendum to be decided not by an unelected House of Lords but by the decision of the people.  

Interestingly, whether fairly or not, you cite me as wanting to tweak the system but you yourself seem to want to do less to it than that?

[punningclan]

Simply put n generalization:

If you have two people or groups who disagree and the outcome of their discussion effects everyone then everyone needs to be involved NAP or no.

Here are three questions:

1) Integrity is exactly the issue, how does anyone know that whomever happens to have been voted in hasn't been corrupted?
2) Why does Bitcoin need so much explicit protection of integrity?
3) Are political questions somehow simpler and less relevant than financial ones?

[punningclan]

I propose an online government that allows everyone to participate based on an infallible voting system... It would become the de-facto standard and every denizen would be born with the right to operate it once they can prove their age and citizenship.

Basically you propose to automate a 51% attack, by which 51% of people make and violently enforce rules for the other 49%.

If you want to improve society, there are so many ways you could work towards a more pluralistic, less confrontational and less violent society. Trying to improve the efficiency of a defective system is missing the point.

So when the miners vote with their feet for or against a particular BIP that's a violent takeover?

[jago25_98]

I'd like to know what would happen if finance and politics were fully integrated; if you want to have a say you have to pay for it

as for one vote per person - how many votes does a conjoined twin with 1.5 brains and no fingers get?

I like the anarcho-communist call to action there in that open source has sprouted something quite big really. there are plenty now against ownership.

I wonder though. there has been many against trade and cash in the past too but the problem was that the efficiency in decision making that money allows has led to that being more powerful. look at china. there is a need to address this