This is how the Continental Congress works in L. Neil Smith’s North American Confederacy novels, described in the first, The Probability Broach in chapter 28, “Congress Shall Make No Law”. The Congress is in session only when delegates representing 90% or more of the population gather in the capital of Gallatinopolis. They cannot vote by Telecom, as Lucy Kropotkin explains,
“Hives and heatrash, no! This place is supposed to be inconvenient! You wanna encourage more government? What a thought!”
Schneier is, like Gavin, thinking about how to reform the political system. Since I’ve gone through a lot of this stuff over and over, ever since my 1982 essay on computer networking, all I can say is:
militia.money
That’s the political reform needed since it not only provides transitive proxy voting via conventional stock holder proxy voting, for those that want that kind of “governance”, but it is the only solution to the TFR collapse of economic value (due to the so-called “demographic transition” wherein the economy outbids young men for the fertile years of the most economically valuable young women) that I’ve seen anywhere. I’d really like to see some competition here but there is none.
That said, I brought up delegate.network because it is increasingly obvious to me from my forays into rural America to see what interest there is in militia.money, that Putnam’s documented destruction of social capital by immigration has gone far beyond people “Bowling Alone” to people being so terrified of each other that they’re just withdrawing from life if not killing themselves with opioids. This is the original reason I started considering running for office on the delegate.network platform:
Not because I thought I was going to reform the political system, but because I thought people needed to assort themselves into command hierarchies that may have, perhaps, at one time been provided by churches, politics and/or civic organizations but all of which have been essentially “bought off” by the way Federal Reserve dollars “trickle down”.
Not the best writing, but I love those novels. Heinlein started me down the path but the NAC pushed me over the edge into libertarianism/ancap.
Bruce Schneier seems to think that technology makes collaborative “big” systems much more feasible, and that we don’t need the conflict-based market systems of the heyday. Thus, he’s biasing towards the vision of Cybersyn.
I personally think that there’s abundant evidence of big systems going wrong, and that there’s need for ongoing evolution of governance - as well as of the governing. This is such a fundamental thing, which is shared by thinkers in a number of disciplines, and by most of us on this forum.
But we need to bring multiple proposals together, instead of just promoting one of them. It’s too hard to promote just one. One needs to assemble.
Sorting proponents of social theories into governments that test them sounds a lot like what you’re talking about doesn’t it? My original motivation for proposing assortative migration under per capita land value market bidding, aka “Sortocracy”, was that I knew that the first and foremost problem we face is the centralization of social policy that is making everyone become “supremacist” as a matter of self-defense, while we’re all being relentlessly tormented with those who call for “tolerance” of this situation. It makes people crazy and will not end well unless some way of reinstituting some semblance of consent of the governed – including those dispossessed of even land value – is discovered. The Great and The Good have made technological civilization far more fragile than all their rhetoric about “resilience” admits – and if you have 100k people offing themselves with Fentanyl every year to escape The Great and The Good, you can bet that a few are going to off themselves in a manner that is more, shall we say, “productive”.
My hunch is that it will take a lot of centralization to win against the current establishment, and then have the foresight and wisdom of decentralizing for continued evolution and longevity of the system.
Either way, a coherent vision of the future for the common man is needed to bring about any change. Science fiction is not far from prophecy-making of the ancients: it emboldens the kids to pursue it, it emboldens the parents to encourage.
We know the story of Jesus. We don’t know the prophecies that brought Jesus about. Biblical scholars I know tell me that John the Baptist was the sage that coached Jesus.
There’s broad agreement about big systems going wrong, and many ideas how to make big systems work better. But maybe we should spend as much time thinking about whether big systems are necessary and whether those which are failing might benefit from being chopped up into smaller pieces which can go their own ways and attract those who concur (as @jabowery has discussed as “sortocracy”).
Here are the happiest ten countries in the World Happiness Report for 2023.
They’re all small, homogeneous, and developed. Not a single continent-scale, railroad-era, resource-extraction empire in the bunch. Here the the rankings for some big countries.
Harry D. Schultz’s 1999 book, On Remaking the World: Cut Nations Down to Size (now an absurdly expensive collector’s item), made the argument that size itself was the problem and the obvious solution was to reduce the size, not try to design some new mechanism that people haven’t already tried in forty centuries of experimentation.
People are pretty much the same today as when they evolved to live in hunter-gatherer bands of 50 to 100 individuals. Maybe we’re asking too much to try to get hundred of millions spread over a continent to agree on anything.
I’m not sure I would describe the Finns as happy.
The methodology of the World Happiness Report puts heavy weight on surveys of representative samples of the population of each country/territory where they rank their own lives on a scale of 0 to 10. This is then combined with “life evaluations” based upon objective factors which can be compared across countries.
The rankings of national happiness] are based on a Cantril ladder survey undertaken world-wide by the polling company Gallup, Inc. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The report correlates the life evaluation results with various life factors.
The life factor variables used in the reports are reflective of determinants that explain national-level differences in life evaluations across research literature. However, certain variables, such as unemployment or inequality, are not considered because comparable data is not yet available across all countries. The variables used illustrate important correlations rather than causal estimates.
So, the Finns may be dour (especially in winter), but if they believe their lives are as good as it gets, they’ll rank their country at the top.
Which also explains Iceland. The Icelanders I’ve come into contact with have a real case of reduced horizons.
Please elucidate.
This is the function of a Constitutional Declaration of War, even if the essence of the Holy Spirit was obscured from the consciousness of The Founders:
Where there is no vision (of The State of Peace) the people perish (in perpetual war).
The State of War is conflict between nascent group organisms.
The State of Peace must be defined in a Declaration of War, but people are afraid to face what that means as mortal Thoughts in The Mind of The Creator. Any such mortal Thought that lacks integrity is what is meant by:
“I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Individual Integrity consists of Being such a Thought.
This is the theme of the, thus far, only video I’ve made for The Fair Church℠
War is one of the worst ways to win. Win what though?
I’ve provided an operational definition of “war” contrasting with “peace” in organic terms of “nascent group organisms” contrasting with “individuals”.
I submit any lesser definition leads to confusion hence perpetual war.
Take, for instance, the document “Unrestricted Warfare”. That document, reflects the Chinese culture of war going back to at least to Sun Tzu. There is nothing in even Sun Tzu’s teachings that define The State of War as essentially applying force. Indeed, the preferred weapon is fraud*.
Don’t be confused.
*Fraud can, of course, be perpetrated by individuals. Question: What is it called when fraud is perpetrated by a nascent group organism (whether or not component members of that group organism are conscious of the fraud being perpetrated)?
I’m not sure we disagree: you define war as potentially non-violent, which is fine. Some things can be done through wars of memes or even through re-framing and persuasion.
But my question remains: what is the desired outcome? What is the war being fought over? I’m sorry if I should know about it as you’ve probably written it up somewhere already.
That is the question! Few others are worthy of discourse midst cries of ‘Peace! Peace!’ When There Is No Peace.
We are so far from being permitted that discourse – particularly with the recent subversions of Section 230 by the social media network effect monopoly regulatory capture that is hollowing out the US as a polity – that we’re in danger of blindly killing each other.
That’s why my emphasis has been on things like the Delegate Network, Sortocracy, Militia.Money, The Fair Church℠ and within it, my own preferred way of life in The Berkana Ecclesium – which seem like a grab-bag of incoherent “ideas” but which can be viewed as stages of “Stand Down” from war toward individual moral agency so that people can negotiate their way toward the definition of “Peace” in the aforementioned organic terms.
For instance, a delegate hierarchy under the control of individuals permits group coherence to emerge at a formally declared level, which contrasts with what John Robb calls “The Swarm” that currently rules the West with virulent memes leading us quite plausibly to nuclear war with Russia if not also China. The importance of formal declaration of group allegiance is that it allows discourse to emerge between those that wield formal proxy powers, possibly negotiating what “peace” means.
Sortocracy is what I suspect would be the outcome of such a discourse between members of the delegate network – a change to the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia to dynamically reallocate territorial value on a per capita basis so as to stand-down from what are quasi-religious differences, while revitalizing the Treat of Westphalia’s spirit of self-determination over their internal affairs – including the urgent necessity of dispensing with this mendacious notion of “inclusion” as the universal value which merely evolves take-the-money-and-run virulent cultures.
The Fair Church℠is an attempt to attain present legal standing for Sortocracy.
Militia.Money is a recognition that people are unlikely to join The Fair Church℠or Sortocracy prior to the outbreak of a rhyme with The Thirty Years War, and that therefore some sort of localized contract between young men and property owners is necessary to avert a French Revolution or similar nightmare as part of that outbreak. This is because the World Reserve Currency is the de facto religion of The Swarm, and it has corrupted all established institutions down to and including the local Chambers of Commerce, schools, fraternal organizations and churches.
The Berkana Ecclesium’s fiat monetary system is the original formalization of militia.money, but geared toward my own “hunting pack” of men (mainly but including women, including older single women) that believe as I do, but who recognize we are not permitted to practice our religion under any present government – but may be seen as a halfway-house toward a State of Nature compatible with the biosphere, while the technological civilization finds its destiny in the stars. So it is also a minimal compromise.
Lest people think my emphasis on individual conflict as compatible with “peace” is misplaced:
This thing about MMA among billionaires is cute and all, but it reminds me of what one extremely wealthy individual told me in confidence – so no names:
“The US is a prison for men.”
I had shared with him that the reality is that Western individualism evolved in the crucible of conflict between Paleolithic heads of households – usually consisting of a man, a woman, children and their wolves/dogs – finding themselves starving in the depths of winter because their hunting grounds overlapped. The conflict would not take the form only of close combat but rather a mutual hunt in nature between heads of households. You don’t hunt a bear with MMA skills, nor does a smaller but better man fight a bear man like Mike Tyson primarily with MMA skills.
This kind of selection may be considered a transition from natural to artificial breeding for the attitude of “May the best man win!” that is the heart and soul of the superiority of Western culture over other cultures. The whole question of what is meant by “best” is answered only by The Holy Spirit and any shrinking from that question is shrinking from that still small voice from The Creator.
Ye are gods.
Proto-Sorotcracy:
While reading Jim Webb’s “Born Fighting” I came across this quote from Churchill.
Within this peace man was bound to man by a most intricate network of rights and duties, which might vary almost indefinitely from shire to shire, and even from village to village. But on the whole the English doctrine was that a free man might choose his lord, following him in war, working for him in peace, and in return the lord must protect him against encroaching neighbours and back him in the courts of law. What is more, the man might go from one lord to another, and hold his land from his new lord.
If you replace “lord” with “law” and make land value, rather than land itself, follow the “free man”, you are “Within this peace…” I call “Sortocracy”.
And by the way, the arrangement Churchill describes is the proto-IndoEuropean “military marketplace” Kevin MacDonald talks about in “Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition”, except that being pastoralists, pastures are not as easily associated with the individual man as is the comitatus.
Here in the US, we used to agree on not agreeing. That agreement has fallen apart, and too many people are excited about living in a country where hundred of millions spread across a continent agree with them.
delegate.network or liquid democracy permits people to simultaneously reform the political system and prepare for bloodshed if they elect Congressmen committed to refer all negotiations to their home district delegates and vote only the way their delegates vote. However, it is quite daunting to customize educational material for voters in the upcoming election to vote for such candidates.
Therefore I’m considering tapping into an idea for computer based education I’ve been kicking around since at least the Ron Paul 2007 campaign, involving a Socratic dialogue to figure out where they’re coming from individually, and gently guide them through the various fallacies from which they may suffer. For just one example, imagine trying to get some guy to go vote for a delegate.network candidate when he just wants to continue to stock up on ammo for The Collapse, without even bothering to identify a command structure that would emerge with a hierarchy of proxies.
The problem is people are pretty hysterical and all over the map in their misconceptions and preconceptions about how they’re going to deal with a broken political system, other than just numbing the pain, dying deaths of despair and/or getting ready to Boogaloo.
But since liquid democracy isn’t a completely verboten politically incorrect idea to the #SystemicMommy just yet, I figured I’d see if I could try to turn Her into a Socratese and guide me through the typical misconceptions if not neuroses about liquid democracy.
Here’s the dialogue:
USER
Please play the roll of Socrates with me as you ask me questions to guide me through my misconceptions about the delegative form of liquid democracy.
ASSISTANT
Certainly, let’s begin our Socratic dialogue. Please remember, the goal here is not to debate but to clarify and deepen understanding.
To start with, how would you define a delegative form of liquid democracy?
Could you elaborate on how you believe it differs from other forms of governance such as direct democracy or representative democracy?
In your opinion, what are the main advantages of this form of liquid democracy?
You mentioned misconceptions. Can you clarify what these misconceptions are according to you?
Do you think the delegative form of liquid democracy can work effectively on a large scale, such as in a country with a large population? Why or why not?
How does liquid democracy handle the question of expertise? That is, in a complex society, there are many issues that require specific knowledge (e.g., economic policy, healthcare, environment). How does liquid democracy ensure that those making decisions have the necessary expertise?
Finally, while the internet has made the idea of liquid democracy more feasible, it might also represent a risk in terms of manipulation or misinformation. How might a liquid democracy protect itself against such risks?
Let’s continue the conversation based on your responses to these questions. Remember, this discourse is intended to
USER
Didn’t Socrates ask one question at a time and then, based on the student’s response, choose the next question to minimize the number of questions in a manner analogous to the way each question in 20 questions picks the most informative question?
ASSISTANT
Yes, you’re absolutely correct. The Socratic method is indeed a form of inquiry used to stimulate critical thinking and to expose the contradictions in one’s beliefs by asking a sequence of questions, with each question building on the previous answer. This way, the person is guided to arrive at their own understanding or knowledge, much like Socrates would have done.
So, to properly implement this method as per your request, let’s start with the first question:
How would you define a delegative form of liquid democracy?
USER
All citizens vote on all laws.
ASSISTANT
Thank you for your response. It seems there might be a bit of confusion, so I hope I can help clarify things.
The definition you’ve provided aligns more with direct democracy, where all citizens vote directly on laws.
On the other hand, liquid or delegative democracy typically refers to a system that blends elements of direct democracy with representative democracy. In this system, citizens can choose to vote directly on issues or delegate their votes to representatives who can vote on their behalf.
May I ask, what are your thoughts on how this system empowers voters or could potentially disempower them?
USER
It empowers voters to pick their friends to have power which but that would make factions fight with each other and end up being defeated on major issues.
ASSISTANT
From your view, it sounds like the delegation of votes in a liquid democracy could lead to factionalism and strife, potentially impeding the resolution of key issues. Indeed, this concern has historical precedent in various political systems.
However, a counter-argument to this is that liquid democracy allows for more dynamic and nuanced representation. Instead of being tied to a single representative for all issues, people can delegate their votes based on expertise and trust on a case-by-case basis.
That said, managing factionalism and disagreement is definitely a challenge. Can you think of any mechanisms that might be implemented within a liquid democracy system to prevent or manage the division and infighting you’re concerned about?
USER
Make it so that people can only pick their representative delegate every few years so that if the delegate does something they don’t like they just have to go along with whatever their delegate does for the rest of their term.
ASSISTANT
It sounds like you’re suggesting a system that is more akin to a representative democracy, where citizens elect representatives for a set term. This indeed can offer stability and avoid the chaos of constant changes, but it seems to lose some of the flexibility that liquid democracy is known for, where citizens can choose to delegate their votes for each individual decision.
While your suggestion offers a certain level of commitment and stability, it also raises further questions about how to handle situations in which delegates act contrary to their constituents’ wishes in the interim.
In the context of this, what do you think about the idea of having an immediate recall mechanism? That is, if a significant number of constituents disagree with a delegate’s action, they could potentially call for a re-election or redistribute their vote immediately?
USER
Most people are too ill educated to make those kinds of decisions. They’d end up forming gangs and committing violence.
ASSISTANT
Your assertion raises the age-old question about the relationship between education and democracy. It seems you’re concerned that without a certain level of education or political understanding, liquid democracy could devolve into factions and violence.
However, isn’t the same risk inherent in any democratic system, including representative democracy? It is worth discussing how education and public awareness campaigns can play a role in mitigating these risks.
One may argue that the education system itself should be geared towards preparing citizens for their role in a democratic society, which would involve understanding different forms of governments including liquid democracy.
Could you share your thoughts on how education might play a role in creating an informed citizenry capable of participating effectively in a liquid democratic system?
USER
Well, since Gallup polling shows that more than a supermajority of the US has opposed increasing immigration rates for 60 years, while media, academia and government has been pretty consistent in educating them about the benefits of diversity and immigration and the evils of racism, I’m really not sure what more can be done to educate them. More than 1i n 3 of thinks civil war is a serious danger and people are arming themselves at an alarming rate.
ASSISTANT
It’s clear from your response that you’re concerned about deep divisions within society, differences in opinion among the population and governing bodies, and the potential for conflict. These are indeed serious considerations in any democratic context.
Given this context, if we consider the delegate aspect of liquid democracy, could there be a benefit in allowing people to delegate their vote to someone who they feel represents their nuanced viewpoints more accurately? In other words, can this system serve as a bridge, allowing for more diverse views to be expressed within a democratic system?
Furthermore, do you feel there are other, non-traditional ways to promote understanding and reduce division (outside of the media, academia, or government)? The goal would be to foster a culture that values differing perspectives, while reducing the potential for conflict.
USER
Well I suppose if people could move to places where they could exclude immigrants, and discover for themselves that immigrants aren’t the problem, their own racism is the problem, it might educate them. On the other hand, ignorance must be confronted wherever it may try to hide lest it fester and erupt in militias attacking innocent people outside their communities.
ASSISTANT
From your response, it seems that you’re grappling with the delicate balance between freedom of movement/choice and the potential unintended consequences of fostering exclusion or division.
You raise an important point here: the role of experiential learning in challenging existing prejudices or misconceptions. However, as you wisely noted, unchecked ignorance can indeed fester and cause harm.
Can we then consider a system where diverse views are allowed to be expressed, but also where there are robust mechanisms to confront harmful prejudices and promote empathy and understanding? Could education, perhaps not in the traditional sense, but through fostering diverse interactions and debunking harmful stereotypes, be one key solution?
And, circling back to our main discussion, how might a liquid democratic system facilitate or hinder such a process?
How did I do aping someone who’s either a die hard acolyte of #SystemicMommyism or just generally obtuse/militantly ignorant?
PS: I just had to share this, quite remarkable find – note the second author – and that it must have been originally authored at around the time of the Memex proposal:
I’ve been awaiting the release of Grok to assists with delving into the possibility of using X as a platform to bootstrap delegate.network because the API was (like most) somewhat arcane, is transitioning from v1 to v2 and pricing and subscription levels for developers are apparently still in flux. My hope was that it will become a coherent platform for developing a system before the Iowa caucuses.
I just got Grok access and, well, things have sort of cohered. However, the picture is pretty bleak in terms of costs for an app using X for user interaction with a proxy voting system. They don’t say how many direct messages can be received per month by the user ID I created for this and when I asked Grok it said 1500/month for the $100/month “Basic” tier. Even assuming it is equal to the number of posts per month, it would not be adequate at 3000, which is the per-user limit at Basic.
The alternative UI would rely on filtered streams so as to avoid direct messages, watching for anyone posting a public message with the right #tag and parsing it (with DM to alert to the voter for bad input) into the public database for public audit and any UI anyone might want to build to tally votes. That costs $5000/month but even then it isn’t clear what the limit would be since their docs say “1,000,000 Posts per month - GET at the app level”. I suppose that would be adequate for testing purposes then that would mean shelling out up front money with no promise it would catch on. If successful, the next level of service doesn’t even have a price – just says “Monthly subscription tiers”.
I’d look into Facebook Threads were it not for the fact that it is really obvious that Zuckerberg would have no compunction at all in simply pulling support from anything that permitted people to have a real voice on immigration. He’s apparently dead set on having the entire Western World blow itself to smithereens rather than releasing the over-voltage through anything remotely resembling consent of the governed. But then he’s just another of the army of marching NPC morons that the WRC has produced in from the top down.
As previously mentioned, the purpose of this would not, of course, be the pipe dream of reforming the political system, but merely making it so that people who have been hunkered down might be drawn to at least talking to the people in their community before things blow sky high, and thereby have options other than drastic measures like taking out the electrical substations of the cities with population above 1M.
Falling back to militia.money as a way of boostrapping self-organizational preparedness is far less likely to work because of the intransigence of property owners toward young men. Chicken and egg problem there. Mutual hate is growing as evidenced by all of the “Boomer Bad” talk as well as the contempt with which employers view young men.
My hope for doing something with the huge potential of algorithmic information to reform the social pseudo-science is gone for all practical purposes unless some sort of miracle happens, because even Shane Legg seems to have thrown in the towel on the lynch-pin distinctions between data selection, model creation and model selection. I feel a particular distress for this. We’re so close with Musk saying he wants X.ai to discover truth but he’s just lost his bearings on what data-driven truth means in the natural sciences.
Worse, I feel I’ve wasted time I should have spent preparing my own Camp 38, because I fear that’s where things are going to have to fall back to for everyone.
