Jim Bell vindicated

Lodewijk andré de la porte l at odewijk.nl
Mon May 11 19:30:58 PDT 2015


2015-05-12 9:23 GMT+09:00 Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net>:

> I appreciate your sentiment and what I perceive as your implicit
> "folks, consider being cautious" but when you say "fix that" the
> obvious question is "how"?
>

The how is slightly easier to answer, it is just a how-to-get-there. The
where to go is the real issue.


> I don't know that -any- system can fix any other system except to
> appear to do so for a limited period of time until it too degenerates
> due to the usual problems - individual human weaknesses (greed, lust,
> anger, unwarranted reactions etc).
>

Is this the problem? Human collective madness seems to have fostered first
kings and such royalty, whom then managed things as they did. Now we live
in a more Roman-like empire, where populism rules because the crowd does. I
suspect intentional market-expansion tactics found a happy marriage with
"American Imperialism" in providing a certain brand of democracy around the
world. It's not even obvious if that's good or bad. It sure has a certain
efficiency to it. And with the expert management of the superwealthy we're
practically guaranteed of capitalistic democracy's success.

I simply do not know what's best. So I tried to avoid the discussion for
the nonce. I am certain that a world in which people's lives are
continuously on the line is not one I'd like to live in. Less violence is
more efficient, too, as less is materially lost in conflict. The police are
not brainy philosophy types, so long as they do what they're supposed to
(represent the law, that is) you should not blame them at all. Better to be
systematic about solving issues.

Petty crime and petty policing is a mayor grievance. Why have the petty
laws? If it's hidden taxation, maybe it's just better that way. Why else is
it done? Don't hate the player, hate the game. Current politics puts the
masses in charge. They chose them that chose these laws.


> Do you actually believe there's an answer to -how- to "fix it"?
>

There is. The answer changes depending on what you care about, but there is.


> Or, are you uncomfortable with this discussion?
>

The democracy discussion is an exceedingly uncomfortable one. The largest
problem is pragmatism. Reality is cruel, yet I'd like not to be. A simple
example is having longer or shorter working days. Longer working days
(might, it's just an example) make a more productive society, yet it is not
something I'd necessarily want.

Reality is also intricate in it's interconnections, and amazing in it's
diversity. It is exceedingly hard to talk about. I suspect we'll continue
muddling in murky waters until we find a way to collaboratively apply
something like First Order Formal Logic. A sort of Wikipedia, but it would
be an encyclopedia of arguments. Enter your axiom's and get your logical
conclusions. Unfortunately, ArgueOnlineTM is a project I'd rather watch
than start.


> If you believe that this discussion is counter productive to what you
> perceive as your and or our interests I'm interested to hear about;
> but although "fix it" it sounds superficially laudable it's cheap and,
> well, superficial.  You'll need to pontificate a little more deeply to
> impress folks around these parts :)
>

Seems much like I just need to troll harder... I don't see much in terms of
discussion solutions at all.

I've been thinking frequently about map-reduce politics. I feel like a lot
of trouble comes from a lack of involvement in politics, partly due to
corruption and whatnot making involvement mostly a pesky annoyance. And
partly because people don't know how to be involved, can't be bothered to
spend the time to learn, and well, because it doesn't matter anyway.
Individual opinions are irrelevant, unless you're elected, in which case it
matters quite much quite suddenly.

So, what we do:

Starting with a population we convene in groups of 20. These groups elect a
single person to represent them (not to rule them, but to represent). They
can do so with a 16/20 agreement, if they fail to achieve that agreement
they will not be represented. The grouping method should be geographic by
default, but allow people to form groups at will. A variation with
randomized groups provides weaker convergence as geography correlates with
cultural norms, and does not provide greater safety per se.

This first level electorate (1 person out of every 20) will also form into
groups of 20, and again elect a single person. This causes a tree like
structure, leading up to a top level of less than 20 people which will not
select an elected (there is no president of the world).

It scales decently
^1 20 (very small school class)
^2 400 (a moderate/small school)
^3 8,000
^4 160,000 (two very large football stadiums (like Real Madrid's)
^5 3,200,000 (~population of Kuwait/Uruguay/Lithuania)
^6 64,000,000 (~population of the UK/Thailand)
^7 1,280,000,000 (~population of India/China)
^8 25,600,000,000 (about 4 times humanity, top council will be 6 people)

(group size rationale, skip if you don't care) I chose 20 because larger
groups are favorable, to cause lower levels to have a higher degree of
professionalism. Additionally 20 * 7 (=140) is still an almost
first-name-possible group size. I also think 8 layers seems like a good
quantity. Reducing the group size to 10 causes there to be 10 levels, with
the highest being 7/10 filled. There's some chance there'll exist an 11th
level in the not-too-distant future, the 20 groupings are expected to be
stable even with "optimistic" population growth estimates. Importantly, I
think 20 provides a good balance of being able to get to know people, yet
not uncomfortably personally. Culture and other factors may make tweaking
of group sizes favorable. Especially in remote regions it may be
hardly/unfeasible to group into neat groups. This effect is noncritical.

Every level is allowed to make law for the levels below it. The extend of
permissible law is limited by higher level law.  In accordance with the
laws the levels may levy taxes and manage budgets. If law permits they may
contract natural/legal persons to perform tasks, even legal persons of
their own making.

Somewhat interesting to note is that this is not at all a peaceful setup.
Every representative will continue to fight for it's group's unfair
advantage. I would hope the highest level will create a legal person that
is exclusively granted military rights, with elaborate safeguards, so as to
enforce a demilitarized planet (let's at least get that out of the way as
best we can..). Similarly I imagine multiple levels of courts. I wish for
free migration, because we are all human and our place of birth was not a
choice, but who am I?

After all it will be an exceedingly fair struggle. A very pure form of
democracy, with exceptional clarity of authority and robustness in growth.
It would fail only because of the people. But to my sorrow, it just might.
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