I would like to say, I'm intrigued by the Proxy Voting System, not as a primary form of voting, but maybe as an extremely transient and optional feature when looking to vote in Elections, and more supported when voting on actual Legislation.
If it it were more supported on actual legislative issues, and you could interact as much or little as wanted - why would we need voting?
That's a fair point. I guess my main argument is that there needs to be some form of collective consent on both Legislation AND Representation, regardless of how involved everyone is. I would say the Proxy Voting System would have the same constraints as everything else I mentioned though, via Jurisdiction/Scoping rules. Whatever we'd be Proxy Voting on, it would only apply for items and groups within the Scope/Jurisdiction of that Council.
To be honest, this is more of a post-reading interpretation, as I actually forgot some of the mental context since writing this. Probably all the weed.
The main concern I have with this being used in Elections (Where votes should be Anonymous),
But why? What is the maximum size of a conspiracy? How many evil power-hungry factory owners do we imagine are going to risk jail time by coercing the hundreds/thousands of people required to make a difference in the outcome? Why shouldn't the public at large be held accountable for our dumb collective decisions? Would you check out your boss' voting record before going in for an interview?
Honestly? Most of them. When people are put into a position of Power, whether their
intentions are "Collective" or "Selfish"-driven, it's within their best interest to maintain that Power ("If I'm a good guy, I should keep my Power to ensure that it doesn't get into the wrong hands." (The reverse scenario for Selfish individuals is more obvious.)). We can't make any assumptions about the percentage of people that will do things safely - We can only create a System that implements checks and balances that prevent non-safe results, or at least make them obvious and reversible by those that are affected by those results.
Re: "Why shouldn't the public at large be held accountable for our dumb collective decisions?":
Sometimes, short-circuiting/preventing known, bad actions is more important than maintaining accountability for those bad actions. We could all have a stupid moment where we vote for an idiot or piece of shit, and details about their prior actions are only identified after the election. The other side could easily make the case that everyone who voted for that turd-burglar knew of those actions, and should be held accountable. Personally, I know plenty of people that voted for Trump that wouldn't have under more humane circumstances, and if they weren't feeling exploited. Society is sometimes going to have situations where a significant portion of us make the same bad decisions at the same time. We shouldn't give a Bad Populist the ammunition they need to paint a portion of our population as "The Enemy." I would rather create a system that reduces the odds of those bad decisions being difficult to overturn, than focus on ousting the people who implemented them. Rehabilitation over Punishment, if you Will.
Not that Proxy Voting is the answer in this case - I just thought it was an interesting idea/feature for those who might not feel knowledgeable enough to vote directly. Personally, there are some topics I'd rather defer my votes to better experts for.
however, is potential bad actors saying one thing to gain Proxy Votes in order to actually direct them at the exact opposite Nominee that the Proxiers expected. Destabilization of the structure would be extremely easy in this case. Proxying should be extremely restricted or not allowed for Elections. This is not an issue when voting on Legislation, however, since Legislation Votes should be Public, just as they are now
That problem is removed when proxy-voting isn't anoymous. I can't think of a non-tedious non-gamificationable solution otherwise.
That's also fair. I suppose, the Proxy could act as a Broker, in that they could distribute votes between a set of choices, maybe in a sort of ranking, and those who had their votes proxied should be able to see where their votes actually went. But the Proxy/Broker's individual vote, that was their choice, could remain anonymous. I guess, some degree of accountability must be facilitated for Proxies/Brokers, since that comes with quite a degree of Power.
Good point here
(When cast by Representatives of course - Not in the case of Direct Democracy, which I don't agree with for reasons Dok et al have already clarified.).
The difference between Direct Democracy and Proxy Voting is the difference between good dental hygiene and just chewing gum before a date.
If I recall, the Proxy Voting in my view was more of a Feature, and less the primary form of Voting. It would obviously be subject to similar flaws that the Primary/Representative Democracy has, since it would function as an extension of the existing Democracy. The Direct Democracy design tends to lead to Mob Rule, which usually just destabilizes and crashes immediately. However, I think a Direct Democracy could be implemented:
1. With proper transition protocols
2. With proper checks and balances that can overturn it when destabilization is imminent (Allowing fallback to Representational Architecture).
Personally, I think this thread has been looking at the Voting and Legislative process problems from the wrong angle (To be fair, I only read the first few pages, some pages in the middle, and the last few pages, so some of this may have been brought up here or other places already.). The problems in today's society are generally caused by Legal/Late Stage Capitalism's (Different from Free Market Capitalism, in that the State has formalized and blessed its natural failures and Monopolies.) natural support for Hierarchical, Bureaucratic Organizational Structures through:
- Overcomplication of legal and business processes
Those legal and business processes require it to maintain their continued existence though, so they have their own sentience.
Absolutely. We would need the backing of the Professional Class to really solve a lot of these problems, since they're the ones intertwined the most in these organizational structures. We need to give them an offer they can't refuse, either through force, or by convincing them that they want it even though it gives all the Power back to those under them. I've heard an argument along these lines used: "Self-Managed work-forces take all the weight and pressure off of leadership to guarantee the functioning of the lower areas of the business, allowing them to focus more on the high-level concerns of the business."
This is of course, hilarious, because Self-Managed work-forces immediately induce "Bullshitization" of almost all upper-management positions, and this would be immediately clear to the Self-Managed budgeting team. Assuming upper management were dumb enough to let such a thing to exist.
- Hoarding/Gatekeeping of knowledge of these processes within highly specialized Domains of the Private Sector
It's a boys club mostly, though more and more non-men are learning to play the same game each year - yay progress!
What's more, it's often been a
white boys club, and no White Guy in the Professional world likes talking about it. We need legislation that inhibits the hoarding of Intellectual Property by Limited Liability Companies. The idea that a company that can be funded by people with minimal financial risk can hoard knowledge and technological design patterns is absolutely disgusting to me. There's no accountability. We need to set the bar higher for limited liability, or eradicate it entirely. On top of that, we need to restrict the applicability of Intellectual Property Rights on technology and knowledge that relates to Human Wellbeing. You wanna keep the Copyright on your new fart-fueled flash light that doubles as a George Foreman-like Panini-maker Grill? Sure. But if you're hoarding knowledge about life-saving drugs, you should be tried for Crimes Against Humanity.
On the flip side, those who come up with life-saving technologies should be well compensated, even if through Public funds. We need incentives to promote innovation beyond general human curiosity.
If we solve those general problems, and ensure that new knowledge is automatically incorporated into the Public School curriculum, the Gender and Racial gaps will likely disappear. I specifically see this problem as an existential crisis. If Humans don't start making serious strides in non-consumerist innovation soon, we'll be stuck in Zuck-based Hyperreality.
We solve these problems by enforcing simplification of Legislation through standardization of its
language, and through the use of Encapsulation (Often used in Programming and other linguistics
fields to establish intuitive Abstraction Layers within written Instruction that allow you to reference
groups of smaller instructions with simpler high-level instructions.).
That might be too big to fit on a billboard - how do we gain mass support for this concept?
The Population is already feeling disempowered and unrepresented. We can sell it as anti-establishment - A system that puts YOU in control over your region's legislation. Eliminate that shitty middleman who sold out to the Wealthy Elites on day one. Represent and be Represented, regardless of your background or life story.
Why treat legislation like Software? Because Legislation is a formal, syntactically specific form of instruction, and because States all over are already starting to do this (kind of) as they've begun transcribing legislation and legal codes into websites. Recursive linking is already implemented through the Article, Section, etc. Structure. This should be extrapolated out into the fundamental syntax of legal language. The establishment of a structured syntax standard that specializes in Object/Domain Orientation and Encapsulation would make it easier for the Layman to understand the Legislation being voted on without requiring a Law Degree or special training. It also increases re-usability of Legislation Components in the same way it makes Software Modules reusable. It would facilitate the average Citizen's ability to drag and drop high-level Legislative snippets and ideas into a proposed bill as high-level components (That still contain all the low-level, expanded legalese that make up those components) and submit the full proposals in almost no time at all, even using popular/preferres components from existing and successful pieces of Legislation. If done properly, it should be possible for someone in the Electorate to identify a problem and submit fully functional, repeatable Legislation in a day that can be quickly assessed and amended by the Legislature before going to a vote.
I see what you mean, totally - the fact that the public can't do this right now means that skill is not being developed.
Exactly. This stuff, including the nature of Power Structures, and how they relate to Politics and how Power is derived, stolen, and distributed in Systemic fashion needs to be mandatory education in Public Schools. If it were, our problems would be solved in one generation. If I were president, I would declassify all CIA documentation regarding how Power Structures are designed, and even torn down, and distribute that to the Public at large, along with methodologies for using basic Power Distribution concepts that allow one to rebuild that which was broken.
Funny enough, the election of Trump on a similar anti-establishment position is actually hope enough that we can achieve those kinds of goals. The problem is convincing the Left and Right Wings that they both want the same thing, and that they mainly differ on methodology and targeted demographics due to Propaganda from both sides.
I recommend a modified form of Participatory Politics, where Democratic Hierarchies in all branches of government are formed as needed from the ground up through Community organization around Governing Domains (Hierarchies of Categorization of Legislation topics, as well as governing jurisdiction by population density and location.). My primary concern with it's suggested implementation on Wikipedia is that everyone is required to participate as a council member at the bottom rung, at least. I think we could easily replace the structure of the current State's major components with something that resembles their proposed "Parpolity" structure without replacing it entirely with a system where every single person is directly involved, since a significant number of people won't care to be involved in government and their involvement will likely impede those who do care. Besides, I think the assumption in their proposed implementation was that anyone who wasn't involved was simply ignored by the system, either defaulting non-participants to Anarchism or surrounding State Rule, which is hilariously unrealistic. As long as the Electoral and Legislative Proposal processes are open to all citizens that fall under corresponding Jurisdictions, Agencies, Legislatures, and Courts, I think we're okay with actual Council participation being optional, but immediately accessible by the individual, if preferred. It's also important not to lose the current Organizations and Infrastructure that currently exist by rebuilding each Agency/Legislature/Court from the ground up again. It's possible to transition existing Organizations to the new Structure and re-adjust the scale afterwards as needed using the new system's predefined processes.
Yeah, I think there may be more than one way it could be implemented though - the hard part is selling something that the public doesn't want because they don't understand why they would want it.
It all goes back to Anti-Establishment rhetoric. It's sexy right now. It got Trump elected, which means it can be leveraged to steal some of the Right Wing Vote (Although we'll need to concede on things like Gun Rights, and some non-Evangelical positions. We're not giving up on Minority Rights, LGBTQ, etc. But many of the Trump Camp are already uncaring about that stuff anyways. Plenty of Gays I know who voted for Trump because muh freedumz and muh marketz.).
It's also suggested that Parecon (Participatory Economics) is paired with this to ensure similar Democratization of the Means of Production, but I have the same concerns with this structure that I had with the other. I think we've seen enough Democratic Workplace structures succeed (Like Co-Ops, and similar structures.) that we can come up with a mix that enforces Socialization of the Means of Production without resulting in a planned economy like they suggest. Market Socialism is probably ideal, and I think it would be best implemented using concepts from Parecon - Not the whole thing. Mostly just the decentralized organization of Democratic Labor, but with Personal and Shared Ownership of Property giving way to a fully featured Market that is less likely to leave its constituents starving or dependent on Slave Labor or Planetary destruction to survive.
Happy to talk specifics, either in this thread, or in another. This was a very high-level overview.
Looked into Sociocracy a little last year.. happy to see more and more worker co-ops coming into existence.
Same! I'm playing "Company/Management Kiss-ass" at my company until they put me in charge of something (They've promoted me 3 times in the last couple years already, and are about to promote me again. It won't be long now.). As soon as they do, I'm de facto democratizing my department and letting its unbounded, pressure-less success turn everyone under the Board of Directors Rich-Hungry Socialists.
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Oh yeah, I can tell you have me figured out 
