Difference between revisions of "Main Page"

Revision as of 01:55, 21 December 2018

InstaGov is a set of tools for instant self-governance via computer network. It is currently under development. It will be open-source and distributed/federated.

Goals

to invent functional and productive techniques of stateless (non-hierarchical) democratic self-governance
to test and demonstrate these techniques starting on a small scale and working progressively upward
to watch for exploit holes and "gaming" of these implementations, and work out ways to defeat these while they are still small
to eventually make traditional government both unnecessary and irrelevant

In order to work towards these goals, it is necessary to better understand the mechanics of power.

Restrictions on the sampling of public opinion, and its conversion into binding decisions, are a thing which may once have been necessary but which is now basically preventing democracy from taking place. "restrictions on the sampling of public opinion" means:

Elections only happen at set times, with long intervals in between
What or who people can vote for is determined by those already in power
The means of expression on votable issues is limited to favoring a single one, rather than expressing the degree to which one approves or disapproves of each(edited)

Proposed changes (there are some details to work out in each of these, but this is the basic idea):

A. Any voter should be able to propose agenda items at any time

B. Any voter should be able to proxy their decisions in any given subject area to another voter of their choosing (subject-specific liquid democracy)

C. (this part is not logically required, but I think it will be important) There should be a system of rational debate available, to which issues of sufficient importance should be subjected before they can be enacted.

External Pages

Modules

Methodology

Applications

democratic militia
federated retail
structured debate: a set of rules for rational debate
solutions to the taxation problem:

Presentation

Related Projects

DemocracyOS: liquid democracy implementation (via via author on Mastodon): code is on GitHub
Liquid Agenda and the Debate Mapper could probably benefit from having a UI like this, at least as an option. (author on Mastodon)
The Humanity Online Project
Loomio
- software co-op
Liquid Feedback (a project of the Pirate Party)
Make Your Laws: main site .. wiki .. Google+

proprietary / centralized

Deliberator: very similar to Liquid Agenda, but more heavily moderated and produced
Kialo: similar to debate mapper
Loomio: "a user-friendly tool for group decision-making. Creating a world where it’s easy for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them." Subscription is pay-what-you-like; looks like interaction may be limited to "groups".
Participedia "open global knowledge community for researchers and practitioners in the field of democratic innovation and public engagement."
PopVox (Google+): tell US Congress your opinion of bills
WikiVote "Russian non-governmental organization which goal is to develop effective means of citizens’ participation in lawmaking and strategic planning"
The Spark "Users post and vote on PROBLEMS that we face as a global community. The most popular problems are voted to the top. Users then post and vote on SOLUTIONS so that the community can take ACTION." - sounds similar to liquid agenda

techniques

wikipedia:Participatory politics: hierarchical representation carried out more thoroughly
- Professional Politicians Beware! by Aaron Swartz (via)
wikipedia:Rational consensus: the method is not currently described in the article, but perhaps the article will be expanded soon. A user has described this system thusly: "ideas are based on known facts and good practices."

discussion

Quora

plans

Equality Incorporated (discussion)
Wolf PAC
2013-07-31 How Democrats can reclaim North Carolina government

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 * to eventually make traditional government both unnecessary and irrelevant
 In order to work towards these goals, it is necessary to better understand the [[mechanics of power]].
+Restrictions on the sampling of public opinion, and its conversion into binding decisions, are a thing which may once have been necessary but which is now basically preventing democracy from taking place.
+"restrictions on the sampling of public opinion" means:
+# Elections only happen at set times, with long intervals in between
+# What or who people can vote for is determined by those already in power
+# The means of expression on votable issues is limited to favoring a single one, rather than expressing the degree to which one approves or disapproves of each(edited)
+Proposed changes (there are some details to work out in each of these, but this is the basic idea):
+: A. Any voter should be able to [[liquid agenda|propose agenda items at any time]]
+: B. Any voter should be able to proxy their decisions in any given subject area to another voter of their choosing (subject-specific liquid democracy)
+: C. (this part is not logically required, but I think it will be important) There should be a [[debate mapper|system of rational debate]] available, to which issues of sufficient importance should be subjected before they can be enacted.
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 ==External Pages==