One common scenario for government action is that some problem isn't being solved well by market-based solutions, so a solution needs to be imposed by force. A

One common scenario for government action is that some problem isn't being solved well by market-based solutions, so a solution needs to be imposed by force. A communication technology would be of use here to help determine if a coercive solution is necessary and if so, which solution would be best. For example in the early 2000s, Enron's bankruptcy and other corporate scandals illuminated a problem with corporate accounting. The Sarbanes-Oxley law was passed to fix this problem. Now it seems generally recognized that the law was flawed. The problem could probably have been addressed better if there had been more deliberate and open discussion. Hacker News has a Feature Request page (see the footer). I imagine if there were a feature request that had overwhelming upvotes and no significant negative discussion, then pg could feel confident that such a feature would be good to implement. Something similar could be done with legislation. If there is a particular piece of legislation that has overwhelming "upvotes" over a sustained period of time, and no significant counter-arguments, such legislation could probably be safely passed with the confidence that it has been thoroughly vetted. Legislation that doesn't have these overwhelming upvotes for a long period of time, or has significant counter-arguments, probably shouldn't be passed. So it seems to me that collaboration software could be used to select good legislation for passage.