6 ms·

Founding Fathers Version 2.0

16 points by autarch 16y ago

skyfaller 16y ago
To have new founding fathers, you need to found a new country. Although I admire the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org/ http://freestateproject.org/), and I find the concept of charter cities fascinating (see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-poli... or Scott Adam's previous post http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/startup_country/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/startup_country/) I think it will be extremely difficult to do any serious experimentation with new forms of government on any land already claimed by an existing government. I do not think that existing governments will permit any truly radical experiments on their territory, they would be too afraid of spawning something that would change the status quo and push them out of power. I think that our best hope for innovation in government is to open a new frontier, perhaps in the ocean with projects like seasteading (http://seasteading.org/ http://seasteading.org/) or in outer space. We need people to found new nations in places that are free from any existing form of government (and don't have existing residents). I think it is much more likely that we will be able to enact real change in America when there is a better example that is actually functioning in the real world. If we didn't have the example of the United States, would democracy (or democratic republics) be nearly as widespread in the world today? I suspect most of us would still be living under monarchies.
- BrandonM 16y ago
  > or in outer space Wouldn't it be easier to create an undersea or polar society before trying to create one in space?
- eru 16y ago
  You may be right. Though the old founding fathers did not found on new territory. They just took a stretch of British Empire.
  - skyfaller 16y ago
    Good point. I guess I was hoping to avoid violent revolution.
rubashov 16y ago
Pointing to China for excellent government is highly questionable. Singapore, however, is probably the best run country on the planet.
- skyfaller 16y ago
  I would tend to agree with you about China, but Singapore? Citation needed.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    I'll back that up from firsthand experience - it's completely clean, completely safe, with friendly, helpful and quick civil servants, perfect order, with the exception of drugs you're left alone to do almost whatever you want within reason, the quality of life is extremely high, an encouraging culture that values business, great infrastructure, high levels of technology and entrepreneurship, pretty good research, pretty good education, low bureaucracy, low taxes, low red tape, and the government programs they do have run really well and efficiently. Singapore might indeed be the best governed place in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
    - eru 16y ago
      How does it compare to Hong Kong, and, say, Switzerland?
      - lionhearted 16y ago
        Hong Kong's also well governed, but it's much dirtier and slightly less safe (though still quite safe compared to other places). HK infrastructure is top notch, government/business relations are good, and HK and China currently have good relations so that's an advantage. I'll give a slight edge to Singapore, but they're both fine places in Asia. I haven't been to Switzerland, but the general word I hear is that it's well governed, with beautiful scenery, and is a dreadfully boring place for young people ;)
m0th87 16y ago
Germany proves an excellent example of a "national rewrite". The government along with other elements (e.g. corporations) were completely changed after WW2. Seems to be working pretty well for them.
- eru 16y ago
  But we got mostly lucky. The political live played out quite different from what the writers of the constitution had in mind. Just like in the US, which also was quite lucky in the same way.
  - baguasquirrel 16y ago
    Countries never just get lucky. The work doesn't stop on launch day. Both countries' power structures were built in a way that allowed a willing populace to correct its problems. The self-correcting mechanisms seem to have lost their footing in the US of late.
saturdayplace 16y ago
I've wondered more than once about the possibility of the peaceful, orderly transition he's talking about. It seems as through every great past civilization eventually collapsed under it's own weight, devolving into anarchy or was torn apart by war. Given the past, it seems entirely impossible.
- eru 16y ago
  That's the funny thing about the industrial revolution (or modern capitalism, which is slightly older). While previous societies had their golden ages, their invariably sunk back into the mediocrity that they came from. The Dutch and English finally hit a sweet spot, and their societies keep thriving in absolute terms. Not to mention that they exported their way of living to the rest of the world.
edw519 16y ago
It's no surprise that our system doesn't work. It was designed hundreds of years ago, It does work, mainly because it was designed by hackers... Think about it, our government is based upon an application that was launched 15 years before Babbage was even born! It has redundancy (feds and states), load balancing (redistricting), semi-autonomous components (local governments), built-in testing (checks and balances), and even maintains itself (constitutional amendments). I didn't say that it always runs well, but it keeps on running. I only wish that I can launch something that runs for 230 years.
- baguasquirrel 16y ago
  It's also fair to say that entropy has taken its toll on the implementation of the system, and it's overdue for some refactoring. Let's be more constructive here. For starters, how many people know their local reps and actually expect said reps to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood? Why is that?
- kjksf 16y ago
  Your premise, that U.S. government structure was designed, is wrong, and analogy to computing buzzwords strenuous. U.S. government is not all that different (in the big picture) from most other governments and the reason is because it's a result of a long evolution of a system whose basic blocks are not that different from those in Roman empire. Sure, if you go deep enough, there will be plenty of differences between U.S. system, French system or German system, but they all share the attributes you mentioned (local governance, various checks and balances in the system, a way to modify the laws).
- eru 16y ago
  By that standard the British are doing even better.
jrmurad 16y ago
> What would Thomas Jefferson and my cousin John Adams say if they were here today? Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (John) Adams: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide." So they'd expect us to have "upgraded" by the 200-something year mark?
Perceval 16y ago
Here's the problem with Scott Adams' article: it doesn't lay out exactly what the problem is. He says that "the system," by which he means the Constitution, no longer functions because it was designed too long ago. His proposed course of action is to redesign "the system." This presumes that "the system" as it currently exists reflects the original design. Which it manifestly does not. Not only was the Constitution amended 27 times, vast parts of the federal government are not even close to constitutional in a way that the Founders would have recognized. And if the system no longer works as designed, that doesn't actually pinpoint what the problem is. What is causing it not to work? If a system no longer produces the desired outputs, is it because the system is broken or because you're feeding it garbage inputs? As George Carlin said about American politics, "garbage in, garbage out" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1 So, Adams is calling for people to design a new system that will accept garbage inputs and produce desirable outputs. Moreover, he ignores that the current system-as-is-operated is not a reflection of the system-as-designed. Asking for a redesign of the original spec and blaming the original spec, when current practice flouts with contempt the original spec, simply misses the point and will produce an embarrassing misdiagnosis from which an embarrassingly incorrect solution will be derived.
- eru 16y ago
  By the way, you should not only look at how the current system is broken, but also at how it does work. The US is not North Korea.

16 points by autarch 16y ago

To have new founding fathers, you need to found a new country. Although I admire the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org/ http://freestateproject.org/), and I find the concept of charter cities fascinating (see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-poli... or Scott Adam's previous post http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/startup_country/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/startup_country/) I think it will be extremely difficult to do any serious experimentation with new forms of government on any land already claimed by an existing government. I do not think that existing governments will permit any truly radical experiments on their territory, they would be too afraid of spawning something that would change the status quo and push them out of power. I think that our best hope for innovation in government is to open a new frontier, perhaps in the ocean with projects like seasteading (http://seasteading.org/ http://seasteading.org/) or in outer space. We need people to found new nations in places that are free from any existing form of government (and don't have existing residents). I think it is much more likely that we will be able to enact real change in America when there is a better example that is actually functioning in the real world. If we didn't have the example of the United States, would democracy (or democratic republics) be nearly as widespread in the world today? I suspect most of us would still be living under monarchies.

BrandonM 16y ago
> or in outer space Wouldn't it be easier to create an undersea or polar society before trying to create one in space?
eru 16y ago
You may be right. Though the old founding fathers did not found on new territory. They just took a stretch of British Empire.
- skyfaller 16y ago
  Good point. I guess I was hoping to avoid violent revolution.

rubashov 16y ago

Pointing to China for excellent government is highly questionable. Singapore, however, is probably the best run country on the planet.

skyfaller 16y ago
I would tend to agree with you about China, but Singapore? Citation needed.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  I'll back that up from firsthand experience - it's completely clean, completely safe, with friendly, helpful and quick civil servants, perfect order, with the exception of drugs you're left alone to do almost whatever you want within reason, the quality of life is extremely high, an encouraging culture that values business, great infrastructure, high levels of technology and entrepreneurship, pretty good research, pretty good education, low bureaucracy, low taxes, low red tape, and the government programs they do have run really well and efficiently. Singapore might indeed be the best governed place in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
  - eru 16y ago
    How does it compare to Hong Kong, and, say, Switzerland?
    - lionhearted 16y ago
      Hong Kong's also well governed, but it's much dirtier and slightly less safe (though still quite safe compared to other places). HK infrastructure is top notch, government/business relations are good, and HK and China currently have good relations so that's an advantage. I'll give a slight edge to Singapore, but they're both fine places in Asia. I haven't been to Switzerland, but the general word I hear is that it's well governed, with beautiful scenery, and is a dreadfully boring place for young people ;)

m0th87 16y ago

Germany proves an excellent example of a "national rewrite". The government along with other elements (e.g. corporations) were completely changed after WW2. Seems to be working pretty well for them.

eru 16y ago
But we got mostly lucky. The political live played out quite different from what the writers of the constitution had in mind. Just like in the US, which also was quite lucky in the same way.
- baguasquirrel 16y ago
  Countries never just get lucky. The work doesn't stop on launch day. Both countries' power structures were built in a way that allowed a willing populace to correct its problems. The self-correcting mechanisms seem to have lost their footing in the US of late.

saturdayplace 16y ago

I've wondered more than once about the possibility of the peaceful, orderly transition he's talking about. It seems as through every great past civilization eventually collapsed under it's own weight, devolving into anarchy or was torn apart by war. Given the past, it seems entirely impossible.

eru 16y ago
That's the funny thing about the industrial revolution (or modern capitalism, which is slightly older). While previous societies had their golden ages, their invariably sunk back into the mediocrity that they came from. The Dutch and English finally hit a sweet spot, and their societies keep thriving in absolute terms. Not to mention that they exported their way of living to the rest of the world.

edw519 16y ago

It's no surprise that our system doesn't work. It was designed hundreds of years ago, It does work, mainly because it was designed by hackers... Think about it, our government is based upon an application that was launched 15 years before Babbage was even born! It has redundancy (feds and states), load balancing (redistricting), semi-autonomous components (local governments), built-in testing (checks and balances), and even maintains itself (constitutional amendments). I didn't say that it always runs well, but it keeps on running. I only wish that I can launch something that runs for 230 years.

baguasquirrel 16y ago
It's also fair to say that entropy has taken its toll on the implementation of the system, and it's overdue for some refactoring. Let's be more constructive here. For starters, how many people know their local reps and actually expect said reps to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood? Why is that?
kjksf 16y ago
Your premise, that U.S. government structure was designed, is wrong, and analogy to computing buzzwords strenuous. U.S. government is not all that different (in the big picture) from most other governments and the reason is because it's a result of a long evolution of a system whose basic blocks are not that different from those in Roman empire. Sure, if you go deep enough, there will be plenty of differences between U.S. system, French system or German system, but they all share the attributes you mentioned (local governance, various checks and balances in the system, a way to modify the laws).
eru 16y ago
By that standard the British are doing even better.

jrmurad 16y ago

> What would Thomas Jefferson and my cousin John Adams say if they were here today? Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (John) Adams: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide." So they'd expect us to have "upgraded" by the 200-something year mark?

Perceval 16y ago

Here's the problem with Scott Adams' article: it doesn't lay out exactly what the problem is. He says that "the system," by which he means the Constitution, no longer functions because it was designed too long ago. His proposed course of action is to redesign "the system." This presumes that "the system" as it currently exists reflects the original design. Which it manifestly does not. Not only was the Constitution amended 27 times, vast parts of the federal government are not even close to constitutional in a way that the Founders would have recognized. And if the system no longer works as designed, that doesn't actually pinpoint what the problem is. What is causing it not to work? If a system no longer produces the desired outputs, is it because the system is broken or because you're feeding it garbage inputs? As George Carlin said about American politics, "garbage in, garbage out" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1 So, Adams is calling for people to design a new system that will accept garbage inputs and produce desirable outputs. Moreover, he ignores that the current system-as-is-operated is not a reflection of the system-as-designed. Asking for a redesign of the original spec and blaming the original spec, when current practice flouts with contempt the original spec, simply misses the point and will produce an embarrassing misdiagnosis from which an embarrassingly incorrect solution will be derived.

eru 16y ago
By the way, you should not only look at how the current system is broken, but also at how it does work. The US is not North Korea.