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Ask HN: Design a government from scratch, how would it look?

28 points by smokeyj 16y ago

The framework for our government was designed in the 1700's, and I can't help but think today's economic problems are a result of the historical tradition of Statism. The founding fathers implemented a government as best they could using information available at the time. It's now 2011 and we've experienced a technological revolution. If we were to design a new government using today's technology, how would it be different? This question is both exciting and depressing. On one hand there is so much potential to improve the way humans interact and direct resources. On the other hand, it doesn't matter what solution is found, because governments exist outside any market. Steve Jobs could have designed the most brilliant Constitution of his time, but it wouldn't matter because following a new constitution would still be considered illegal. Given I'm a dreamer, why not imagine. The weakest component of a fighter jet is the human pilot. Now we have jets without human operators. I believe the weakest component of our government is also the human. Humans experience emotions, are susceptible to bribes, and aren't consistently reliable. Why not use computers to cut out the middle man, drive down costs, and increase satisfaction? Imagine how algorithms can be used to implement real-time, direct democracy. Imagine how multi-factor authentication can be used to ensure voter authenticity. Laws can be applied to geographical zones, while zones are dynamically created based on voter attributes and commonalities. Computers have restore points, so should governments. If the State gets our of control, a roll-back function could be implemented. Fact is there is infinite room for improvement. If government is a service it should be a commodity. The best and brightest should be competing to write the most effective government. It’s unfortunate we’re content with our one party system. Citizens believe in the notion of Republicans and Democrats, while the only option is war and welfare.

nrkn 16y ago
Fork this democracy on Github? Something similar: https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy
- nrkn 16y ago
  Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_democracy#Electronic_direct_democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_democracy#Electronic... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_e-democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_e-democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_transparency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_transparency
alfiejohn 16y ago
Not only do the trains run on time... they run on Metric time!
staunch 16y ago
We just need a reliable way of keeping a Good King in power at all times. Nothing could be more efficient or ideal. The Immortal Good King will be an intelligent computer. I, for one, shall welcome our new silicon overlord.
- duylamnguyenngo 16y ago
  All hail the Good King.
duylamnguyenngo 16y ago
I think a government made of computers and algorithms has the same issue as A.I. What costs do you speak of? What sort of satisfaction? As far as the "best and brightest", it sounds like you're spewing elitism. What should dictate best or brightest? IQ? That's not democracy. Democracy is a representative sampling of everyone's opinion and while not everyone has a high IQ they still deserve to get represented. What you speak of is the 21st century Electoral College. Beneath your argument, I see your point that we all have a few core values that we want served by the government. Agreed. We might be better served by these zones based on voter attributes. I think if more power is handed to the states, our current government can achieve what you're looking for (cutting out middle man, drive down costs, and increase satisfaction). K well back to dynamics now...
- olegious 16y ago
  What makes you think that Democracy is the best system? I think the reason why the 1st world nations are successful is not due to Democracy but due to capitalism. I realize that the two go hand in hand (capitalism/free market requires a hands off/light regulatory approach), something that so far only a Democracy has been able to deliver (although it will be interesting to see how the Chinese model evolves).
  - yzhengyu 16y ago
    I would say first world nations are economically successful because their economies became diverse, i.e. a heavily distributed, highly concurrent and parallel system of systems. Given our current circumstances, it seems capitalism - i.e the central idea that a capitalist works for profit, etc - is now appearing to create economies which are now centralized around people/institutions which engage in nothing moving capital from one place to another, one industry to another, without the attendant in-betweens of the businessmen. And there's goes the concurrent property. And I wouldn't knock democracy much. You might hate American politics now, but the Chinese version isn't better by any much.
    - olegious 16y ago
danbmil99 16y ago
> Imagine how algorithms can be used to implement real-time, direct democracy. It's like you have never read a single dystopian sci-fi classic. What you're describing sounds like GOogle writ large. Count me out! (of course opt-out is not allowed in a system like this)
- edambauskas 16y ago
  Can you recommend some of the classics to read? In particular about real-time direct democracy.
  - nrkn 16y ago
    Not completely pertinent to where I suspect your line of questioning is going, but Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is an interesting take on computer aided government.
Osiris 16y ago
It's an interesting question. While at University we had an exercise in my Comparative Politics class (I majored in Int'l Relations) in which we were provide with a description of a fictional country and asked to write a constitution that we felt would best unify the country and address all the political needs of the various demographics and social groups within the country. What we learned from the experience is that it's the social structure of the country, its history and traditions, that are the driving factor behind how we, as a class, wrote the constitution. In our case, the fictional country had various social groups of different sizes in tribal areas. Each member of the group was assigned to one of the groups based on the group's size. We developed a constitution quite similar to the U.S. constitution with a federal system, though I believe we used a proportional representation system rather than a winner-takes-all voting system like the U.S. and U.K. use. In short, I don't think that modern technology would have a significant impact on how a constitution would be written because, as you said, it's all driven by human emotion, ambition, morality, and ethics. While certain aspects of the implementation of a government may be different if modern technology were applied consistently, the overall structure, design, and operation of government would be still end up being a compromise of the various ideologies of the citizens (assuming a democracy, of course).
wmboy 16y ago
> If the State gets our of control, a roll-back function could be implemented But who decides when it gets out of control?
shubber 16y ago
As much as there's ways that computing could be (and is unevenly) used to increase retail-level government, there are good reasons to continue to include human beings in the governing process. A few notions to look into: * Condorcet voting systems * Mechanism Design Theory * Parliamentary systems Finally, consider strongly the problem of the influence of capital on any system. In the US, there's the issue of campaign finance, for instance. But if you were to program a government, the problem would be worse: you'd only have to buy off the development team once, rather than bribing members of government repeatedly over time.
- nrkn 16y ago
  You could make the development process completely transparent, with input from a wide variety of people, checks and balances etc. and not begin implementing it without plenty of debate, examination etc. The bias is that those who are most interested in the process and/or the most vocal could end up being those with the most influence. But there's no reason not to at least start examining the problem from many angles and for as many people as possible to start trying to pick holes in it.
  - shubber 16y ago
    Believe it or not, that's the premise of a republican democracy. There's just more prose and less code involved.
- smokeyj 16y ago
  I suggest regulation not be monopolized, which mitigates the effects of a malicious regulator. Could you help me understand why maintaining a single point of failure is the only way to govern.
  - shubber 16y ago
    There's two responses that spring immediately to mind: First, "what time is it?" There's lots of cases where a single centralized authority can provide definite and concrete advantages. Second, ultimately, every system of authority (and note that I'm using the word in a very different sense now) is built on a foundation of a threat of death. And that kernel should be held at as much of a remove, as carefully controlled as is possible. Introducing "failover" regulators means that you now have multiple parallel columns of authority, and each basic threat of death needs it's own system of control. That strikes me as nightmarish.
pdaviesa 16y ago
It's interesting to see Skynet posting on HN! How about a government where all citizens get to vote on all bills in real time by texting/tweeting/facebook "liking" yay or nay?
- edambauskas 16y ago
  Very good... as long as my programs count your votes :-)
chad_oliver 16y ago
Some groundwork: why do we have governments? To allow us to live in peace with people we've never met before, who we could otherwise kill, rape, and steal from, without consequences. It's a giant machine to enforce the golden rule, "treat others how you'd like to be treated". Of course, governments do a lot of extra things, but they're just that, extra. The socio-political landscape has changed a lot since the 1700's. I think the biggest difference now is that nations are much less homogeneous than they used to be. In america in the 1700's there was a dominant faith that provided a set of common standards, e.g. that murder, homosexuality, and theft were all wrong. This is no longer the case, and people have become polarized around many different issues. Technology allows us to become convinced of the rightness of our own cause, through association with like-minded individuals. Another significant change is that people are much more likely to move around the country, and have friends and family in different states and countries. Using geography as the basis for government divisions (counties, states, nations) is still a good idea, but is becoming less and less so every day. The conventional solution to the first problem is to give more legislative power to the states, so that, for example, people in the bible belt can have more conservative laws and people in California can legalize pot. This isn't a long term solution any more, because of the second problem. So we have widely-differing views on what should and shouldn't be legal, but we can't just tailor certain laws to certain geographical areas. Given these factors, I make the following recommendations: * Remove the states, and combine the Senate and House of Representatives into one. Allow cities and counties to control any and all issues that are linked to specific locations. * Stop legislating morality. Enforcing the Truth (by any definition) isn't part of the government's core purpose. I personally believe that abortion is murder (although in a certain subset of cases it is justified), but this is an issue that comes down to personal conviction. It is therefore out of scope for the government. Theft, on the other hand, should remain illegal because it is demonstratively bad for social stability. * All laws should be subject to rigorous logical and scientific analysis. For example, if a particular trade policy cannot be proven to have a net positive impact on the happiness of people, it should not pass. * This would involve setting up a fourth branch of government, which is responsible for collating and evaluating scientific data, and performing the analysis of proposed laws. This branch, like the judicial branch, would have the power to veto laws. I envision that for every law, a formal scientific proof will be made available to the public. This will provide a degree of public accountability. We now have a system in which bad laws (hopefully) won't get passed the scientific analysis, so the negative impacts of populism (rule by the popular) is decreased. Now, notice that the format of congress was decided when we didn't have instant communication. Therefore: * Take away the congressmen, and make parties (rather than people) the fundamental unit. Discussions between parties should take place online, or at least be aggregated online. Copies of the discussions should also be made available at all public libraries. * Allow people to choose a party to represent them, or create their own. Parties will have voting power proportional to their number of supporters (measured in votes, not verbal declarations), and a party must have more than 0.5% of the votes before it gets into congress. * Parties must have a declared high-level policy on every issue, and they will be bound by these policies. This is to prevent people from setting up specific-issue parties; people must learn to support a governance paradigm that is bigger than any specific issue. Note that this does not stop parties from negotiating about details. * Elections at the moment are a sham, so instead have rolling elections. After a person votes for a party, they cannot change their vote for 3 months + (some random number less than 14) days. Note that the random number is different to each person, and changes each time the person changes their vote. Within a few years every day will be equally an election day. The purpose of letting people only vote every 3 months is, again, so that people realize that governance is bigger than their one pet issue. * Any party in congress can propose a law, as can any group of citizens larger than 1% of the population. It passes into law when it (or a later revision) has the support of 50% of the votes in congress, as well as the support of the fourth branch of government. Finally, because we're a global community now, no law will be passed if it steps on the rights of people from other countries, as given in a extended Universal Declaration of Rights. Declarations of war will have to be proven to be beneficial to everyone in the world, not just citizens of the USA. This should hopefully prevent another Vietnam or Iraq.
notahacker 16y ago
Algorithmic real-time, direct democracy doesn't remove human emotion from the equation. On the contrary, it makes it easy for key decisions to be made an emotive reaction to yellow journalism without those making the decision having any accountability or any penalty for failing to weight up the consequences.
sjs382 16y ago
I'd want the reset button to be hit every 100 years.
- shubber 16y ago
  The thing is, existing politics has analogies for all the programming-inspired ideas that come up here. To wit: fomenting revolution. If you want to tear it all down and start from scratch, rise up and overturn the standing government by force of arms. Too hard? They have all the good weapons? Then you don't care enough, and that's the check on reseting the government.

nrkn 16y ago
As a though exercise, how would you extend this to work across national boundaries without triggering the usual arguments against world government?
- nrkn 16y ago
  Another thought, who would stand to lose the most from implementing such a system, and how much power would they have to oppose it? How would you assuage or neutralize their objections?
- chad_oliver 16y ago
  I did a quick google search for "the usual arguments", and as far as I can see it boils down to three objections: loss of control, governments becoming out-of-touch with their populations, and having a single point of failure. In regards to the single point of failure, I've got no real answer except that governments have scaled well so far. However, this answer doesn't deal with the fact that so far we've always had other governments to compare ourselves to, which keeps the population in a healthy state of mild envy. Loss of control is a big issue, and not one that's going to go away any time soon. To take the extreme case, there is basically zero chance that any country currently under sharia law will adopt this form of government, because it gives human science the right to veto Mohammad's commands. Likewise, any attempt to join Canada and the USA will suffer from dissidents who don't like to give up their national character. It is inevitable that large governments will be less attentive to the needs of individual communities, but not to the degree that it is often expected. The simple fact that 200 million + people can have one president indicates that social stability is more important that actually being able to make an impact on the people who rule the country. I don't really feel like I've given a very good answer to your question. Perhaps the only route to world government is to start with a small country, demonstrate that it works better than the current forms of democracy, and aggressively support national revolutions during times of world turmoil. Because the fourth branch of government is based on independently verifiable science, it wouldn't be too difficult to set up an international confederation of government science. The social laws of different countries would tend to converge simply because everyone would be working from the same data and the same conclusions, and hopefully after fifty years or so the international confederation would collude to vote through policies of non-aggression in their respective countries. So, yeah, the linchpin in the system - the property that allows it to work across national borders - is that government policies would be able to be verified and tested using internationally-standard science.
rabidonrails 16y ago
Your argument about not legislating morality is flawed. While the idea that you're trying to make may hold water, abortion is a flawed example. Let's say that we're playing with the idea that abortion is murder. You say that government shouldn't be able to affect people having abortions because it is a matter of "personal conviction." However, murder denotes killing a living being and, as you stated above, governments exist to "to allow us to live in peace with people we've never met before..." Now the question becomes is a fetus a living being? OR at what point does it become a living being? Someone needs to make these decisions and for lack of a better option, people turn to the government because if they think that the fetus is a living being then the government would need to protect it. You have proven that government should absolutely be involved when someone wants to have an abortion because it is no longer a person's personal convictions if she is going to murder another person. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying how I feel about the subject, just pointing out your arguments.)
- chad_oliver 16y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point actually. Perhaps I should be more direct and say that governments are trying to optimise happiness. In this case, abortion is less clear-cut because there is no good evidence that an unborn baby is conscious, or that it isn't. However, I agree with you that this isn't a good example, and someone has to decide when and if a fetus is a conscious, living being. In a 'perfect' form of the government I described, this issue would be decided by the government based on hard science, so there would be some decision. But this still leaves the question of what position to take in the absence of any conclusive evidence. To extend the flawed-ness: do you think this applies to issues such as homosexuality (to pick the most controversial)? Do you think that all morality should be legislated?