 | SD-Governance | 57 Members |
| Our Space will be centered around governance of our network, governance of our future civilizations and financial sustainability. | 21 Servers |
| SD-Governance | 57 Members |
| Our Space will be centered around governance of our network, governance of our future civilizations and financial sustainability. | 21 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Sep 2018 | ||
 mhpanda | Regarding some of the more practical aspects: the constituency should be open to any person who can demonstrate the ability to assume personal responsibility. I personally do not think that age should be a factor; however, it would probably be wise to subject ourselves to the laws of whichever territories we happen to be operating in, so this might affect potential candidates (as well as other practical issues). | 13:51:51 |
| mhpanda | Although each individual is sovereign, and therefor not inherently subject to the authority of any other member in the constituency, there will at times be a practical necessity for certain people to be in charge of the conduct of others. To allow for this, we should institute a system of commissions, in which the constituency grants certain constituents among them the authority to issue "orders" to individuals subject to their immediate chain of command. Importantly, however, no constituent shall be subject to a given chain of command without their consent. As much as possible, each constituent should be able to choose the chain of command they wish to work with. The important point here is that no person will have authority to issue orders to others unless they have been granted a commission, and any person may remove themselves from a specific chain of command. This means the constituents willingly consent to following the orders of others. | 14:01:22 |
| mhpanda | Next, I suggest a system of stratified hierarchy. This is mostly to provide incentive for participation, as the hierarchy will set the standard or "benefits" and other forms of compensation for their participation/contribution. This does NOT, however, mean that every level of hierarchy must, or even should, be filled in every chain of command. In practice, a given chain of command might only have (effectively) two or three levels. Both commissioned "offices" and "enlisted" chains of command will have their own grades of hierarchy. The commissioned grades would, of course, have to be individually earned. However, the "enlisted" grades should be scheduled for automatic promotion according to fixed standards (earlier promotion might equally be possible). I have some suggestions for such an hierarchic classification, which I will present at a later date. | 14:12:56 |
| mhpanda | There is, on occassion, a need for a central authority. This is especially true when the number of projects existing impose a demand on resources that exceed what the community can provide. Under such cases, the central authority will need to establish which programmes have precedence/priority over others. A central authority also tends to be more efficient, and easier to navigate. Importantly, however, it should be clear that this central government operates under the delegated authority of the constituency at large. There should be a mechanism through which the constituency can take back control, if necessary. I will present ideas for this central authority at a later date. | 14:21:44 |
 neutronstar | @mhpanda I think we must start with the Why before answering How. Why do we need governance? Before we have a clear picture of this, it will be hard to know whether your suggestion is sound. Next thing that need to be classified are the use cases. Are we talking about the project? Are we talking about a new country, perhaps residing on the moon or mars? | 19:26:03 |
| 23 Sep 2018 | ||
 Patrick Donovan | mhpanda: I like the approach (both the concept of a "writ" and the 5 items you proposed) that you're taking to developing this governance system. Would the governing body still lay claim to a piece of territory like a modern state, too? The idea of "open" constituency suggests that this system could be agnostic to geography and function more like a political party or social organization, albeit with a broader scope of work. neutronstar does bring up a good point that (this thread most broadly) makes the assumption that governance is necessary. This room description says "governance of our network [and] future civilizations" so we could start by focusing on either one. I have a hunch that the level of necessity for governance differs between the two cases. This likely makes the types of arguments for and against governance/anarchy different for each case as well. On the other end of the spectrum: by accepting the need for a central authority (delegated by the constituency at large), this starts to sound like a fairly middle-of-the-road republic with libertarian and/or classical liberal principles that are used mostly to define the boundaries of government authority instead of how it operates. My broadest question in the context of "future civilizations" is: how do you think your system would look with a constituency of 300 million people (roughly the size of the modern U.S.)? And my comment in the context of "our network" is: your proposal sounds like something that could be well-expressed as a set of bylaws for members to abide by. | 17:03:40 |
| neutronstar | My reason for questioning why we need governance was more to be sure we fulfill the right requirements when we design the governance, rather than questioning whether it is needed at all. Here's some suggested answers from my side in the hope to make my point clear: 1) We need to cooperate for safety and security, to survive. This would lead to requirements like that the governance should ensure the safety and security of is inhabitants, from internal as well as external threats. Note that this implies that the governance should protect its inhabitants from itself. 2) The governance should ensure that its inhabitants see a point of living within its realms. This one is harder to clarify, and therefore often missed in my opinion. But if all inhabitants find life safe and secure but pointless, then I would say that the government has failed. Liberalism tries to address this, but with the somewhat simplified view that if you're free to do what you want then you would feel that the life is worth living. Hmm, well, this was a starter at least... | 18:28:16 |
| Patrick Donovan | a systems engineering approach to governance, interesting. | 18:33:07 |
| 24 Sep 2018 | ||
 rkzel |
There seems to be a contradiction there, no? An individual can't export sovereign authority protection to a system without becoming a subordinate of that system, therefore losing sovereignty. Some people say that it is only a small fraction, and we are generally free, but it's like.. there is no way of calculating it. 10% sovereignty given away to the governance to protect the other 90%? No, that's silly, and besides once a governance is established it will, inevitably, invade the remaining 90%, and there is no internal mechanism capable of stopping it. So no, we do not need governance understood as central authority capable of issuing orders to citizens. Especially capable of issuing orders :) | 16:06:58 |
| 26 Sep 2018 | ||
| mhpanda | Right... addressing the necessity of governance. Just on a very superficial level, it is not possible to perform any major and/or complex task without some form of governance. There are many options regarding the nature, size, and name of a viable form of governance (most people might not recognize some such forms as governance), but they all perform the basic function of governance. Safety, security, and survival are all important reasons for governance. Simple coordination, however, might be among the more important reasons at our current level of operation. We need to be able to establish and regulate access to resources. We need to know what resources we have available, what resources we have need for, the priorities for who needs what resources first, how to get the required resources to those who need them, etc. We can decentralize, or delegate, certain functions; however, these decentralized authorities need a common network to ensure that all requirements are being met, and also to reduce the inefficiencies of too many people trying to perform the same task unnessarily, and possibly interfering with one another's performance. Of course, we also need to establish rules to better ensure one another's safety "on the job", especially when the tasks become more physical. We also need to ensure that the people with the appropriate competences are in positions to make appropriate decisions, and have the authority to ensure that those decisions are enforced. We also need a firmly established pathway to ensure that people know who to contact and how to contact them when there are questions or problems. On the latter note, we additionally need a just system to resolve the inevitable dispute. | 14:13:26 |
| mhpanda | I have actually been at this for a number of decades. Of course, since SD was not around, there are many aspects that I did not intend specifically for our needs; and it is quite correct that we need to take those specific needs into consideration. Therefore, there are many elements that might require some modification. There might be some needs or concerns that I have overlooked, so continued input woud, of course, be helpful. That said, itemizing every need and concern might not be possible, although I will do my best to point out what I see as the more important ones that we should be paying careful attention to. | 14:24:29 |
| mhpanda | "What we need instead is a higher resolution solutions. How do we share limited resources? How do we solve disputes over pieces of land? How do we build roads (which need pieces of land owned by random people)? How do we, as individuals and groups, protect ourselves from people who do not subscribe to (or don't understand) the "do no harm" principle?" This is EXACTLY what I am attempting to solve. Perhaps I should clarify a point, however. I state that sometimes there is a necessity for a central authority. I did not intend to suggest that the central authority should be granted all powers of governance, or even that there would necessarily be a single central authority for all situations. Decentralized solutions can indeed perform in many aspects... but to be effective, there are times when you need to tie the decentralized elements together to avoid undue inefficiency and/or outright interference. | 14:34:09 |
| mhpanda | Importantly, the individual is sovereign. All authority for governance comes from the individual. An important aspect that many systems of governance (well, arguably, all to date) have overlooked is that there must be a mechanism to ensure that the individual can reclaim authority delegated to a representative body meant to act on our behalf; and to curtail abuses. I will be addressing that point eventually. | 14:38:26 |
| mhpanda | It is incorrect to say that a person can not maintain sovereignty well delegating authority to others. We actually do so all the time. We do so every time we hire a contractor to work on a house. We do so every time we send our children to school, or sign up for a class for ourselves. We delegate responsibilities all the time. We delegate authority regularly. The important thing is being able to rescind that delegated authority. | 14:45:19 |
| mhpanda | The system of governance I propose will initially establish a global organization. SD could operate the governance outright, or it might choose to become a member organization under a larger entity. Either way, it would likely be established under the same (or similar) system if my proposal were to be accepted. My intention, however, is that the system eventually evolve into a colonial government. | 14:51:53 |
| mhpanda | This system of governance would not be based upon territory, but upon constituency. The application of any legislation would be strictly limited to those who choose to become, and remain, constituents. At any time, an individual would be able to claim their personal sovereignty. There would also be mechanisms that transfer sovereign authority back to the constituency at large for specific cases. There will, of course, be occassions that land (as well as other resources) is held in common by the government, on behalf of the constituency. However, this territory would not be "owned", as such. The governing agency would have authority over the territory only so long as that territory is in active use. That said, it might be necessary to "purchase" territory from others who proclaim previous ownership (on Earth). | 15:01:32 |
| mhpanda | I hope that covers all the comments. I will read through the comments again to see if there is anything I missed, and respond at a later time. I will also go into more detail about my project, periodically. | 15:02:50 |
| rkzel | Thank you for taking time to address my concerns. The key point... actually, one more comment first: indeed we do delegate authority every time we ask a specialist for help: going to a doctor, learning to play guitar, all kinds of activity when we ask someone to do something on our behalf is delegating or sharing powers of decision. This is true. The difference, key and crucial difference is, as you said, ability to reclaim authority whenever we wish. There are cases, like in the middle of surgery, when reclamation of authority might not be such a good idea, but generally... governance without individual ability to opt out is just a fancy name for slavery. One might argue that possibility of opting out makes governance weak and ineffective, and it is of course true to some degree, but unless for example I can choose where my taxes go exactly (or how high they need to be, let's not get into THAT discussion :) - for example I wish to opt out from financing armies and weapons - unless I have at least that much control, my individual sovereignty is rather weak, proportionately perhaps... On the other hand strong forms of individual power can be abused, for example: | 16:42:53 |
| rkzel | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto | 16:43:07 |
| rkzel | Which was used to paralyze proceedings of governing body - which is obviously not ideal. | 16:43:51 |
| rkzel |
Definitely. Decentralization is great providing there is at least a protocol of communication between various authority centers. Communication network ideally. I guess (it would probably need to be described at length, I hope I don't make it too short to be meaningful) the difference between one, big, centralized organism of governance (which by necessity is split into plethora of departments) is that internal lines of communication are inefficient, clogged and burdened with power struggles resulting in poor performance, waste of resources, delays, etc. What I understand by decentralization is splitting authority without severing communication lines - so we still have ability to communicate on individual and, more importantly, group level, but decision making power remain close to home, so to speak. And if the communication network is based on computing power instead of unreliable human factor... ;) | 16:56:37 |
| neutronstar | I feel the need for synchronization is being mistaken as being a need for central authority. With proper synchronization and a good feedback mechanism to provide whoever has authority with relevant and immediate feedback, I don't see a need for central authority. Except perhaps for smaller areas, eg specific short term project. But that would mainly use efficiency as its main argument for central authority. | 20:16:18 |
| 28 Sep 2018 | ||
| mhpanda | There are a number of issues that can cause confusion. First, people do not always use a given term in the same way (what do we mean when we refer to "central authority", so there might be some need for us to clarify what we ean when we use a certain term. A second problem is that, even if we use a given term in the same way, the term might tend to express itself differently under different contexts (we might agree that a "central authority" refers to a central government body, whereas decentralization would be several bodies with coequal powers that overlap... a state government, then, would be a central authority in the context of that given state, but a decentralized authority in terms of a federation). | 15:08:50 |
| mhpanda | Sorry, have to go. | 15:08:58 |
| mhpanda | The third problem is that people tend to confuse concepts; or, they make associations between concepts that are not always valid. For instance in the response above that internal lines of communication are inefficient in larger centralized organisms: this is often true; but it is neither necessarily true, nor should it be true in a proprely designed system. In fact, perhaps the most important VALID reason for a central authority is to have an organized system of lines of communication that permit a more rapid, more direct, and better targeted flow of information. The power struggles you mention tend to be hallmarks of poor design/organisation. | 17:10:28 |
| mhpanda | There are different kinds of decentralisation. The decentralisation that you refer to could be described as task decentralisation. This tends to be beneficial, as it prevents an otherwise centralised government from overtaxing certain functions. You split up "zones" of authority in order to better organise workflow, and to reduce stress on any given "component" of a government. An important factor here is that task assignments should be well defined, and should not overlap with one another. | 17:15:37 |
| mhpanda | A less beneficial form of decentralisation is when you split off essentially the same "powers" to be shared by different "agencies". Here, we can see part of the problem when we have stratified governments with overlapping jurisdictions. For instance, if you have local police, city police, county police, state police, and/or federal law enforcement, all operating in a small area (especially along borderlines where you might have multiple agencies at the same level), there can be considerable confusion over which agency is responsible over which jurisdiction. Who does a person call to handle a particular problem? This is actually one of the reasons that the 9-1-1 service was created... you have a single number (a central authority) that determines the appropriate agency for a given service and/or jurisdiction. | 17:25:38 |
| mhpanda | One of the reasons for a central authority is that it allows a population to tie together resources that would not otherwise be available for large projects. For instance, no individual would be able to construct a system of roads to get them everywhere they might need to go. Small communities might be able to come together to make dirt paths to serve the local community, but even here, unless the community were very rich, it would never be able to install a (fully) paved network (not if it wanted to do other things as well, such as install an electrical grid, etc). You need resources to install road networks... and you need a LOT of coordination, but that is another topic. For a countrywide road network, you really need a central authority. There have been attempts to shift responsibility to decentralised local authorities, but you often have a lot of empty space between neighboring jurisdictions... and these jurisdictions don't want to have to contribute their resources beyond their borders. Also, with different jurisdictions, you have different levels of quality control... or lack of quality control. A central authority is required to ensure that, when decentralised authorities ARE "cooperating" to produce a network, that they are meeting the same standards of service. | 17:39:36 |
| mhpanda | Something that is important to consider: a central authority is not necessarily a core governing body with concentrated powers. A code of law is a central authority (you could, theoretically, draft a set of laws, then disband any legislative body that was gathered to make them). A national electorate is a central authority. | 17:45:03 |
| mhpanda | Slightly on a tangent, there is an important reason for a representative authority, central or otherwise. In a large, dynamic, organisation, there tend to be a lot of decissions that need to be made regarding how to get things done. In a "pure" democracy, if everyone were required to vote on every decision, it would be quite impossible for them to inform themselves on all the relevent issues, debate the issues with one another, and finally make a vote... and then have the time to engage in the actual productive daily tasks. Representative government is just another example of specialisation. We have small, dedicated, groups of people that we charge with tasks that we do not have time to perform ourselves. | 17:52:07 |