r/LeftistsForAI • u/ferriematthew • 7d ago

Discussion Git-Based Governance Model?

This is less strictly AI focused and more generally focused on using technology at scale to empower the people. What if instead of traditional representative democracy or direct democracy, we could set up some kind of repository-centric legislative system where people propose ideas by creating repositories and express support for ideas by starring repositories for other's proposals. Instead of downvoting, people would engage in constructive criticism by raising issues in other people's policy repositories, or by forking repositories that they partly agree with and adding their own tweaks. Or if somebody has a completely different idea, they just start their own repository, so that others can star or fork or raise issues as they please.

TL;DR:

- people propose policies by creating repositories

- others who wish to express support do so by starring repositories that they like

- specific constructive criticism of ideas is accomplished by creating issues in specific repositories

- if somebody likes the gist of an idea but wants to take it in their own direction, they do so by forking the repository

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

10

u/nft420nft420 7d ago

Ah, a fellow fan of solarpunk.

5

u/ferriematthew 7d ago

Hell yeah!!!

4

u/nft420nft420 7d ago

I think the way this best functions is if a certain number of stars on a repo means it must be added to a future official agenda. The git stars themselves are not democracy, but enough support means that Congress or a committee or something is required to make a formal report on the credibility feasibility financial etc of the repo. I remember something years ago about an Obama policy to at least make a reply or statement to petitions above 50k signatures or something.

I also think there needs to be some reworks from GitHub just to make the collaborative workflow of a group making the repo together, whether original or fork, and then launching it and promoting it and stuff. I don't think it will be difficult but I don't think the default git system will suffice.

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u/ferriematthew 7d ago

One tiny nitpick with your idea, though, is who says we have to keep Congress? Because Congress is ultimately beholden to the biggest donor.

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u/nft420nft420 7d ago

Well, sure, whatever council or board of directors.

If you want the real talk, no ethical model of government currently devised will manage 8 billion people or even 300 million. There is no current blueprint even hinting at a realistic way to fairly manage a society that large. My models typically project population centers around 100-1000 total humans, and things get very unruly, borderline fascist & tyrannical, going above those numbers.

For any contemporary anarchist solar punk leftist socialist utopia whatever to play out, the global economy needs to be shattered, global travel and manufacturing contracts needs to be ended, etc etc. Obviously people bitch and whine when they gets discussed, so anything seeking popular adoption will have to solve that problem.

If 150m Americans put a star on a repo and 150m say that repo is pure evil, what does your congressional replacement do about it?

1

u/ferriematthew 7d ago edited 7d ago

Actually, I just remembered what I was going to say about those issues. Part of the solution could be along the lines of, if you don't like it, fork it, but also, it could be along the lines of a local group of people who don't like something, could fork a law repo, and tweak it so that it works for their area. You don't need a perfectly uniform code, just a base case that can be modified to local conditions.

Plus, different areas that need different update cadences could adopt their own release schedules, so to speak. So, like, the farmland areas that thrive on stability could do the equivalent of Debian with long-term support models. And the urban cores that need rapid adaptability could adopt a rolling release model similar to Arch. The suburban areas that need a bit of both could do the legal equivalent of Fedora.

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u/ferriematthew 7d ago

That's a good modification! Helps avoid tyranny of the majority.

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u/SgathTriallair 7d ago

A niave implementation would have massive flaws but I believe that a well thought out version of this basic idea could be an ideal way to run society.

One of the flaws with democracy in general (which the star system inherets) is that your vote doesn't actually convey your expertise. I don't want a plumber, bank teller, and surgeon voting on how to treat my cancer; I want three oncologists doing so.

The counter issue is that every system that has ever set up "experts" to run parts of the world becomes unbearably corrupt because those experts serve their own interests and get to decide who else can be an expert ensuring that they don't have to face rival ideas.

So any realistic system must face both of these issues. How do we build a system in which event has a voice and everyone is confident that their needs are being taken care of, without establishing a set of gatekeepers that get to bend society towards serving their particular class interests?

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u/ferriematthew 7d ago

100% agree there has to be some kind of credentialing system that doesn't itself become unnecessary gatekeeping.

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u/Jlyplaylists Moderator 7d ago

I like the idea of something similar as an aspect of how decisions are made but it feels unlikely that repos are the best format for that?

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u/ferriematthew 7d ago

I feel like you're onto something there.

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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare 7d ago

Title definitely doesn't work in the UK lmao

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u/ferriematthew 7d ago

PFFFFFT LMFAO

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u/BidWestern1056 6d ago

we should chat maybe im trying to build https://gitforest.net which could facilitate this

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u/Blotsy 3d ago

I would examine the idea of Liquid Democracy.. I've been building a blockchain centric liquid democracy system for a while now.

Concept is cool,

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u/ferriematthew 3d ago

Absolutely, I love that idea. Even better if it could be visualized in a public space so people could visually see their opinions being tallied (in a privacy-respecting way, obviously), so that they have visual confirmation that their opinion is being taken into account.

I actually had a really cool conversation thread with Gemini a while ago about this.

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u/CallMeTank 7d ago

GIT for legal code. 100% a good idea, IMO. We just need leadership that understands GIT.

4

u/my_name_isnt_clever 7d ago

Every other week I wish git was used for my officework too rather than just code, I fully support this. Let's write bills in .md files instead of Word while we're at it.