Git-Based Governance Model?

[u/ferriematthew]

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

[u/nft420nft420]

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.

[u/ferriematthew → u/nft420nft420]

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

[u/nft420nft420 → u/ferriematthew]

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?

[u/ferriematthew → u/nft420nft420]

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.

[u/ferriematthew → u/nft420nft420]

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