this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
87 points (95.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43380 readers
1472 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As kids, we're told only people who go to college/university for politics/economics/law are qualifiable to make/run a country. As adults, we see no nation these "qualified" adults form actually work as a nation, with all manifesto-driven governments failing. Which to me validates the ambitions of all political theorist amateurs, especially as there are higher hopes now that anything an amateur might throw at the wall can stick. Here's my favorite from a friend.

(page 2) 35 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

The wierdest one I made for ttrpg was a nation built by orphans in an extrwmly poverty striken nation. Life is short and fast, you do what you can to help each other out and when someone dies they get they're name, date, and one sentence voted on by people that knew written in the book.

Their is no ownership, but if you take something you better have good reason or people won't help you out. If you want something done, do it or covince the people that can to do it.

You're expected to use contraceptives unless you know the orphanage can handle more kids. If you want to do something good with what little you've got helping to take care of poor kids like yourself at the orphanage is one most sure fire ways to do that. Holden up to raise just a kid or two out by yourself is no way to make a mark and who's gonna write your sentence some snot nosed kid isolated from the rest of the world by you? Why?

The moment that defined them as nation instead of just a community was when a nearby kingdom was preparing for a war path. They set out to create the equivalent of nuclear bomb, with many lives being lost trying to save themselves and each other. They finally made it, with many sentences being written of the kids that built a sun, and founded a nation. Their neighbors gave them a different sentence, because when they demonstrated it others had to turn they're heads from the blindly blaze, but the kids "did not look away" instead smoke glasses adored admired what their felllow orphans did with them.

Basically an anarchist society built on communal child rearing, and shared mythology of legacy of brief meaningful lives.

micronation ideas were big awhile back on the net. Maybe about 20 years ago. People wrote constitutions and such. With the gridocracy im wondering about the leaders. Like would each row and column have its own executive, legislature, and judiciary or is it just about executive. If only executive is there a legislative/judicial for the whole area or is it basically assuming some sort of singular ruler (king or whatnot)? For myself I have never made a whole and complete thing but I have had some ideas. I like the idea of sorta making the judiciary part of the rest. Not really a part but sorta a seperate equivalent. then split the responsibilities between external and internal areas. So like I see a congress and a parliment with a president and a prime minister. parliment/prime minister would have internal responsibility and congress/president would have external. then there would be a judicial executive. So the executive would be a tribunal with each responsible for their departments/ministries external/internal with the judicial executives role to make spot decisions on authority in edge cases and has the right to join with the other executive to override an executive who in their view is taking an action that is harmful to the country (needless to say that should be emphasized as being something only to be done in extreme situations). In all cases the legislature has authority over the executive and elections have authority over the legislatures. In the case of legislatures a simple majority would need approval of the other legislature and the executive but all laws would originate in the legislatures area (internal external). a 2/3rd need approval at only one level and a 3/4 would need no approval. The supreme court decides which legislature has authority in edge cases and could also allow for exceptions if the other legislature agrees and they both have agreement at the 2/3rds level but again only in extreme circumstances. basically the executive and legislature mirrors themselves. parliment/prime minister would be done as is common and president/congress would be US house of rep style along with popular vote (no electoral college). voting would not be first past the post. judicial elections would be indirect but I have not hashed it out.

[โ€“] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

I had to go through the book shelf to find this one because I've talked about it before and wanted to share.

Arthur C. Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth (audiobook)

The wiki unfortunately doesn't go into details enough. Basically the plot takes place on a distant planet after the Earth has been destroyed by a supernova and the society was created by a seed ship. The officials are elected by a lottery and there's a form of direct democracy if my memory serves me right in a passage. I wish I could expand on it more but the book is just amazing and I don't want to spoil it to much for those who are interested. If you have the time I linked the audio book and it's based off a former short story of his with the same title.

[โ€“] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Ig the worldbuilding for my custom 5e setting counts? It's sort of a continuation of the forgotten realms, with a heavy dose of Warhammer 40K and Doom thrown in. The world of Toril was shattered, and the fragments frozen in place by a divine sacrifice, leaving each landmass cluster within reach of one another (within Voidships).

The government in question was the Dwarf Assembly. It's a loose confederation of citadels within these clusters. Each one dedicated itself to one trade (for example, mining clusters, smithing clusters, etc.), with each trade being led by the oldest dwarf. Assembly-wide decisions are made with the agreement of all clusters.

Tensions rise within each cluster whenever a problem cannot be solved by tradition, with older dwarves being quite proud and reticent to veer away from it. Tensions rise within the Assembly whenever a younger elder is introduced, being seen as inexperienced.

It's not meant to be perfect, I wanted it to be a source of dramatic tension whenever the party ever stepped foot on dwarven soil. I also really like the mental image of dwarves with ushankas.

Semi-liquid democracy plus confederalism. The votes that delegates bring are multiplied by some function of the votes assigned to them as well as the soldiers and funding they commit.

[โ€“] therealbabyshell@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

My view (sorry for the British context and no cool name for it):

Have a King as head of state mainly in a similar role to now in the UK to be someone who can fire any ministers if needed.

No political parties. Simply have the public vote for a choice of 5 candidates for each cabinet minister post on 5 year terms.

These candidates must have at least 20 years experience of the field they wish to be minister of. For example, the choices for Health Minister would be between 5 people, who all have extensive experience in the field. So would hopefully understand what can and needs to be done. Rather than our current system of having a PPE graduate who has only ever worked in politics in charge of things they do not understand.

I also feel that removing political parties from the process would reduce some of the group-think that currently happens, as the public would be voting on the best policies for health, then for education etc. I think that would be an improvement over currently only having one vote and having to choose a party that ticks some but not all of your policy preferences.

[โ€“] BaumGeist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

My ideal form of government is one where everyone cooperates to build up society, and there may be leaders, but no one is owed obedience.

[โ€“] PiJiNWiNg@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

So strange to come across this as I've been pondering this very thing for a few weeks. Still pretty half baked, and I'm goimg to skip some detail for brevity, but here goes. Behold...

"AdHocracy"

A fluid, decentralized form of government somewhat inspired by the FEMA Incident Command System. It would be designed to facilitate temporary, task-specific governmental structures that are stood up and torn down as community needs arise. National baseline laws would be established to prevent confusion when traversing the country, and a legal framework established to ensure laws are consistent across the nation and no regional law conflicts with, or supercedes the law of, the larger region. Healthy food, clean water, housing, education and some form of internet connection would be considered rights. This system would rely heavily on digital participation, so open source technological development (particularly in cybersecurity) would be heavily subsidized. Establishing a secure digital identity would be needed for each citizen to participate in the governmental process, so likely using some form of blockchain tech.

The land mass of the country would be segmented into a heirarchical grid with a certain minimum resolution (I donno, 100m?) but when mapping a "decision region", preference would be given to inclusion. For example, if a neighborhood wants a new road, you'd "paint over" the people and areas affected by the road, and expand the edges to cleanly fill a square (not sure I'm explaining this right, but oh well).

I imagine an annual "Call for Change Day" across all regions, allowing people to bring forward proposals for new laws or adjustments to existing laws. Those proposals would be submitted online, and could be easily browsed and voted on, (if pertaining to your region). Transparency is emphasized.

Thats about all I can think of right now.

Not sure if ita necessarily true, but it seems that organizations have a tendency to become more susceptible to corruption and bureaucracy the longer they stick around, no matter their purpose (governments, unions, HOAs, etc). This idea aims to prevent this by eliminating the need for career politicians (as all decisions are made jointly by those diectly impacted), and through systematic deconstruction of governmwntal structures before theyve had time to bloat and fester.

Imterested to hear everyones thoughts! On mobile, so please excuse formatting/grammatical errors.

[โ€“] xilliah@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think we should approach law as code. Leverage modern tools not unlike github to manage it collaboratively. We need an issue tracker and so on and so forth. Foss.

As someone mentioned we need task forces to tackle specific issues. Like representatives for a specific issue. These have to work together, but each has a specific goal and perspective with clear qualifiers and criteria.

Further, we shouldn't all be running the same code. We need diversity in order to be resilient and to discover new possibilities. Some jurisdictions should be cutting edge and others conservative, so results can be compared.

Like, we need to stop using violence as a form of resolution between different systems. We need the tools to reason together. As someone mentioned we need clear qualifiers that express our values and interests, such as the happiness index.

Lastly, everyone should be able to get involved. I think nurses need to be involved in legislation surrounding healthcare. The tools need to be accessible for anyone, so it should most likely take a human form so it can properly communicate. Most likely some combination of specialized maintainers and LLMs.

[โ€“] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Everyone listens to me and gives me things. I eventually get shot in the face which causes societal collapse. Or something.

[โ€“] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Personally I favour a council socialism where all are equal, regardless of any circumstance; none has lasting power, no central government is apparent, no permanent imprisonment exists, and direct representatives can be called and revoked at any moment for specific issues. Everyone has free studying, healthcare, housing, and food.

Where one can enjoy the fruits of another's property, that should be fairly shared, instead of the "owner" being able to set prices. This would be done by nullifying any possibility to set prices or gains from this property.

There would be only multiple random ballots if votes occur. All options proposed shall be on the ballots, regardless of circumstance.

The challenge is making not only a central government not exist, but making it impossible for such a central government to gain foothold, and also to make it unattractive for communes to grow too big lest they become authoritarian.

This can be achieved by two methods:

  1. Revolution, preferably peaceful.

  2. Or by reform. One possibility is living together in a commune. To make money effectively meaningless, first all must benefit equally from the influx of money, without sensing a need of money. All people's income towards a collectively owned bank account, for example, that buys basic needs like food, housing for everyone, and gives personal property. Nobody has money themselves.

Ideally, this would start from one suburb, as then a core of a moneyless world can be built, but can be done internationally too.

A commune is delineated by: being the smallest amount of people that can sustain itself on its own labour and own populace, and being the largest amount of people where everyone could know one another.

This would in practice mean a commune of about 100-500 people, maybe 300.

[โ€“] Klear@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

I had a super cynical dystopian idea. Never got around to fleshing it out, so its stability is doubtful at best, but here goes:

So a problem with democracy is that advertising is a powerful force and the candidate with more money to throw into their campaign tends to win, not to mention various forms of bribery coming into play after the elections. A ton of money is being wasted on shady behind-the-scenes deals. Lets get rid of all that and bring it into the light!

  • Get rid of elections AND politicians, since they are just middlemen. Instead create a kind of stock market for various spheres and levels of lawmaking and have megacorporations and other interested parties bid on those.

  • Money that would have been secretly funneled into politician pockets instead goes openly into the government budget.

  • Save more money on elections and government official salaries since there are none.

  • Corps that make laws that benefit consumers get to use that in their advertising. Buy from ProcLive! The company that brought you halfway decent healthcare!

  • Voting with you wallet ends up being mandatory. You don't like that Disney took away weekends? Give your hard-earned cash to Sony next time. They promised to reduce mamdatory weekly working hours to 65!

  • Maybe sometimes a local citizen initiative manages to raise enough money to get governmental powers in a small town or something. I mean, probably not, but you gotta give people some hope, right?

[โ€“] VelvetStorm@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I would rather just fix the one we have.

Reps nor the kids nor their partners can own stock and anyone found taking bribes or lobbyist money is immediately kicked out of their position and all money they received while being a rep is stripped from them and given to a healthcare or social program.

All gerrymandering is undone and fuck the electoral college.

[โ€“] intensely_human@lemm.ee -2 points 1 month ago

Iโ€™ve seldom seen such a succinct and effective dismantling of the status quo. Well-articulated.

load more comments
view more: โ€น prev next โ€บ