notes-hypotheticalConstitution-hypotheticalConstitutionNotes2

why P=17? P has 3 main effects :

1) group sizes of senate , high council 2) group sizes of councils 3) scaling transition point when council comes into being

for 1, want odd number and perhaps prime number . also want medium sized group -- small enough to have (inefficient )discussion , but large enough to have resistance to group think . its okay if it is too big to have efficient discussion -- that's what the cabinet is for . i fear that P=13 is too small because a faction of 2 (15%) or 3 (23%) will feel social pressure not to speak -- with P=17, the entire group is almost a crowd, hence a faction of 3 (18%) or 4 (24%) can delight in being nonconformist rebels -- in other words, i think that with P=13, small factions will be dominated by the group identity , but with P=17, they will act as factions . this is what is desired -- the senate and high council are supposed to be a microcosm of society, not a monolithic group .

another consideration for 1 is that some representatives will happen to misrepresent their constituencies, whether out of incompetence or malice or honest difference of opinion . in addition, if there are multiple orthogonal dimensions of ideological position, you need at least m^d factions to represent m positions along each dimension . allowing "c" to represent the number of representatives per faction needed in order to make it probable that at least 1 is representative, then cm^d is the minimum number . for c=2, m=2, d=3, we have 16, and for c=2, m=3 , d=2, we have 18. so, unless you're comfortable with having less than 2 representatives per faction, 13 appears to be too small . another way to look at it is to let "f" be the minimal desired factional size needed to win a representative, and then to look at P=cf. for c=2, P=13 yields f=15%, P=17 yields f=12%. by this metric, both of these seem reasonable.

for 2, want efficient discussion . for this purpose , 11 would be nice . however , in order to fulfill primary purpose of fighting group polarization effect , popular council size must be exactly the same as high council size . i think it is more important to fight group think in the representative legislature than to facilitate efficient discussion in popular councils . i recommend councils split into 2 groups of 8 and 9 for half of their meetings, and then have plenary sessions for the other half .

for 3, don't want council when group is too small -- 11 yields 121, which seems too small .

so i think 17 is best, but 13 is the runner-up; which one you choose depends on the balance to strike between fighting groupthink in representative legislature and having effective popular counsil discussions .

i initially thought that perhaps another reason to have 13 rather than 17 would be to make decisions more quickly, especially in corporations . however , right now i think that

the ACLU may have 83 directors on its board of directors, however, it remains to be seen if the average corporation would accept replacing a 7-person board with four commissions with a total of 48 commissioners (17 central and 7 external delegate commissioners and 17 central and 7 external elected commissioners). with P=11 this would decrease only to 33. with P=7 it decreases to 20.

if we allow external commissioners to also be central commissioners, and assume that they always are (it may be a good idea in any case to have most of them be central also), we have 34, 22, and 14.

it's probably also a good idea to have some external specialists on the external side. i think i'll leave it that central + external can overlap but don't have to -- i.e. whoever gets elected/delegated can serve.

the elects and delegates' commissioners should be disjoint, however; and the tribunes should be disjoint from both the commissioners and the management.

i'm putting the councils' influence over the elect commission rather than the delegate commission (which would seem to be the more logical place), because the elects are already very unconstrained vs. the delegates.

currently i think the councils' influence should be exercised in terms of casting "council votes" in the elected commission. the sum total of possible "council votes" could be equal to the number of votes in the elected commission (i.e. 17 for internal issues, 7 for external). these could be divided up equally between the layers of the delegate constituencies, except for the delegate commissions, which are not included. for example, n = 290 there is just the members and then the delegate commission; in this case there are 17 members' central councils, and each of them has 1 vote in the elected commission, and 41 external councils, and in total these 41 have 7 votes in the external elected commission, so each of them has 7/41 or about 0.17 votes. as partially noted above, these votes may only be exercised when consensus-2 (in the case of the central councils) or consensus-1 (in the case of the external councils) (note: based on the considerations below, this has been changed to consensus-2 and consensus).

let's estimate majoritarian bias if we only allowed true consensus (caused because sometimes people will end up on the same council who already agree with each other), we calculate as if there is a 50% chance of each individual disagreeing with their faction. so if there is a council where just less than 2/3s of the total population is in favor of something, then on a 17-person council there are (rounding up) an average of 12 members in favor (and 5 opposed). so, .5^(17 - 12 = 5) yields the chance per council that the entire council will agree without anyone needing to compromise. note that, for the opposition, the relevant figure is .5^12, much smaller; so in this case we expect the proponents to have a lead of (.5^5 - .5^12 ~= (# councils)*.5^5 = (# councils)/32. if there are 17 votes for all the councils, then this is 17/32 = about half a vote. which seems tolerable.

  note: this calculation is incorrect because it is only giving one side a chance to flip; it's an upper bound, tho

for the 7-person external councils/commissions, it gets worse: 5 votes in favor, 2 opposed, 1/4 of the total votes = almost 2 votes of skew. o.t.o.h. one can argue that the point of the smaller external group sizes are to provide a more unified voice, so this majoritarian skew isn't as bad.

if 5/7 commissioners would be in favor, we have a 2/3s majority anyways, so mb we should round down, or not round. so now, we have .5^(7 - 2*7/3) = about 20%, or about 1.4 votes. let's try when 4/7 members even are actually in favor of something (57%). we have .5^3 = 1/8 = 12.5% of the votes, or about .9 of a vote. so in this case, 4/7 isn't enough to push the vote over 60% (but just barely).

what about if 60% of members are in favor? we have .5^(7 - 3*7/5)*7 = just over one vote. in other words, the distinction between 60% supermajorities and 2/3 supermajorities are practically abolished in this system for the external councils; if 3/5 members want to do something "external", (and assuming there is no actual deliberation and compromise in the councils), then the external elected council will find itself having not just 4 but 5/7 votes in favor (at least 4 elect votes, and 1 council vote).

(but how many councils cast "no" votes in this case? we have .5^(7 - 2*7/5) of the total, for .5^(7 - 2*7/5)*7 no votes, or .4. i don't like to rely on this, but if you do, then that brings it back down to .6. at 2/3s, we have .5^(7 - 1*7/3)*7 = about 1/4 of a "no" vote, for a total skew of .5^(7 - 2*7/3)*7 - .5^(7 - 1*7/3)*7 ~= 1.1 votes -- so now this doesn't seem so bad.

for consensus - 1, it gets worse:

.5^(6 - 2*7/3)*7 - .5^(6 - 1*7/3)*7 = 2.2 votes (at 2/3s) .5^(6 - 3*7/5)*7 - .5^(6 - 2*7/5)*7 = 1.25 votes (at 60%)

man, what's it like for consensus-2 at 17 people? it's

 .5^(15 - 2*17/3)*17 - .5^(15 - 1*17/3)*17ans = 1.3123 (votes at 2/3s)

.5^(15 - 3*17/5)*17 - .5^(15 - 2*17/5)*17 ans = 0.55244 (votes at 60%)

so, mb we should make it consensus-1 for 17, and consensus for 7:

 .5^(16 - 2*17/3)*17 - .5^(16 - 1*17/3)*17ans = 0.65616

.5^(16 - 3*17/5)*17 - .5^(16 - 2*17/5)*17 ans = 0.27622

that's better, but i worry about consensus-1 for a transient 17-person group.

so i think we'll stick with consensus-2 for the 17-person group, and consensus for the 7-person group.

for an example if there are multiple levels of delegate constituencies, with P = 17 at n=8104, we have 17,20,23. so, there are about 20*23 member's coucils with a total of 17/2 votes among them, and about 20 second-tier member's councils with 17/2 votes among them. so there's about (17/2)/(20*23) ~= .02 commission votes for each bottom-level council, and about .425 commission votes for each intermediate-level council. at n = n= 8886111 we make the transition to 2 middle layers and we have 17,37,80,175. so each bottom-level council has

(17/3)/(37*80*175) ans = 1.0940e-05

votes, the lower middle councils each have

 (17/3)/(37*80)ans = 0.0019144

votes, the upper middle councils have

(17/3)/(37) ans = 0.15315

votes each.

hmm, that's discouraging. but remember that the councils have their own dd interface. so, a small number of low-level councils can still force the elect commission to debate a proposal, even if it's difficult for them to force its passage. the vision is that perhaps the councils, driven by their consensus processes, will propose innovative forms of compromise bills. also, if there is actually discussion and deliberation, there may be issues in which a large number of councils cast votes, because one side of the issue is actually more persuasive than the other.

i'm wondering if the tribunes should be called "investigators" to emphasize their adversarial nature. i worry that ombudsman sounds like too much of a mediator.

hmmm, reconsidering, now i think that perhaps the arguments i gave for 17 rather than 13 work fine with smaller numbers because the number that those arguments applied 2 is the total number of commissioners, not the number in each commission.

also, i feel that most private organizations will balk at having 34 commissioners in place of a board of directors.

maybe we can even go down to 11. with 11, the size of the entire "board of directors" replacements could be as small as 22 (+ 3 tribunes = 25 representatives).

with 11 and 5, and absolute consensus in both primary and external councils, the council majoritarian biases are:

for 5: .5^(5 - 3*5/5) - .5^(5 - 2*5/5) = 12.5% at 60% so the distinction between 3/5 and 2/3 is effectively abolished in the external elect commission; however, this doesn't happen until you get above 57%: 2.85/5 = 0.57, and 2.85/5 + .5^(5 - 2.85*5/5) - .5^(5 - 2.15*5/5) = .65662)

for 11: .5^(11 - 3*11/5) - .5^(11 - 2*11/5) = 3.7% and note that 57% doesn't even get pushed above 60%: 2.85/5 + .5^(11 - 2.85*11/5) - .5^(11 - 2.15*11/5) = .5947

certainly there will be more groupthink in a group of 11 than a group of 17. perhaps governments will want to have P=13 or 17, and other organizations will want 11.

besides a smaller total number of representatives, a huge benefit of P=11 or P=13 is better deliberations in councils.

with P=11, the numbers are:

22 commissioners + 1 tribune = 23 representatives (in place of a board of directors) 1 CEO + at most 3 external officers + at most 6 internal officers = at most 10 officers, or 11 if the board chooses a separate EEO (upper management)

(research showing that boards >7 are bad: Board Size Effects in Closely Held Corporations, Morten Bennedsen, Hans Christian Kongsted and Kasper Meisner Nielsen, 1http://www.cebr.dk/Publications submenu/Discussion Papers/2004/DP 2004-23.aspx later: mb this is now at: http://www.econ.ku.dk/cam/wp0910/wp0203/2004-25.pdf )

(research including a histogram of fortune 500 company board sizes: decision making dynamics in corporate boards, Stefano Battiston, Eric Bonabeaub and Gerard Weisbuch, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01930-1 -- 11 is right in the middle of the histogram, but 20 is way out. however, hopefully this structure works like "2 boards of 11" rather than "1 board of 23")

for organizations with unequal members (such as corporations), the voting strength of members in the forum, in the commission election, and in the constituencies varies (some members may form constituencies, or even multiple constituencies, all by themselves). however, each elect commissioner should have equal strength in their capacity as elect commissioner, to promote collegiality and independent thought. a powerful member can still exercise their disproportionate influence in the elect commission by the threat of the power of their vote.

in the forum, a powerful member directly exercises their strength.

in the delegate commission, a single delegate may have the strength of multiple delegates only if their constituency is a single member.

so for example, let's say that there is one person who holds 40% of the stock of some corporation.

they have the voting strength to elect themselves to about 4 spots on the elect commission (in practice, maybe sometimes a little less, due to the centralizing factor in the reweighted range, or the corresponding Condorcet factor in the Loring vote) (and they also have another "left over" .4 of a vote that influences the election of the other elect commissioners)

they would control 4.4 of 11 delegates in the delegate commission -- this means that they can stand themselves as a delegate in the delegate commmission, having 4 votes -- and they still get some votes in other constituencies (to account for the other .4).

so in this case, there are only about 8 people on each commission.

term limits and commissioner separation are waived when a single member has more than 1/11 of the votes -- that member is free to sit on all commissions as long as s/he has that many votes, or to give a proxy to any other person to vote in their place, either on individual issues or in general.

this prevents the preset sizes of the commissions from getting in the way when a substantial fraction of the power is really concentrated in a few individuals.

similarly, a powerful individual (or a pooled faction rep) can be placed in multiple councils. they don't even have to attend them (although it may annoy others if they don't...) -- if they want to never attend most of them (to lessen the power of the councils, which is against their interests after all), they can simply indicate such, and other individuals will be virtually placed with them and then "blocked". in fact, i guess we should let any citizen ruin the fun for others in this fashion -- in fact, it should be automatic for anyone who does not join a council. but the assignments should automatically try first to place the blockers together. de facto "blocking" by nonattendence should not be allowed; those who request council placement and then do not attend should be removed.

actually, i guess "blocking" automatically happens anyway if you refuse to be placed in council; if other factions want to be placed more than you, tough beans, they don't get to.

this means that if anyone controls more than 1/11th of the vote, they are on every council and can block all councils simply by not signing up!

in other words, any faction with 1/11th or more power can "temporarilly deactivate" the council system at will.

perhaps people who don't sign up can, at their option, allow councils to go on without them; this is equivalent to agreeing whatever the rest of council agrees to!

maybe it should, rather, be like this. it's unlikely that an entire 11% faction will have the solidarity to block, because if a few members defect, they will have lots of power (because there will be only a few councils). in fact, if a faction tried to block, it might be worth it for the other factions to infiltrate them so as to have a few non-blockers.

so, this will only really happen when there are a few individuals with >11%. so, give people who want to not attend council the power to allow the councils to go on without them. if they refuse, they may annoy everyone else.

(yes, there is always a first tribune. this may seem unnecessary, but it hammers home the importance of separation of powers, as well as of the majesty and high status of the tribune)

i changed my mind about the lifelong powers of the tribune. this would (a) be a lot of responsibility, which might discourage people from running; they would be bothered for the rest of their life by people seeking assistance, and (b) would make the voters think twice about electing a tribune who is strongly anti-secrecy. so tribunal powers expire at the end of their term.

    why so difficult (2/3) to refer to referendum? because if the people really care, the forum can take it up. we prefer business to be transacted in the forum because the transitive proxy voting makes it more deliberative than a straight-out vote.

if less people than the preset numbers for commissions/tribunes stand for election, that's okay -- everyone who stands is elected, and that's all.

the distinction between the officers of procedure and the constitutional court is that the OP is constantly involved in the day-to-day affairs of the commissions, whereas the court is only invoked if there is a problem that some part of the state (including the tribunals) 'takes to court'. furthermore, the OPs just make decisions willy-nilly, whereas the CC goes through a formal court proceedings for each case. the OP has final jurisdiction over questions of procedural details within each house of the legislature, and on which things need which majorities. the CC is obliged to respect the OP's decisions in such cases, except in case of corruption or mental problems. the CC has jurisdiction over anything else, including all substantive (rather than structural) rights, and over "big picture" items in the constitution involving the powers of and relation between different organs of government, or between government and individuals. the CC can also do the other things mentioned in the constitution: pardon individuals, Force Clarification, create law when Forced Clarification fails, and declare Found Rights, whereas the OP can do none of these things.

So now, for an organization with n=>144, the minimum number of high officials is:

for 27 in total.

and the maximum is:

for 46 in total.

how many high officials there are in between 27 and 46 (inclusive) is determined by the commissioners -- if they wish to keep it at 27, they can simply refuse to appoint all (or any of the) judges and parliamentarians, they can make one person both CEO and CER, and they can confirm only 1 Cxx.

note that some commissioner spots may well be "independent outsider" spots, say on a corporate board.

compare to today's corporate boards; there is probably a corporate counsel (in place of 3 tribunes), and about 11 board members, 1 CEO and 1 President, for a total of 14. So we have 13 extra (the other commission, and 2 extra tribunes).

adjusting n for ownership: to calculate n when voters have unequal strength, order voters from strongest to weakest, and then start adding up the stakes of the strongest until you get over 50%. Multiply the number of voters you have gotten through by 2 to get an effective n.

For example, if there is a 40% stakeholder, a 30% stakeholder, and a lot of small stakeholders, then n = 4 -- only the forum exists. If there is a 40% stakeholder, and two 10% stakeholders, then n = 6 -- again, only the forum exists. If there is a 20% stakeholder, two 10% stakeholders, and four 5% stakeholders, then n = 16 -- primary commission size is 3.

note that for n=3.5e8, the total number of people in the top two layers of the delegation pyramid is 649, only about a hundred more than the size of the U.S. Congress. so if people worry than 11 (or 13 or 17) reps just aren't enough, they should be reassured that a representative body the size of Congress does exist in this system, it just isn't on top -- but in Congress the true situation is similar, in that real power rests with party leaders and committee chairs, of which there are much fewer than 535.

the tao of this system (compared to the tao of python):

explicit is better than implicit small groups are better than big the individual is better than the group peace is better than war less legal text is better than more both direct democracy and representative democracy have something to contribute both campaigning and small group delegation have something to contribute talking to the opposition makes a person more informed concentrations of power are scary

note that if there are no OPs and 2 tribunes, only 1 tribune (the senior one; the positions rotate as tribunes end their term, and the junior one becomes the new senior one) becomes OP. the OP can delegate functions to the other tribune, but is not obliged to. the other tribune still retains their fundamental tribunal powers of investigation, declassification, and prosecution.

mb make tribunes more like the head of state by giving them "competency to grant pardon, decorations and titles of honor, to address messages to the people and the Assembly and to promulgate the laws"? -- http://www.cecl.gr/RigasNetwork/databank/REPORTS/r4/GR_4_Katrougalos.html . i dunno -- it would be kinda funky to have the Official Adversary do all these lovey-dovy things. but i kinda like that. it might bring home the point that the adversarial role isn't bad but good, and it might also raise the stature of the tribune. at the least, they should be able to "address messages to the people and the Assembly".

i kinda like the idea of giving each of the three tribunes their own function --- the youngest one could be purely adversarial, the middle one could be ombudsperson, the oldest one could be head of state. the middle and oldest do not, however, lose their adversarial powers.

and by giving one of the tribunes the head of state role, we prevent it from falling on the PM (and we have a chance of having my rule that the legislature cannot bestow honors and commemorations stand!). and by giving one of them the ombudsperson role, we prevent it from falling on all of them.

note that, strictly speaking, the PM/FM's powers are just the nomination and dismissal of cabinet members (and to preside over cabinet meetings), except in times of emergency (and also their powers as legislator).

no laws or regulations shall apply to members acting in council that don't apply to them otherwise. they are not to be considered elgible for special scruity or intrusion like executive or legislative officials when in council or because they are members of a council. they are free to buy each other dinner, have romantic relationships with each other, etc (mb not free to bribe each other tho! but that falls under the no-bribing general rules, i.e. you can't trade a vote for anything but another vote)

thanks the obama in and his speechwriter in http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.text.html?_r=1 for the first two bullet pts in "Prohibited reasons for secrecy", taken from "we must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrassment to the government."

"parpolity", a political counterpart to a communism economic system ("parecon") has a hier indirect rep structure: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4957

note: in 1936 the soviet union switched from an indirect hier election to a direct election. "Soviet Politics in Perspective" by Richard Sakwa on page 109 makes it sound as if the main drafter, Bukharin, thought this would better restrain the official terror which was the order of the day. on page 109 this book credits the problem with the lack of enforcement, rather than a bad constitution. however, on page 106, it seems to place the blame on (a) the lack of explicitly and precisely defined political rights (instead using vague terminology such as "the interests of the people"), (b) the principal that the interests of individuals are subordinate to the interests of society, (c) no court of appeal against infringements of individual rights, (d) a presumption that "politics" had been transcended (hence no need for contestatory political parties), (e) no separation of legislative and executive power, (f) little attempt to restrain the exercise of power, (g) the Supreme Soviet (the highest legislative body) did not have independent legislative power (?) and was de facto politically irrelevant, (h) no explicit limits on state power in the constitution, (i) politics through conventino, informal practices, rather than through explicitly, legally defined perogatives, (j) "above all, the Soviet political order (particularly in the Stalin period) is best understood in terms of personalities rather than institutions". he concludes "Power in the Soviet Union was not defined and therefore not limited, although informal restraints, as in Britain, increasingly came to the fore." he goes on to say that the constitution had a declarative, rather than a defining function, meaning basically that they were statements of what the party thought of things -- the first one set the tone -- "It summed up the experience of the first 8 months of Bolshevik power but left the details of government uncertain."

as for not separating legislative and executive functions, he claims that "the lack of checks and balances and the absence of separation of powers allowed the enormous accumulation of power at the hands of executive bodies".

lessons: most of the safeguards implied in the above are already included. in addition, the constitution should make it clear that individual citizens wronged by the government can take the government to court (i assumed this, but best to make it explicit). second, it should be made explicit that the ministers do not have any authority to issue laws/regulations/decrees. the legislature can delegate such powers only in certain states of emergency, and such powers can be undelegated at any time, and individual decisions can be overruled (i.e. unlike the idea that corporate shareholders can not freely undelegate authority from management on any issue -- here the legislature explicitly can). (this is also different from the present-day U.S. system, in which there are executive branch regulatory agencies that can make regulations -- but perhaps the creation of quasi-independent regulatory agencies should be allowed? that is, if they don't answer to/aren't influenced by the ministers, then some legislative power can be delegated, so you can have the FCC and SEC but they must be quasi-independent, like the Fed? i dunno...).

reading pages 90-92 of "Soviet Politics in Perspective" by Richard Sakwa makes it sound as if a combination of:

is to blame for everything. i.e. the problem was not the constitutional structure, but rather the prohibition on competitive politics that was the problem. as he puts it, democratic centralism "...guarantee[d] that the lines of communication remained vertical, from top to bottom, rather than horizontal, between like-minded individuals, groups or committees."

delegates were recallable. on 92, we see that the party even had separate "revisional committees" acting as watchdogs.

even China has a "convention that government committees contain at least one non-party member, a party membership is a definite aid in promotion and in being in crucial policy setting meetings." according to Wikipedia

1.

Since their representative is only directly responsible to them, and not to their constituents, the representatives of the Undersenate are expected to pass information between their representative above, and their own constituents below. They are expected to communicate with their direct contituents, to discuss issues with their peers, and to advise, monitor, and judge the decisions of their representative.

tying of hands: 2

Limitations on Amendments during Emergency Conditions

One way that this Constitution might be attacked would be for an Amendment to be made during a Condition of Dire War, Emergency, or Martial Law; in this way, the normal procedures for the Electorate to deliberate might be bypassed3.

To protect against this, if the Constitution is amended during a Condition of Dire War, Emergency, or Martial Law, these amendments shall expire with the cancellation or expiration of such condition, and shall not be re-enacted for a period of at least one year. If they had an effect on the distribution of power (for instance, if they affected who is a Senator, who is Prime Minister, who is a Tribune, etc), this effect is reversed upon such expiration.

If the amendments are desirable, the Legislature is encouraged to re-enact them after the fallow period.

Technical vetos

Upon the passage of a bill in one chamber of the Legislature, that bill shall be considered to be vetoed by the other chamber unless the other chamber has reached quorum at least twice during the three-month veto period. If a bill is vetoed in this way, nothing shall prevent the original chamber from sending it back to the other chamber the next time that the other chamber meets\footnote{This is to prevent the situation where an attack on the Senate or a major accident which prevents it from meeting provides an excuse for the House to pass bills without Senate review. Note however that as a side effect, it allows a minority of Senators to veto a bill by preventing quorum. Even if the Senate never again met, the House could still send the bill to a referendum, however, so this would only be a good idea if a majority of the people supported that minority of Senators; if the Senate did eventually meet, the House could simply re-send the bill then. It also prevents the same situation with the roles of the House and the Senate switched. Notice that this means that "quorum" must somehow be defined for the House.}.

4.

note: public membership roles in constituencies are needed in order to do cross-council assignments. but they present a major opportunity for corruption. however, this cannot really be avoided, because, unless deliberation is done exclusively online, people can see who else is in their constituency when they attend the meetings.

toread (general)

random note: if you ever need crypto paper ballots: http://rangevoting.org/RivSmiTB.html

The voting threshold for bills which repeal laws and which do not do any of the of the above is 50%5.

compare old text in ~/archive/hypotheticalConstitution.txt-old1 with intro, main text, to see if it is better in some respects

The Tribune has free reign to publicize any information that s/he has access to, but is not permitted to __selectively__ publicize information. If the Tribune gives any information to someone outside the Bureau Of The Tribune who is not normally allowed to access that information, the Tribune must first make the information publically available and announce its availability. The Tribune must continue to make that information available from that point forward (at the expense of the government).

If the Tribune does selectively release information, they are then acting in their capacity as a private citizen rather than in the role of Tribune, and they are liable to the same degree that another private citizen would be liable for that release.

toread (govmt application)

%% todo: study http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=secession+provisions&btnG=Search, http://mises.org/journals/scholar/kreptul.pdf

todo: research models of switzerland, nordic countries

STV-PR/asset mix: http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods@electorama.com/msg01644.html (by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)

todo: http://www.hrcr.org/chart/categories.html

todo: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=comparative+constitutional&btnG=Search

RFC 3797: Publicly Verifiable Nomcom Random Selectio

alternating rounds of sortition and approval voting may be useful for electing one of the censors (and perhaps also for an attorney general?): http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.html

	    the benefit here of the sortition is, as usual, to provide a non-zero probability of an uncorrupted individual receiving the job even if the media  (etc) is corrupt (in which case a simple election won't work)

dunbar's number

things to guard against : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

Characteristics

Theodore M. Vestal of Oklahoma State University has written that authoritarianism is characterized by:

Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a single-party state) or other authority.

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is generally considered to be an extreme version of authoritarianism. Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:[4] Totalitarianism Authoritarianism Charisma High Low Role conception Leader as function Leader as individual Ends of power Public Private Corruption Low High Official ideology Yes No Limited pluralism No Yes Legitimacy Yes No

Sodrol argues that the while both authoritarians and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in "key dichotomies":

    (1) Unlike their bland and generally unpopular authoritarian brethren, totalitarian dictators develop a charismatic 'mystique' and a mass-based, pseudo-democratic interdependence with their followers via the conscious manipulation of a prophetic image. (2) Concomitant role conceptions differentiate totalitarians from authoritatians. Authoritarians view themselves as indvidual beings, largely content to control; and maintain the status quo. Totalitarian self-conceptions are largely teleological. The tyrant is less a person than an indispensable 'function' to guide and reshape the universe. (3) Consequently, the utilisation of power for personal aggrandizement is more evidence among authoritarians than totalitarians. Lacking the binding appeal of ideology, authoritarians support their rule by a mixture of instilling fear and granting rewards to loyal collaborators, engendering a kleptocracy.[4]

Thus, compared to totalitarian systems, authoritarian systems may also leave a larger sphere for private life, lack a guiding ideology, tolerate some pluralism in social organization, lack the power to mobilize the whole population in pursuit of national goals, and exercise their power within relatively predictable limits.

Democracies may be considered authoritarian. An illiberal democracy (or procedural democracy) is distinguished from liberal democracy (or substantive democracy) in that illiberal democracies lack some democratic features, such as the rule of law, an independent judiciary, separation of powers, civilian control of the military, freedom of expression and assembly, and freedom from censorship. The central characteristic of an illiberal democracy is that institutional political processes are skewed in favor of the incumbent regime. Opposition may be dealt with by means of onerous regulations on political organizations in civil society, unfair electoral processes (such as barriers to ballot access or extensive gerrymandering), manipulation of the media (either by ignoring or distorting opposition, or by biased coverage of opposition, often in state-owned press or oligarchical MSM). Illiberal democracy has also been termed "electoralism" or "soft authoritarianism."

Sir Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1961) developed an influential critique of totalitarianism: in both works, he contrasted the "open society" of liberal democracy with totalitarianism, and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future, in accord with knowable laws.

According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes was their ideology which provided a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future

For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity composed of the following: an elaborating guiding ideology; a single mass party, typically led by a dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of the means of communication and physical force; and central direction and control of the economy through state planning.

Bracher maintains that the essence of totalitarianism is the total claim to control and remake all aspects of society combined with an all-embracing ideology, the value on authoritarian leadership, and the pretence of the common identity of state and society, which distinguished the totalitarian "closed" understanding of politics from the "open" democratic understanding

 Lack of liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly make opposition extremely difficult. The rulers may centralize powers between branches of the central government and local government (having no separation of powers). Television and radio is often controlled by the state and strongly support the regime. Non-governmental organizations may face onerous regulations or simply be prohibited. The regime may use red tape, economic pressure, or violence against critics.

by the People's Republic of China when it resumed control of the territory in 1997. In contrast, Singapore acquired full independence, first from Britain and then from Malaysia in the 1960s. At that time, it was structured as a relatively liberal democracy, albeit with some internal security laws that allowed for detention without trial. Over time, as Singapore's Peoples Action Party government consolidated power in the 1960s and 1970s, it enacted a number of laws and policies that curtailed constitutional freedoms (such as the right to assemble or form associations), and extended its influence over the media, unions, NGOs and academia. Consequently, although technically free and fair multi-party elections are regularly conducted, the political realities in Singapore (including fear and self-censorship) make participation in opposition politics extremely difficult, leaving the dominant ruling party as the only credible option at the polls.

 universal suffrage, granting all adult citizens the right to vote regardless of race, gender or property ownership. Historically, however, some countries regarded as liberal democracies have had a more limited franchise, and some do not have secret ballots. There may also be qualifications such as voters being required to register before being allowed to vote. The decisions made through elections are made not by all of the citizens, but rather by those who choose to participate by voting.

According to the principles of liberal democracy, the elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive. Political pluralism is usually defined as the presence of multiple and distinct political parties.

The liberal democratic constitution defines the democratic character of the state. The purpose of a constitution is often seen as a limit on the authority of the government. The Anglo-American political tradition emphasises the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a system of checks and balances between branches of government. Many European democracies are more likely to emphasise the importance of the state being a Rechtsstaat that follows the principle of rule of law. Governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. Many democracies use federalism - (also known as vertical separation of powers) - in order to prevent abuse and increase public input by dividing governing powers between municipal, provincial and national governments. Eduskunta. Several nations and territories can present arguments for being the first with universal suffrage. The Grand Duchy of Finland had complete universal suffrage in 1906. Eduskunta. Several nations and territories can present arguments for being the first with universal suffrage. The Grand Duchy of Finland had complete universal suffrage in 1906.

[edit] Rights and freedoms

In practice, democracies do have specific limits on specific freedoms. There are various legal limitations such as copyright and laws against defamation. There may be limits on anti-democratic speech, on attempts to undermine human rights, and on the promotion or justification of terrorism. In the United States more than in Europe, during the Cold War, such restrictions applied to Communists. Now they are more commonly applied to organizations perceived as promoting terrorism or the incitement of group hatred. Examples include anti-terrorism legislation, the shutting down of Hezbollah satellite broadcasts, and some laws against hate speech. Critics claim that these limitations may go too far and that there may be no due and fair judicial process.

The common justification for these limits is that they are necessary to guarantee the existence of democracy, or the existence of the freedoms themselves. For example, allowing free speech for those advocating mass murder undermines the right to life and security. Opinion is divided on how far democracy can extend to include the enemies of democracy in the democratic process. If relatively small numbers of people are excluded from such freedoms for these reasons, a country may still be seen as a liberal democracy. Some argue that this is not qualitatively different from autocracies that persecutes opponents, but only quantitatively different, since only a small number of people are affected and the restrictions are less severe. Others emphasize that democracies are different. At least in theory, opponents of democracy are also allowed due process under the rule of law. In principle, democracies allow criticism and change of the leaders and the political and economic system itself; it is only attempts to do so violently and promotion of such violence that is prohibited.

However, many governments considered to be democratic have restrictions upon expressions considered anti-democratic, such as Holocaust denial and hate speech. Members of political organizations with connections to prior totalitarianism (typically communist, fascist, and nazi) parties prohibited and current or former members of such organizations may be deprived of the vote and the privilege of holding certain jobs. Discriminatory behavior may be prohibited, such as refusal by owners of public accommodations to serve persons on grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. In Canada, a printer who refused to print pro-homosexual materials was fined $5,000, incurred $100,000 in legal fees, and was ordered to pay a further $40,000 of his opponents' legal fees.[2]

Other rights considered fundamental in one country may be foreign to other governments. For instance, many Americans consider gun rights and freedom from double jeopardy to be important rights, while other countries do not recognize them as fundamental rights.

[edit] Preconditions

Although they are not part of the system of government as such, a modicum of individual and economic freedoms, which result in the formation of a significant middle class and a broad and flourishing civil society, are often seen as pre-conditions for liberal democracy.

For countries without a strong tradition of democratic majority rule, the introduction of free elections alone has rarely been sufficient to achieve a transition from dictatorship to democracy; a wider shift in the political culture and gradual formation of the institutions of democratic government are needed. There are various examples-- for instance, in Latin America-- of countries that were able to sustain democracy only temporarily or in a limited fashion until wider cultural changes established the conditions under which democracy could flourish.

One of the key aspects of democratic culture is the concept of a "loyal opposition". This is an especially difficult cultural shift to achieve in nations where transitions of power have historically taken place through violence. The term means, in essence, that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to its basic values. Political competitors may disagree, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge the legitimate and important roles that each play. The ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate. In such a society, the losers accept the judgment of the voters when the election is over, and allow for the peaceful transfer of power. The losers are safe in the knowledge that they will neither lose their lives nor their liberty, and will continue to participate in public life. They are loyal not to the specific policies of the government, but to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the democratic process itself.

assumptions:

"the assumption that humans are wise enough to control their own lives"

"free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion, "

freedom house criteria:

" Political Rights Checklist

A. Electoral Process

1. Is the head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?

2. Are the national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?

3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair?

B. Political Pluralism And Participation

1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?

2. Is there a significant opposition vote and a realistic possibility for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections?

3. Are the people’s political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?

4. Do cultural, ethnic, religious, or other minority groups have full political rights and electoral opportunities?

C. Functioning Of Government

1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government?

2. Is the government free from pervasive corruption?

3. Is the government accountable to the electorate between elections, and does it operate with openness and transparency?

Additional Discretionary Political Rights Questions:

A. For traditional monarchies that have no parties or electoral process, does the system provide for genuine, meaningful consultation with the people, encourage public discussion of policy choices, and allow the right to petition the ruler?

B. Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?

Civil Liberties Checklist

D. Freedom Of Expression And Belief

1. Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? (Note: In cases where the media are state controlled but offer pluralistic points of view, the survey gives the system credit.)

2. Are religious institutions and communities free to practice their faith and express themselves in public and private?

3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free of extensive political indoctrination?

4. Is there open and free private discussion?

E. Associational And Organizational Rights

1. Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion?

2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations? (Note: This includes civic organizations, interest groups, foundations, etc.)

3. Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?

F. Rule Of Law

1. Is there an independent judiciary?

2. Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Are police under direct civilian control?

3. Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that support or oppose the system? Is there freedom from war and insurgencies?

4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population?

G. Personal Autonomy And Individual Rights

1. Does the state control travel or choice of residence, employment, or institution of higher education?

2. Do citizens have the right to own property and establish private businesses? Is private business activity unduly influenced by government officials, the security forces, political parties/organizations, or organized crime?

3. Are there personal social freedoms, including gender equality, choice of marriage partners, and size of family?

4. Is there equality of opportunity and the absence of economic exploitation?

"

todo: read http://www.amoreperfectconstitution.com/23_proposals.htm

todo:

check out political science on federalism

http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/archive/ http://www.federalism-e.com/

todo: principle of Subsidiarity (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_of_Local_Self-Government)

todo: maybe everyone has a right to vote, but certain selected subsets are required to vote? college-educated people, perhaps?

todo: mandatory census every decade

some defs from http://www.jerf.org/iri/blogbook/communication_ethics/printable (Jeremy Bowers):

censorship Censorship is the act of changing a message, including the act of deletion, between the sender and the receiver, without the sender's and receiver's consent and knowledge.

the right to free speech The right to express any expression in public, and the corresponding right to experience anybody's expressions in public, without being pressured, denied access, arrested, or otherwise punished by anyone, subject to somewhat fuzzy, but fairly well-understood exceptions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society

http://www.moreperfect.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The Scandinavian tradition of open government and the European Union: problems of compatibility? C Grønbech-Jensen - Journal of European Public Policy, 1998 - informaworld.com

'Freedom of the Press Act'. Today public access is regulated by a revised 'Freedom of the Press Act' which is one of Sweden's constitutional laws. The 'Transparency Principle' as outlined in the Act comprises four main elements. First, public access to official documents. Second, public access to Court hearings. Third, the right to attend meetings of parliamentary and municipal assemblies. Finally; freedom of expression for civil servants. The 'Transparency Principle' is not unrestricted, however. The Swedish 'Secrecy Act' of 1981 outlines the exemptions, under which ...

files and registers located at public authorities. The public authorities are obliged to provide documents or access to these without dela~ There are two exemptions, however, to the right of access. First, there is only a right of access to official docu- ments, not to internal documents such as personal notes and working documents, and draft legislation. When a document passes from one public authority to another it automatically takes the character of an official document. Second, official documents may be kept secret to protect the following interests: · the security of the realm and its relations to a foreign state or an international organization; · external economic policy interests of the realm; · the activities of a public authority for the purpose of inspection, control or other supervision; · the prevention or prosecution of a crime; · the economic interests of the state or the municipalities; · the protection of the personal or financial position of individuals. Official documents are not held secret according to category. Every request for access to a document must be subject to evaluation regarding the considerations listed above. A refusal of access must contain a justification and information on how and where to file a complaint. Should only a certain part of an official document seriously threaten one of the above mentioned interests, the public authority is obliged to provide the applicant with the rest of the document. Also, the public authority can choose to provide a document under the condition that it is not published but only used for research. Application for public access is controlled by the Ombudsman, who has himself extended access to documents to include internal documents of public authorities. Finally, a denial of access can be challenged in the national courts. In Sweden, all official documents including all in- and outgoing mail of public authorities - from field agencies of the public administration to the Prime Minister's office - are registered and the files are open to direct public access. This facilitates citizens' knowledge of available public documents and renders Swedish policy- making and administration more transparent than the Danish. Another element in Swedish legislation that clearly goes further than the Danish is the right of civil servants to communicate information to the press and other media. According to this principle, civil servants can pass on information, secret or not, to the media for the purpose of publication. However, this right does not include a right to pass over the actual documents which contain that confidential information. In Denmark, regulations governing the rights of civil servants to pass

To make changes to the Constitution, amendments must be approved twice by the Eduskunta, in two successive electoral periods with a general election held in between.

parliamentary immunity: without the Parliament's approval, members may not be prosecuted for anything they say in session or otherwise do in the course of parliamentary proceedings, or be arrested or detained except for serious offences.

If the bill entails a change in constitution, the second session takes place only after the next election unless the parliament decides to declare the matter to be urgent by a majority of five sixths

The committee statement is discussed by the parliament in two consecutive sessions. In the first session, the parliament discusses the bill and prepares its final form. In the first part of handling, a general discussion of the bill is undertaken. After this, the parliament discusses individual points of the bill and chooses between the bill proposed by the committee, minority opinions and the eventual other forms the members submit during the discussion. If the parliament wishes to do so, it may during the general discussion of the first handling submit the bill to the Grand Committee for further formulation. The bill is also always treated by the Grand Committee if the parliament decides to adopt any other form than the final opinion of the committee. The committee then formulates its own version of the bill and submits this to the parliament which then adopts either its former version or the version of the Grand Committee.

neat article:

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31927/title/The_undeciders_ http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2202

ideas for lists of cabinet responsibilities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Iceland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cabinet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Germany

names

ok, i'm renaming the three houses b/c "high council" sounds too fantasical.

dd house = "forum" (or "house of commons"?) indirect hier house = "assembly". (superior assembly? supreme assembly? principal assembly? high assembly? federal assembly? national assembly?). and the lower assemblies are "citizen's assemblies" or "member's assemblies" or "popular assemblies". pr house = "senate"

a remaining problem is that today's non-governmental groups may feel silly using names like these (even though they have "presidents"...). another idea could be to name the lower assemblies and upper assembly differently, allowing the lower ones to be "member's councils":

dd house = forum indirect hier house = senate pr house =

wait, how about just "central council" for the indirect hier house?

or, instead of separate two group words like "council" and "senate", have one group word (council or commission) and two types of rep words, like:

dd house = forum indirect hier house = central delegates commission pr house = elected commission

or

dd house = forum indirect hier house = central council of delegates pr house = council of elects

in either case, we have "citizen's councils".

these words sound properly boring and serious. the second phrasing has the advantage that all legislative groups are called "councils". but maybe that's a disadvantage, since it's hard to keep straight the principal bodies (i.e. everyone is a "councillor"). so:

dd house = forum indirect hier house = delegates commission (members are "delegate commissioners") (actually "central" and "external" delegates commisions) pr house = elected commision (members are "elects" for short, or "elected commissioners") (actually "central" and "external" elected commisions) influenced by "members' councils"

the commissioners appoint: CEO -- central executive officer EEO -- external executive officer and these people appoint the other high officials.

and the commissioners also appoint: procedural officers judicial officers

there are also the tribunes. if that word is too governmental, private organizations could call them "internal auditors" or "internal investigators". actually, maybe "ombudsman" is the current best term, although i want the tribunes to act proactively and on behalf of classes of members, rather than spending their time reacting to individual complaints. hmmm. maybe the oldest tribune (by election, not personal age) could also become "ombudsman", whereas the younger two are pure independent tribunes. that sounds good, because it prevents the office from reverting to a reactive ombudsman office.

using government terminology, we would call the members "citizens", the CEO a "prime minister" and the EAO "foreign minister", the commissions "legislative houses", the other high officials "ministers".

the three houses together correspond to "parliament" or to the corporate "board of directors". the CEO and EAO and their appointees constitute the "cabinet" or "upper management".

actually, i don't like "investigator"; let's stick with "tribune" or "auditor".

mb should call the OP the BP, "board of procedure".

todo (general)

forbid granting of honors by the state; naming things after people; declaring holidays or certain time periods or places or objects to be linked to/in commemoration of certain individuals or organizations or events or subject matters.

during a member's speaking time in live meetings, they can show a video or whatever if they want -- they are limited only by time

superior method for budget: http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/budget.htm

(wording) when the legislative group size exceeds 5, a Cabinet must be created. the Cabinet may never have more than floor(groupSz/2) members. Cabinet members are called Ministers. The PM/FM is not a Cabinet member. Cabinet members may be legislators or not. Cabinet members are nominated by the PM/FM and confirmed by a submajority (2/5) vote of the same body that chooses the PM/FM. Ministers may be removed at any time by the PM/FM and their portfolio may be temporarily reassigned to another confirmed Minister, for a period of time, and under conditions, that may be limited by law. Cabinet positions and portfolios are created and specified by law. Except as explicitly specified in this constitution, the PM/FM may not exercise power except through cabinet ministers.

replace dd senate layers with a single dd interface for the councils of every layer, with 1/(L-1) of the power going to each layer (the High Council is not in this).

 add 10% to  voting threshold for undercouncils b/c of gerrymandering.

despite ban on money, constituencies need SOME money in order to rent places to meet, communicate with members, and attract new members. say $2000 per 1000-person constituency (about .7 billion dollars for the US). maybe coordination is allowed between constituencies, but only when paid for by the upper-level constituency's small amount of funds. money cannot be used for political advertising aside from attracting members

some groups may not want to scale up as fast as these rules say, because most of the members are politically inactive. by a std (60%) majority, a resolution may be passed freezing the "effective n" less than or equal to some size, provided that, in the previous election, this is greater than or equal to the "effective n" that would be calculated if only those who cast votes in that election were members. furthermore, the "effective n" ceiling provided in the resolution may be raised to some other ceiling less than or equal to "m" if a list of signatures is presented to the OP, such that (a) there are more than m distinct signatures on the list, (b) the list members collectively own at least 1/4 of the votes.

so for example, the group may freeze at n = 143, in order to avoid going past the transition point beyond which commission of delegates, and term limits, are mandated. this is possible if, for example, less than 144 people voted in the previous election, or if many people voted but 50% of the votes are owned by a small group. however, this can be overturned if at least 144 distinct people, with at least 1/4 of the number of votes cast in the previous election, sign a petition to that effect.

(since a majority of the voters could simply overturn such a resolution, either in the forum or via the elected commission, the fact that is has not been so overturned implies that only a minority support raising the ceiling; so we can assume that the 144 people on the list are out of at least 288 total members. note that under a one-person/one-vote system, 144 people are sufficient to force the transition until there more than 577 members vote in elections, at which point they fall below the 1/4 requirement)

actual number of outstanding votes, not "effective n", is used to calculate delegate support thresholds (but "effective n" is used to decide how many layers of delegates there are).

heck, maybe effective n should just go up when votes cast in an election exceed some amount -- and remove the corresponding requirement in order to pass a ceiling resolution.

toread: warren smith's transitive issue juries: www.math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/dirdem.pdf

additional procedure for topic tokens that allows unknown proposals to bubble up:

in addition to their tokens, each person has 1 opportunity per time period (which is save-upable) to engage in "moderation", which is as follows. the system presents them with a proposed topic, and then can either vote it up, vote it down, or not vote on it (not voting has no effect, exactly as if they didn't use their moderation opportunity -- the moderation opportunity is not used up -- by not using up the moderation opp, you encourage them not to vote on things that they don't want to bother to read -- otherwise they might simply vote such things down).

each time someone votes "yes", the moderation system adds a "free" (i.e. not recycled/recyclable) token to the token count of the proposal.

here is how the system decides which proposal to give you each time you use an opportunity. the system keeps track of the vote tallies, and calculates (a) the number of people who have voted on each topic, (b) the proportion of yes/(yes+no) votes for each topic. once some threshold (a) of people have examined a proposal, the system stops presenting it to more people (alternately, we could use this system to completion to pass proposals, but if we did that, so many people would have seen the proposal before the debate and made a snap decision that the effect of the deliberation/debate might be lessened, because the people who saw the question this way made up their mind without thinking too hard and then maybe their position hardened). for all proposals below the (a) threshold, each time someone logs in, the system presents them with a randomly chosen proposal, with the propability of choosing each one proportional to its (b).

the threshold for (a) might be some fixed fraction of the average winning bid in the token contest for the last 5 topics, or something like that. perhaps (noting that a proposal that only 50% of people liked would only get 1/2 of the "fixed threshold" as tokens), this fraction should be rather large, such as 1. otoh, since the other system is necessary to decide between similar proposals, perhaps this fraction should be smaller, such as .5.

this bubbling-up system is similar to range voting. it is also similar to reddit's top, except that reddit doesn't have an (a) cap, and that users of the top view are only exposed to the k top candidates, rather than exposed to a distribution. (note also that neither this system, nor reddit's top are proportional -- otoh, mb this system IS proportional when you take in account the propensity of people to "save their moderation tokens" for proposals they really like (or dislike).

maybe a token should be taken away for dislikes, so that people don't feel they 'waste' their free tokens? in this case the "free tokens" assigned to each proposal represents the difference between likes and dislikes, and proposals with 60% support will only get .1*((a) ceiling) tokens at the end. but this allows the group to prevent disliked proposals from even coming to debate, unless the supporters save up double the usual amount of tokens (if (a) ceiling = 1, and about 100% of the group dislikes the proposal). then again, mb that ain't so bad. in this case, i guess the ceiling should be 1, or even greater, b/c otherwise even 60%-supported props won't be helped much.

also, mb this bubbling-up system should take into account transferred tokens and wanna-be transferred tokens, using it to "transfer" popularity only for the purpose of computing (b) (not for the actual tokens added or subtracted). this allows replacement proposals to be recognized. moderation tokens can't be transferred or wanna-be transferred, however (this would allow members of special interest groups to use their moderation tokens to support their special-interest proposals).

Tribunes may be impeached for any reason by a 2/3 vote of the Legislature. At this point, a referendum is held, and a 2/3 popular vote is needed to remove them.


mb how-many-levels should be incremented whenenver the lowest level reaches the next power of P of some threshold....

  nope, way too many levels. need a log in there.

must prevent "council shopping"


The number of layers, including Layer 0 and the top layer which contains the delegate board, is floor(sqrt(log(n)+1)), where n is the effective group size.

Note that the level of the delegate board layer is (# of layers) - 1, because the bottom layer is Layer 0.


new formula:

The number of layers, including Layer 0 and the top layer which contains the delegate board, is 2 until n>P^(1+2), and then 3 until n > P^(1+2+(1+2)), and then 4 until n > P^(1+2+(1+2)+(1+2+(1+2))), etc.

this means that each increase occurs when the size of the largest constituency exceeds 7*what it exceeded at the previous critical point. so, the size of the lowest constituency is (a little more than) P when the Delegate Pyramid is created, and then when it gets more than P^2 (which occurs when n = P^3), the first intermediate layer is added. Then when the size of the lowest constituency is P^3, the next intermediate layer is added. Etc. At each critical point, the size of the lowest constituency is decreased by a factor of 7.


some design principals:

small group deliberation is better any member should be able to directly vote on any decision supermajority voting proportional representation separate oversight simple rules for small groups

some design goals:

quick decisions except when a decision is necessary, better no action than a very controversial one any member should be able to directly vote on any decision simple rules for smaller groups easy to follow transparency; members should be able to see that officials are not conspiring air diverse viewpoints promote compromise between factions choose officials based on personal interactions, not based on mass media campaigns ultimately, the will of the membership should govern the organization for controversial decisions, deliberation before decision-making


  if eligibility for office rquires ur council actually passing something, then opposition can block any particular politician by not passing anything on their council

decided was too complicated:

Let m = floor((# of layers in the delegate pyramid)*2/3). In layers which are <= layer m, the meetings of each constituency are private, and its votes are by secret ballot (although a list of adopted resolutions are public). In layers which are > layer m, votes are public and final votes are by roll call, and meetings are public unless closed by a 2/3s vote.


numbers

Each council shall be composed of P people (where P is defined in [1]), such that there is one constituent of each of the P Delegate Boardmembers.

A person is ineligble to be a candidate delegate of a constituency, or an Elect Director, if they have not attended most sessions of a council in the past electoral cycle duration; unless, during that cycle duration: they applied to be in a council, with no offline restriction, but were not placed; or less than P people in their constituency currently meet this criterion (with P as defined in [2]); or they were a boardmember; or the council(s) they were placed on (cumulatively) had less than 7 sessions.

The number of layers, including Layer 0 and the top layer which contains the delegate board, is 2 until n>P^(1+2), and then 3 until n > P^(1+2+3), and then 4 until n > P^(1+2+3+4), etc.

First, let k = (log(n)/log(groupSz) - 1 - layers + 1)/sum(1:(layers-1)) (this is written in MATLAB notation; in latex notation, sum(1:(layers-1)) would be written (\sum_{i=1}^{layers-1} i) )

where n is the effective group size, groupSz is the number of members in the Elect Board (for the primary delegate pyramid), or the number of members in the External Elect Board (for the external delegate pyramid) (see [3]), and layers is the number of layers in the delegate pyramid, as determined above.

Now, for the layer numbered L, the minimum size of the constituencies on that layer are:

floor(groupSz.^(1+k*(layers - 1 - L)))

(again using matlab notation; using latex, it is floor(groupSz^{1+k*(layers - 1 - L)}))

The number of members in the Elect Board is given by: makeOdd(min(P,floor(sqrt(n)))), where makeOdd(x) = x - mod(x+1,2), P = 11, and n is the effective group size). When P = 7 this is 3 when n < 25, then 5 for 25 <= n <= 48, then 7 for n >= 49.

The number of members in the External Elect Committee is given by: makeOdd(floor(primarySz/2)), where primarySz is the number of members in the Elect Board as given above, and makeOdd(), P, and n are as above. When P = 7 this is 1 until n = 49, at which point it becomes 3.

The executive team may contain at most ceil(number of positions in Elect Board) positions.

Group size regimes

If the effective group size is then the size regime is
less than or equal to 9Small
greater than 9 and less than (P times P+2)Medium
(P times P+2) or larger Large

P is a parameter that each group can set. It corresponds to the maximum size of the Elect Board and also the maximum size of the Delegate Board. It should be an odd number; but a prime number is best (in order to prevent n-way deadlocks). P=7 is suggested. If the group does not specify a different P at the time of adoption of these Bylaws, then P=7 is assumed (and cannot be later changed except by amending the Bylaws).

---

from reweightedRangeVoting:

Note: http://rangevoting.org/RRV.html contains a slightly different exposition of the general idea, from which this document was developed.


http://www.google.com/search?q=congress+pages+year&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=iceweasel-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=iceweasel-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&q=legistlation+%22pages+per+year%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=4e781b66e30e329a


some notes on inspiration (are these above?)

10/9/28

parliamentary, not presidential

i was swayed by the arguments that:

one stated disadvantage of a parliamentary system is that, without the president and the legislature checking each other, there is more opportunity for corruption and other scandalous stuff to be quietly hushed up. i think the Chairs will deal with that.

forum

The Forum rules came from my desire for more direct democracy, from "liquid democracy", a proposal for transitive proxy voting for direct democracy, which i like because it allows direct democracy without eliminating expertise, and without taking too much of everyone's time, and also from a previous project in which I tried to modify Robert's Rules for usage in asynchrounous groups where members come and go, such as wikis.

another discussion of transitive proxy voting is at http://web.archive.org/web/20070927193051/fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy.htm

small size of representative legislatures

The small size of legislatures comes from the near-universal observation about the difficulty of intelligent discussion in large groups.

It also comes from Bagehot's observation in The English Constitution that it's good if legislation involves drama and tension involving famous people, because that attracts popular attention. Due to the limited attentional capacity of the public, in a large legislature, only a few legislators will become famous. In a tiny legislature, there is room for a large proportion of the legislators to be well-known, which will attract more pubilc attention.

why 7?

the number 7 was chosen because it is prime (a generalization of "odd"; prevents n-way deadlocks; but also, i didn't have a good reason for picking any given number, and so i thought, why not pick a prime, they're cool), and because 11 seemed too large (at first i was looking at 11, and 13, and 17, but then when i was thinking about using it for PieTrust?, I thought, gee, that means that whenever there was a social getogether with the whole Combined Board, whoever arranges the meetings (which may end up being me) will have to make dinner reservations for 22 people, which is a pain); also, in retrospect, after changing to 7, it seems to me that a discussion with 11 people is much more cumbersome than a discussion with 7.

Why not 5? My target is that any faction with about 20% of the votes should get at least one rep in the legislature. 7 means that any faction with about 14% of the voters has a shot at getting a rep, which sounds about right. Due to various practical phenomena, which i lump in as "noise", this means that a faction will really need a bit more than 14% before they are assured of a rep. So, because of the "noise", 5 doesn't make the cut. Also, I wanted the external committee size to be the first odd number less than half of the board size, and with 5, this is only 1. Also, once i decided that the number of boardmembers in small groups should be the sqrt of the group effective size, then if the max board size was 5, this would max out when the group effective size was 25, which seemed too small to switch to the Large regime. Also, I worry that if the group is TOO small, they will cohere "too much" and the individual members will stop thinking independently. However, I think any odd number between 4 and 18 are reasonable choices, with 5 and 7 being better choices than the rest.

elect board

the elect board is merely an improved version of the traditional representative legislature; improved because of its small size, and because a decent voting system is used to select the boardmembers.

delegate board

the delegate board was inspired by Hare's voluntary constituencies, which I heard about via The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot, and out of my attempt to create a scalable system for the election of representatives without mass campaigning.

the formula ensures that the minimal number of delegates in each constituency gets smaller as you go up, with a constant scale factor (constant between levels; the scale factor changes with effective group size).

the formula for number of intermediate layers ensures that the size of the bottom-level constituencies right before each time you add another intermediate layer increases by a factor of 7.

Only later, i realized that the USSR Communist Party had a similar structure. This is a problem because we know that Stalin managed to emasculate the rank-and-file party. I looked into this and the way he did it seemed to be via a process historians call "the circular flow of power". In my opinion, the crucial parts of the circular flow of power were (1) the central party apparatus, via their appointment of secretaries, had effective control over delegate nominations in constituencies (they called constituencies "soviets"), and (2) Lenin's policy of "democratic centralism", which was used to ban bottom-up political organization of opposition candidates within soviets. I have attempted to deal with these extra-structurally by banning outside influence on the choice of delegates, and banning party discipline.

councils

the councils came out of my desire to include ordinary people in the legislative process, plus the good things I hear from communes about the virtue of consensus.

originally i was thinking of having a chamber of sortition; but i didn't like how it only empowered a few lucky common people, not everyone.

i am happy about the council's anticipated property of fighting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization .

originally i had planned for the councils to cast their votes in the Elect Board, as a way of letting "the people" further restrain and participate in the representative legislative houses. but i decided the benefits of this would be outweighed by the way that the Elect Board would have to slow down their decision-making in order to accomodate the slower pace of the councils, which (in governments, where the reps would be full-time) would meet less frequently.

tricamerality

note that the two representative houses can overrule the Forum. while i am a big fan of direct democracy, and would prefer for the Forum to be in charge, i also want to be conservative and not offer something that is so different in various untested ways that people don't want to try it.

vote thresholds

The 3/5 threshold is my way of interpolating between the benefits touted for consensus decision-making, and the necessity of making decisions quickly. Also, I worry that the use of simple majorities leads to two-party dominance, and to no need for parties to compromise once two-party dominance has set in (since, in a system that encourages two-party dominance, each major party tends to get about half the votes), and to schizophrenic decision-making, since a small chance in the voters' sentiment leads to a 180-degree change in policy.

separation of CEO and EEO

came out of my frustration that countries and non-profit organizations alike often elect leaders who are great for internal matters, but rather ignorant in external relations. my diagnosis is that people care more about internal matters than external, and are willing to overlook ignorance in external affairs in order to get the leaders they want for internal issues.

originally i had planned for two Elect Boards, one for internal affairs, one for external. i worried that that would cause infighting between the boards when the internal affairs board disagreed with how the external affairs board was handling things (especially because many treaties affect internal affairs).

originally i had planned for two delegate pyramids, one for internal affairs, one for external. i decided that was too complicated when i was thinking about how i would explain it for PieTrust?. it seemed to me that if there were a dearth of Delegate Boardmembers who knew about external affairs, a constituency would form to remedy the problem.

chairs

the chairs were inspired by Bolivar's Censors, the American President, and Roman Tribunes, as well as by my own concerns about excessive secrecy and reduction of civil liberties in America. According to Wikipedia, Bolivar described the Censors as "prosecuting attorneys against the government in defense of the Constitution and popular rights".

Bolivar's description of the Censors is pretty much my conception of the Chairs. Another way I think of the Chairs is as an anti-prime minister. A third way is as fulfilling that part of the U.S. President's role which has the President as an individual conscience, checking the mechanical corporate biases of the legislature, and the mechanical excesses of the law (you can see this in the U.S. President's power to veto, and to pardon). When I decided that Fluid Democracy would be a parliamentary, rather than presidential system, I felt bad about eliminating that part of the Presidency.

I originally called the Chairs "Censors", then changed the name to "Tribune". I also considered names like "Watchdog" and "Auditor". Eventually, when I started planning to use the system for PieTrust? and thought about how to make it easy to explain in that context, I decided to adopt the terminology of corporate governance as much as possible. The Chair is not really like a Chairman in Robert's Rules because in Large groups the Chair doesn't actually Chair the meetings (s/he does chair meetings in Small and Medium groups). But in traditional corporate governance, the Chairperson does function as oversight over the CEO, so there's some similarity.

also, i later noticed that the 3 chairs map well onto Neil Gaiman's Kindly Ones.

i later learned that hungary has a 4th branch, "public accuser", and taiwan has a "control"/"audit" branch, both of which are similar to the Chairs, but both of which are not as powerful due to their lack of a popular mandate.

parliamentarians

the idea that meetings would be chaired by dedicated parliamentarians rather than by members came from my frustration that chairpeople in various organizations often don't seem to know or care about the procedural rules.

judges

the selection of judges is done the same way as in the U.S.

scaling

originally i had a bunch of rules that smoothly varied things as the effective group size changed. then i decided that really small groups would like less complexity, so i made some structures disappear below a certain minimal size. this seemed to be getting complicated, but then i realized that, since i had already partially destroyed the smoothly varying-ness, it could be simplified further by having just a small number of size "regimes".

the boundaries between the regimes were chosen because, if the size of the elect board is sqrt(n), then it doesn't make sense to have one until the size is 3 (n=9), and because if it maxes out at 7, that's n=49, and so at n=63 you "should" add two more people to the elect board, but you can't b/b it's maxed out. then i moved 9 to 11 because it felt right. Then I moved 63 to 67 because I felt 63 was too little and also because since 11 is prime, why not have the other one be prime too.

this gives reasonable results for minimal bounds on the amount of "overhead", or officials as a proportion of n:

n overhead # of officials comments
3.331
10.101
11.364assuming the Chair is also the CEO and EEO
24.164
25.246
48.126
49.168
80.108
81.2219
342.0619

(at 343 a layer of intermediate delegates is added)

In other words, the overhead fluctuates between around 1/3 and 1/5 thru n=30, then between 1/5 and 1/10 thru 190, then goes down to reach 1/18 at 343. This seems to be around the right proportions; if these were too small, there wouldn't be room for most of the members who want to be officials, and if they were too large, overhead would take up too much of everyone's time. The proportion of members who want to be officials probably falls as the group size grows.

why score voting?

i looked at voting systems and the good ones seemed to be condorcet and score voting. score voting was chosen because it is better for strategic voters.

conveniently, it also happens to be much simpler to explain.

the independent fractal polities

Helmut Leitner's Fractal Wiki idea; the "double linking" of delegate councils from that other scheme


related groups

http://www.californiacrackup.com/fixes/fixes.html

toread: http://www.holacracy.org/resources/holacracy-sociocracy-contrasting-paradigms

holocracy: contrast Standard Code vs. Holocracy Integrated Decision Making (IDM) process: http://www.holacracy.org/sites/default/files/resources/Handout_-_IDM_Process.pdf basically, Holocracy IDM process is more structured: * proposal is presented (and "underlying tension" that is solves may be noted) * clarifying questions (facilitator is supposed to cut off reactions disguised as questions) * everyone may give their initial reaction (no discussion or replies, tho) * Proposer may amend proposal * everyone may list their objections to the proposal * open discussion led by Facilitatior with intent to amend proposal (except each person is supposed to only present modified proposals that still address the same underlying tension, as determined by the original Proposer, and the person who raised each objection discusses if it removes their objections). when amended proposal is ready, go back to previous step (objection round)

  sounds good to me as a replacement for motion introduction (except may take too long EVERYONE gets to give a long reaction). however, i think open discussion via the usual parliamentary rules should be allowed at the end, before actually having the final vote on the motion.

double linking vs. Fluid Democracy embedded in a PieTrust?-style Open Company: Holocracy has a structure with double links between each superordinate and subordinate group, whereas Fluid Democracy has an upward link in the form of the PieShare? of the members of subordinate group within the polity of the whole (which leads to both compensation and votes within the polity), and a downward link in terms of the Board's appointment of CEOs, the CEO's appointment of an Executive Team, and the managerial bonus compensation controlled by the Executive Team. So, over many layers of Fluid Democracy, there is an alternation, with each layer having a top-down (yet elected) layer at its apex and a bottom-up layer (of the elected leaders, in this case "CEOe"s, also called EEOs, of sub-layers) below.

In other words, whereas in Holocracy, a layers consists of reps from the lower layers and a lead from the superordinate layer, in Fluid Democracy, that layer consists of two sublayers: a top-down executive team who are directed by the polity consisting of members of all sublayers (and any outsiders with votes), and the reps (EEOs) from sublayers. While this "layer" may informally have meetings, these meetings aren't part of the formal decision-making system; the "reps" don't actually occupy a privilaged position of influence on the rest of the organization (fluid democracy delegates already fill that role; i think the delegate system of fluid democracy is better because the constituencies are voluntary). "Leads" would correspond to the executive team of a layer, as seen from one of its sublayers. A lead has influence because they form the seed group of the pie of the sublayer. In other words, there is indeed a circular flow of power in the corporate division system in Fluid Democracy + Open Company (nominations are controlled top-down); however, that doesn't matter because the power at the top is elected by the entire polity ("at-large") via Fluid Democracy, in which there is no circular flow of power. In other words, there is no circular flow of power introduced because although there is a top-down dynamic from the apex to the departments thru the division heads, the Fluid Democracy system isn't affected by divisional boundaries, and the reps of the departments don't have a role in Fluid Democracy.

This distinction between the business of the organization and its governance is reminiscent of the distinction between the government and the party in communist systems. Of course, this system isn't communist, is multi-party, has separation of powers between executive/legislative and judicial, and does not have a circular flow of power.

next day: actually, i suppose you can see the PieTrust? + Fluid Democracy + Open Company style as a variant form of double-linking; the superordinate group's executive teammember could very well be expected to have regular meetings with a subgroup (lead link), and the subgroup's elected leader (rep link) could very well be expected to have regular meetings with all the other subgroups' reps as well as with people from the superordinate group.

in other words, whenever you have top-down appointees (the executive team), and you also have bottom-up reps (the elected leaders of subgroups), then as long as they have the expected meetings, you necessarily have double-linking.

however, in fluid democracy, these reps don't hold any actual power in the superordinate group, which is why they aren't mentioned there. do they have power in holocracy? yes, i think so, although in the end, the "lead" of each group can overrule

---

the "future rewards problem" (i just made up that phrase): if, say, the accounting dept is doing badly, how to indicate that you think that accounting is very important and would deserve 80% of pieshare if it were doing well, but that you are only giving them 40% right now b/c you don't think they did well? mb a separate "target pie"?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girondin_constitutional_project

mb should have either a regular "constitutional convention", or a board of bylaw revisions which does not take action until a few years after its election, and which suggests bylaw amendments. or mb just let the senior tribune suggest bylaw amendments? or, the senior tribune, joined by the senior member of the office of procedure, and perhaps the senior judge? but they have other duties..

ok, added section "lower threshold", inspired by the Girondin constitutional project's idea that there would be a regular constitutional convention not composed of legislators. ---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_Code


some people interested in electoral method advocacy:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/17/how-to-have-fair-elections-in-egypt/

      Samer S. Shehata Samer S. Shehata, Georgetown University
    *
      A Parliament With Proportionality
      Ellen Lust Ellen Lust, Yale University
    *
      How to Avoid the Hamas Problem
      Steven Hill Steven Hill, author, "Europe's Promise"
    *
      Trade-offs in Electoral Reform
      Benjamin Reilly Benjamin Reilly, political scientist, Australian National University
    *
      Allow Small Parties to Emerge
      Michael Meyer-Resende Michael Meyer-Resende, Democracy Reporting International
    *
      Make It Easy to Stand for Election
      Clark Lombardi Clark Lombardi, University of Washington School of Law

drucker suggests that all government programs auto-expire. perhaps put auto-expiration into auto-budget renewals?


ban government bailouts of institutions not designated as "public institutions" at least 1 year before the bailout.


Fishkin and Fishkin have a good suggestion: let a representative sample moderate the forum. in our system, that would be the Councils. http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/deliberative-corporation


more rights ideas:


legislature's pay is determined by a small-medium-sized (~17 people?) voluntary assembly of citizens chosen by sortition (uniform random selection)


cool! http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/blogarticle/3040018/Blog/A-Secret-Sauce-to-Institutional-Investment-Revealed.html ---

 or sup court can introduce legislation. After amendments and possible passage of an alternative the
        original is offered for a final vote (undoing alternative if one was passed)

mb allow judiciary to overturn policies that are effectively present-day politicians and voters pushing problems onto future generations; for example excessive debt, environmental problems

mb allow judiciary to invent new policies to temporarily overturn unforseen systemic corruption or unforseen game-theoretic situations in which the constitutional structure encourages bad decision-making. mb can only affect on house of legislature at once and expires in 5 years (and may not be renewed for another 5)

---

Mass publishers can use any objective attention allocation formula. Public interest may be a factor, but not or owner opinion. Legislature can outlaw other factors

---

NOT a proposal for a constitution, but interesting notes on the structure of the organization of a protest movement. Apparently the organization for student strikes in Quebec had departmental (e.g. political science, humanities, commerce, etc caucuses and a national assembly. The departmental caucuses would take positions by majority vote. They would also elect a spokesperson to the national assembly. But the spokespeople were only permitted to speak on the issues voted by their department! They were NOT representatives who were empowered to take action on other issues that came up. The spokespeople were re-elected at each meeting. The National Assembly did not have any top-down power to identify issues for discussion that did not arise from a departmental caucus. Source: Suresh Fernando.

I don't think this is a good idea for a generic constitution, because in that case imo you want the reps to identify systemic issues, to act quickly on issues that come up, and to make independent proposals. However it is interesting to note that if you want to build an organization that does not have the power to strategize, to interact rationally with external organizations, etc, but merely represents things that lots of people think, then there is this option which presumably maximizes legitimacy, presumably at the expense of a top-level organization which is even less of a rational, independent actor than others.

--

recc.:

Talk to Jonathon zittrain

Jim dator kaipo Kim Jake dunagan Hawaii governance system design


votes to authorize deficit spending must be by line-item. each such vote must separately be passed and achieve the required supermajority, and each one only authorizes deficit spending for that one purpose -- if the money is unspent or redirected, then the deficit is reduced. similarly with surveillance and restrictions on civil liberties. funding for surveillance, including secret or military surveillance, must be authorized separately, by line item, in a similar procedure. if a single line item is more than 1% of the government's income, then each 1% of deficit spending must be authorized in a separate vote, with a separate and precise description of what the money will be used for.

deficit and surveillance line item funding votes must recurr every year; in case of no action, they are not automatically renewed as are regular budget items.

in addition there is a 'debt ceiling' which must be reauthorized each year with a supermajority vote. If the debt ceiling is breached all deficit spending ceases, except for payments under debt instruments, which continue, and next year's (e.g. the next fiscal year that begins after the date of the breach) taxes automatically go up to close the gap.

to reiterate previously, any debt incurred in a year automatically increases taxes so as to close the gap the next year, unless it was permitted deficit spending as per the previous paragraph.


unsustainable 'pyramid schemes' such as paying for entitlements for old people by taxing young people are not permitted. such things must be funded by a separate fund which is set aside. if such a fund is projected to run out of money or to have to reduce benefits at any time in the future, even the distant future, benefits are immediately reduced to the level which would be indefinitely sustainable.


mb no right to jury trial unless one of the parties is the government?


no de facto favoritism for large entities (e.g. laws that happen to favor large companies, etc)


Extensions to term limits cannot apply to current office holders (defined broadly as any change to law that would make current officeholders who would otherwise not be elgible for re-election, to be elgible), nor new protections against prosecution. Such laws can be written, it's just that they implicitly do not apply to current officeholders. Protections against prosecution can apply to current officeholders, but not retroactively to cases involving putative crimes done before the law was passed (however, they can apply retroactively for people not in office for at least one year before the law is passed).


roman idea of magistrates having lifelong membership in the senate is interesting

it would be nice to let chairs veto prime ministers. but how would that work?


hmmm, could have 2 chairs and let them vote in the senate (dont want 3 b/c 3 + 5 = 8, the fatal number for committee sizes according to that arxiv article). but that gets them involved.

i guess that for organizations that relax the multiple offices criterion, chairs and senators will often coincide, or chairs and powerful forum members will often coincide. also, we're already allowing the chairs to make substantive speeches in the senate, just not to vote. i guess that's good enough.

could have 3 high judges per 'slate' and have 3 slates active at any 1 time, so 9 high judges total. that's a lot of judges, but i dont see how else to do this without either throwing out the idea of proportional voting for judges. when 1 judge dies or resigns, the slate would have to be rebalanced, right? oh, wait, that's it -- when one judge resigns, that forces their colleagues to resign at the same time.

mb let tribunes or a majority of tribunes block the senate when it tries to replace the slate of judges. that lets them protect judges for voting their conscience, but i think that gets them too involved though.

since we got rid of electors, should we allow the tribunes to decide when the forum and the senate deadlocks (one passes, one vetos)? that involves them a lot. but i guess so.

1 chair instead of 3? nah, now that multiple offices arent banned we're good

when a judge resigns, does that mean we execute an immediate recall election, or that the chairs fill in unless more judges are appointed? the latter would mean that you could have extended stretches where basically elected, not appointed, officials were judges; and the chairs dont have to have judicial qualification (should they?), so they might not be able to do the job.

https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=75+N.C.L.+Rev.+1305&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=e1cb110610b0fa76634a3f1f12e96eb1

" The debate over how judges should be selected and retained has pitted judicial accountability, ostensibly promoted by judicial elections, against judicial independence, ostensibly promoted by judicial appointment. Using the tools of public choice theory, Professor Richard Hasen argues in this article that judicial accountability has proven to be an elusive goal for most judicial selection systems, and that judicial independence depends not so much on the method of initial selection but rather upon the length of judicial tenure - the longer the tenure, the more independent the judiciary "

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27977289?uid=3739560&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101779429461

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2013/03/05/32993/

hmm ok let's keep them appointed then.

" What is “merit selection” of judges? Merit selection is a way of choosing judges that uses a nonpartisan commission of lawyers and non-lawyers to locate, recruit, investigate, and evaluate applicants for judgeships. The commis- sion then submits the names of the most highly qualified applicants (usually three) to the appointing authority (usually the governor), who must make a final selection from the list. For subsequent terms of office, judges are evaluated for retention either by a commission or by the voters in an uncontested election. What “merit selection” isn’t. Merit selection is not a system that grants lifetime judgeships, like the federal system. While details differ from state to state, most merit selection systems have a provision for appointed judges to face the voters after they have established a judicial record. Merit selection is not a system that ensures the total elimination of politics from judicial selec- tion. But merit selection does minimize political influence by eliminating the need for candidates to raise funds, advertise, and make campaign promises, all of which can compromise judicial independence. Why is it called “merit selection”? It is called “merit selection” because the judicial nominating commission chooses applicants on the basis of their qualifications, not on the basis of political and social connections. Who picks the commissioners? Commissioners are usually chosen by panels of public officials, attorneys, and private citi- zens. The panels may include the governor, the attorney general, judges of the state’s high- est court, bar association officers, private citizens, and in some instances, members of the state legislature. " -- http://www.judicialselection.us/uploads/documents/ms_descrip_1185462202120.pdf

hmm... our requirement that the initial appointment of judges requires "another court, in the subject area the judge is being appointed for, confirms that they seem to be knowledgable and correct in their application of the law." to confirm them might satisfy (satisfice) this.

however, the requirement of an Act gets the legislature involved, like the US Federal system.

interesting. i see nothing wrong with our proposal for judicial appointment at this time, although it deserves a good look by someone with experience about this (as with most other parts of the system).


skimming http://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/WJP_Index_Report_2012.pdf , it seems like Finland and Sweden have the best judicial systems:

" Finland ranks in the top five in the world in six dimensions and in the top 10 in all dimensions. The country has well-functioning, accountable, and transparent institutions and the court system is independent and free of improper influence. The criminal justice system ranks second overall, but police discrimination against foreigners and ethnic minorities is perceived to be a problem.

 Sweden ranks first worldwide in four of eight dimensions—absence of corruption, fundamental rights, open government, and regulatory enforcement—and places in the administrative agencies and courts are rated among the most effective and transparent in the world. The country generally observes fundamental rights."

woah

finland: "As in the other Nordic countries, there is no constitutional court. Issues dealt with by a court of this kind elsewhere are handled by the Parliament's Constitutional Committee."

" Trial by jury does not exist in Finland as such. In most civil cases, there are no non-professional judges involved in the process. In criminal cases, the common sense and popular sense of justice are represented by the three (or four, in complicated matters) Lay Judges. However, they participate both in the trying of fact and of law, as well as in sentencing. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Sweden :

"

Juries

In press libel cases and other cases concerning offenses against freedom of the press, the question of whether or not the printed material falls outside permissible limits is submitted to a jury of 9 members which provides a pre-screening before the case is ruled on by normal courts. In these cases 6 out of 9 jurors must find against the defendant, and may not be overruled in cases of acquittal. "

"

Further information: Lay judge

In Sweden, lay judges (nämndemän, also known as lay assessors) sit alongside professional judges in district and appellate general and administrative courts, but decide virtually no civil cases.[14][15] Lay judges are always in the majority in district courts, whereas the professional judges are in the majority in the appellate courts.

Municipal assemblies appoint lay judges for the district courts and the county councils appoint lay judges for the appellate and county administrative courts.[14] They are appointed for a period of 4 years, and may not refuse appointment without valid excuse such as an age of 60 years old.[14] Typically, a lay judge will serve one day per month in court during his or her tenure.

In principle, any adult can become lay judges.[16] Lay judges must be Swedish citizens and under 70 years old.[14] People that cannot be lay judges are judges, court officers, prosecutors, police, attorneys, and professionals engaged in judicial proceedings.[14] In practice, lay judges in Sweden are elderly, wealthy, and better educated.[16] Lay judges are usually politicians from the local authority from which they are appointed, appointed in proportion to political party representation at the last local elections.[17][18]

The use of lay judges in Sweden goes back to Medieval times.[14] "

http://www.kentlaw.iit.edu/institutes-centers/jury-center/selected-annotated-bibliography/comparative-jury-systems


http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc05.asp , apparently written by Locke, is filled with silly/scary aristocratic stuff, but parts 33 thru 45 divides the spheres of the executive in an interesting way, and shows what a bunch of weird words like comptroller and provost that are still around may have used to mean. Note first that local matters are settled by the local aristocracy. The seven courts are: palatine's court: the head of government; councillor's court (court members: vice-chancellors, assistants: recorders): the seal of the palatine, recording land grants, recording treaties; chief justice's court (members: justices, assistants: masters): trials; constable's court (members: marshals, assistants: lieutenant-generals); admiral's court (members: consuls, assistants: proconsuls): sea shipping, navy; treasurer's court (members: under-treasurers, assistants: auditors): finance; high steward's court (members: comptrollers, assistants: surveyors): health, environment, zoning, public works; chamberlain's court (members: vice-chamberlains, assistants: provosts): symbolic and formal stuff; registery of births, marriages, etc family stuff; regulate "fashions, habits, badges, games, and sports"

---

board size:

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2009/05/board-size-is-there-an-optimum.html

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=522542

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/03/111903.asp

http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/whitepaperdetail.cfm?ItemNumber=24191


should chairs be allowed to finish prosecutions even after their term expires


https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=67145

"

	NCJ Number: 	NCJ 067145     Find in a Library
	Title: 	LAND WITHOUT PLEA BARGAINING - HOW THE GERMANS DO IT
	Journal: 	MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW  Volume:78  Issue:2  Dated:(DECEMBER 1979,)  Pages:204-225
	Author(s): 	J H LANGBEIN
	Corporate Author: 	Michigan Law Review AssocUnited States of America Date Published: 1979 Page Count: 22 Sale Source: William S Hein and Co, Inc 1285 Main Street Buffalo, NY 14209 United States of America Language: English Country: United States of America Annotation: THIS ARTICLE CITING THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF WEST GERMANY, COUNTERS ARGUMENTS THAT DEFEND PLEA BARGAINING PRACTICES BY ALLEGING THEIR UNIVERSAL APPLICATION IN THE LEGAL SYSTEMS OF ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES. Abstract: WEST GERMANY HAS A MAJOR LEGAL SYSTEM WHICH HAS SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED ANY FORM OR ANALOGUE OF PLEA BARGAINING IN ITS SERIOUS CRIMINAL PROCEDURES. GERMAN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE WAS DESIGNED TO RESIST ADVERSARY DOMINATION AND EXCLUSIONARY RULES OF EVIDENCE, THUS KEEPING TRIALS UNCOMPLICATED AND RAPID. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE IS THAT VIRTUALLY ALL RELEVANT EVIDENCE IS ADMISSIBLE. THE GERMAN SYSTEM HAS NO ANALOGUE TO VOIR DIRE OR TO THE LAW OF JURY CONTROL EVEN THOUGH LAYMEN SIT TOGETHER WITH PROFESSIONAL JUDGES ON EVERY TRIAL FOR SERIOUS CRIME AND HAVE AUTHORITY OVER MATTERS OF SENTENCING AS WELL AS GUILT DETERMINATION. MOREOVER, THOROUGH, OPEN, AND IMPARTIAL PRETRIAL PREPARATION ELIMINATES SURPRISE AND FORENSIC STRATEGY FROM GERMAN TRIALS. PROOF-TAKING IS NONADVERSARIAL IN CHARACTER, AND THE PRESIDING JUDGE PERFORMS UNDER A STATUTORY DUTY TO INVESTIGATE BOTH EXCULPATORY AND INCULPATORY EVIDENCE BASED ON THE OFFICIAL FILE ON THE CASE. A GERMAN TRIAL BEGINS WITH THE EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED, WHO FREQUENTLY CONFESSES SOME OR ALL THE CHARGES AGAINST HIM. SUCH CONFESSION SHORTENS BUT DOES NOT ABORT THE CRIMINAL TRIAL; THE COURT RETAINS ITS DUTY OF INDEPENDENT ADJUDICATION. THE ABOVE PROCEDURES, ALL OF WHICH CONTRAST WITH ANGLO-SAXON TRIAL PRACTICES, CONTRIBUTE TO THE SPEED WITH WHICH A TRIAL PROGRESSES, WITH ROUGHLY ONE-HALF OF GERMAN TRIALS LASTING APPROXIMATELY 2 HOURS. AS A RESULT, ALL CASES OF VERY SERIOUS CRIME ARE MANDATED TO GO THROUGH FULL TRIAL IN THE GERMAN SYSTEM. GERMAN PRACTICES MISCONSTRUED BY CRITICS AS FORMS OF PLEA BARGAINING INCLUDE THE PENAL ORDER PROCEDURE FOR WAIVING TRIAL IN NONIMPRISONABLE MISDEMEANOR CASES WITH OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE OF GUILT, CONFESSIONS AT TRIAL, AND A CONDITIONAL NONPROSECUTION SCHEME FOR PETTY CRIME, GENERALLY USED FOR TRAFFIC VIOLATORS. THE FEATURE LACKING IN ALL THESE PROCEDURES IS THE DIFFERENTIAL SENTENCING WHICH MAKES ANGLO-SAXON PLEA BARGAINING SO OBJECTIONABLE. FOOTNOTES ARE INCLUDED. (MRK) Index Term(s): Plea negotiations ; Trial courts ; Rules of evidence ; Confessions ; Judicial process/ ; Trial procedures ; Court rules ; Criminal proceedings ; Voir dire ; Germany Note: PRICE QUOTED IS FOR ENTIRE ISSUE. "

http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/legal.html

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Faculty/Langbein_Mixed_Court_and_Jury_Court.pdf ( 1981 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 195. Mixed Court and Jury Court: Could the Continental Alternative Fill the American Need? John H. Langbein )

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http://www.iftf.org/govfutures/

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forfeiture; any property taken from an entity can only be taken after that entity is convicted of a crime

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if convicted of multiple charges for the same action or same related actions, only the single worst penalty applies

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judicial opinions may not be secret

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" As other legal scholars, most notably Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, have pointed out, when the Fourth Amendment was ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, government agents were liable for damages in civil tort actions for trespass. The Seventh Amendment preserved the right to have a jury composed of ordinary citizens pass upon the "reasonableness" of any searches or seizures. Because judges were not trusted to jealously guard the liberties of the people, the Fourth Amendment restricted the issuance of warrants to the heightened requirements of "probable cause" and specificity.

Over time, as law-enforcement agents were granted qualified immunity from civil suits, it fell mainly to judges to assess the "reasonableness" of a government search or seizure during a criminal prosecution, thereby undermining the original republican scheme of holding law enforcement accountable to citizen juries.

True, judges have long been approving search warrants by relying on ex parte affidavits from law enforcement. With the NSA's surveillance program, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has apparently secretly approved the blanket seizure of data on every American so this "metadata" can later provide the probable cause for a particular search. Such indiscriminate data seizures are the epitome of "unreasonable," akin to the "general warrants" issued by the Crown to authorize searches of Colonial Americans. "

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revealing information cant be treason or aiding the enemy or similar if the intent was clearly to make the citizenry aware of something

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corporations are not people

Absolute rght of free thought. (The right to think or imagine anything at all, can never be abridged or controlled.)

Absolute freedom from surveillance of thought or surveillance of any information coming from within the head which is not normally apparent to human senses

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complexity penalty:

representatives are barred from using advisors or proxies to interact with or advise on how to interact with the organization on tasks that at least 1/3 of voters must do (e.g. taxes or dues)

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the totality of laws and regulations and treaties (except for special cases, see below) constraining typical members of the organization must fit within a 300-page book. For example, laws regarding murder, taxation, etc.

The totality of other laws and regulations and treaties , except for those which are particular to certain industry, (except for special cases, see below) constraining members and groups of members of the organization must fit within another 300-page book. For example, laws regarding general business. This book must also list the set of particular industries to which other laws, not in the book, pertain, and the criteria by which a person or entity might determine if they are in that industry (so that they know where to look for all other laws that apply to them).

The totality of other laws and regulations and treaties, except for those which are particular to certain industry, (except for special cases, see below) constraining members and groups of members of the organization must fit within another 300-page book. For example, laws regarding general business.

The totality of other laws and regulations and treaties, particular to a certain industry, (except for special cases, see below) constraining members and groups of members of the organization must fit within another 300-page book. For example, laws regarding banking. An conglomerate entity may carry on business in multiple industries, however, the categories of industry may not be organized in such a way so that one category is or almost is a subcategory of another; for example, if one category were "handling other people's money" and another was "finance", then since a typical entity involved in the former is also involved in the latter, then the industry comprising these entities would in fact be bound by two such books instead of one; this is not allowed.

Each bill must indicate not only how it changes the codes of law but also how it changes these books. A bill that attempts to make these books longer than they are allowed to be is invalid. When the codes of law and the books say different things, the books prevail, and the codes of law shall be adjusted. The content of the books is inferior to these bylaws but superior to treaties and codes of law (however the books may not be changes to contradict a treaty without the appropriate treaty-changing vote).

Note that laws pertaining only to the organization itself, i.e. laws which no member or group of members aside from parts of the organization could fall afoul of, are not required to be included in any such book.

Appeals to nonspecific informal notions may not be used to escape these requirements. However, laws and regulations which determine the resolution of special case, or sentencing, need not be included in the above total. For example, if there is a law against murder, it must be specifically referenced in the book; it does not suffice to say 'And of course the usual heinous crimes that all cultures despise are illegal'; however, the details of e.g. Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws need not be addressed, nor does the distinction between murder and manslaughter. In addition, in the second and third book, the details of standardization need not be included; for example, if a law or regulation requires that certain nutrition information be displayed on certain food packages, or specifies a set of accounting conventions, or requires that certain companies fill out a certain form, the books do not need to contain the specifications for the required nutrition information nor its display, not the content of the accounting conventions, nor the content of the form, but need merely contain the requirement, a summary of the omitted information, and a reference to where further information may be found. However, if there are any standards or forms which apply to typical members, e.g. taxes, these must be included within the first book.

In this sense, these books are merely a summary of the laws; however, no entity is guilty of a crime unless this crime is specifically addressed in the appropriate book. That is, ignorance of the law IS an excuse in that entites are only required to be aware of the laws in the first two books, and in the industry-specific books for their industries, if any.

These book sizes are for English-language text wtih A4 page sizes. These books must be actually compiled and made freely available to all members. They must be readily comprehensible by a typical English-reading member.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

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lawsuit damages the lesser of (a) the damage caused, (b) proportional to the severity of the action times the net worth of the actor. For example, if a poor person accidentally dents an aston martin in the grocery store parking lot, they shouldn't pay more than if they dented the median-priced car on the road --- the guy who bought the aston martin takes on the risk that he will lose more than typical if his car is dented. Otoh, if a limo dents the aston martin, they pay more than the poor guy because they can afford to.

punitive damages/fines may scale with the size of the actor in flagrant/willful cases; e.g. large companies may be fined amounts that hurt them when they flagrantly/willfully break the law, and likewise rich people who excessively speed because they can afford the fines can be charged more

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more rights enumerated from a random blog post:

" For example, the other day I quoted Navrozov quoting Hobbes, who lists the following personal freedoms:

    to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit; and the like.

Note that democracies tend to do a rather poor job of respecting these Hobbesian liberties. The only two that are customarily still respected are abode and trade of life - the Universalist democracies, at least, do not assign their citizens housing or jobs. They are massively obsessed with the regulation of buying, selling, and contracting, they manage enormous programs of official education, and they are not without their dietary laws.

Furthermore, there are some rather obvious candidates for "the like" in a modern society. For example, one might have freedom of medicine - absolute ownership of your own body, and the right to choose what experts help you maintain it, or what chemicals, devices, or procedures they may employ. Or freedom of association - the absolute right to choose who you work and play with, when and why. Or freedom of finance - the absolute right to manage your own property and dispose of it as you see fit. "

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no unnecessary long-distance or records-keeping surveillance by the organization -- necessary surveillance is the minimum necessary to provide a service. centralized surveillance is surveillance where the information is transmitted or stored to a location far from its collection point. records-keeping surveillance is surveillance in which the information is kept for more than a week.

no covert surveillance by the organization -- the organization does not have to reveal who it is investigating, but it must reveal exactly which forms information it captures and from which media, and how often

the organization's access to records by other organizations are subject to the same standards

the organziation may not provide access to non-public information gained from surveillance to other organizations, except as compelled by law

maybe these limitations should be extended to chartered organizations regulated by the organization

sousveillance

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we want to put some 'universal human rights' like stuff in the bylaws. but we dont want to put too many or to be too specific, because (a) this is meant to be a generic bylaws, not a government-specific thing, (b) we want this system to be usable for private, non-governmental organizations even to people with political ideologies that interpret human rights differently and that balance other concerns against them (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China#Position_of_the_PRC_government ); we don't want our system to be seen as an outgrowth of Western ideology which is frowned upon in a-Western or anti-Western contexts.

So, perhaps treat this as similar to the problem of designing a compact axiom system or core programming language (VM, etc), and try to come up with a small set of somewhat vague principals, along with a very few relatively uncontroversial specifics.

otoh we may want to include a few specifics which seem controversial today but which in my opinion will be uncontroversial relatively soon. otoh we may want to NOT include specifics which seem uncontroversial today but which may become so in the future. so basically it's a big guess. perhaps we will allow the inclusion of rules that are uncontroversial today for private organizations but not for governments.

The ultimate purpose of the organization is not to preserve or promote itself or other collectives, but rather to preserve and promote the welfare and freedom of individual conscious entities

The organization and its officers and agents are forbidden to participate in actions which are clearly and extremely to the detriment of individual welfare or freedom

Oversight todo

Transparency, sousveillance todo

Ultimate control by the members

Rule of law w/r/t punishment of members todo

Whereas individuals and entities under jurisdiction of the organziation are only bound to obey the letter of the rules except where clearly specified, the organization itself and its officers are in addition bound to obey the spirit of the rules where these rules are intended to constrain the power of the organization or its officials

The organization must obey the laws of a sovereign state which properly has jurisdiction over it in the special case that the organization is itself a sovereign state, this means only that it must obey its own laws

The organization may not intentionally lie in writing

Privacy


ban spies who enter a long-term pretend relationship for the purposes of spying?

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any person A who tortures an innocent person B or who orders the torture of an innocent person B or a person B whom a reasonable person would suspect was probably innocent, where 'innocent' includes being guilty only of the violation of a law or laws which is unjust or is later overturned or should be overturned or a law or laws which is not severe enough to merit torture, then: regardless of the good intentions of A or whether A had convincing and possibly incorrect information that led to the rational conclusion that B was guilty or probably guilty or whether A was directly ordered to torture, A may no longer be employed by the government, may not be paid for the and no company or person who employs this person may be employed by the government, may not be paid by the government for any work for any time after the beginning of the torture, and must give back any money earned from the government after this time up to a year's worth.

If A accepts money from the government or does not give back previous money earned as specificed above shortly after it has been determined or after a reasonable person would determine that B was probably innocent, they are guilty of a further crime.

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crassus 10 hours ago

link

In an interview from Lee Kwan Yew, he suggests that it would be better for democracy if people with children between the ages of 35 and 60 had two votes. One of the common criticisms of democracy is that it promotes short-term thinking because pandering to the people is always popular. Giving extra political power to the portion of the population with the incentive to think long-term might counteract that.

It seemed like this model was a hypothetical, and not something he thought politically possible. But he is very skeptical of the one-person one-vote model, which to be fair has crashed and burned in many places it has been tried outside of its region of origin. Yew thinks China converting to a Democracy would set back its economic development by a hundred years.

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IgorPartola? 10 hours ago

link

Why that specific group? Why not the wealthy? Or the poor? Or women? Or landowners? This sounds like a terrible idea, along the lines of the government subsidizing home ownership the way it does in the US. The only version of this that I've seen that I actually liked was the idea that to declare war a referendum was necessary (can easily and quickly be orchestrated nowadays) and that the people that vote Yes are the first to be drafted. Naturally, only the people eligible to vote are the ones eligible to serve. I think almost everyone can agree that war is bad, while I doubt that we can all agree that choosing to be between 35 and 60 and have kids is the most ideal state of being for the country/economy/the world.

IgorPartola? 8 hours ago

link

The two are one and the same. Every time you introduce a crude new exception to the rule, you create an imbalance and complexity. Simple is better than complex. Organic is better than artificial. Otherwise emergent behavior is always a way to hack the system (e.g.: gerrymander). The beauty of one vote per person is that it's simple. Now, in the US, things get complex when we start talking about swing states, the fact that 3/4 of voters don't give a crap, etc. You can easily have a system where a few thousand Ohio residents decide who becomes president. However, the more complexity you introduce the more loopholes you will create.

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the court can never say than an individual or corporation is more powerful than the Organization

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if there is a large power differential between two parties who enter into a contract, then for each provision in the contract, either:

note: the parties may agree to opt to have the whole contract treated as one provision for the above purposes, or to break the contract into 'provisions' in any way; the court does not intervene here so it's fine if de facto the more powerful party gets to choose that

the goal here is to prevent 'shrinkwrap' contracts, rent contracts, employment contracts, etc, from including unreasonable provisions simply because no individual has a chance to negotiate it

note: this is not intended to allow courts to e.g. set wages, nor to add duties to either party, only to nullify grossly unfair provisions. The court cannot rewrite provisions, only nullify them. Either party may choose to not agree to the post-court contract, but the more powerful party may not offer the pre-court contract or a substantially similar one again.

todo: can we find a way to allow unions to bargain w/o going on strike? perhaps instead of striking the union can refer the contract to a court who applies a standard of reasonableness.

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" Under Brazilian law, Rousseff's asking congress to take up the bill means legislators must vote on the measure within 45 days. If not voted upon by then, no other bills can be brought to a vote until that measure is taken up.

If it passed the lower house, the bill would then go to the senate, where it would also have to be voted on within 45 days. "

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the organization cannot make positive demands on the members except for:

some organizations might want to modify this to allow positive demands of members who voluntarily engage in certain industries.

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w/r/t activities which might be considered unwise and which have a reasonable risk of relatively limited externalities (e.g. investing money in risky ways, recreational drug use, obtaining and taking 'prescription' drugs without a prescription; but not building nuclear weapons), the organization cannot prohibit the general public from engaging in these activities outright, but it may require those who wish to do them to pass a test to obtain a license first (under the same licensing conditions as above, e.g. only a test and representatives of the public interest in having a license be easy). Training for and obtaining such a license shall be similar in difficulty and time committment to a 2014 drivers' license, not to a 2014 license to practice medicine.

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a demand for information by the organization or courts etc which has little or no informational value aside from 'cryptographic value', that is, such that possession of the information alone could be used to interact with a cryptographic protocol to take some action but is not otherwise very informative (e.g. a password or private key), shall be subject to the same restrictions and provisions for contest as an order to undertake that action. For example, a court shall not order an entity to reveal a password to some computer system in a situation where it would not have the ability to order the entity to take any action on that system that the password authorizes; for example, a court shall not order the private keys to a Bitcoin account where it would not have the ability to confiscate the money in that account. The motivation is that experience has shown that information in a court's possession is prone to leaks, and in this case a leakage could lead to theft, e.g. in the Bitcoin example, anyone working for the court who can access the information could steal the Bitcoins. Furthermore, if a court demands such information and then the cryptographic value is misused, the court is liable to make whole the provider of the information, provided the provider can show that no reasonable doubt exists that they were the ones to misuse the information. In order to facilitate the information provider in making the case that they weren't the ones to misuse the information, they may demand that instead of providing the requested information that whatever is accessible from the information be made accessible by a new 'account' controlled by the court, e.g. instead of providing the admin password for their account on a computer, the provider may create a new admin account for the court; and instead of providing their private keys to bitcoins, they may insist that the bitcoins at that address be transferred to an address controlled by the court; in this case the provider has a prima facie case that they were not responsible for anything that occurs in the new accounts.

E.g. if the court would have the ability to confiscate funds and confiscates a Bitcoin private key, and then the Bitcoin goes missing and it is determined that the money should not remain confiscated, then the court must make the provider whole; furthermore, either the court or the provider may insist that in lieu of providing the key, the Bitcoin is transferred to new account controlled by the court.

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except where this document explicitly specifies otherwise, the rights given to individuals in this document are to be interpreted literally and absolutely, with no implied restrictions, insofar as such an interpretation expands or strenghens such rights compared to another interpretation; if further commonsense restrictions are needed then this document must be amended to include them explicitly, or to explicitly state that this particular right has further unwritten commonsense restrictions. For this purpose, any restriction or obligation imposed on the organization is also considered to be a right given to individuals.

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the organization may not prevent the production or distribution of information (even if false) except to protect individual privacy. E.g. 2014 SEC restrictions on giving certain people certain kinds of information about companies and their prospects are not allowed; but rules against spycams in other people's bedrooms are allowed, and rules against distributing sex tapes without the consent of those in them are allowed.

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interoperability demands: not sure how to word this more precisely but here are some examples. Apparently a condition of the GSM standard is that carriers allow people to bring their own phones into the network. 'Network neutrality' provisions. Requiring information to be made available to the public in a particular standardized format. Phone number portability. Forcing all phones to be 'rootable' by the end user.

Allowing the organization to make similar demands would be good.

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first sale doctrine, expanded to loans; if you purchase or are loaned something, then the seller cannot control what you do with it. Damages required on loaned items must not exceed a reasonable fee for repairing or replacing the item plus a reasonable restocking fee. An exception is truly one-of-a-kind items with true sentimental value; e.g. if you lend your deceased mother's hairbrush, or a famous painting, you can certainly require that they not be abused. The 'truly' is to prevent e.g. cable companies from making each set-top box somehow unique and then claiming this exception for them. Another exception is if the organization requires you to prevent the items from being used in a certain way, e.g. a manufacturer of nuclear weapons can certainly place requirements on their use and manner of storage if they are loaned out, to the extent that these requirements stem from organizational demands.

contractual demands may not violate the first sale/loan doctrine.

e.g. if you are loaned something and you damage it, you can be held responsible for the damages, but you cannot be further held responsible for whatever you did that exposed it to damage.

e.g. if the cable company gives you a set-top box, you can tinker with it to your heart's content, provided that you are willing to pay a reasonable fee for replacing it.

e.g. if you are a dealer for a manufacturer, the manufacturer cannot prevent you from reselling the items at any price you wish, to whomever you wish.

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procedural flaws in complaint handling:

"I presented all of this to the SF Office of Citizen Complaints. The filing party is not allowed to know the outcome due to the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights (POBAR) but may be notified if an internal investigation is initiated. Many months have passed since my complaint, and I have no sense of progress."

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/02/03/sheriff-fires-cop-who-threatened-to-arrest-me-for-taking-photos-of-cops

gizmo 10 days ago

link

Heartening? I wish:

> Saulet has long history of misconduct, with approximately 120 allegations against him and 21 cases of sustained misconduct (more than any other officer in the department).

It isn't exactly progress if the worst officer in de the department is fired after sustained abusive behavior. And the union immediately attempted to overturn the dismissal as well. This is pretty much as bad as it gets.

So I see no reason for optimism, given the circumstances. There are no signs of structural improvement. Not so heartening.

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ChrisBland? 10 days ago

link

I am not a fan of public unions either, but this is a cheap shot at them and it hurts the ability to have a discussion about unions. Unions have what is called 'duty of fair representation' - which requires them to defend their members. If the union failed to defend him here he could sue the union claiming it has failed to fulfill its statutory duty to represent the employee in that dispute. If they got to pick which cases to defend, the whole point of having union reps/arbitration/mediation would go out the window.

More reading: http://www.flra.gov/Guidance_duty%20of%20fair%20representati...

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sousveillance

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recording police is a right, e.g.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/recording-police-is-a-constitutional-right-says-doj/

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perhaps if there are juries they should be appeals courts that decide which cases to accept?

todo

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/opinion/schneier-nsa-too-big/index.html

" Broadly speaking, three types of NSA surveillance programs were exposed by the documents released by Edward Snowden. ...

The first is targeted surveillance.

This is best illustrated by the work of the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group, including its catalog of hardware and software "implants" designed to be surreptitiously installed onto the enemy's computers. This sort of thing represents the best of the NSA and is exactly what we want it to do. ...

The second is bulk surveillance, the NSA's collection of everything it can obtain on every communications channel to which it can get access ...This is where the NSA overreaches: collecting data on innocent Americans either incidentally or deliberately, and data on foreign citizens indiscriminately. It doesn't make us any safer, and it is liable to be abused...

The third is the deliberate sabotaging of security. The primary example we have of this is the NSA's BULLRUN program, which tries to "insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks and endpoint communication devices." This is the worst of the NSA's excesses, because it destroys our trust in the Internet, weakens the security all of us rely on and makes us more vulnerable to attackers worldwide. ...

That's the three: good, bad, very bad. Reorganizing the U.S. intelligence apparatus so it concentrates on our enemies requires breaking up the NSA along those functions.

First, TAO and its targeted surveillance mission should be moved under the control of U.S. Cyber Command, and Cyber Command should be completely separated from the NSA. Actively attacking enemy networks is an offensive military operation, and should be part of an offensive military unit.

Whatever rules of engagement Cyber Command operates under should apply equally to active operations such as sabotaging the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in Iran and hacking a Belgian telephone company. If we're going to attack the infrastructure of a foreign nation, let it be a clear military operation.

Second, all surveillance of Americans should be moved to the FBI. ...

And third, the remainder of the NSA needs to be rebalanced so COMSEC (communications security) has priority over SIGINT (signals intelligence). Instead of working to deliberately weaken security for everyone, the NSA should work to improve security for everyone. "

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ideas for unions:

unions may only negotiate pay, not any other conditions of work e.g. no seniority can be negotiated! e.g. the company's procedure for deciding when and who to fire cannot be negotiated! might condition this restriction upon the company making available some alternative process by which to hear worker suggestions

right to work no outside interference; each company's union must be independent, not part of a larger union (although they join, coordinate, and pay dues to alliances of unions, but they must always be free to leave these alliances, e.g. they must have a decision-making structure independent of the larger alliance, even if they usually choose to follow the alliance's decisions) for disputes between union and employer, split legal costs under my protocol (e.g. both sides say how much they want to spend, then the one who wants to spend more pays the difference to the lesser one)

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at no time (other than the lie that an undercover operative tells when they claim not to be an operative) may the organization or its officers lie. The organization and its officers may not plant disinformation even abroad. The value of trust in the organization's word must outweigh short-term considerations.

note: it is a big problem when members cannot take the official statements of an organization at face value. Once this trust has been lost, rational deliberative democracy becomes difficult as all discourse must contend with a bewildering array of scenarios based on information-distorting conspiracies.

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http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1359338 "Putting Aside the Rule of Law Myth: Corruption and the Case for Juries in Emerging Democracies" Brent T. White

claims mixed judge jury system are controlled by judges, pg 362

says that one reason that jury systems are good is that they force public trials

notes that in countries in which the bribe payer is as guilty as the bribe taker, corruption is likely to go unreported b/c both parties have 'dirty hands'

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public trials

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In corruption cases: the bribe payer must not be as guilty as the public official who accepts the bribe, or corruption will go unreported

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some language introducting my legal fee bidding system stating that it is unjust for entities with big pockets to intimidate entities with small pockets, which happens both when both sides pay their own way, or when loser pays

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theory: that people have to have power to protect themselves; having someone else who is supposed to watch out for you, if you do not have the power to select and to fire that person, does not work. you can have indirection (you select someone who selects them) but the more indirection between you and them, the less this works.

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theory:

people have to have power to protect themselves; having someone else who is supposed to watch out for you, if you do not have the power to select and to fire that person, does not work. where you can have choice (e.g. product choice in a capitalist market), this is as good as having selection and veto power.

if you are part of a large population voting, the power really resides in the media, not in the population, and by the media, i mean the media system and its owners, not individual journalists.

if a body meets less frequently or has less assistants, it has less power (because it has less time available to deal with nitty-gritty and bureaucracy, and less responsiveness to prevent fait-accomplis), so an executive committee that meets frequently can have more power than an infrequently-meeting body that supposedly is its boss

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for the forced wealth redistribution portion of the budget only, let people choose how you will spend their money

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pledge of a person who is running for office but pledging to represent some democratic system that gives them orders:

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wow these are awesome! toread

https://www.constituteproject.org/ http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/ccp-rankings/

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https://constitution-unit.com/2016/06/06/countries-with-longer-constitutions-are-poorer-and-more-corrupt-evidence-from-the-oecd/

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"

 For both democracies and non-democracies, levels  of  tyrannophobia  are  not  significantly  correlated  with  the  type  of  political  regime. 72 Rather, these  authors  identify  both  the  absolute  wealth and the inequality of a society as the most important factors in preventing  democracies from slipping into dictatorships. 73 The authors’ normative conclusion is that, because “[t]here is no evidence  that    tyrannophobia    deters    low- level  executive  abuse,”  and  b ecause  tyrannophobia may “limit[] beneficial grants of power to the executive,” 74 this  pervasive   aspect   of   American   political   discourse   is   actually   merely   a  misperception   of   risk, 75 — one   whose   costs   likely   outweigh   its   benefits. 76 However, we  should  not  be  so  hasty  in  disposing  of  tyrannophobic  sentiments. Posner  and  Vermeule  rely  on  survey  results  from  the  World  Values  Survey  to  measure levels of tyrannophobia. Specifically, the authors rely on two questions: whether  a  “strong  leader”  is  desirable, and  whether democracies  are   too  indecisive  and  squabbling. Relying  on  these  is  problematic: there  are  many  possible reasons other than tyrannophobia that determine one’s answers to such  questions, from  party  affiliation  to  recent  political  scandals  or  gridlock. For  example, a  Democrat  in  2009 would  likely  respond  favorably  to  having  a  “strong leader” when the leader in question was Obama, even though they may  be  tyrannophobic  regarding  political  control  of  many  aspects  of  the  economy. Moreover, the authors’ analysis c aptures  cross-sectional  data  rather  than  time- series data that would capture changing attitudes over time and allow for a more  detailed  analysis  of  the  effects  of  a  tyrannophobic  culture. Certainly, when  it  comes to finding reasons for the lack of executive dictatorship, the authors have  pushed  us  towards  minimizing  the  importance  of  tyrannophobia, and  focusing  instead on factors  such as level of income  and income  equality. But to say that  Georges Lucas and Orwell “ought not to be lionized as defenders of t he  liberal  state, but  instead  shunned  as  purveyors  of  political  misinformation”  is  a  stretch.

Eric A. Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Tyrannophobia , in C OMPARATIVE C ONSTITUTIONAL D ESIGN 317, 318 (Tom Ginsburg ed., 2012).

72 . Id. at 339-40. 73 . Id. at 332-33. " -- http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1446&context=bjil

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toread

"On the possibility of "computerized" constitutional design, see for example David Law, Constitutions,in The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research (Peter Cane & Herbert M. Kritzer eds., Oxford U. Press2010)."

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i saw an example today of another reason why having courts publish written opinions is a good idea (besides the obvious reasons (a) to force the court to make a decision based on the law, and (b) to inform others of the correct decision, (c) to persuade others that it this was correct decision, which is good for legitimacy). Now, you might argue that in tricky cases, there is a convincing-sounding argument to be made for both sides, so in this case (a) and (b) don't do much. So what happened today is that there was a big court decision, and i read the opinion, and then i read comments in the news on it, and people who disagreed with the decisions made all sorts of false assumptions about the Court's reasoning and then blamed the court for making the wrong decision. So we have two other reasons, both of which hold even if a convincing-sounding argument can be made for both sides: (d) to allow the court to defend itself against critics who presume other, incorrect lines of reasoning, which is good for legitimacy (e) so that in political discourse, at least in those forums where people care about the truth, if someone misconstrues the court's reasoning without even reading the decision, then someone on the other side who read the decision can win the argument. This has the effect of assisting those who agree with the court to win arguments, which is good for legitimacy.

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government lawyers must have the same lawyer hours per client that similar private attorneys have

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interest payments greater than some fraction of people's annual income should be unenforceable

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The nation once built things fast and cheaply. Now experts are puzzled why costs are higher and projects take longer than in other countries.

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imgabe 12 hours ago [-]

I don't know the answers, but as someone who works in the industry (on the design side). I think a big unmentioned factor is probably liability and the prospect of litigation.

If you look at old blueprints for projects in the past, they are a LOT less detailed. They had to be, because it was physically more difficult to produce them since they had to be drawn by hand. A lot was left to the contractor to figure out in the field.

Now, drawings are more detailed and contractors are incredibly reluctant to make even the smallest decisions on their own. They don't want to assume the liability and risk getting sued if they do something wrong, so they push that off on the engineers and architects.

This means every time there's a question, it has to be submitted through a formal process, tracked, answered, documented. And if the change has any cost impacts, the contractor tacks on a hefty premium because they know they can get away with it (and they probably underbid in the first place to win the job). Delays pile up, every clarification becomes an expensive change order, construction workers twiddle their thumbs while designers get around to addressing questions and this all costs money and time.

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deanCommie 11 hours ago [-]

Anecdotally, having moved to Western Europe, I get the sense that this is the major factor as well.

If I walk down the street and there is a group of workers excavating a road, there's a lot more of a relaxed attitude about fencing, walking underneath construction equipment, etc.

After all - use your common sense - don't fall into the hole. If you do, isn't it kind of your own fault? Nobody's going to sue anybody.

Additionally, it's not a big deal to close or severely impact a road due to construction - just shift around the fantastic public transit infrastructure, and everyone carries along. A bus only needs one lane in both directions. Another thing that would never fly in North America.

Both of these problems are deeply cultural. Lawsuits have become a form of welfare. Sure, you might not have government healthcare if you get hurt or sick, but maybe you can sue somebody and get paid for your suffering?

And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave.

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truxus 11 hours ago [-]

Am also a design engineer, I specialize in water and wastewater works. My clients are all municipalities, with tight budget and politics are a factor. Engineering productivity has climbed thanks to computers, but construction productivity continues to decline. In my experience on small jobs this has a lot to do with safety and regulations. It takes a team of 2-3 to enter confined spaces (manholes) for momentary inspections or maintenance, it takes extra workers to set up traffic zones to ensure travellers are less of a danger to the workers. Time is taken to ensure archeological, agricultural, and culturally sensitive areas are not disturbed. Minority and women owned businesses are given contractual preference, whether they are most qualified or not. It takes a special (read: expensive) team several weeks to document trivial wetland areas (most people call them roadside ditches), and another person weeks of labor to explain how impacts will be minimized. The government sets standard labor rates for construction labor.

But these are things we as a society have deemed important. Its not acceptable for lives to be lost. It's not acceptable for construction workers to accept low wages. It's not acceptable to recklessly degrade our environmental resources, and it's important to have diversity in this industry.

I don't know if it's true in other countries, but it seems the USA vascilates between priorities depending on the public administration. I am young so my experience is short. Bush saw a real estate bubble, Obama saw an insurance bubble, Trump et al aim for a construction boom. I would add that in New York my home state, a Democrat state, there is a large infrastructure program starting, so it's not just Republicans.

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jaclaz 10 hours ago [-]

I have no experience building infrastructures in the US, but I have some in Europe, working in construction companies.

I will give you some (sparse, 1 every 10 years) datapoints:

1983 - 2 or 3 copies of any drawing or letter/calculation

1993 - 6 to 8 copies of any drawing or letter/calculation

2003 - 12 to 20 copies of any drawing or letter/calculation

2013 - 16 to 24 copies of any drawing or letter/calculation

And of course this increase of copies is due to the increase in permissions/authorizations/approvals/checks needed and due to "stricter" (actually only more complex) construction codes and changed calculation methods I would say that the number of documents (before making the copies) has increased by 1.5x every ten years, i.e. something that was built on 1,000 drawings/documents in 1983 was built in 2013 on the basis of more than 3,000.

The number of people involved (not labour, but management, engineers, surveyors, technicians, etc.) need also to be multiplied by a factor of 3 2013 vs. 1983.

The actual production (thanks to a few computer-related innovations and the availability of better, bigger machines) has increased, but all in all you do the same amount of work with less people (labour) and lots of people looking at what the workers are doing.

This is a classic meme, but is not that much far from reality: https://web.archive.org/web/20131005125257/http://ajotube.it...

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int_19h 1 hour ago [-]

And yet, they can do this in Europe, where all these things are also considered important (so far as I know; but I've yet to see evidence to the contrary).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btOE0rcKDC0

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myrandomcomment 9 hours ago [-]

So I worked for the family construction firm for a few years. The amount of ass covering, paperwork and complexity to what should be a simple thing was amazing. The amount of litigation involved when anything was not as expected was amazing vs. just trying to sort it between the those involved. My father build a $M business on just doing change orders & claims. There is your problem.

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alistairSH 12 hours ago [-]

That doesn't explain the difference in time/cost between current-day USA and current-day France or Japan. All three have modern safety and environmental regulations, yet two can complete jobs faster and for less money.

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fivestar 12 hours ago [-]

Maybe you don't understand the real incentives at work? In the US, it is jobs, jobs, jobs. Long, drawn out projects keep hardhats working for years. It's not about outcomes, which is a big part of the problem.

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alistairSH 11 hours ago [-]

Possibly true, but the parent to my comment suggested the problem was safety/environmental regulation, which is unlikely to be the main contributor to the problem.

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TulliusCicero? 10 hours ago [-]

Sort of. That other developed countries do it cheaper suggests that having sufficient safety/environmental regulation is not the problem, but our particular implementation of such could still be the problem (if it was particularly redundant or cumbersome).

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chadgeidel 12 hours ago [-]

My brother and father (concrete construction) would probably lay the blame on onerous regulation. They regularly complain about nit-picky engineers with their insistence on (in their words) unreasonable slavish devotion to engineering specifications. I'm not on the jobsite so I don't actually know.

I wonder is our construction regulations are much more stringent than other western nations?

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cmiles74 12 hours ago [-]

I believe that they are, but that is clearly no panacea. Massachusetts is famous for having lengthy and onerous regulations and code but the Big Dig project still had many failures.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/12/29/years-later-...

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rm_-rf_slash 12 hours ago [-]

Count your blessings. Construction can be much harder in other countries for reasons beyond engineering and safety.

Italy, for example, is a real estate developers nightmare. Every rock or patch of dirt has a decent chance of sitting atop an Ancient Greek or Roman ruin, and the process to ensure that construction won't damage any heretofore unknown ruins is agonizingly slow.

It boils down to political power and cultural preference. Americans are fine with tearing down almost anything (except designated landmarks) to build something "better" than before.

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TetOn? 11 hours ago [-]

This article from 2011 (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2011/more-b...) makes a compelling case that, after decades of cutting government jobs and creeping privatization, we simply don't have enough bureaucrats to organize and run large, complex projects anymore. These other countries having success with infra projects still do. Thus the issue.

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skrap 5 hours ago [-]

I've been following and advocating for the Green Line Extension, a major transit expansion in the Boston area. I've been working on this for about 7 years now, through three different project teams, and I can say for certain that lack of effective management is a HUGE issue with the repeated failure of this project.

(This is the third reboot of this project... or maybe fourth. I've lost count.)

Not only does the local transit agency have _nobody_ who can manage the project, but the government doesn't even have the capability to assess contractors who might do that job. So they are totally at the mercy of commercial firms, who get paid whether they deliver or not.

The latest move is to hire a project manager for about $400k/yr (on a contract basis, naturally) to try to "save" the project, which has already spent $1 billion, yet has not put a shovel in the ground. (Ok they did fix up one bridge, woo hoo.)

Unfortunately, this PM is only one guy, and he's being assisted mostly by (you guessed it) more contractors. Even more comically, the contractors who are assisting him are the exact same ones who blew the first billion dollars.

Needless to say I don't have a lot of confidence that the incentives are aligned with me ever riding on this line.

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an absolute right to autonomy except where this would violate other people's right to autonomy

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how should a group initially choose a threshold for amending the bylaws?

one idea is to poll everyone on their preferred threshold, and then use some function of the poll results

two such functions (rules) are:

for example (example A), imagine that 40% of people think that the threshold should be 50%, and 60% think that it should be 80%

if we set the threshold to 60%, then 60% of people think that the threshold should be greater, and 40% think that it should be less. In this case both proposed rules are satisfied.

another example (example B): say that 60% think it should be 60%, and 40% think it should be 80%. now neither rule can be satisfied. So let's look for better rules.

note that these two rules are members of a family of 'self-consistency' rules; the thresholds chosen satisfy a 'self-consistency' property such that if a vote is held immediately after the choice on whether the rule should be changed, the result is that the rule will remain unchanged. In fact, (3) and (4) define the extremes of the self-consistent range of choices; for any choice of threshold below that given by (3), the choice is not self-consistenct (the electorate would immediately successfully vote to raise the chosen threshold), and for any choice of threshold above that given by (4), the choice is not self-consistent (the electorate would immediately successfully vote to lower the chosen threshold); and for any choice in between those given by rules (3) and (4), the choice is self-consistent (i think).

rule (3) example (A): 60% is chosen rule (3) example (B): 60% is chosen

rule (4) example (A): 80% is chosen rule (4) example (B): 80% is chosen

i conjecture that each of rules (3) and (4) can always be satisfied (we can assume that everyone wants the threshold to be above 50%, but i'm not sure that this assumption is even needed).

so rules (3) and (4) both look good so far. Remaining questions are: (a) is my conjecture true, (b) are there any example scenarios for which either (3) or (4) give apparently pathological outcomes, (c) is there a third rule which acts sorta like (3) and (4) but doesn't force us to make the prior choice of whether to prefer a greater or lesser threshold (either a qualitatively distinct rule, or some sort of compromise 'postprocessing step' that merges the results of (3) and (4))

what about

(5) choose the weighted average threshold

does rule (5) always yield a self-consistent threshold, that is, one in between those chosen by (3) and (4)?


Footnotes:

1. Some bills, such as budgets, must regularly be re-issued and have very bad consequences (such as non-payment of government employees and defaults on debt) if they are not re-issued on time. A high voting threshold could make it hard to pass these bills on time. Therefore, such bills may be marked "Rewewable", in which case, as a stopgap measure, the bill may be re-issued exactly as before if a compromise cannot be reached.

2. For example, the Legislature may make a statue that delegates monetary policy to a quasi-independent agency, and that the Legislature cannot interfere with monetary policy without a 2/3 vote

3. this was in fact similar to the mechanism for Hitler's rise to power; see the Enabling Act, which was passed during a state of emergency established by the Reichstag Fire Decree, during which normal deliberation was suppressed (Communist and some Social Democratic representatives had been arrested, and the Reichstag was intimidated by the SA during voting). The Enabling Act permitted Hitler to ignore the constitution. With this power, he turned the legislature into his puppet and had the Enabling Act renewed.

4. One could imagine that, as a compromise or as a tactical maneuver, the Legislature might wish to pass an annual budget without a Renewable mark. This could cause trouble the next year if a new budget could not agreed upon in a timely manner. Therefore, it is prohibited.

5. This makes it easy to reduce the amount of legal text, aiding simplicity.