But we want people to step out of line. I don't want professional
politicians that are constantly reinventing their image to win
constituents. We want people who work for their constituents, not their
votes.

This concept is however being pushed by European (in particular, German)
pirates with LiquidFeedback:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiquidFeedback

You can give your votes to friends so they allocate on your behalf.

When thinking about governance, there are 2 typical approaches taken.
One is top-down thinking how to engineer a full functioning system, and
then taking steps to create that vision & get it adopted (like in
Iceland with Birgitta's project). However I'm skeptical of this approach.

The alternative is thinking about what tools are needed now to empower
organisations to be self-managed, able to accommodate more members, form
stronger agreements and resolve disputes (inside or with other orgs). By
enabling communities to link up and scale, and increasing their
efficiency by empowering them we can work towards our vision of an
alternative and resilient governance model.

Part of this may just be my preference, but I think working within this
kind of framework means you can accomplish a lot more without being
diverted into concepts that look great on paper. You get immediate
feedback, and work to satisfy objectionable use-cases with real
actionable results.

And onto voting: my experience is that democratic consensus is a really
crap way to organise people. Rule of majority is rule of mediocrity.
Someone is always going to object to major changes - especially if
they're disruptive or cool. Also general consensus decision making has a
strong tendency to grow its scope encompassing everything with people
voting on minor aspects regulating personal affairs. People that like to
complain or micro-fascists like to grandstand to a crowd, build
political support and use general assemblies as a form of control.

Consensus decision making is in direct opposition to individual freedom.
Although it is sometimes needed for public goods where many people have
an interest, I am very skeptic and would rather avoid democracy. They
have a tendency to grow and form its own political class. And then you
put limits to control its scope, and you've made a government. It grows,
and people start to elect representatives...

Instead I'd rather see an emphasis on tools that allow individuals to
form agreements, discover information, resolve disputes and allow groups
to manage without needing centralisation.

This reddit is worth checking: http://www.reddit.com/r/bitlaw

In the end you can use any system, and it will work or break depending
on the people driving that community. So it's all relative.

Just my opinion.

On 10/05/14 18:39, Adam B. Levine wrote:
> Hey all,
> I've been spinning on this concept recently and thought it would be a
> good conversation with this group.
>
> labs.humint.is/politik/ <http://labs.humint.is/politik/>
>
> *An Accountable Representative Decision Making & Leadership System*
>
> by Adam B. Levine <http://twitter.com/gamerandy>
>
> When we talk about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, it is usually in the
> context of money. Sometimes it is in the form of stake, but this stake
> is usually acquired through some work or for funds donated. Politik is a
> system which recasts the metaphor of token from Coin to Voice - the
> ability to influence an outcome by making your “voice” heard.
>
> This contrasts with the systems of the world today, voting is a process
> of the very slightly larger group getting their way while the smaller
> group does not. These “groups” as individuals are not represented at
> all, the one time they interact with their representative is during
> their periodic election. Once in office, they have the power to do as
> they will in the name of representing those constituents and the only
> alternative is the most-extreme recall election which even if successful
> only returns a different person to the same predictable predicament.
>
> The problem is no accountability, voters are locked in once the decision
> is made. This made sense in the days of horseback travel, but in a
> post-bitcoin world this idea is preposterous. Accountability is
> necessary all the time, and applying the metaphors and tools of Bitcoin
> we can achieve it.
>
> Imagine a cryptocurrency wallet that contains bitcoins, other
> cryptocurrencies and a category of tokens called (poli)”Tiks” - For each
> elected position you normally vote for, you have a purpose specific tik.
> You can send these but they will return to the original owner after a
> pre-set period of time. This is user-defined, the default would probably
> be 2 years.
>
> There is also a “panic button” that recalls a specific tik if the person
> imbued with it is doing something you find so onerous you want to pull
> your support from them completely.
>
> When laws are being voted on or decisions made, representatives send
> their own coin to the bill, either for or against and the weight of all
> the constituents tokens represent the total weight of the
> representatives vote. Unlike constituent tokens the default would be
> less than an hour, just long enough to validate and provide an anti-spam
> mechanism against legislating too fast.
>
> This effect of tiks in a constituents wallet “weighting” their own tik
> does not just have to be one layer deep. If I don’t follow national
> politics but my friend Bob does and we generally agree, I can send my
> tik to Bob and then when he sends his tik to the Anthony, (the candidate
> he thinks is most valuable to support) Bobs vote is worth the same as if
> Anthony had sent his and I had also sent mine, except I just got to
> automatically do what Bob did.
>
> Bob might not know himself, he could give it to his favorite political
> pundit who then would have more power with candidates since they
> literally represent the voice of their listeners.
>
> For constituents this is very simple, they send their tiks as they see
> fit and can forget about them. If the representative steps out of line
> enough for the constituents to realize it, all they have to do is press
> the panic button and it actually reduces the power of the out-of-line
> representative.
>
> That voice freshly in the possession of enraged constituents can then
> find its way to a different representative who is more accurately
> adhering to whatever principle their own rep is not. This can result in
> lasting gains for that representative as the new supporters might not
> take the pro-active step of returning it to the offending rep.
>
> Similarly, if I have placed my tik with a political pundit or my friend
> and they do not withdraw their own token in support, I can choose to
> withdraw my token from them which has the impact of reducing their power
> as well.
>
> The natural incentive in this situation will be for unpopular positions
> to be abandoned at all levels of the structure because the longer you
> wait, the more constituents will leave many of whom will not return
>
> This also removes the need for “recall” elections, representatives who
> alienate their constituents will find their votes still being recorded
> but not carrying any weight in the decision. They will render themselves
> irrelevant. If the new representatives imbued with power become bad
> actors, it will vacate their vessel just as quickly.
>
>
>
>
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