The idea of having politicians agree to legally binding contracts with their constituents (before they are elected) has been floating around some circles lately, and we wanted to explore this interesting idea a little.
Holding officials accountable to the public is a fine idea. The U.S. system is all promise, no follow-through. I wish the citizens of Nova Scotia all the best in their effort to create a government "Of the people" instead of "Of the corporations." Contractual agreements should help matters greatly, although somebody needs to draw up those contracts. I would expect that after some experimentation, many of the articles/clauses could become standardized boilerplate; the citizens just need to decide what terms they want. Go for it!
Agreed. A good contract requires good enforcement. Our DOJ and rogue courts proved that disastrously these past four years. I once rented a home from a good man who said we didn't need a contract because "they're only as good as the people who sign them."
I like to think about what sort of a system will be in place 2000-10'000 years from now. The present system is not going to be on the list as it is too destructive. So my hope is to find the ideas that could form a SELF STABLISING system of government with maximum local content, near total OpenSource and perhaps a form of proxy voting where the citizen gives their proxy to the champion of their choice and he has only a single personal vote plus all his proxy votes. If he does not vote according to his constituents then they work on the only working solution of the prisoners dilemma, offer to cooperate unless stabbed in the back, this means that the citizen simply has to withdraw his proxy with very short notice, say a day or two and select a new champion or vote in person.
This way Direct democracy is a fail-safe and the goal could be Consensus Government.
Really good points, and interesting perspective of looking into the future.
The best solution to iterated prisoners dilemma is trust. Not blind faith but trust based on previous iterations. Tit-for-tat is the best algorithm to solve it. But having trust between players based on being able to see their previous iterations (like how you can see sellers and buyers on eBay and Amazon and see their previous iterations and then build trust with them) beats tit for tat. And having trustworthy systems is the first step in that when it comes to creating a high trust society and governance with large groups of people. It starts with transparent systems, systems that are based on results tied to metrics, systems that can error correct and allow for competing theories to arise, and systems that operate under an agreed upon code of honor. As to not hurt people when the systems become powerful. This is also aided with decentralization of power within the system.
But first we need better ways to extract and make decisions as a group. And voting isn’t the answer. Creativity needs to be able to be added to the system by all nodes. Like collective intelligence systems do.
Trust is key to overcome the current nightmare. That is the reason why trust is being destroyed for good on every level and in every corner of the globe ...
When we lost trust of media, we decentralized media into podcasts and substacks.
When we lost trust of academia, we home schooled.
When we lost trust of money, we made our own digital currencies.
When we lost trust of medicine, we created decentralized medical groups online and helped each other cure diseases (like how carnivore diet is curing so many people of chronic disease).
Media, digital currencies, etc.; any sort of communication relying on an electrical WWW is prone to be shut-down at any time by the powers that should not be. Homeschooling, if entirely done with hardcopies by the very few parents not kept busy producing taxes for war-machinery is OK.
It's an interesting relevant concept worthy of exploration. As an experienced software engineer peripherally interested in web3 technology outside of what has unfortunately become crappy corporate culture gigs for fortune 500 and 100 organizations where my talent and person has been abused and my family impoverished just for trying to work my craft with my skills, ideas like this peek my interest once again in what important areas smart contracts and blockchain technology could be applied. Hit me up if there's some chance I could get involved on that level.
I think there might be. We are building a system for collective intelligence. So systems of people can self govern. Not just for governments but for businesses and more. Have you read and understand the concepts here? Do you write code in RUST?
Check this out and stay tuned for upcoming updates and videos on the project.
Yes, RUST is probably my most favorite programming language. I have spent some considerable time with it outside of jobs. I will read more about your concepts and ideas for solutions and get back to you. Thanks.
I like your search for fail-safe systems as well as the INSI goals that laid bare the problem stated by Stephen F. Austin: "A nation can only be free, happy, and great in proportion to the virtue and intelligence of the people." We need a system that increases the number of virtuous and intelligent people. To that end, much success and a Happy New Year to The Society of Problem Solvers. More power to you.
You think you can trust politicians? We have tried that for 248 years and it hasn't worked and never will work. Legally binding as in they will pay off the legal system to become unbounded. Whatever new system you design, it must not carry over remnants from our current form of government. I no longer wish to serve under any politician as they are all false and you can not change their nature.
Of course not. But you can trust systems if they are transparent and getting results. Your nihilism sounds cool, but it is wrong. There are certainly good parts of our previous system that we can and should keep and make better. Individualism for starters. And having a code and agreement of how we want society run in order to resist corruption.
We have a decent code and agreement in our constitution, but bad actors keep mucking it up, and the power of enforcement keeps falling in and out of the wrong hands. What to do about the problem of people who sign onto a code of honor and act dishonorably anyway?
There is no way to get to your utopia without tons of suffering and death. Therefore we should look for better ways to fix our systems without destroying everything first.
Destroying all the enemy brainwashed would definitely be a start. Cults are for criminals and they must be annihilated @ all costs for self preservation.
Sometimes it is better to destroy everything and build from scratch, otherwise you risk patching up what you want to keep in order to fit the new situation.
In France in 1789 they destroyed everything and built a new system from scratch. It did not happen without a lot of pain and bloodshed, but eventually the country got democracy and the world got the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That democracy and declaration were raped and tossed out the window because we let it happen.
Great beginnings fail to endure: you make it sound like a default setting. You make a true but inaccurate statement. It is not just great beginnings that fail to endure: everything fails to endure because everything changes, all the time, that is the way of the world, and it applies not to great beginnings only.
However, if that is the premise on which to build then there is no need to build.
Exactly. So what we should be building is something that is constantly changing and improving and becoming more resistant to corruption. We can and should do this. The answer must be better systems, because humans will always be partially flawed. BUT, if we have better systems it will turn out better humans too. If we have a code of honor.
Not sure how truth can be inaccurate. Perhaps true but not exhaustive since your accurate observation subsumes mine. Maybe renewal, refinement, and recommitment is a better route than tearing down and rebuilding from scratch.
It is instinctual in my epistemology and the source of our most dangerous conflicts. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9).
I, for One, do not support politicians! The age-old saying stop voting and paying taxes and it'll collapse appears to be the most logical solution to this One but easier said than done per all the brainwashed. If you can't govern your own animal you don't belong in this place! Cults are for criminals!
In Finland swearing the doctors oath (successror to the Hippocratic oath) is no longer mandatory. If a doctor does not take an oath then he has no right more than me to prescribe a 'dangerous/prescription' substance because he takes no moral/ethical stand on his actions.
As a side note I believe that everyone should be allowed to self medicate with anything they have synthesised or extracted in person. A doctor is the person who society appoints to medicating those who cannot or will not do so for themselves. We are all our own doctors and this is a change I would love to see in the world.
Apparently in some places elected officials take more binding oaths with other bodies than their constituents and this should stop.
My small fix to this would be to REQUIRE all 'authorised' persons to display their authority on the wall and a signed copy of the oath they swore or they cannot expect any customers.
Interesting thought, but synthesizing or even growing most medicinals is not practical for most people. Just overturn the Durham-Humphrey amendment and all derived treaties, regulations, etc.! (No idea what equivalent Finland have.)
Hmm, That Durham-Humphrey amendment may need work. Just had a look and it seems to have left the onus on the drug manufacturer to determine what is prescription and what is not. I expect Finland had something similar and is now mostly an EU groupie in many regards.
I think that any drug with a low chance of serious abuse like addiction, murder or permanent health risks should be automatically OTC or unregulated. These relatively safe compounds I would like to see made unregulated to use for all adults.
Selling of dangerous drugs can be regulated and illegal selling could be criminalised but using and making for OWN CONSUMPTION should be legal to adults in almost all cases, harms caused during abuse of such drugs could have additional legal penalties like drunk driving generally.
The list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines seems like a good place to start deregulating as many as possible. Let people treat and cure their own diseases as they can do best. Have doctors available to diagnose conditions that are not obvious and supervise treatment of children. Let doctors treat people who have harmed themselves and make their money fixing problems instead of merely be the middle man in covering up symptoms, regular folk can do this just as well for less money if they are allowed to drink, smoke, vape and snort various products. If there was free access to safe and effective treatments to loneliness, homelessness and poverty such as ARCD or UBI then there would be less addiction and substance abuse anyway.
I am not a proponent of self administered addictive or mind altering substances but can see no moral or ethical case where someone else should have the power to deny me or other voting age adults the ingest what they want.
Giving dangerous substances to children like sugar and harmful drugs should be criminalised with severe penalties from the second offense (one warning).
Of course it could not work in the U.S. for the same reason as in Canada and elsewhere: politicians do not want to be held accountable by those they are supposed to represent.
Furthermore, the judiciary is corrupt to the core and will always side with the establishment. That is why I am somber about INSI's prospects on Feb. 14, 2025.
The idea of accountability, however, is a very good one but the system where money talks needs to be changed completely.
We can nominate our own people willing to take on apparatus that holds them accountable. Both digital and legal apparatus. If the existing politicians don't want to play along, they will go extinct. We don't need their permission to form our own swarms of people. Have you seen this?
Holding officials accountable to the public is a fine idea. The U.S. system is all promise, no follow-through. I wish the citizens of Nova Scotia all the best in their effort to create a government "Of the people" instead of "Of the corporations." Contractual agreements should help matters greatly, although somebody needs to draw up those contracts. I would expect that after some experimentation, many of the articles/clauses could become standardized boilerplate; the citizens just need to decide what terms they want. Go for it!
Agreed. A good contract requires good enforcement. Our DOJ and rogue courts proved that disastrously these past four years. I once rented a home from a good man who said we didn't need a contract because "they're only as good as the people who sign them."
I like to think about what sort of a system will be in place 2000-10'000 years from now. The present system is not going to be on the list as it is too destructive. So my hope is to find the ideas that could form a SELF STABLISING system of government with maximum local content, near total OpenSource and perhaps a form of proxy voting where the citizen gives their proxy to the champion of their choice and he has only a single personal vote plus all his proxy votes. If he does not vote according to his constituents then they work on the only working solution of the prisoners dilemma, offer to cooperate unless stabbed in the back, this means that the citizen simply has to withdraw his proxy with very short notice, say a day or two and select a new champion or vote in person.
This way Direct democracy is a fail-safe and the goal could be Consensus Government.
Really good points, and interesting perspective of looking into the future.
The best solution to iterated prisoners dilemma is trust. Not blind faith but trust based on previous iterations. Tit-for-tat is the best algorithm to solve it. But having trust between players based on being able to see their previous iterations (like how you can see sellers and buyers on eBay and Amazon and see their previous iterations and then build trust with them) beats tit for tat. And having trustworthy systems is the first step in that when it comes to creating a high trust society and governance with large groups of people. It starts with transparent systems, systems that are based on results tied to metrics, systems that can error correct and allow for competing theories to arise, and systems that operate under an agreed upon code of honor. As to not hurt people when the systems become powerful. This is also aided with decentralization of power within the system.
But first we need better ways to extract and make decisions as a group. And voting isn’t the answer. Creativity needs to be able to be added to the system by all nodes. Like collective intelligence systems do.
Trust is key to overcome the current nightmare. That is the reason why trust is being destroyed for good on every level and in every corner of the globe ...
NO mistakes are being made.
When we lost trust of media, we decentralized media into podcasts and substacks.
When we lost trust of academia, we home schooled.
When we lost trust of money, we made our own digital currencies.
When we lost trust of medicine, we created decentralized medical groups online and helped each other cure diseases (like how carnivore diet is curing so many people of chronic disease).
The next step is to create decentralized and transparent systems for governance and business. With these ideas in mind of building high trust systems: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
Thanks for your kind reply !!! 👍👍👍
Media, digital currencies, etc.; any sort of communication relying on an electrical WWW is prone to be shut-down at any time by the powers that should not be. Homeschooling, if entirely done with hardcopies by the very few parents not kept busy producing taxes for war-machinery is OK.
It's an interesting relevant concept worthy of exploration. As an experienced software engineer peripherally interested in web3 technology outside of what has unfortunately become crappy corporate culture gigs for fortune 500 and 100 organizations where my talent and person has been abused and my family impoverished just for trying to work my craft with my skills, ideas like this peek my interest once again in what important areas smart contracts and blockchain technology could be applied. Hit me up if there's some chance I could get involved on that level.
I think there might be. We are building a system for collective intelligence. So systems of people can self govern. Not just for governments but for businesses and more. Have you read and understand the concepts here? Do you write code in RUST?
Check this out and stay tuned for upcoming updates and videos on the project.
Thanks!
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
Yes, RUST is probably my most favorite programming language. I have spent some considerable time with it outside of jobs. I will read more about your concepts and ideas for solutions and get back to you. Thanks.
I like your search for fail-safe systems as well as the INSI goals that laid bare the problem stated by Stephen F. Austin: "A nation can only be free, happy, and great in proportion to the virtue and intelligence of the people." We need a system that increases the number of virtuous and intelligent people. To that end, much success and a Happy New Year to The Society of Problem Solvers. More power to you.
Love this idea!!!!! Holding their feet to the fire while we hold them legally responsible!!!
You think you can trust politicians? We have tried that for 248 years and it hasn't worked and never will work. Legally binding as in they will pay off the legal system to become unbounded. Whatever new system you design, it must not carry over remnants from our current form of government. I no longer wish to serve under any politician as they are all false and you can not change their nature.
Of course not. But you can trust systems if they are transparent and getting results. Your nihilism sounds cool, but it is wrong. There are certainly good parts of our previous system that we can and should keep and make better. Individualism for starters. And having a code and agreement of how we want society run in order to resist corruption.
We have a decent code and agreement in our constitution, but bad actors keep mucking it up, and the power of enforcement keeps falling in and out of the wrong hands. What to do about the problem of people who sign onto a code of honor and act dishonorably anyway?
We need better systems. Shock collars for politicians. Ones they agree to use. Some of the ideas and examples here: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
Shock collars would work.
That is human nature, and, if I understand well, that is the problem the Society of Problem Solvers tries to solve.
There is no way to get to your utopia without tons of suffering and death. Therefore we should look for better ways to fix our systems without destroying everything first.
Destroying all the enemy brainwashed would definitely be a start. Cults are for criminals and they must be annihilated @ all costs for self preservation.
Without new systems there is no solution. We can solve it with much reduced suffering if we build systems first. In case they break our current ones.
Do you mean annihilate the BAR and its minions being a start?
Draconian, but perhaps necessary. I doubt it would suffice, however.
Yup they breed those boogers.
Sometimes it is better to destroy everything and build from scratch, otherwise you risk patching up what you want to keep in order to fit the new situation.
In France in 1789 they destroyed everything and built a new system from scratch. It did not happen without a lot of pain and bloodshed, but eventually the country got democracy and the world got the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Devil's advocate here. Where stands that democracy and declaration today, and why do great beginnings fail to endure?
That democracy and declaration were raped and tossed out the window because we let it happen.
Great beginnings fail to endure: you make it sound like a default setting. You make a true but inaccurate statement. It is not just great beginnings that fail to endure: everything fails to endure because everything changes, all the time, that is the way of the world, and it applies not to great beginnings only.
However, if that is the premise on which to build then there is no need to build.
Exactly. So what we should be building is something that is constantly changing and improving and becoming more resistant to corruption. We can and should do this. The answer must be better systems, because humans will always be partially flawed. BUT, if we have better systems it will turn out better humans too. If we have a code of honor.
I wonder if systems and honor codes are co-dependent or if one precedes the other.
Not sure how truth can be inaccurate. Perhaps true but not exhaustive since your accurate observation subsumes mine. Maybe renewal, refinement, and recommitment is a better route than tearing down and rebuilding from scratch.
Because most people follow a multitude to do evil (Exodus 23:2). I hope this be a learned behavior, but fear it actually be an instinctual trait.
It is instinctual in my epistemology and the source of our most dangerous conflicts. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9).
I, for One, do not support politicians! The age-old saying stop voting and paying taxes and it'll collapse appears to be the most logical solution to this One but easier said than done per all the brainwashed. If you can't govern your own animal you don't belong in this place! Cults are for criminals!
No man is an island. If the systems collapse millions will perish. This is not the way.
And your biology is not presumed to be insular?
Or the nature of their owners either!
If we understand decentralized systems of people, there is no owner.
This morning’s is pretty accurate as well:
https://open.substack.com/pub/austinmuhs/p/why-america-is-almost-completely?r=8lmac&utm_medium=ios
What’s so decentralized about this?
https://open.substack.com/pub/thefriendlyviking/p/are-you-paying-attention-watch-until?r=8lmac&utm_medium=ios
Yup there's an owner(s) of those politicians so pull the layer out from the top.
Then what are oaths of office? Not defending the Constitution isn't perjury?
In Finland swearing the doctors oath (successror to the Hippocratic oath) is no longer mandatory. If a doctor does not take an oath then he has no right more than me to prescribe a 'dangerous/prescription' substance because he takes no moral/ethical stand on his actions.
As a side note I believe that everyone should be allowed to self medicate with anything they have synthesised or extracted in person. A doctor is the person who society appoints to medicating those who cannot or will not do so for themselves. We are all our own doctors and this is a change I would love to see in the world.
Apparently in some places elected officials take more binding oaths with other bodies than their constituents and this should stop.
My small fix to this would be to REQUIRE all 'authorised' persons to display their authority on the wall and a signed copy of the oath they swore or they cannot expect any customers.
Interesting thought, but synthesizing or even growing most medicinals is not practical for most people. Just overturn the Durham-Humphrey amendment and all derived treaties, regulations, etc.! (No idea what equivalent Finland have.)
Hmm, That Durham-Humphrey amendment may need work. Just had a look and it seems to have left the onus on the drug manufacturer to determine what is prescription and what is not. I expect Finland had something similar and is now mostly an EU groupie in many regards.
I think that any drug with a low chance of serious abuse like addiction, murder or permanent health risks should be automatically OTC or unregulated. These relatively safe compounds I would like to see made unregulated to use for all adults.
Selling of dangerous drugs can be regulated and illegal selling could be criminalised but using and making for OWN CONSUMPTION should be legal to adults in almost all cases, harms caused during abuse of such drugs could have additional legal penalties like drunk driving generally.
The list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines seems like a good place to start deregulating as many as possible. Let people treat and cure their own diseases as they can do best. Have doctors available to diagnose conditions that are not obvious and supervise treatment of children. Let doctors treat people who have harmed themselves and make their money fixing problems instead of merely be the middle man in covering up symptoms, regular folk can do this just as well for less money if they are allowed to drink, smoke, vape and snort various products. If there was free access to safe and effective treatments to loneliness, homelessness and poverty such as ARCD or UBI then there would be less addiction and substance abuse anyway.
I am not a proponent of self administered addictive or mind altering substances but can see no moral or ethical case where someone else should have the power to deny me or other voting age adults the ingest what they want.
Giving dangerous substances to children like sugar and harmful drugs should be criminalised with severe penalties from the second offense (one warning).
Of course it could not work in the U.S. for the same reason as in Canada and elsewhere: politicians do not want to be held accountable by those they are supposed to represent.
Furthermore, the judiciary is corrupt to the core and will always side with the establishment. That is why I am somber about INSI's prospects on Feb. 14, 2025.
The idea of accountability, however, is a very good one but the system where money talks needs to be changed completely.
We can nominate our own people willing to take on apparatus that holds them accountable. Both digital and legal apparatus. If the existing politicians don't want to play along, they will go extinct. We don't need their permission to form our own swarms of people. Have you seen this?
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
Yes, I read it a few months ago, perhaps you even were the one to bring it to my attention 😀