I just find the idea very powerful - the idea that governments can be replaced by software. Voted it up, just for the title, which conveys that idea ... We folks perhaps don't need to read that article, as can imagine the possibilities.
If anyone reading this is genuinely interested in a perspective on how many core government functions (law, police, defense, roads, etc) could work in a society without government, check out The Machinery of Freedom [1] by David Friedman.
Even if you don't agree with removing government 100%, it gives you a new way of thinking about these services. There are a lot of fascinating examples of societies in history where many of these systems were not primarily controlled by the state. It is also a great mind-bending thought game to try and figure out how you would structure, say, a defense organization or a road company if the government disappeared tomorrow.
I had a lot of fun reading this book, and I think it provides a lot of useful ideas for thinking about how government should function.
From this premise (and lots of other reading of the political "sciences"), I also find it easy to conclude that the internet and open source are preferable to government as methods of diffusing power.
Exciting tales; however this dynamism needs to learn how not to accidentally capture Governmental duties and generality. Government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Not for the 90% userbase that can be implemented easily in a minimum viable service with lacklustre customer support.
(I don't claim to have any magic ideas about how to make that straightforward in software; it's hard work, really hard - and that is in fact why those same legacy systems move so slowly: they account for the details. a truly visionary, egalitarian approach to technological governance must account for them too, or it may be a false carrot)
The concept is fascinating because it offers a chance to experiment with altering fundamental aspects of society that are otherwise static. What happens when a place exists with no or limited IP? What happens when a place exists with little-to-no restrictions on medicine or transportation? Who knows what we could create?
Larry Page is right when he says we need more opportunities to experiment with society. The fundamental problem with government is a lack of pressure to improve. In Hirschman's conception, it's become all voice, no exit.
It's completely possible this implementation could be shady or mismanged. The fact that Romer has left should be disconcerting. But as an idea it's terrific and we should all be excited.
I've often observed the same thing with a different machine. It's a great metaphor for many things.
There is something about cybernetics and control theory, that, if applied to governance would be of enormous value, but I've never seen a real world application. I wonder if we'll get to see such a thing in our lifetimes.
In the cyberpunk Pyscho-Pass there exists a nice fictional account of such a system.
> You probably just need both.
Yes, today. My complaint is that this is a very crude algorithm! There has got to be a better way that represents people's true interests. My own hypothesis is that in the year 20XX there will exist a <country> with a combination of intelligence agency with a vastly expanded remit and a computer system which produces most central governance.
Did you believe/think/feel X today? Your inputs have been factored and there are Y resolution proposals! The resolution you have chosen shall be weighted against counterproposals and if selected shall be converted into contracts for activities that a new arm of the State shall spring into existence to deal with. Government functions can scale backwards and forwards in an orderly and consistent fashion with the desires/knowledge of the citizenry.
I think it can only work by illustrating trade-offs in order to keep stakeholders in the loop. As long as the system is comprehensible it should work. Pray we never fork.
We should try experiments like these on a Seastead first before we kill everybody.
The thing is, existing politics has analogies for all the programming-inspired ideas that come up here. To wit: fomenting revolution. If you want to tear it all down and start from scratch, rise up and overturn the standing government by force of arms.
Too hard? They have all the good weapons? Then you don't care enough, and that's the check on reseting the government.
I think software of this kind is the future of collective decision making (government), but as you say this sort of thing is very much in its infancy and it will probably be many years before really compelling systems emerge.
It doesn't have to be, it can also become a heavily centralized, carefully monitored system thanks to the intrinsic immutability of the underlying technology.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying your comment, but it seems like a very good thing that the government continues to be people/organization centric and doesn't embrace a future where "reality is determined by computer code and people are a bit players". We should hope our democratic institutions continue to operate this way.
We always seem to live in a world where it takes front page news like this to put into effect genuine reform, reform that slams the door in the face of entrenched interests.
This seems to be just one of those things, but it reminds me of (most/all) companies I have worked at, where action across the company is really only determined by the next pressing crisis - actual plans are laughed at as everyone know how things really are.
But it does not have to be like this. I think the concept of technocracy is most relevant when it delivers things that should be done based on scientific analysis - even if those are not the latest crisis yet.
imagine an election where we voted in the order of the governments backlog - fix these things in this order.
I guess a lot of blowback is coming from the fact that you decided to call it Government 2.0. It seems a bit presumptuous, guilty of the same hyperbole tech is always accused of...changing the world etc...but at the same time it's a title I would click on. It's outrageous, but serves a purpose
I agree with you. I'd even bet that in 10-20 years, the primary purpose of nation-states will be technology management, if that isn't already the case. Administration by software seems inevitable, with the main problem being ensuring that the software is acting in our interests. We'll likely encode policies into something like Ethereum contracts once we have more reliable infrastructure.
I've been trying to think about "rethinking" government for quite a while. The idea of a web based governance system seems really appealing, in the sense that I think the greatest strength of the web is how quickly ideas can go from concept to execution. Its about the closest thing to a meritocracy as we've ever come, and that's simply because the gate keeper is thrown away. Think about how many great things have sprung out of places like Reddit. Ordinary people who have a quick flash of a good idea can take 30 minutes to type something up... and sometimes it gets traction. Getting things done in our current system requires an inhuman like persistence, and the luck of making a relevant connection. Even if you have a good idea, its a difficult thing to execute.
I have this image of a framework/protocol in my head around allowing various policies to be created, and built on top of each other. As a programmer I pretty much used object oriented programming as an inspiration. Though I guess even OOP had its inspiration from biology. Its a way for an organic system to grow and adapt robustly. I think just like computer programs, government needs that too.
Added to that, if the web has a decent self regulation mechanism, that makes the justification of regulating the web even harder.
The one problem is, the advantage "physical" governments have is they have sovereignty. If Amazon starts doing illegal things, the FBI can arrest Jeff Bezos. The internet doesn't have an equivlent means.
However I think there is away to have the essence of sovereignty, and that is through a new crypto-currency like bitcoin. Imagine if to be a part, and to receive the benefits of this online sovereign nation you had to register your receive address. If the sovereign entity had a way to embargo your ability to accept payments in the currency, it might be enough penalty to fall back inline with whatever regulations were created. I think it also provides another means to give legitamicy to a crypto-currency.
An example of something that would be cool is this. You want to create an open source space program, so you propose the idea on your local netizen forum. The idea has overwhelming support, so someone creates a new policy component, and gives permissions to suction tax funds. I can imagine something like that happening in hours. Imagine initiating a public effort going from idea to reality in hours.
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