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 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.
Isn't it funny how most governments become less brutal as the technology and knowledge to influence and manipulate people becomes available to said governments. Not to sound too bleak, the flipside to this is that technology also enables people to coordinate and inform eachother of the actions of governments.
Putting all of "government" in one box is like having a software architecture diagram with a single box labelled "code".
In this case, there are plenty of factions which are capable of profiting from that chaos. It's not an accident, it's their preferred outcome. Mostly factions within the Republican party fighting against the "permanent state".
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.
Indeed if the security of control of your government is fragile enough that a fancy telemarketer can acquire significant power perhaps a bit of governmental re-architecture is in order.
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.
You could say that this new form of centralisation has the potential to allow governance systems that breakaway from, modify or usurp nation States. All of it being economically incentivised. This is pretty interesting IMO.
I like to view governments like John Gall viewed systems. Government -- like systems -- will expand to fill the known universe. Encryption makes the known unknown so it's not built to last within unchecked government system sprawl.
reply