Open Source Political System

#1

Continuing the discussion from X-factor style once-a-week Political Voting System:

By mechanics, I mean the nitty-gritty. We can use open source as a guiding model, but we need to root out issues such as conflicts of interest when it comes to political applications.

We could start by brainstorming on how it’d work for the Taxation Authority:

  • They need to collect taxes.
  • Most tax avoidance and tax evasion comes from the ultra-rich.
  • The ultra-rich support politicians that elect Ministers who will make sure the department that is supposed to chase the ultra-rich is underfunded, e.g. 2 people working on it when they need 200. (Ironically, there would be a huge return-on-investment if they beefed up these departments, at least in Spain, that’s what expert revenue agents have said and is backed up by facts).

This one seems straightforward. Have the Minister in charge of the Taxation Authority be elected by all the civil servants that work there, i.e. the Minister has to be a civil servant and not just the President’s buddy. Candidates are nominated and present proposals on how they will better lead their organisation to accomplish their mission (in this example, making sure they collect the tax they’re due).

In a nutshell, we’d be proposing to extend the way the civil service works into the top government positions that manage it.

Could it really be that simple? What flaws do you see?

#2

One possible solution is to create a new government-backed currency. In the way the new currency works there would be a built-in “transaction tax” every time there is a transaction. For cash transactions the transaction tax would be deducted by the ATM on the cash withdrawal.

One researcher came to the conclusion that a 1% transaction tax could replace all other taxes. I’m not sure if that is accurate but anything from 1%,2%,3%,5% would be easily accepted by the public given that it would save them from all other taxes. Think about VISA and MasterCard fees, they are essentially already doing this by default and the individual merchants and shops cannot avoid the 2.5% fee that they charge, as VISA or MC has to approve the transaction before the shop can receive any money from the customer.

So no tax agents shuffling papers around and knocking on peoples doors, we know that has never worked. Just a whole new digital currency that takes out the tax automatically because each transaction has to be approved by the government’s central computers.

#3

The problem I have with open source is that, well, it’s open! Anybody can edit it, right? So what if our enemies should come in and vandalise our system? There need to be some kind of security measures to prevent that from happening, the system cannot be fully and truly open source unless everyone on the planet is on board with us.

#4

How to get rid of individual meritocrat corruption in this case: decouple funding control from the specific meritocrats that govern the ministers and their departments. Instead, the funding for such ministers or departments in this case would be decided by another group of meritocrats, including financial experts, who apply the same principles to a range of government budgets (actual amounts to spend).

If we are talking about meritocrats who decide who works where – they can only be corrupted in that capacity; and the government is “insulated” in that sense. If the meritocrat in question is in charge of funding for all departments – he would be called out by meritocrats in the same group or from outside; again the meritocrats would “self-insulate” the governing process from corruption in this particular example. (This is assuming all the information is freely available to said meritocrats in government.)

We can also again decouple components of the governing role in question (in this case tax collection) by having generalist/visionary type meritocrats come up with the processes and attack vectors for tax collection (the theorists create the theory/approach), while other meritocrats simply oversee its correct application and work to bolster its effectiveness in the practical application (the actual tax collection and any perceived problems).

The theorists would understand the importance of targeting the rich i.e. most effective target for public good (justice and meritocracy) in this case; so they can devise the overall measures that would be effective. For example, offshore accounts and any exploitable holes in the national legislation or anything related to banking and transactions. Generalists/intuitives may have a clear picture of how all this is happening at different points of society.

Separating the methodology from the practical application is itself the insulation from one particular individual going corrupt:particularly in a high-functioning work role, he would have to make excuses and blunders that would be obvious to either the task itself or his colleagues.

Particularly we could also have generalists/intuitives focus on corrupt governments and the processes they are likely to use to avoid Just Acts (abuses of the legal system in the example of institutionalized racism or bias towards women; or ways in which criminals are helped by the system). A team directed constantly on corrupt activities would be “trained to see” any problems immediately when turned to a self-critical focus of their own government. This is the type of thinking that is needed (just as it is in individuals: healthy identification of flaws; consciousness of the Jungian Shadow).

#5

There are some great TED talks and YouTube videos on the topic of “open source government”. Please everybody have a look, some governments have already open-sourced some areas eg. The US Patent Office.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=open+source+government

#6

That’s not how open-source releases work. First there is an Alpha release, then a Beta release, and then a Stable release. The alpha and beta releases are on an opt-in basis, so it’s a small percentage of users, say 1% or 2%, those users are aware that potential bugs may be experienced and they report these issues. If there are any weird issues with changes to the software, they will be found and they will be fixed before the Stable release goes automatically to all the users.

#7

Whenever you centralize power you will inevitably see corruption. In most cases, seemingly “good” people will fuck over others because they want to be a good provider for their family. When the nagging wife at home is shouting “our kids need this, our kids need that”, a man will gladly join the army, bomb the fuck out of other peoples families, as long as he knows his monthly salary is going home to his wife and his children - what an effing hero he is!

The solution to centralized power is to decentralize it lol. Hence Open-Source Government. Please do more research on those 3 words and try to stay on topic because you have totally missed the topic.

#8

It is a fallacy of false dilemma to say that power must always come from the power-mad (this statement is anti-power and anti-reason in its very anti-Gnostic fear of power). If you say the government will always be Bad Government, you are ipso facto saying that government could never be different; and that you don’t trust people smarter than yourself; and that you have no interest in pursuing positive liberty. In which case, you would not be worth listening to anyway!

Meritocracy clearly presents a radically new worldview and vision and set of values. If you don’t think it would truly change the nation it’s implemented in, this site is simply not for you.

#9

Radical or not, there has to be a smooth transition from where we are today into the meritocracy of the future. No matter how many times you spam that Saint-Just quote about revolutions by half-measures, you can’t just flick on a switch and say, that’s it we’re all meritocrats now; and expect all of the problems of government which have been around since time immemorial to simply disappear. The world doesn’t work that way, not unless you use force, violence, and coercion to get what you want, like Saint-Just did - and look where it got the cunt, straight to the guillotine! Felled by his own sword, a fate he and his ilk fully deserved, and the fate we meritocrats will deserve and will meet with, should we use violence to further our cause.

Which brings us to an impasse. This website is for people who want to peacefully bring about a meritocracy. If a movement for political institutional change such as meritocracy is to find success through peaceful means, then it relies on one thing above all else: Gandhian civil disobedience, which in turn relies on there being a huge groundswell of public support for meritocracy; and which, also in turn, relies on our message being popular. Quite simply, formally turning over all power to experts and completely marginalising Joe Bloggs will never be popular. The provision of an open source government at least provides the illusion that Joe Bloggs can have his say, even though there is no guarantee that his say will take precedence over the say of a more qualified person who has better ideas. In practice, I defy you to prove that an open source model is anti-meritocratic. Only the best ideas will be implemented, and who, other than the experts, can come up with the best ideas, pray tell? The point is that we avoid formally restricting the power of government to experts, even though in practice, only the experts will have any meaningful say.

It sounds exactly like meritocracy to me, only updated for the digital era, and being compatible to some extent with the existing paradigm of democracy; thereby being far more likely to gain some kind of popularity with the masses.

The only alternative to this kind of populism and the steady, phased introduction of meritocracy, is we take up arms and become violent revolutionaries, Bolsheviks - and force everybody, at gunpoint, to lay down in submission to meritocrats. Then we become the latest in a long line of tyrants and conquerors of humanity, not the liberators we desire to be.

Nobody on this website wants that. Perhaps it is yourself for whom this site is simply not designed for?

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#10

In the end, what is liberation for some is conquest for others, and no one can rule without guilt.

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#11

For open source government or whatever personal bias you draw in the onus is on you to argue why it’s necessary. What’s meritocratic about leaving all your plans open for your enemies to see? What’s super-intelligent about that? Nothing. It has entirely nothing to do with meritocracy.

As I explained, weakness has nothing to do with the most likely strategy for a meritocratic government. Why should it be weak? Arguing for weakness is pointless. It is an emotional reaction to the current corrupt system, it has nothing to do with being smart and rational and intelligent and meritocratic (collectively doing your best for the concerns of the nation). Every meritocratic government will need its own intelligence agencies and secret operations for exactly this reason: power.

Nobody on this website wants that

Your logical fallacies are: Burden of proof; Middle ground; and Bandwagon with this particular line.

#12

The devil is in the details when it comes to this discussion, which is why it’s important to create detailed proposals if we wish to argue about which system would be the most efficient and effective in achieving the Meritocratic Vision of Equal Opportunity for Every Child and implementing the 5 Meritocratic Principles.

If anyone is up for the challenge, please do so over at: http://meritopedia.org/ (you can request an account here). One way to start is to envision how a common government ministry would work in a Meritocracy and lay out its scope of action, power structure and decision-making methodologies.

Personally, while these discussions are important, I think it’s even more important to find tomorrow’s meritocratic leaders and rally support for them to become decision-makers in their respective governments, whether it’s as members of Parliament or in other capacities.

After all, they’ll be the ones with the actual power to transform these theoretical discussions into positive action that affects the lives of millions of people.

So, we should prioritise these questions:

  • Who are tomorrow’s meritocratic leaders, i.e. how can we recognise them?
  • How can we convince them that Meritocratic Democracy is the way forward and that they’ll be able to make essential contributions with their expertise?
  • How can we help them join significant decision-making bodies such as parliaments and think tanks?
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Vote Killing Policies That Need Re-examined
#13

Well you totally don’t understand how open-source works. Having the rules out there for everyone to see doesn’t jeopardize anything. For example, if we can all see the engagement rules and rules of force for the army, then we just make a philosophical consensus as to what situations we agreed to use force. Eg. If someone is gathering weapons, if someone attacks us first. If someone is aiming a gun at you (ofcourse the use of force in self-defense is reasonable). As for open-source designs for advanced weapons - well the designs and theory around building a Nuclear bomb are all over the Internet and taught to Nuclear physics students - big fucking deal! The trick is building the giant laboratory to build all the stuff and to obtain the radioactive material.

Here is a video about the US Military open-source project:

Do you meditate every day? Have you ever felt Chi?