Using version control for law making doesn’t change much about citizens ability to suggest changes for laws. What it does do is that it makes it easier to track who proposed a change. If a lobbyist for example sends a congressman a pull request for a law it’s a lot easier to understand and track how the law came about. Version control increases transparency and it also has the prospect of making law making more efficient as it’s easier to keep track of amendments that way then by mailing Word documents around which is the status quo.
The process of how the law was changed in that instance isn’t any different then how you can change the code of an Open Source project. I know of no open source project that’s using version control for the discussions about what changes to make and having discussion to find consensus.
Instead of looking at version control it would make more sense to look at software that’s actually designed for consensus finding. Various liquid democracy software provides for consensus processes. Taiwan’s e-government initiative is also worth checking out.
Meaning you could complete a number of reasoning practices before the different parties are actually engaged in the mental activities of evaluating judgment and critique etc (arguing).
Here’s it’s worth noting that judgement and critique is not the necessarily the rational way to come to consensus. If you look at the processes CFAR developed seeking to understand another, identify cruxes and explaining why you hold your position can be a lot better.
Using version control for law making doesn’t change much about citizens ability to suggest changes for laws. What it does do is that it makes it easier to track who proposed a change. If a lobbyist for example sends a congressman a pull request for a law it’s a lot easier to understand and track how the law came about. Version control increases transparency and it also has the prospect of making law making more efficient as it’s easier to keep track of amendments that way then by mailing Word documents around which is the status quo.
The process of how the law was changed in that instance isn’t any different then how you can change the code of an Open Source project. I know of no open source project that’s using version control for the discussions about what changes to make and having discussion to find consensus.
Instead of looking at version control it would make more sense to look at software that’s actually designed for consensus finding. Various liquid democracy software provides for consensus processes. Taiwan’s e-government initiative is also worth checking out.
Here’s it’s worth noting that judgement and critique is not the necessarily the rational way to come to consensus. If you look at the processes CFAR developed seeking to understand another, identify cruxes and explaining why you hold your position can be a lot better.