(Contains a few mention of extreme circumstances to make thought experiment points. That is not the primary focus, and can be avoided by skipping 10 and 12. Also, 7 gets political as an example of how a particular variation of liquid democracy might allow for a kind of check and balance. The numbers are otherwise not necessarily a good division. 11 just suggests that a ‘law’ or decision can have a term limit, and that this might affect ‘equilibriums’, echoing some stuff in the post talking about ‘moral parliament/s’.)
1.
an informal association
I noticed that this didn’t get any graphs. (Yes countries are complicated, and ‘government’ alone involves different levels and that wasn’t fully covered either, even with one example.)
2.
I’ll outline some common governance structures for countries and major organizations today, and highlight how much room there is to try different things that don’t seem to be in wide use today. More
So the link broke when I copied it to here, but...
The original is actually broken. (I did not check all the links.)
Huh, that’s this post linking to itself (from it being in a different place).
3.
he world today has lots of governments, but they seem to mostly follow a very small number of basic governance templates.
So, if you’re looking for stuff that’s structured very differently, maybe stuff that isn’t governments? Smaller groups, informal groups,..I don’t know a lot about co-ops*, or activist groups**, but there is some literature about dealing with internal problems between members, in stuff like the second one. There’s also stuff around communities/roommates (resources, allocating tasks, getting everything done, dealing with conflicts, etc.).
*Like a company but run/owned differently.
**Not necessarily concerned with politics, but also sometimes solving a problem.
4.
When I was 13, the lunch table I sat at established a Constitution with some really strange properties that I can’t remember.
Informal groups experimenting might be interesting as well. Like, different groups might exist at different time scales:
What term limits exist for the different entities?
so like, not necessarily something involving term limits, but the group itself, existing and handling things in a period of time. And maybe that informally happens again (with similar set of people), and/or eventually becomes more formal.
5.
Which restrictions are enshrined in a hard-to-change Constitution (and how hard is it to change), vs. being left to the people in power at the moment?
How able are people to walk out? Can they just walk to a different table?
6.
Barring violent revolution in the case of countries.
There are ways things can be less permanent if people are willing to leave/quit/etc. This is easier to see for ‘a lunch table’ than a country, but it seems like ‘organizations’ (perhaps in a different sense) can do this more. I mention this because ‘the stakes are high, and you only get one choice’ seems like a weak point.
Reset/Jubilee: maybe it would be good for some organizations to periodically redo their governance mostly from scratch, subject only to the most basic principles.
And here I was imagining change (probably) being less extreme (most of the time—perhaps earlier on, or in response to larger changes in conditions, or more info, there might be larger changes).
At first glance it may seem to pose a risk that people will be able to “buy votes,”
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Imagine a vote where people who care more/are affected more, are able to vote with more weight. Also, differences around ‘government’ versus ‘corporate’ might mean people are just like ‘why is that a problem’?
Soft term limits
You could also have less power. (Or, with the proxy thing, term limits might not exist (on a fixed schedule, or at least have early termination whenever desired.))
Also, you could have multiple voting rounds around the proxy thing. One option is sort of like, if the proxies didn’t work/there’s major breaks with them, then the round gets re-done (without proxies).
Formal technocracy/meritocracy
This might be compared with proxies. One option—which might be tricky—would be to label things differently. Like ‘I trust (doctor) John Doe’ and will delegate this vote (for the first round) to him for votes involving (medical stuff)’, or a specific type. By having two rounds, and the first round, the proxies are treated as a faster approximation to the direct vote, maybe it works a lot of the time. (And some times a difference is found, and things get shaken up a little—the tentative decision, the rules people have created around their proxy delegation.)
I’m kind of thinking something like a proxy guesses for you, as opposed to, ‘is given power’ also seems like it might be useful sometimes. For instance, I’m going to use a (made up) political example here:
Someone is generally against vaccination requirements (and any proxy they make will reflect that). However, during a serious pandemic, on the second vote they change that. It is a specific override, not a general one, but it is a different situation. (As opposed to, ‘epidemiologists are given more power during a pandemic’ or chosen or elected, or (given power) around (handling) ‘this might be a problem can we head this off’ and they choose to close borders for like a week as a situation evolves. Or that is a measure in place that automatically triggers once certain circumstances are met. And then, there’s more time for deliberation (or confirmation or revision), and making decision around how things will be handled going forward.)
8.
Footnote 4:
Most systems of government have a sort of funnel from “least engaged in day to day decisions, but most ultimately legitimate representatives of whom the institution is supposed to serve” (shareholders, voters) to “most engaged in day to day decisions, but ultimately accountable to someone else” (chief executive). A nonprofit structure is a very short funnel, and the board of directors tends to be a somewhat random assortment of funders, advisors, people who the founders just thought were cool, etc. I think they often end up not very accountable (to anyone) or engaged in what’s going on, such that they have a hard time acting when they ought to, and the actions they do take are often kind of random.
This was good. It explained a structure, a design and why it used. I could comment on that one and how people might try to do it better but this post is about looking for other ways that are more different, and I don’t have a lot more to say—I’ve heard about a specific attempt, and why it was done that way, but don’t think it turned out ‘well’.
9.
Here’s an unusual setup: open source. (Completely.) (I don’t know a lot about DAOs, and experiments around that. though do watch out for things that are like this:
Another alternative is a setup that is somewhat common among tech companies: 1-2 founders hold enough shares to keep control forever, so you end up with essentially a dictatorship. This also … leaves something to be desired.
which mean there are shares! (but that doesn’t matter.))
10.
For example, there are arguments that our ethical decisions should be dominated by concern for ensuring that as many people as possible will someday get to exist. I really go back and forth on how much I buy these arguments, but I’m definitely somewhere between 10% convinced and 50% convinced. So … say I’m “20% convinced” of some view that says preventing human extinction6 is the overwhelmingly most important consideration for at least some dimensions of ethics (like where to donate), and “80% convinced” of some more common-sense view that says I should focus on some cause unrelated to human extinction.7 How do I put those two together and decide what this means for actual choices I’m making?
So. I won’t say that extinction is the only thing that matters. But if say, my happiness matters and a meteor hits the earth (or a powerful solar storm) and everyone dies quickly or slowly—well, I’m not going to be happy about that.
There’s a certain amount of ‘other things don’t matter if we die first’. For instance, if I found out (somehow) that 20 years from now I’m going to get cancer and die, but I’ll be fine for the next 15 years, that would worry me. But if I was on a plane and something went wrong involving the plane that would worry me more.
11.
What stops someone who lost the randomized draw from just asking to hold the same vote again? Or asking to hold a highly similar/related vote that would get back a lot of what they lost? How does that affect the negotiated equilibrium?
What if people vote on doing things one way for a period of time, and then voting again? (Not a change from a past vote, but building it in?)
12.
and the better I expect this “moral parliament”-type idea to end up looking, compared to alternatives.10
...
An important factor in decision making is value of information, or ‘as you get more information, you can make better decisions’. Not everything is about (conflicting) values, and stuff all getting decided in advance. For instance, if I like banana splits, and then a banana company invades a country...maybe it’s hard to get bananas if I don’t buy with* them, but I clearly know that is more important to me than how much I enjoy banana splits.
*I meant to write with, but if a credit card company invaded another country, I might stop using them.
(Contains a few mention of extreme circumstances to make thought experiment points. That is not the primary focus, and can be avoided by skipping 10 and 12. Also, 7 gets political as an example of how a particular variation of liquid democracy might allow for a kind of check and balance. The numbers are otherwise not necessarily a good division. 11 just suggests that a ‘law’ or decision can have a term limit, and that this might affect ‘equilibriums’, echoing some stuff in the post talking about ‘moral parliament/s’.)
1.
I noticed that this didn’t get any graphs. (Yes countries are complicated, and ‘government’ alone involves different levels and that wasn’t fully covered either, even with one example.)
2.
So the link broke when I copied it to here, but...
The original is actually broken. (I did not check all the links.)
Currently the link is
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SCs4KpcShb23hcTni/www.cold-takes.com/ideal-governance-for-companies-countries-and-more/#common-governance-structures-today
instead of, say:
http://www.cold-takes.com/ideal-governance-for-companies-countries-and-more/#common-governance-structures-today
Huh, that’s this post linking to itself (from it being in a different place).
3.
So, if you’re looking for stuff that’s structured very differently, maybe stuff that isn’t governments? Smaller groups, informal groups,..I don’t know a lot about co-ops*, or activist groups**, but there is some literature about dealing with internal problems between members, in stuff like the second one. There’s also stuff around communities/roommates (resources, allocating tasks, getting everything done, dealing with conflicts, etc.).
*Like a company but run/owned differently.
**Not necessarily concerned with politics, but also sometimes solving a problem.
4.
Informal groups experimenting might be interesting as well. Like, different groups might exist at different time scales:
so like, not necessarily something involving term limits, but the group itself, existing and handling things in a period of time. And maybe that informally happens again (with similar set of people), and/or eventually becomes more formal.
5.
How able are people to walk out? Can they just walk to a different table?
6.
There are ways things can be less permanent if people are willing to leave/quit/etc. This is easier to see for ‘a lunch table’ than a country, but it seems like ‘organizations’ (perhaps in a different sense) can do this more. I mention this because ‘the stakes are high, and you only get one choice’ seems like a weak point.
And here I was imagining change (probably) being less extreme (most of the time—perhaps earlier on, or in response to larger changes in conditions, or more info, there might be larger changes).
(looks like majority voting again)
7.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Imagine a vote where people who care more/are affected more, are able to vote with more weight. Also, differences around ‘government’ versus ‘corporate’ might mean people are just like ‘why is that a problem’?
You could also have less power. (Or, with the proxy thing, term limits might not exist (on a fixed schedule, or at least have early termination whenever desired.))
Also, you could have multiple voting rounds around the proxy thing. One option is sort of like, if the proxies didn’t work/there’s major breaks with them, then the round gets re-done (without proxies).
This might be compared with proxies. One option—which might be tricky—would be to label things differently. Like ‘I trust (doctor) John Doe’ and will delegate this vote (for the first round) to him for votes involving (medical stuff)’, or a specific type. By having two rounds, and the first round, the proxies are treated as a faster approximation to the direct vote, maybe it works a lot of the time. (And some times a difference is found, and things get shaken up a little—the tentative decision, the rules people have created around their proxy delegation.)
I’m kind of thinking something like a proxy guesses for you, as opposed to, ‘is given power’ also seems like it might be useful sometimes. For instance, I’m going to use a (made up) political example here:
Someone is generally against vaccination requirements (and any proxy they make will reflect that). However, during a serious pandemic, on the second vote they change that. It is a specific override, not a general one, but it is a different situation. (As opposed to, ‘epidemiologists are given more power during a pandemic’ or chosen or elected, or (given power) around (handling) ‘this might be a problem can we head this off’ and they choose to close borders for like a week as a situation evolves. Or that is a measure in place that automatically triggers once certain circumstances are met. And then, there’s more time for deliberation (or confirmation or revision), and making decision around how things will be handled going forward.)
8.
Footnote 4:
This was good. It explained a structure, a design and why it used. I could comment on that one and how people might try to do it better but this post is about looking for other ways that are more different, and I don’t have a lot more to say—I’ve heard about a specific attempt, and why it was done that way, but don’t think it turned out ‘well’.
9.
Here’s an unusual setup: open source. (Completely.) (I don’t know a lot about DAOs, and experiments around that. though do watch out for things that are like this:
which mean there are shares! (but that doesn’t matter.))
10.
So. I won’t say that extinction is the only thing that matters. But if say, my happiness matters and a meteor hits the earth (or a powerful solar storm) and everyone dies quickly or slowly—well, I’m not going to be happy about that.
There’s a certain amount of ‘other things don’t matter if we die first’. For instance, if I found out (somehow) that 20 years from now I’m going to get cancer and die, but I’ll be fine for the next 15 years, that would worry me. But if I was on a plane and something went wrong involving the plane that would worry me more.
11.
What if people vote on doing things one way for a period of time, and then voting again? (Not a change from a past vote, but building it in?)
12.
An important factor in decision making is value of information, or ‘as you get more information, you can make better decisions’. Not everything is about (conflicting) values, and stuff all getting decided in advance. For instance, if I like banana splits, and then a banana company invades a country...maybe it’s hard to get bananas if I don’t buy with* them, but I clearly know that is more important to me than how much I enjoy banana splits.
*I meant to write with, but if a credit card company invaded another country, I might stop using them.