twistedmatrix.com/users/jh.twistd/python/moin.cgi/LiquidDemocracy -> twistedmatrix.com/wiki/python/LiquidDemocracy
UserPreferences 10 LiquidDemocracy * 11 Edit * 12 View * 13 Diffs * 14 Info * 15 Unsubscribe * 16 Raw * 17 Print * 18 FrontPage * 19 RecentChanges * 20 SiteNavigation * 21 HelpContents Liquid Democracy The law condemns the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common, But lets the greater felon loose Who steals the common from the goose. In mid-2000 or so, I (sayke), started thinking about social and political structures, and about how to improve on the ones we've seen so far. Among other things, I thought, can all government responsibility be placed under the rubric of commons (in the "Tragedy Of" sense) maintence? Wouldn't it be nice to have a highly-configurable voting system defined in software, that is focused specifically on resolving questions pertaining to the conservation and maintence of commons? And what if votes could be accurately taken and concluded in minutes, or even seconds? I combined some of the ideas spawned by these trains of thought, and called the result "liquid democracy". Liquid democracy can be thought of as a function that takes a question as an argument, and returns a list of answers sorted by group preference, but it is probably best thought of as a voting system that migrates along the line between direct and representative democracy. I think it combines the advantages of both, while avoiding their flaws. Liquid democracy has a few really interesting properties: * It displays an interesting resistance to centralized control and external manipulation; But first, a few things to keep in mind while reading this: * If you're new to the Wiki, you might want to check out 24 OriginalWiki. In summary, 25 NamesThatLookLikeThis are considered 26 WikiNames, which point to other pages in the Wiki. Also, you can (and are invited to) edit any part of this Wiki, including this page. They can be adjusted to make the system work slightly differently. Please keep in mind that whenever you see something like "Alice asks Bob for a vote recommendation", it might actually imply something like "Alice tells her computer to ask Bob's computer for a vote recommendation". Liquid Democracy has a couple intertwined components and aspects. Here they are, in no particular order: * So if this voting system is all about the maintence of commons, what exactly characterises a "commons"? Well, in commons, great private gain can be made by exploiting lots of people a little bit - that is, by spreading the costs of exploitation broadly among the public. Examples of 28 LiquidDemocracyCommons might include radio spectra, IP number ranges, atmospheric pollution, oceanic pollution, airspace defense, fire departments, and roads. HowToArriveAtCooperativeDecisionsWithoutCentralizingPower. Of course, voting only, ONLY applies to 31 LiquidDemocracyCommons, and only people affected by a specific 32 LiquidDemocracyCommons should vote on issues involving it. What circumstances would cause someone to want to combine pragmatism and anarchism into a concrete computer program? Yes, there were - I moved them to 38 LiquidDemocracyEarlyComments because hopefully now there's enough information here for people to reasonably comment on. I (sayke) would like to thank dash, drconway, Erich D, Jake S, Simon, and Tony A for their help with this. Drop by to talk about decentralized forms of government, or anything, really.
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