@Dirk - so given your approach of an ideal team environment what do you think of a system where everyone has opportunity to participate in all aspects of the essential jobs for the society (regardless of government position or janitor) and everyone is given a chance to do those jobs by some random selection instead of political lobbying for popularity.  Possibly each position could be for a fixed period (obviously the period would have to depend on the position - 4 years as a janitor is not the same as 4 years as an orbital physicist, and would impeded the growth of individuals who had the physics skills, thus reducing the efficacy of the society) Granted everyone must be encouraged to build their own life and "career" and free time.

Bear in mind that regardless of Asgardia being as it is now (a group of people spread across the globe in differing political situations), where it could be in a year or two (a nation without territory and citizens spread across the globe living in differing political situations), where it could be in 10-20 years (a nation with an habitable platform in space with a few people living on that - perhaps the governing body and the rest in the previous situation) or where it could be in 100 years (a fully functioning society in space), The society will be markedly different to life as we know it on earth now.  The state must by any stretch of the imagination pay for, construct, launch and own the political and physical platforms of that society.

I am actually not in favor of democracies as a pure form of government. I once read a quote from a comic that, when carefully considered, rings true and a bit insulting: "Democracy is not the will of the people. It is the will of the few who can manipulate the majority of the simple minded." Because of this, democracies will always suffer from the albatross of the charismatic elite: they who can convince others they are right through charisma will get what they want.

I don't really see a reasonable way to get around this. Even in the event that you are able to remove the charismatic words of the proponents of a given action (careful editing), and where a given law, bill, or idea originates (anonymous sponsoring of legislation), it is not possible to remove charisma from the equation without also restricting free speech. Charming proponents of a given law, bill or idea will speak vocally in favor of their desires and will be able to sway more undecideds to their side than a less charismatic individual.

NEO

Well, I give a lot of credit to @bigred's idea.  I think that a way to eliminate corruption (the biggest fault of governments that don't work) is to make people, as a whole, part of the government.  

So far, this is the best model I can think of. 

Historically speaking, a mixture of various forms is the closest that comes to working.  And even that doesn't entirely work.

So I’ve been reading a lot of your suggestions, cherry picking ideas and editing them where I think is necessary.

I think the next step is to draft up a few different structures and start collaborating to improve it.  So based on this thread, a few ideas of my own and a few points from a thread about ethics, here is the rough template I have.  I think we should develop a few templates and start expanding on them, and start talking about what may or may not work – even if it’s through prediction or hypothesis, not practice.  Remember – context is important, and what works in one system may not work in another system due to variations in neighbouring components.  The same could be said vice versa for things that didn’t work in other systems, so let’s open our minds and start making predictions about the cause and effect relationship between each feature or group of features.

The system I propose below could be highly viable but will probably rely on big data and machine learning algorithms to implement effectively, which means it’s probably not completely viable from the outset, but could be something the nation works towards over a half decade as citizen data is collected.  I think at least originally, we would have to open up with positions of power in something akin to a democracy.

Firstly, we want the general public to be more involved in the government.  This requires motivation, which myself and other forum members agree is increased by the fact you feel you are making a difference.For this reason, the civilians should have the opportunity to vote on all issues.  This will help reduce corruption, and it will also increase opinion diversity in the event our system allows free submission of solutions.  A larger pool of solutions means a better chance at choosing a good one.  We also want to be able to address multitudes of decisions faster where possible

 I propose a systematic presentation of issues to the public of Asgardia.  Initially we start out with elected representatives who have the job of providing solutions to problems.  In order to decide on problems to work on, any Asgardian can submit a “problem”.Each Asgardian has 5 points that they can allocate to different problems – or even allocate multiple points to one problem.  There will be a publicly displayed list of problems that will be ranked, whilst also constantly refined to avoid duplicated submissions.  Issues will be prioritised by elected officials based on their severity ranking in the publics opinion.

Initially, the elected council will discuss these issues – all discussions will be viewable by Asgardians live, and a solution is built.  During this discussion, civilians can submit opinions, discussion points, and tweaks to the solution.  There will be analysts trawling through submissions and will bring public opinions or ideas to light as the Asgardian council builds the solution – a solution ever Asgardian can contribute to.

All data sent through will be recorded and displayed anonymously to all Asgardians, who can vote an idea up and down to increase the speed in which it becomes read by the analysts.Those who present ideas or statements that are discussed will gain a background approval rating.  After this discussion, this data will still be available and time stamped to be compared with the discussion. This is so all data can essentially be used to adjust someone’s approval rating if they suggested an idea that was spoken of, but because it was suggested by someone else.These approval ratings will later be used to improve the rate at which ones ideas are seen, as well as the rate in which people are selected for certain discussion based roles in the government.

So we have a solution built and for and against arguments for it.  At this point, a team of six charismatic debaters will be chosen to discuss the issue.  Whilst someone mentioned earlier in the thread that Charisma lends unfair sway, it’s also important for keeping the public interested, so it will be something we try to balance for either side.  There will then be a live debate on the issue, in which 3 people speak for, 3 against, 10 minutes of discussion each, then an hour of public questions asked by audience members and also posted electronically.  These questions will also be examined and picked out by analysts, aiming for questions that will be the most informative and provoke the most discussion.

The next step would be to build a finalised for and against a solution document in summary.  This information is shared with Asgardians, with the option to expand out each dot point for deeper explanations, or to simply read the summary.  A voting poll opens up for approx. 24 hours, whereby a citizen can choose to, or choose not to vote.

Voting for a bill that passes will raise a users approval rating, increasing the likelihood they will be requested for government tasks.

For at least a good 5 years, this system will rely on a group of 30-100 elected council members to steer the operation while the technology is implemented and data is collected.  In that time, a discussion will be kept rolling on ideas to add or remove from the governmental system, that will run a similar public popularity process, including sudden removal of elected members if disapproval ratings are high.  This way we remain flexible if things aren’t working – the failsafe of changing where necessary on the fly.

Through using algorithms and anonymised data, we should be able to create a system that can’t be abused.  Because any decision (though probably not all) can be made by the public, it means that no matter who is in office, the people still have the power. 

I would also suggest that there remain a group of elected officials that hold the main discussions, essentially your politicians, but rather than be based on a term, be based on an approval rating.  If people find them an obstructive politician or dislike their policy, the approval rating drops.  If it remains lower than, say 40% for 2 months, 30% for 1 month, 20% for 2 weeks, or 10% for a week, the elected official can be removed from office as soon as a replacement is found.

As for voting in officials after the first 5 years, the approval rating of each citizen should determine their eligibility for office.  All data sources collected can create a rough picture of who could be selected as officials of the Asgardian council, which will remain as 30 versatile debaters/politicians.  Each ministry will also have a leader on the council.

Each 3 years elections are held, where 1000 Asgardians will be invited to be on the council.  The ones who accept the opportunity to run for office will be trimmed until there are 100 candidates willing to run.  Each candidate will have to present a 10 minute speech describing themselves and why they would be good for office.  These speeches become publicly available for 3-6 months.  Asgardians can watch these speeches and see a rough algorithm built profile for the user – like a stats sheet based on their values, derived from data on the particular Asgardian.  Each election round, the council members with the top 5 approval rating averages tracked over time will have the option to remain another term.  Whilst this lends to the idea of career politicians, it is likely only the exceptionally moral and constructive politicians will remain in place for any length of time.

All of this relies on a large enough portion of the population being willing to provide their data to be analysed.  Personally I think it is important that we collect a lot of big data on Asgardians, if they agree to have their data funnelled through the algorithms.  This will allow for a lot of improvements later on with the rise of AI, which is necessary to run any sort of government with more power to the people than electing representatives on a party vs party basis like current democracy.

So it’s a bit messy but it’s a rough start to the type of innovative system we could build.  If anyone feels like cleaning this description up so it’s easier to read/easier to pick apart and judge, I’d appreciate it.

Hi Everyone,

I invite you to focus on Chapter 8 of the new proposed Constitution rewrite.
(redacted)

It's based heavily upon the English Asgardia website version posted 2017 May 19. I've updated it based on my critique and community comments from the Constitution thread.