I would recommend something along the lines of a combination of a Technocracy and Council-manager system. Allowing for a more democratic style of government primary based on logic and science. Although the Council-manager system is primarily used in the governing style of smaller cities, for a nation with a much more logical based society would hopefully make it much more effective. A society based solely on technology has the potential to become somewhat apathetic towards human emotion. Now as cheesy and borderline asinine that the comment is, a government based almost entirely on logic has the potential to pursue a future/goal regardless of the consequences that may plague people in the present. The ends would justify the means. While an unlikely scenario there is a greater chance of it happening under a strictly Technocracy. While Logic and reason should be major factors when governing a humanistic aspect should also be included.

I am also in favor of a council-manager system for Asgardia. Directly elected ministers could form the council and each ministry could otherwise be technocratic.

Hello and forgive me if im intruding in this post. im part of the"99.9%" of the people who are not really participating in the forum, but not because i want you to do all the work on picking what would be best for this nation. as much i would love to participate and join your fascinating discussion,and i don't mean that in a sarcastic way, i don't feel i like i fully educated enough to truly give my voice on this discussion yet. but thanks to you all im slowly learning. And thank you for all the hard work you all put in this so far!! :)

By: SirMcTod(Asgardian, Translator) on 23 January 2017, 6:26 a.m.

Well, they wouldn't be completely random, as in my model they would be asked if they are pro or contra prior to assignment. So they would have to have a clear opinion on the topic in question. For my model to work a skills and interests database of all citizens is mandatory, so citizens with no interest in the field the topic belongs to could be filtered out before, then let's say ask about double of the people needed, and pick half pro and half contra (again randomly)

Biggest problem I have with this proposal is that one's interest over time can change. How can we ensure that this database is kept up-to-date? Why not advertise the topic to all and let the Citizens self-organize and present themselves to the topic?

By: michael.streeter(Asgardian) on 25 January 2017, 10:45 p.m.

I would like to support this idea of laws being created by a panel of subject matter experts supporting direct democracy. In the Internet-age we can have simple, direct democracy (essentially every decision is a referendum) BUT the main drawback is the general man in the street, while they may have an "armchair expert" opinion (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Armchair%20Expert), their opinion normally comes from the newspapers they read or news items they watched. In the UK, for example, we saw after the Brexit vote, the public can not only be swayed but clearly ~50% of people were not qualified to vote due to misinformation (I'm not taking sides, it was a ~50:50 split). There were lots of experts, everyone had/has a strong opinion. I believe the following points are not controversial and can be agreed regardless of the shape of the final solution:

1. The details of laws can be established by a panel of SMEs elected using a democratic process.
2. An 'expert' on one panel (eg. 'medical ethics') does not have to be expert in any other field, for any other law (whereas in a traditional parliament, everything is debated by the same set of MPs).
3. Many different things might qualify someone as an 'expert', examples: membership of a professional society, qualifications in a relevant field, years on the job, or simply >being a primary stakeholder in the end result. The individual only needs to give a convincing display of 'expertise' to qualify.
4. There should be a well-defined process for selecting 'experts'. For example, (this might be a bit contentious) I think that an 'expert' should be able to articulate why he/she should have a say, be nominated and seconded by someone else (similar to Robert’s Rules for nominations, except you can't nominate yourself). The purpose of this would be to stop complete 'loose cannons' from abusing the process. Perhaps others could suggest a better way of separating real experts from self-publicists and the like. I envisage the experts can create the law, broken down by points possibly with an explanation of why it needs to be included (for the masses) and examples of how it is intended to be applied and then your direct democracy part comes in and it is either adopted (or not) by Asgardia. What do you think about that?

I concur. The "experts" could be appointed via Technocratic methods.

Uhm, Lore? michael.streeter hasn't been active since early February.

The posts you are replying to are two months old.

VHK

@Phicksur,

Yeah, I'm a bit late to the "party..." Wasn't until recently when I discovered all the action was happening here...

Any idea why EyeR was banned? He was active a few days ago...