http://bollier.org/blog/principles-liquidfeedback#comment-1050

Food for thought - just as a pure democracy cannot operate with fewer than a critical number of active participants (70?) we may only be able to operate a liquid democracy if there are more than a certain number of people. Assuming only 1% of our current 161190 citizens want to get into politics, how many active participants are required for this system?

I would think the same applies to any kind of democracy, If less than 1% participate are any deciions likely to be representative? As in the majority of cases if people are generally happy with their current circumstances they tend not to put effort into support, change, reform or creation unless they feel threatened with loss.. However Asgardia is in formation so we could ask why the lack of participation from 150,000 + registered citizens? A quick look at Constitution in the forum shows top read is 1900 citizens have read a topic , but most are a few hundred. The top posts for a topic is 84 the most number of citizens with input on a topic. less than 0.1% which at the formation stage indicates 99.9% are not too bothered which way it turns out and inferred that they do not yet feel they have anything to lose or strong aspirations.. In the absence of serious support and input to the process we may deservedly stay as a benevolent dictatorship.

I also think the liquid democracy is a good choice.

http://liquidfeedback.org

I'm not keen on any idea that takes my decisive capacity out of my hands. Direct is the only way that really makes sense. Or it'll be just like it is now on Earth.

Certainly, not everyone will be interested in taking part in all of the processes. But there is likely to be sufficient interest in any individual topic to bring to the table those with productive input. With a sufficient time-frame on the discussions previous to voting on and implimenting solutions, everyone that does want to involve themselves can. Things with a wider scope of impact should obviously be advertised as such, to ensure everyone at least knows of it's existence. Considering the lack of desperate rush behind any descision - now or in the near future - this should work out reasonably well. Most people could cover their interested topics in less than a few hours a week, at a time that suits them. It will always be representative of the greater citizens views as even with low attendance it's unlikely that everyone is going to think the same thing is the only solution - and if they do, then maybe it is the most sensible thing. Especially with a panel of "experts" guiding the process. For the people who paid the topic no heed then they had no interest, so their interests are represented always regardless of outcome. It's likely the "experts" will of raised any concerns, if the citizens in attendance havn't spotted them. To address the "critical number of active participants" concerns, the keywords are "active participants" - as long as there's more than three then there's some suitability. It's unlikely to be that low, ever - if there's that little interest, why are we even persuing the notion. There's plenty I'd not involve myself with unless I see it moving in a direction I'd be uncomfortable with, instead allowing those with more interest/education than I in that subject to progress in areas I hold little interest. I do find it disturbing that with 150k+ registered users there's alarmingly little input - or even observation - to these forums. I had geniunely hoped for more. I've personally taken this to be a combination of language barriers, 'tards still trying to use FB, and a small percentile that are "too embarrassed" to provide input as they have found the knowlege previously input "intimidating" and are somewhat unwilling to start something or contribute to for "fear" of comming across as "stupid" - and ofc those who are "just shy".

I fully agree to what you said eyeR (and for me it was a mix of the language barrier and shyness that held me back for a while before posting my proposal, being fluent in english sadly doesn't necessarily mean understanding or being able to formulate law related stuff)

"less than 0.1% [involvement] which at the formation stage indicates 99.9% are not too bothered which way it turns out and inferred that they do not yet feel they have anything to lose or strong aspirations."

I really worry 99.9% of signups are nerds that were attracted to the word 'space' and who would die of starvation within 2 weeks if Asgardia was actually a small Island off Norway.

That strikes me as a disingenuous argument. The Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress was composed of representatives sent by the colonies. They weren't just some guys who showed up and declared they were writing the rules and tough luck to everyone else.

People are probably not especially aware of the forum or of this particular subforum. There's been no announcements on the main page asking people to discuss things here. I wasn't aware of the forum at all until after I received an e-mail about the certificates and came back to the main page.

The signatories were just the authors who submitted it to the states for ratification and the Constitution was subsequently ratified by the states according to their laws over the next few years. IIRC, all 13 were ratified by state legislatures, greatly increasing the number of people directly involved in the voting process.

Are you trying to make an argument against representative democracies in general? I don't think it's a very fair metric to just divide the number of legislators by the number of citizens to get a final result, since that excludes the voters and votes that empowered the legislators to act.

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...