
The Test: Civilization at a Crossroads - bmj
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2012/03/the-test-1.php
======
vasi
Some of his list of rules sound useful, some less so. I'd like to hear more
analysis of each rule, though, rather than simply assuming it must be a good
idea.

For example, decentralization can be useful in some cases. But differing laws
in different can be a trade barrier, as companies have to lawyer up for each
and every jurisdiction. There can also be arbitrage problems, eg: getting your
free education in a generous-public-welfare state, then going to work
afterwards in a low-tax state.

Another example is term limits. It has been suggested that in the presence of
term limits, lobbyists end up with more political experience than elected
representatives, which allows them to capture the political process. There's
also the issue that without concern for re-election, an incumbent might feel
no restraint in dishing out favors.

So my addition to the list of rules would be: "For each rule, consider how it
could go wrong." It might make it harder to rile up the base even when that's
appropriate, and it might make discussion take longer than it should, but I
think it's worth it.

------
scottw
> Computers are an extension of people's minds, not devices like a record
> player, typewriter, or printing press. Intrusion into somebody's processing
> and data should be treated the same as intruding into their thoughts. It
> shouldn't be done.

Well said. This is probably the most challenging analogy for people (and
courts) to grasp.

~~~
ctdonath
_Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their ... papers, ... against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants
shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized._

People used to write down their thoughts on paper, for their own private use,
no different than using computers today (save at orders-of-magnitude different
velocity). Courts have been struggling with this notion for centuries.

------
eli_gottlieb
>You can't form a governmental system based on altruism. It has to be based on
people acting in their own interests

Nobody has ever proposed pure altruism. We've often proposed a system based on
mutual/collective self-interest pursued cooperatively instead of
individual/corporate self-interest pursued competitively.

Example: the NHS or Canadian health system versus the American health system.
I chose this answer because the answer is _really bloody obvious_. You would
_never_ think that many small risk-pools competing against each other will
somehow yield a better ability to spread out risk than a handful of pools, or
even a single large pool containing _everyone_. The interest of the individual
taking out insurance is _clearly_ to place themselves in as large a risk-pool
as they can in order to defray their own costs.

So what leaves us with insurance companies and HMOs in the States? Capitalist
_dogma_ that pronounces that Many Competing For-Profit Entities Beat a Single
Central Non-Profit Entity Every Time. But what functions are we envisioning
these entities performing? Those for a capitalist health system are, in fact,
envisioning HMOs and insurance companies as businesses _first_ and actual
risk-pools _second_ , whereas those for a single-payer system are envisioning
insurance as fundamentally being about risk-pools and discarding the goal of
profit-seeking entirely in favor of mere cost-recovery where possible.

Not surprisingly, each system results in _exactly_ the thing it optimized for!
The American system puts out gigantic profits for insurers/HMOs at the expense
of both the collective public (through Medicare/Medicaid) _and_ the individual
public (through premiums, deductibles, high prices for medical procedures).
The Canadian and British systems successfully spread out the risk of requiring
treatment for sickness over the entire population.

Like freaking magic. _And you can design other things this way._

~~~
fidotron
I think I agree with you, although I certainly don't think either the Canadian
or British systems are perfect. The Canadian ban on private health care has
its own serious problems, and the PFIs in the UK are a mess. Those systems
have resulted in their own (possibly) unintentional but utterly predictable
side effects. The other classic that Friedman and co used to point out is the
minimum wage.

That said, I support the NHS etc. for entirely selfish reasons. I don't want
to get sick, and more importantly I don't want other people making me sick.
(Also not needing medical cover for employees is great for small companies).
If there's an easy way to balance this I don't think it's been found yet.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Nothing is perfect, but there are very different conceptions of citizenship at
work.

The proposed one, to which I object, is the capitalist/neoliberal conception
of a citizen: a pseudo-"rational" actor in a political and economic war of all
against all for the sake of individual and incorporated self-interest in the
form of money and property, restrained only by statutory and Constitutional
law from attacking their competitors.

I counterpropose the traditional social-democratic vision of citizenship: a
partly-emotional actor who participates in collective decision-making to
pursue their values and their collective interests, thus enhancing their
private life by placing it in a more secure public matrix.

>The other classic that Friedman and co used to point out is the minimum wage.

Funny how everyone listens to Friedman et al when they propose eliminating the
minimum wage, collective ownership of commons property, or most social
services, but not when they suggested a citizen's income or a negative income
tax.

------
jacobolus
First, a question: to what extent are you involved in local/regional/national
politics and government, Daniel? Have you actually tried to work in/with
political institutions, draft legislation, deal with groups of constituents,
build consensus around your preferred political priorities, organize?

Words are cheap. Making real political change is damn hard, and takes a lot
more commitment than a blog post here or there.

* * *

Half this list is just a poorly worded rehash of the existing basis for U.S.
government (poorly worded as compared to e.g. the clear, expressive,
rhetorically masterful Federalist Papers), and the other half is hopelessly
naïve and broken. None of his claims are backed by any kind of supporting
evidence or analysis, or even clarification of exactly what he means.

For instance:

> _Representative democracy, where (in the States) you elect somebody to go
> make decisions for you, should involve somebody who physically lives near
> you, who only works part time making decisions, who is not representing too
> many people (100K seems about right), and who doesn't have a job for life._

This is a terrible principle. It sounds good in theory, but practical attempts
to be led by it – such as short term limits – lead to terrible outcomes, as
we’re seeing in the California legislature, where now no legislators have
enough time to learn what they’re doing and won’t stick around long enough
that cooperation is worthwhile, and so both parties have become intransigent
and the whole institution is broken.

> _The president's term should be extended and he should be allowed only one
> term. That way he won't spend all of his time running for re-election._

This is also bad. The president’s power falls quite dramatically in his second
“lame duck” term. Making him a lame duck on the first day in office won’t help
anyone.

The proper fix is to get rid of the 2-term limit, which was only created in
misguided posthumous revenge against FDR, by opponents who lost policy fights
while he was alive and bore a grudge about it.

> _Politicians should not be able to make decisions today that require my kids
> to pay money for them 30 years from now. If my kids aren't represented, they
> shouldn't be able to be taxed_

This is ludicrous. All decisions have consequences, and all big decisions
today will still effect people 30 years from now. How could you possibly
isolate government from any decision which would have impact 30 years in the
future, and whyever would you want to? Who would make those decisions instead?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Hey jacobulus. Thanks for the comment! It certainly seemed to animate you, so
that's a good thing. I'll try to respond here, but I have a feeling we're
already off-the-rails so I'm not going to do one of those 47-level nested
things.

 _to what extent are you involved in local/regional/national politics_

I am and have been student of complex systems of both people and technology.
As such, I'm aware of all these things. But this is not about me, my
experiences or qualifications. Let's not go there. Also you are talking
applied politics -- the getting of results. My essay is on design themes. The
two are not related at all.

 _None of his claims are backed by any kind of supporting evidence or
analysis, or even clarification of exactly what he means._

Dude. It's a blog. Blogs are written quickly and in an off-hand, informal
manner. This is just a list of thoughts. It's not even an argument. You want
the Federalist Papers, go see Madison.

You go into a lot of other details here -- arguments against term limits and
in support of possible presidents for life -- Including a nice little ad-
hominem about the people who took action against FDR when he tried to pack the
court. Memories DO last a long time, eh? :) I'm going to pick the one that is
easiest to reply to.

 _All decisions have consequences, and all big decisions today will still
effect people 30 years from now_

Yes, but I was specifically referring to taxation and debt. The funny thing
here is that it doesn't even matter if I provide an argument or not. At some
level of pain, future generations will just invalidate earlier debt anyway.
All I was suggesting is that we be honest about the situation while we were
making the debt, instead of sticking our heads in the sand.

 _Words are cheap. Making real political change is damn hard_

Yes, and design principles are a dime-a-dozen. The intent wasn't to change, or
even suggest a method of change. We're talking principles of construction, not
applied politics or how to make the world a happier place. An ideal system
would function for many parties with many various dreams of how they would
want their government to work.

If you'd like to dive down on some of these, sounds like fun! Send me an
email. Happy to take some kind of public space like my blog or something and
explore the foundations of what I'm talking about. But one blog entry or a
comment thread on HN isn't going to do it.

Thanks again for the feedback. You sound very passionate. I hope that passion
stays with you.

~~~
jacobolus
> _but I have a feeling we're already off-the-rails_

Hey Daniel, sorry, I wasn’t trying to seem too annoyed/aggressive. I
understand that you’re a well meaning guy, and your blog is just a platform
for throwing ideas around, etc.

In general, though, as you say, design principles (and gripes about how flawed
all the people in the society who disagree about this or that) are a dime a
dozen. This kind of glib “I’ve worked in a variety of social organizations and
so the people working on things in some entirely different set of social
organizations that I’m not actively engaged in must be doing it wrong, and
here’s how they should organize things the way I like to” is a very natural
impulse, and probably can’t be helped. I’ve heard arguments from the same
direction from construction workers, teachers, businessmen, career civil
servants, bankers, etc.

At the same time, statements like yours – at least the way the tone came
across to me – seem presumptuous. In particular “tech guys are the
philosophers of the modern world” (paraphrased, you seem to have removed the
sentence) is awfully dismissive of several hundred years of professional
political theorists. Sweeping statements like “You can't form a governmental
system based on altruism” are so oversimplified that they either involve a
tricky bait-and-switch with a hedge built into the “based on” part, or else
are just wrong. Altruism is a large and essential component of the functioning
of any human society or institution. Of course, there are other motivations
and interactions to consider as well.

Anyway, I think we can agree on: citizens should study history, should learn
the theoretical underpinnings of their governments, should consider the
consequences of specific institutional design, and should engage in the
political process.

As for the legacy we leave future generations: I absolutely agree we should
aim to leave the society better in the future than it is today. As a state we
should restructure the tax system to redirect resources from locked-down
corporate holdings and inheritances (taxing wealth in preference to income, at
least relative to today) toward long-term public infrastructure; should
hopefully in the construction process encourage young people to become civil
engineers &c.; should radically cut wasteful military adventurism and should
directly employ people to do military support jobs rather than overspending on
poorly overseen private military contractors; should probably bring back some
kind of compulsory public service both to get public advantage from young
healthy enthusiastic people and to make sure our whole society is actually
invested in military actions; should treat municipal/state bonds as
investments and should use them for projects with long-term benefits rather
than just routine governmental functions, which instead should be paid for
with taxes; should even more heavily subsidize basic scientific research,
especially in energy; should stop so heavily subsidizing fossil fuels; should
work to promote industries which produce real things rather than those
designed to skim off the top of financial transactions and should re-regulate
the latter to prevent their current abuses; should work to reorganize the
healthcare system to improve preventative care and better prioritize
expenditures; should work to improve public education, in particular by
respecting and paying teachers enough that smart ambitious young people will
want to make a career of it, instead of trying to break teachers unions and
turn teaching into a high-turnover unskilled job; should work to reduce the
current massive underemployment (for one thing, by imprisoning fewer poor
brown people on minor drug charges), so that huge amounts of manpower don’t go
to waste; should adjust our immigration policies to make the US a more
welcoming place, both to attract highly skilled ambitious people, and to
respect the humanity and dignity of the people we import to do unskilled
labor; etc.

Sadly, social reform of any kind is really really hard. Actually doing it
requires sustained engagement and a lot of energy. A whole lot of folks are
trying really hard to work at each of these issues. As programmers, there are
great extra ways to help them – above and beyond just engaging and organizing
and lobbying – by building communications and data analysis tools, for
instance.

------
DanielBMarkham
It's interesting how the lessons learned in startups and IT mesh so closely
with those of political theory. IT architects are in some ways the working,
practical philosophers of the 21st century.

------
bdunbar
I'm struck how many of principals in the article track closely with the
founding principals of America.

~~~
hef19898
That's the intersting part, yes. And not just the founding fathers, if you
look at Napoleons code civil, the constitution Germany passed after WW II and
the like they all share some basic principles and values. Almost seems back
then they had more insight to human nature than we have now, at least
sometimes.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
The post-WW2 West German constitution was written at the behest of the
Americans, the British and the French. That should serve as to some hint of
why it came out looking so American and French.

~~~
hef19898
The allies wanted one to be written, so yes quite likely their constitutions
where IMHO looked at during the process, espacially since they are pretty
good. But it is also important to note that a: it's not realy a constitution,
only basic law (Grundgesetz in German) b: The guys who wrote it were democrats
who saw the fall of the monarchy, a doomed democracy and the rise, reign and
fall of the Nazis. Some of them even were part of the resistance. And that
shows. That current politicians are maybe following the words of it and
definitly not the spirit, well thats a different story. P.S.: The different
view points from the two sides of the atlantic are fascinating.

------
devs1010
Not sure why he threw compulsory military service in their which seems to be
counter to the other points, all that would do is give the corrupt politicians
a low wage, essentially temporarily enslaved, class of people to do their
bidding. If politicians should be assumed corrupt why on earth give them our
young people to control and indoctrinate for two years against their will

~~~
dasmoth
I didn't read that as specifically referring to military service. Many
countries, at least in continental Europe, have non-military national service,
or at least a non-military option.

It's not a system I'm terribly comfortable with, either, but if you're
specifically looking for a way to create social cohesion, it's at least worth
discussing.

------
zanny
I like the thought, but it touches on something else important but isn't very
direct about it.

We are best represented by those in our own communities and those who we know
on a first name basis. The article suggests 1 representative per 100,000
people - I'd much rather see that number down around 1k. If you want to get
power back in the local, make people ONLY elect a local representative per 1k
people (+/- 100) and then you can have tiers of representation above that -
the local could be a collective 10,000 people with a council of 10 voting,
where 1 of them goes to the region / state level - composed of 100 localities
- representing 1,000,000 people. Then the national level is just the
collective states in the system - preferably, somewhere around 100. It does
make national borders harder to cope with, but you can just add layers on top
to make super-nations and eventually a global council on top (haha, I made a
funny :P)

You get the benefits of having national and state representatives that don't
need to be hell bent on campaigns and buzz words and an even more important
trait is passed on to the public - it makes political influence easy.

You have ONE person who you, and everyone in your community, knows. You pick
that person collectively. If you don't like your regions pick, you can move.
If you don't like the local region, you can move to a different local. You
should have laws start small and get large through consensus across multiple
constituencies.

That kind of system would get people SO MUCH MORE INVOLVED in the political
system. And with technology, we can easily usurp the overhead of linkage
between different levels of government. You get a small national government
that has explicit powers, and tiers of representation below that, down to the
local, where law needs to pass up through the tiers by consensus of senate
like bodies past the local.

~~~
rattray
Do we need representatives at all? I mean, we have the Internet now. We used
to need experts/professionals for knowledge, news aggregation, and problem
help/advice. Now, we have Wikipedia, Reddit, and Stack Exchange. Why not gov
too?

~~~
pyrhho
There was a project called Hyperarchy I saw a while ago (their site seems
down), which had the idea of 'delegating' your vote to experts you trust on
certain topics. So you could say, "I trust Richard Stallman to vote for me on
the topic of software copyright", and he would effectively get an extra vote.

------
spindritf
> The rules are not only changing, the entire game is different.

I don't buy it. There have always been revolutions, there have always been
ways to offload a lot of work (millennia before machines and computers
humanity had slaves).

The most important part of any society hasn't changed -- people haven't
changed. We're still pretty much the same animal that roamed the Africa and,
unless we start radically modifying our own genome or come up with implants
that can actually change our very personalities, the same motives and patterns
that permeated our history will remain recognizable in the future. High tech
love (or greed, or kindness, or lust...) is not that dissimilar to low tech
love. Which is why we can look at Rome or Greece and see our own republics.

BTW we can really look at Rome now:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrIEwjgfbYs>

------
jakeonthemove
I agree about computers, and here's what I would add:

I'd want people to understand that politicians are not leaders - they are
servants of the public. They are elected to represent the citizens of the
country and make decisions that the citizens want, not which they believe
would work or worse, which fit their own needs.

They're not leaders in a league of their own who have followers, those times
have past. That's why they must be held in check, not left to do whatever they
want - that's how you end up with having to take your shoes off and being
patted by some stranger at an airport, while they fly first class or charter
with their envoy without even going through a metal detector (just an
example).

~~~
praxeologist
I think it is naive to think that politicians are "servants". If you take a
critical look at it, politicians don't "represent" you in the same way I would
"represent" you when you hand me $5 to go down to the corner store and get a
soda.

See here for more details, The Indefensibility of Political Representation :
<http://mises.org/daily/3383>

I actually agree with the OP in a minor way, that "there are also really good
reasons why it lasted 300 years", but has the US government lasted ~250 years
in anything near the same form?

No, it started much closer to an anarchic Hanseatic League. Some days now, it
looks more like Communist China. The way "the code" is written leads to
continual aggrandizement of power.

If it is really true that "Elections and the regular change of power allows
governments to be wrong and adapt.", why not have elections every 6 months?

There isn't enough value in the average person fighting the legislation which
affects their lives in minor ways relative to that obtained by lobbying
interests.

------
schwit
"All laws should have an expiration date."

I would add that the states should be able to override any federal law if 51%
of the states voted to do so. It would be as if the law never passed.

