People have harped on our declining representation ratio for over 2 centuries, ever since our 1st Congress "fixed" the # of people one Representative could acceptably represent. The fix began soon after, and has been fixed repeatedly, through a process of fixed dilution.
In many other systems - from neural networks to engineering to ecology to cellular biology - it’s clear that inter-dependency-management has to scale FASTER than the # of components to be organized. Competition dictates that we cut every corner imaginable & use every hack available, even though that creates a messy string of over-adapted hacks.
So how do impossibly complex systems continuously re-tune themselves to changing situations?
It’s called sexual recombination.
We periodically re-connect everything to everything, and then relax into a state of hacks & shortcuts that best maps to that brief situation. When things change, we can’t undo ourselves, so we die & spawn kids to re-connect & do it all over again.
So how do we stay agile enough to periodically re-connect all cultural perspectives? That requires statistical definitions of:
adequate, real-time sampling;
adequate, real-time cross-talk;
adequate, real-time testing & verification.
We need formal methods for accomplishing those steps, just to continuously remap Public Purpose to changing circumstances.
Do we need more top-down, or bottom-up agility? I'd argue for the latter.
US democracy doesn’t require 250 states, as 1st pass thinking suggests.
Comically, the closest we come to dynamic democracy is district gerrymandering!
Comically, the closest we come to dynamic democracy is district gerrymandering!
We should re-purpose that tactic, and just keep subdividing existing districts into population-segments, and then DISTRIBUTE responsibility for policy decisions to distributed decision-making. Then our task would map-reduce to constant polling on selectively-vetted issues-of-actual-importance, user-generated & user-vetted. We could do that now, using cell phones.
What level of division & tiered representation would recapture meaningful responsibility for distributed decision-making, at all policy levels? You tell me.
Congress should be replaced with an Android app supporting real-time decision-making by our ~150million eligible voters.
We have to do something to re-distribute decision-making. Otherwise, we’re mathematically condemned to group-policy remaining dumber than our available group-intelligence. That, as a policy choice, is assisted suicide, which – ironically – is already illegal.
Is it always technically illegal to do what we're already doing? No wonder we had to repeal Prohibition along with the rusty Gold Standard. Can we repeal a few other prohibitions too?
Congress should be replaced with an Android app supporting real-time decision-making by our ~150million eligible voters.
We have to do something to re-distribute decision-making. Otherwise, we’re mathematically condemned to group-policy remaining dumber than our available group-intelligence. That, as a policy choice, is assisted suicide, which – ironically – is already illegal.
Is it always technically illegal to do what we're already doing? No wonder we had to repeal Prohibition along with the rusty Gold Standard. Can we repeal a few other prohibitions too?
Do you know of any "mutant" town, city, county or state in our country testing those waters? If someone doesn't explore & report on our emerging options, we'll never evaluate them in time to use 'em.
Heck, I'd even settle on a reality YouTube Channel. "Reality Democracy."
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