Bayle Shanks's website: ideas-hypotheticalConstitution-notes

Notes

The rest of this document contains notes to myself about other ideas. Much of it is my own writing, but some are notes copied and pasted in from elsewhere to remind me to examine some issue or another. the "running version" of the constitution in my head incorporates most of the ideas below, and hence is rather different from what is described above. as i have time, i intend to slowly rewrite the above to incorporate the changes.

ideas specific to application

govmt app

corporate personhood should incldue: entering into contracts, incurrint debts, paying taxes. should not include right to influence government and participate in civil society. what about procedural fairness guarantees?

if juries, then force declaration to juries: "how much was spent on legal representation?"

India's Right to Information law: http://rti.gov.in/rti-act.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/world/asia/29india.html?ref=global-home

freedom of speech exception: impersonation (without the permission of the one impersonated). to prevent someone posting on craigslist claiming to be them asking ppl to take stuff from their house, etc

pyramid schemes strictly prohibited, including such things as pension funds structured as pyramid schemes

no promises of money made until there is money put aside to pay for them

sousveillance

stats tests for reps

police officers, agents and automated agents of police officers must present their identity, affiliation, and position with police upon request, and must allow a person to verify these upon further request. This requirement may be delayed in situations in which immediate presentation and verification would place the officer or other people in physical danger. A citizen shall not be punished for acting under the assumption that a police officier is in fact a criminal posing as a police officier under the officier presents and allows the citizen to verify their identity. Permitted verification shall be sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the police officer's credentials are true, and shall not be less extensive than the methods that police commonly use to verify an individual's identity.

it is not a crime merely to disagree with, yell at, insult, publically verbally abuse, or be rude to a police officer (provided there is are no threats made), or to refuse to show deference beyond the minimal necessary to allow the officer to carry our hir duties.

when the law says that something is not a crime, other charges may not be used to effectively punish those who do the targeted action.

it is permissible for the law to allow a guilty person to go free when the government violates procedural rights in a matter connected with the case, even if the violation is a generic mistake that was not targeted at the specific case (for example, if a file was lost, and the lack of the file led to the violation, this may be a cause for throwing out the case even though the file was lost accidentially, and before the start of the case). the rationale is that this is one of the few ways to give the government an incentive to not make such mistakes.

External affairs

Only issues of external relations -> Only issues of foreign policy or external relations

perry et al's idea to force the exec to consult with congress, and force congress to vote on approving or disapproving of ea. war

(and, all hostilities of more than 1 week are a war)

no non-public information may be collected on individuals who are not guilty of some crime without their consent. information that is collected based on probable cause must be deleted upon the end of active investigation of the case, which cannot last longer than 10 years.

by default, ("pure" and pre-registered) political protests are immune to laws. a law can be made to apply to a political protest via a supermajority (and this can be repealed with a simple majority)

Public Auditors

Parts of the organization, and entities falling within the organization's jurisdiction, may be assigned public auditors. Individuals may not be publically audited except by their own free choice. Public auditors' powers with respect to their target entities are similar to tribunes, except as the law says otherwise, and except that their scope may extend to any criminal deception or any crime against the public, not just those crimes involving corruption of the state or violation of state procedure. this scope may be restricted by law.

any entity may nominate themselves to be the public auditor of another specific entity -- entities may not be nominated other than self-nomination. an entity may audit multiple other entities at once. an entity may only audit another entity if there is no conflict of interest, as defined by law and interpreted by the courts. being paid to publically audit is not a conflict of interest, unless the payment comes from someone with a conflict of interest (for example, the entity itself) or unless the payment is contingent upon the results of the audit. nominees may be required by law to testify that they meet some set of non-conflict-of-interest conditions. if there is no conflict of interest, then the public auditor for each entity is chosen by election, if there are one or more candidates. contained in the ballot for an entity's auditor shall be the choice, 'this entity should not be audited at this time' -- if this choice wins, then there shall be no public auditor for that entity for the time being. the election shall be in the forum and shall utilize transitive proxy but shall be just a standing vote, without debate or amendment, and shall be "on the side", in addition to the topics under discussion.

no incentives or punishments may be offered to individuals by the state contingent upon their willingness to be publically audited. each entity may be audited by at most one public auditor at any time. candidates for publically auditing individuals will not be placed on the ballot unless the individual is currently willing to be publically audited. an individual may retract their willingness to be audited at any time, even while an audit is in progress. willingness to be audited is opt-in for individuals.

any statue or regulation restricting the powers or scope of public auditors may be struck down at any time by a majority of the tribunes. the tribunes must strike down such laws in general or not at all -- they cannot strike down a law with respect to a particular entity or class of entity, unless the law itself is particular to that entity or class. failure to strike down such a law in the past does not prevent tribunes from striking down such a law later.

no state entity or official may be a public auditor. state entities may be audited. the granularity of state entities, for the purpose of public audits, shall be defined by law, although a majority of tribunes may declare state entities to be of a finer granularity.

The existence of a public auditor does not excuse entities from the responsibility to run their own audits nor does it excuse the tribunes from any of their responsibilities.

Employment status of Public Auditors

Public Auditors are formally considered to be officials of the oversight branch of the organization. However, Public Auditors may not be paid by the organization. The senior tribune may award honors which do not have substantial value (aside from the respect and publicity conveyed by the honor) to some public auditors.

no secrets for corporations

NDAs (and other contracts mandating secrecy) are not made illegal, but will not be enforced (i.e. such contracts are purely informal) --- that is, you cannot legally bind yourself to restrict your right to free speech

speech refers to any form of information transmission (obviously, hacking someone's computer or body is more than JUST information transmission, though)

corporate size limitation?

antitrust

limits on seizure

freedom to leave/deaffiliate without later persecution with freedom of speech

todo:

antitrust (votes)

Exceptional conditions

Exceptional situations may occur in which fast, decisive action is necessary. Therefore, there is a mechanism for temporarily weakening the usual deliberative requirements.

Exceptional conditions fall into two classes: Minor Exceptional Conditions, and the Major Exceptional Condition.

The Normal condition

The organization is said to be in "normal condition" when no state of exception pertains.

Normal condition can be restored (that is, all exceptional conditions can be cancelled) by any of the following methods:

A unilateral declaration by the CEO
The expiration of the time limit attached to an exceptional condition
An act by a simple majority of any single house of the legislature
An act by a simple majority of the Tribunes
An act by a simple majority of the group of people who (a) were delegate commissioners at the time of the declaration of the exceptional condition, and (b) are still reachable
An act by a simple majority of the group of people who (a) were elect commissioners at the time of the declaration of the exceptional condition, and (b) are still reachable

Minor Exceptional Conditions

Minor Exceptional Conditions may be unilaterally declared by the CEO at any time.

The effects of a Minor Exceptional Condition are defined by statue. Multiple types of Minor Exceptional Conditions may be defined. Minor Exceptional Conditions cannot alter or bypass the legislative process.

A Minor Exceptional Condition automatically expires in two weeks unless renewed by an act of the legislature. If the full legislature is unable to be reached, a partial legislature may function as the legislature for the duration of the Minor Exceptional Condition. A Minor Exceptional Conditions may not last longer than two months.

The Major Exceptional Condition

The Major Exceptional condition may be jointly declared by the CEO and a simple majority of Tribunes. If a majority of the Tribunes are unavailable, the CEO may unilaterally declare a Major Exceptional condition, but only until a majority of the Tribunes become available.

During a Major Exceptional Condition, the CEO has temporary power to amend and create statues. The Major Exceptional Condition does not alter or bypass the process for amending or making an exception to the bylaws.

Time limits

No more than six months out of every period of one year may be spent outside of the normal condition.

"Length of time Outside Normalacy" shall initially be defined to be the length of time spent in exceptional conditions after the previous period of Normal Condition.

Define a "Fallow Period" after each return to Normal Condition. The Fallow Period lasts as long as the Length of time Outside Normalacy at the time of the return to Normal Condition. If some Exceptional Condition is declared again before the Fallow Period, then the intervening time between the last return to Normal Condition and the new Exceptional Condition is added to the Length of time Outside Normalacy.

Limitations on amendments to the bylaws

No bylaws concerning exceptional conditions may be removed, added, or modified except when the Length of time Outside Normalacy exceeds six months.

If the Bylaws are amended during any Exceptional Condition, these amendments shall expire with the restoration of Normal Condition, and shall not be re-enacted until the Length of time Outside Normalacy exceeds six months. If the amendments had an effect on the distribution of power (for instance, if they affected who is a Commissioner, who is CEO, who is a Tribune, etc), this effect is reversed upon such expiration.

maybe when there are three layers or more, the top two layers of the indirect hier house (the delegates pyramid) should be full time (if it wishes to be; or should we just leave this up to statues?). with P=11 and n=3.5e8, the top two layers of delegates (including the delegates' commission as the top layer) are 649 in number, so this is like having a full-time congress in the U.S. (although as noted i maybe govmt would use P=17, making it 17*68=1156, which is a bit more than congress -- but with P=13 its 13*62=806, which sounds pretty good to me -- and 13 is nicer than 17 for council deliberation, as noted).

hmm, maybe the full-time should be forced only when there are 3 layers or more (over 8,886,110) -- dunno if this makes sense for companies though. mb leave this as a config option? or just as a statue, but a recommendation from me.

if both commissions exist, then they must both meet for about the same amount of time per year

no prior restraint on speech

no agent provacteurs (sp), and peaceful protests may not be dispersed by means other than those on this list: pushing

   (i.e. no tear gas, no rubber bullets, no swinging of batons, no loud sounds)

proportional force may be used. "proportional" is defined to not exceed the class of weapon used by the opponent, e.g. rocks may be thrown at someone throwing rocks, but metal bullets may not be used against that person. proportional force must only be used against individuals, not crowds (i.e. if you do not know which individual threw a rock, you cannot throw a rock into a crowd), although some "collateral damage" may occur. a response is not proportional if a reasonable person may expect it to injure or kill more people, more seriously than were injured or killed by the opponent -- i.e. if a crowd throws rocks which seriously injure two people, and the government fire weapons which may be expected to kill ten people, the response was not proportionate.

is there a way to ban paramilitary groups which may be used by the government for terrorist suppression? and to ban paramilitary military youth groups?

no vague laws such as "disturbing the public order"

when issuing any denial of a permit to organize a public gathering or protest, the authority must issue a permit to organize the gathering or protest within a safe, near-by, convenient, visible public forum, which can accomodate as many people as the requesters request within one week of the date originally requested. if the request is more than a week before the requested date, the request may require a certain date. if no suitably large, safe, near-by, convenient, visible public place is available on the requested date, the authorities must permit the gathering to take place in the originally requested location. organizers may be punished for requesting a space to accomodate an orders-of-magnitude larger crowd than attends, provided that a reasonable person would not have expected a crowd as large as the request.

authorities may not take the purpose or political viewpoint of a gathering into account when granting a permit, and such information may not be requested

organizers of a gathering may not be held responsible for the independent actions of attendees.

defensive equipment, such as gas masks, may not be made illegal or taken from people permanently or even temporarily before a planned gathering. people may not be temporarily detailed with the purpose of impeding a planned gathering.

spec const duty to rebel, tiered rebellion, citizen shall not be punished for rebellion itself

corp application

for corporations and open source projects, i suggest using my "dominant eigenvalue+seniority" idea, discussed elsewhere, to distribute votes unequally among members. this would allow the founding members/major contributors of projects to have more say over the project's direction, compared to a one-person/one-vote system. in these cases, you would expect to often find commissions smaller than 11 where some major contributor effectively has a semi-permanent seat on all commissions.

for some wikis, however, and other situations where the equality of all members is paramount, one-person/one-vote should be used.

organizations such as non-employee owned corporations, where the voters don't really want to do anything, should not have the commission of delegates, or the councils, or a separate external board, and should not separate the constitutional court, the officers of procedure, or the tribunes.

idea for giving control to contributors to a nonprofit w/o sacrificing democracy; give them a sublinear amount of control vs. their lifetime donations. for instance, if you give them sqrt(total value of donations), then we have:

sqrt($1) = 1 votes sqrt($100) = 10 votes sqrt($1000) = 32 votes sqrt($1bil) = 31,623 votes

of course, if you don't want a zillion small contributions, you could set the minimum contrib at 40, and then divide by 40.

applying the rule for startups that i heard, '1/3 for ideas, 1/3 for sweat, 1/3 for connections', (although 1 person can contribute parts of each category, meaning that individuals don't all get equal equity here), i guess nonprofit financing is most like 1/3 for connections for startups, so how about saying that 1/3 of the votes are allocated in this manner?

the point between the sublinearity is not primarily because of notions of equality between human beings (although that is a secondary motivation), but rather to encourage people who can't afford to donate much to do so (and to remain involved after donating).

assuming a power law (zipf?) distribution of donations (todo: is this realistic?), what would be the distribution of votes between large and small donors?

in addition to nonprofits, this could perhaps be used in mostly-employee-owned for-profits who wish to raise external capital

a problem is that of course such a system could be easily gamed by a rich entity acting through sockpuppets. this means that such a system ideally should not be used in a context where corporate entities or pseudonyms can aquire votes, only where verifiable individuals can. alternately, the 2/3 of the entity not tainted by fundraising votes can establish a committee with the sole discretion to 'unify' blocks of fundraisers in their sole discretion without cause. this may not be reassuring for the fundraisers, though, since this provides the other 2/3s a chance to completely control the fundraiser votes through gerrymandering if they are dastardly. as a compromise, perhaps a committee set up by the entire institution (or perhaps just through the normal legislative process) should unify votes -- this is simpler too. ok, i like that better. how about the constitution says, if it believes in good faith that unification may help recify gaming, but without due process, evidence, or proof, then the legislature can unify fundraising votes. if it has a preponderance of evidence (in its sole determination) that some organizations have been gaming, then it can nullify those organizations' votes. if an organization A owns or effectively controls, directly or indirectly, more than 33% of another organization B's shares (or votes), then A and B must declare this relationship, and then their fundraising votes may be unified. if A controls a majority of B, then their votes MUST be unified (and are automatically upon their declaration). (as noted above, failure to declare leads to automatic nullification of votes when that failure is discovered).

i think mb sqrt of fundraising is too harsh -- giving the $1000-giver only 32 votes seems like too little. how about raising to the 3/4 power? now we have:

1e2^.75 31.623 1e3^.75 177.83 1e9^.75 5.6234e+06

putting a reasonable "minimum donation" of $25 to get a single vote on this, we get

(1e2/25)^.75 = 2.8284 (1e3/25)^.75 = 15.905 (1e5/25)^.75 = 502.97 (1e9/25)^.75 = 5.0297e+05

this seems more reasonable to me

(rounding is not actually necessary -- fractional votes may be allowed)

for example, let's say that a group has $3000 in donations (or venture funds), coming from 1 $1000 donor, 10 $100 donors, and 100 $10 donors; so, as groups, the $1000 donors, the $100 donors, and the $10 donors are each contributing 1/3 of the donations. we have

s=(1e3/25)^.75 + 10*(1e2/25)^.75 + 100*(1e1/25)^.75 = 94.487 ((1e3/25)^.75)/s = 0.16833 (10*(1e2/25)^.75)/s = 0.29935 (100*(1e1/25)^.75)/s = 0.53232

so the voting power of the groups is about 17%, 30%, and 53%.

more general octave code:

 levels=3
 =  3
 groups = logspace(1,levels,levels)
 =

     10    100   1000

 group_votes=groups(end)./groups.*(groups./single_vote_cost).^.75

   50.297   28.284   15.905

 group_votes./sum(group_votes)

   0.53232   0.29935   0.16833

let's say we have the similar situation with $6,000,000 in donations:

octave:95> single_vote_cost = 25 single_vote_cost = 25 octave:96> levels=6 levels = 6 octave:97> groups = logspace(1,levels,levels) groups =

        10       100      1000     10000    100000   1000000

octave:98> group_votes=groups(end)./groups.*(groups./single_vote_cost).^.75 group_votes =

   5.0297e+04   2.8284e+04   1.5905e+04   8.9443e+03   5.0297e+03   2.8284e+03

octave:99> group_votes./sum(group_votes) ans =

   0.451951   0.254151   0.142919   0.080369   0.045195   0.025415

the guy who donated 1/6 of the total only has 2.5% of the vote -- then again, he is only 1/100,000th of the membership:

group_sizes=groups(end)./groups group_sizes =

   100000    10000     1000      100       10        1

octave:102> group_sizes./sum(group_sizes) ans =

   9.0000e-01   9.0000e-02   9.0000e-03   9.0000e-04   9.0000e-05   9.0000e-06

how does this work out if the dynamic range is not so large? for instance, in a company with on the order of 100,000 employees, we wouldn't expect most of them to be willing to pay only $10 for stock -- maybe it's more like there's a million employees, and only 100,000 of them have $100 worth of stock apiece:

octave:106> group_votes=groups(end)./groups.*(groups./single_vote_cost).^.75 group_votes =

   2.8284e+04   1.5905e+04   8.9443e+03   5.0297e+03   2.8284e+03

octave:107> group_votes./sum(group_votes) ans =

   0.463736   0.260778   0.146646   0.082465   0.046374

so, each group just gets bumped up a notch

in this scenario, the largest donor's vote is reduced by a factor of about 4.3 compared to if there was one vote per donation dollar, and the smallest donors' vote is increased by a factor of about 2.3. the ten second-largest donors are reduced by about 2.4x, so the people who donate $100,000 lose out by about as much about the $100 donors win.

it would of course be more meaningful to first find out empirically what scaling law donations or fundraisers have, and then to calculate this sort of thing.

now, i'm not sure this would be good for for-profit corporations -- because the small shareholders end up being the ones who dont care much about the corporation in the long-term, which would lead to shorttermism (pension funds and such would be large shareholders). perhaps this rule could apply to those who bought during private rounds of funding but not after such shares were transferred, and not during a public stock listing/IPO.

the difference between this and the nonprofit case is that people donate to nonprofits because they want to have an impact, so if voting counts as a type of impact, then mb you attract more small donations by giving small donors disproportionately large votes. in the for-profit case, the main motivation of buying shares isn't to have an impact on the company, it's to make money off dividends (including indirectly via capital gains). so maybe this makes more sense in the for-profit case if restricted to people who are expected to have 'controlling the company' or 'helping the corporate community' as a primary motivation for buying shares rather than people who are expected to want to make money -- so mb just employees.

so mb an initial setup for a company would be:

1/3 of the vote for external stockholders (proportional to stock held) 2/9 (=1/3 of the remaining 2/3s) of the vote for employees who purchase stock through the employee plan, under a ^.75 rule 4/9 of the vote periodically redistributed on trust-merit via the a seniority-biased dominant eigenvalue scheme.

or, to reward employee stock ownership, one could let the employee stock also count in the 1/3, and then to double-count them by giving them votes in the 2/9 also.

so, if 1/3 of the votes came from stock, and employees owned 1/3 of the stock, and they owned it according to the 5-tiered distribution above from $100 to $1,000,000, then the votes would be distributed as follows:

(group_votes./sum(group_votes))*(2/9) + [1/45 1/45 1/45 1/45 1/45] ans =

   0.125275   0.080173   0.054810   0.040548   0.032527

external shareholders: 22.2% (2/9 = 1/3*2/3)

44.4% distributed based on merit/trust/seniority amongst employees

so, an external person buying a share of stock gets 1/3 of a vote. an employee buying stock with a size multiplier of 1 gets 5/9ths of a vote. an employee who doesn't own any stock who is buying $100 of stock gets .84 of a vote per share, and an employee buying $1,000,000 gets .385 per share. here we see that this plan takes the form of an extra incentive for employees to own shares, combined with giving employee shareholders disproportionate voting power, but small employee shareholders are incentived more.

instead of decoupling votes from shares, one could more simply just have the company itself own 2/3s of its shares, and then temporarily lend them to people in accordance with the rules above; that is, 2/9s of the shares are lent to employees in proportion to the shares they own, and 4/9s are periodically redistributed in accordance with the dominant eigenvalue+seniority trust scheme.

the difference between that and vote decoupling is twofold:

1) avoidance of awkward questions about why ownership != voting (although its still weird for the corporation to own most of itself, i guess)

2) dividends are now distributed in the same proportions as votes. in fact, since the dominant eigenvalue+seniority trust scheme was envisioned partially as a bonus distribution system, perhaps now dividends could replace bonuses.

note that employees get a higher ROE (return on equity) than non-employees, and employees who own a small amount of shares get a higher ROE than those who own a large amount.

in comparison to a fully eigentrust-based voting system, this system only has 4/9s of the voting power in eigentrust. so this provides a more conservative idea that full eigentrust (because it is an interpolation between the current capital-based voting system, and the theoretical eigentrust-based voting system).

in initial fundraising rounds, VCs could be cut in to the employee plan. so, ignoring the scaling, a VC could get majority control of voting by providing 90% of the capital. however, with the scaling, it would be harder. the VCs would not be permanently grandfathered into the employee plan, however, only those shares sold to them during the fundraising would have the extra voting privilages attached, and they would go away if the VC sells the shares or goes bankrupt or has a change in ownership.

---

analysis notes (todo)

http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/

to my surprise, after thinking of this, a lower vote threshold for special issues is already included in the US legislative process, called "reconciliation": http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/politics/02hulse.html?_r=1&hp

some principles/heuristics, and where they led:

directedly elected officials have more legitimacy (indebted to ?_
- direct election of tribunes
positions with smaller multiplicity are perceived as more glorious, powerful
- only 3 tribunes (it was hard to decide 3 over 1)
positions whose only role is the election of other officials become impotent (ex: elections of the US presidency)
- indirect electors (vol hier const) can recall
small groups won't put up with many officials
- "scale down"
elected officials are forced to be more concerned with positive powers than negative, more concerned with substance than procedure
- creation of tribune, which has only negative powers and only concerned with procedure

note: so tribune is highest; few tribunes

indebted to (amongst others): -- Hare for voluntary constiuencies -- rangevoting.org for range voting ideas -- "liquid democracy" advocate for learning about delegable proxy -- soviet analysis for "circle of power" idea -- bagehot for the idea that drama draws teh public attention's, which is good -- athens for sortition, which informed -- that law review article

notes: -- recent iranian election (2009) shows that there can be trouble when the highest directly elected official is not the most powerful official -- recent iranian election shows the importance of verifiable election procedures, trust in review committees (in the recent iranian election, the head of the committee that would investigate the election was perceived as fiercely partisan, hence people didnt trust that verification mechanism) -- recent iranian election shows the importance of freedom of speech, peaceful assembly for legitimacy

tribunes dont have the right to request things like computer passwds, although they do have the right to insist on chaperoned admin access sessions?

Motivation for the size of the senate, the number of layers, and the minimal vote thresholds for each layer

(note: the # of people per constituency in layer i is approx S^{1 + k (L - i)}, where i=0 for the lowest layer of the undersenate, and L gives the size of the senate itself)

First, I decided what I thought the size of the senate should be. I wanted a formula that took as input the size of the electorate, and yielded the size of the Senate. I wanted this formula to be scalable, that is, to give reasonable answers for moderately small groups and also for groups the size of the entire population of Earth, and larger. In numerical terms, I require a rule that scales for groups of about 1000 up to groups of about 9 billion. If possible, it would be nice if the rule would scale down to about 15 and up to about 1e12.

Some approximate example group sizes to help get a handle on these numbers:

30		the number of students in a small graduate program
65		the number of students in my elementary school class
600		the number of students in my high school class
1900		the number of developers in Debian 1
2500		the number of UCSD graduate students2
1.2e6		the population of San Diego
3.5e8		the population of the USA
6e9		the (current) population of the Earth
1e12		100x an estimate of the peak population of the Earth during this century3

Size of representative bodies in this system with those numbers, and 8,15 and 1e18 thrown in just to see what happens with really small and with ridiculously large groups4

5
8
15
30
65
600
1900
2500
1.2e6
3.5e8
6e9
1e12
1e18

By the reasoning given elsewhere, I felt that the current size of the U.S. Senate, 100, is significantly too large. The Senate, I feel, should be as small as possible, a tiny body that is small enough to sit down together and have serious discussions; the only reason it needs to grow with population at all is to allow all of the major political viewpoints to have a voice (and to allow each major viewpoint to be represented by more than one member so that the personal preferences of one person doesn't overly dominate the expression of the will of their faction).

Let me emphasize that: I see the proper role of the Senate as a guide for public discourse and a focus for attention. So, the number of Senators should grow in proportion to the number of points of view that the public should be made to focus upon. This is in opposition to an idea in which the number of Senators should grow roughly in proportion to the size of the population itself, in order to ensure each faction of some fixed size at least one representative in the Senate.

Now, the simple fact is that, no matter how much you would like the public to devote sufficient time to be able to understand all of the subtleties of politics, that people will refuse (and rightly so) to spend too much time on this, and so the media will simplify the world into a small number of factions. In the United States today, by looking at how the media talks about political factions, I guess they divide domestic politics into about 6 factions: (religious Republicans, other Republicans, anti-corporate Democrats, other Democrats, greens, "other"). So let's say that the magic number is between 5 and 7. Since we will allow each of these factions (except "other") to field 2 reps, we have a body of at least 9 to 13. Now, if even the small factions such as the greens have 2 reps, surely some of the larger ones will have more. So we want a Senate of about 13 to 24 members.

Nth-root formulas are one alterantive, but n must be 6 or more in order to bring the Senate below 50 for 350,000,000 people. I worry that this scheme would not scale too well if the population continues to increase exponentially. For example, for 18 trillion people, the 6-th root rule yields about 162 senators, which seems like a lot to me. Does this fit with out intuitions? This would mean that with a population 3000 times larger than the current population of the entire Earth, the media would pretend that there is about 40-56 factions. This seems like too many to me.

On the other end of the scale, this formula gives Senate sizes that I feel are too slightly too low for small groups. For example, the 6-th root rule would give 3 senators for a group of 500, which seems like too few; would a 500 employee company have a board of directors of only 3 people?

In addition, the 6 seems like a kludge.

All in all a 6-th root rule would not be too bad, but log seems better. Log gives answers that seem better for very small and very large groups.

To start with, I tried natural log. log(350000000) \approx 19.7, which seems like a reasonable size for the Senate of the United States. log(25e9) \approx 24, so even with a population of more than twice current projections for the maximum world population within the forseeable future, this rule yields a suitably small Senate size. log(18e12) is only 30.5. Does this fit with out intuitions? This would mean that even with a population 3000 times larger than the current population of the entire Earth, the media would pretend that there is only about 7-11 factions. This seems too small to me, but I think it's closer than the guess of 40.

On the other end of the scale, for a 30 person group, which is about the size of the computational neurobiology graduate subprogram that until recently i was part of, we get a senate of 3.4, which seems about right. For a 65 person group, about the size of my class in elementary school we get a senate of 4.2, which also seems reasonable. For a

One model that would justify this is if we assume that the cognitive cost of holding in mind n factions is exponential in the number of factions, and the benefits of adding a new faction is directly proportional to the number of people who will be represented by that faction.

In this case, if we have P people and F factions, then that must be because the benefits of creating the last faction outweighed the costs. The benefits are proportional to P/F. The costs are proportional to exp(F) - exp(F-1). We have

exp(F) - exp(F-1) = P/F

F*(exp(F) - exp(F-1)) = P

F*(F e^{F-1} - e^{F-1}) = P

F*e^{F-1}*(F - 1) = P

ln F*e^{F-1}*(F - 1) = ln P

ln (F*(F-1)) + ln(e^{F-1}) = ln P

ln (F*(F-1)) + F-1 = ln P

F = O(ln P)

Natural log seems to wor

For example, according to http://physics.ucsd.edu/was-sdphul/dept/pr/gintro.html, UCSD currently has on the order of 2500 graduate students. The Senate would correspond to the size of the Graduate Student Council, our student government.

If each individual in the electorate

5 \end{comment}

\begin{comment} (log_S P -1 - L)/(\sum_{j=1}^L j) = k

log_S P = 1 + L + k*(\sum_{j=1}^L j)

log_S P = log_S S^{1 + L + k*(\sum_{j=1}^L j)}

P = S^{1 + L + k*(\sum_{j=1}^L j)}

P = S^{1 + L + k + 2*k + .... + ik + .... + L*K}

P = S^{1 + (1 + k) + (1 + 2*k) + .... + (1 + ik) + .... + (1 + L*K)}

P = \prod_{i=0}^L S^1 S^{1 + k} S^{1 + 2*k} * ... * S^{1 + ik} * .... * S^{1 + L*K}

P = \prod_{i=0}^L S^{1+k i}

x = \prod_{i=0}^{ceil(log(ceil(log(x))))} (ceil(log(x))^{1+k i}

--- according to http://books.google.com/books?id=nqfLXDGXMSYC&pg=PA263&lpg=PA263&dq=congress++"pages+per"&source=bl&ots=z2lUKVyWcl&sig=aJF53sHdgPLqDQJYV6ZXlIe-OJk&hl=en&ei=B14SSo7FMqP0tAP-6bTxDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA263,M1, The transformation of British politics, 1860-1995 By Brian Howard Harrison, p. 263, British parliament got through 16 pages per day for days in which bills passed in 1945.

---

design principles:

interpolate
multiple forms

and goals:

reduce the quantity of law
attract public attention
allow individuals to work on the issues they care most about

backwards-moving agenda process (i.e. status quo considered last) -- cite "the logic of lawmaking"

majoritarian bias in council of 11 with U-1:

.5^(10 - 2*11/3)*11 - .5^(10 - 1*11/3)*11 ans = 1.5960 octave:3> .5^(10 - 3*11/5)*11 - .5^(10 - 2*11/5)*11 ans = 0.81526

note: neither the senate, the BFA, nor the ministers have sole jurisdiction over anything -- policy in all spheres can be set by statue. (this is in contrast with certain theories of the USA constitution, which hold that the president as "commander-in-chief" has sole authority to decide on military matters. of course, in most occasions it would not be wise for the legislature to issue orders directly to the battlefield, but i trust that the either the house of the people or the senators would show some restraint when it is needed)

of course, the legislature would need a supermajority in most situations (specifically, a supermajority is required unless the orders are to demobilize, to cease hostilities, to retreat, or not to attack in some class of situation. in other words, anti-aggressive orders require a simple majority and other actions require a supermajority).

4 types of legislatures: personal/no communications media (sortition), representative/no communications media (hierarchial indirect representation), personal/communications media (mass parliament, also referenda), representative/communications media (direct elections of representatives)

pros, cons:

(general notes: "media influence" implies money influence, at least in societies where the rich can buy broadcast bandwidth indirection probably implies corruption )

sortition: +: unbiased gauge of the people's will -: no media -: unskilled at legislation -: no accountability +: simple +: no indirection historical examples and other fans: Athens

	   slogan: "we're really people"
	   	   this is the only form in which ordinary people ("real people") directly discuss and make decisions on policy

hierarchial indirect representation: +: no media -: possible top-down problem (i.e. the Politbureau/Stalin problem) -: very much indirection -: not simple +: skilled legislators -: parties/powerful candidates may appeal directly to voters via media anyway, castrating indirectness

	    historical examples and other fans: original method of selecting usa president, libertarian municipalism, party structure in usa, party structure in soviet russia

	    slogan: "you can actually discuss things"
	    	    in this form, discussion can take place directly between individuals, and each individual can discuss things personally with a representative. this is unlike the direct elections of representatives form, in which discussion is mediated by mass media (campaigning), and unlike the mass parliament, in which discussion is mediated by the mass communications protocol. unlike sortition, everyone can have an influence.

mass parliament: -: media influence +: no indirection -: unskilled legislators (but ameliorated by presence of some skilled ones within civil society) (other pros/cons?? todo: look at referenda. but these may change with actual mass parl)

	  slogan: "the voice of the people"
	  	  in this form, the people as a whole speak directly. this is unlike sortition, where only a few of the people speak, and unlike either form of indirect representation.

direct elections of representatives: -: media ~: medium amount of indirection +: skilled legislators ~: medium simple

       slogan: "accurately represents the people"
       	       in this form, unlike indirect hierarchial representation, the ideological composition of the representative body is guaranteed to closely match that of the people. sortition can't be said to really "represent" the people; the members of that body are supposed to do what they think is best, not speak for others. the mass parliament might be the voice of the people, but it is unclear what distortions will be introduced into that voice by way of the mass communications protocol.

hierarchial indirect representation (the "senate" above): maybe single term limit to control the "top-down" problem? secret ballots? mb "parties/powerful candidates may appeal directly to voters via media anyway" could be prevented w/ single term limit? or just outright forbid a voluntary constituency to advertise itself in terms of who it will elect at a higher level, or to tie its rep's hands; reverse wave of timing of elections (i.e. first lowest level elects; then next lowest level; etc; so that highest level election is at the end of the cycle, right before the lowest level reelects; or same, but transpose each pair, i.e. if level 1 is top and 6 is lowest, 6,4,5,2,3,1)

there are 19*70 = 1330 people in the senate and the top tier of the undersenate. so these ppl are about half as powerful than congresspeople in the U.S.. Such people have a limit of 5 terms. So this is sorta like a limit of 2.5 terms in the U.S., or 10 years; or 6 years except for the P.M.

notes:

Nationalities Papers, Vol. 35, No. 2, May 2007 Abkhazia: Patronage and Power in the Stalin Era Timothy Blauvelt

Patrons and Clients The patron client model concentrates on how members of a hierarchy are bound into factional entities through personal ties. These factional entities, or patronage net- works, are used by leaders to consolidate their power and by clients to gain power. Client relationships can range from outright nepotism to loose alliances based on shared interests. The defining characteristic, however, is the exchange of services between patron and client, personal loyalty and support for the patron in return for tenure in office and promotion (and all of the benefits that accompany official pos- itions) for the client.1 In a phenomenon that Andrew Walder refers to as the "unintended social conse- quences of the party's ideological orientation," in Communist Party states the Party can gain loyalty and ideological adherence by giving preferential treatment to officials and other individuals at various levels of the hierarchy. The standard mode of exercis- ing authority in such systems requires, in turn, the cultivation of stable networks: . . .[P]arty branches develop stable networks of loyal clients, who exchange their loyalty and support for preference in career opportunities and other rewards. The result is a highly institutionalized network of patronclient relations that is maintained by the party and is integral to its rule: a clientelist system in which public loyalty to the party and its ideology is mingled with personal loyalties between party branch officials and their clients.2 As both Walder and Sheila Fitzpatrick emphasize, patron client relations in Communist states are unlike those in other kinds of system because of the nearly total control by the government over resources and their distribution--a government and state based around the reality of deficit. Unlike other political systems, in the Stalinist state the government (1) was the official distributor of goods and had a near-monopoly on their production, (2) was nearly the only employer of citizens, and (3) continuously tried to regulate the lives of its citizens, through the demand for endless documents and written positions without which functioning in normal life became impossible.3 Everything necessary and desirable in daily life was avail- able only through interaction with government: trade, travel, finding an apartment, going to university, getting married, etc. The extent to which the patron client relationship formed the basis of political authority from the top down is a recurring theme in the literature on political decision making and elite recruitment during the Stalin era. The essence of Stalin's approach to political control was the manipulation of the formal and informal structures of the government and Party apparatus to create and maintain a bureaucratic base for the leader's authority, a system referred to by Robert V. Daniels as the "circular flow of power."4 This system was formalized by the decision of the 8th Party Conference of 1919 to give the central Party hierarchy primacy over local Party organizations and Stalin's systematization of the center's ability to direct the appointment of local Party secretaries. In this way, the center (and Stalin as the General Secretary) could control the process that confirmed the leader's own authority.5 Stalin's power rested on his authority to "recommend" candidates for local Party offices, to influence upcoming cadres through the nomenklatura system, to get rid of unsatisfactory clients through the use of "party discipline," to rotate client assignments between the center and the regions, and to send central elites to the provinces to deal with problems. The local clients, in turn, used their local authority and networks to ensure the required outcomes in elections to Party congresses that in turn supported the General Secretary.6

13. The term "circular flow of power" was coined by Robert V. Daniels in "Soviet politics since Khrushchev," in John W. Strong, ed., The Soviet Union under Brezhnev and Kosygin (New York: Van Nostrand -- Reinhold, 1971): 20. Daniels had developed the basic interpretation at some length more than a decade earlier in his The conscience of the Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), and similar views had been elaborated by numerous scholars such as Merle Fainsod and Leonard Schapiro. -- http://monderusse.revues.org/docannexe1780.html

attributes of the 4 houses

	   	   	      	  	      direct demo   pr  indirect hier rep	sortitioneveryone can influence		      	      	     + + + - personal discussion (anti "knee-jerk") - + + + expertise					     - + + - no large groups/communications media		     - - + + no campaigns		   		   	     + - - + real people (opposite of "expertise") + - - + transparency	    	      	 		     + ~ - + lack of long-term internal politics		     + ~ - + tried-and-true					     - + - + secret ballots					     ~ - - + not pre-polarized				     + ~ - +

pre-polarized: a group of representatives, each one selected by groups of like-minded voters, is called "pre-polarized" in that the representatives chosen will to each have a high degree of ideologically committment to their positions, more so than the average member of the public

~: * pr is pretty transparent, but you have a have got a bunch of expert political operators in the same room, so maybe it won't turn out as transparent as hoped * pr doesn't in itself have LT internal politics, but it will be greatly influenced by the political parties, which do * direct demo has secret ballots for individuals, but you can see which way your proxy voted your vote, so the holders of proxy votes can't secretly vote those proxies * the pr part of pr will elect committed ideologues, but the condorcet part will elect centrists

y'know, mb it's dumb to have the size of the legislatures vary with population size. the socializing and collaboration of the people on top doesn't similarly scale (well, with technology it might though..). so perhaps the size should be fixed. i guess we want a size as small as possible (b/c ideally you want everyone to be able to have in-depth one on one discussions with everyone else, and to grow to understand everyone else's positions), yet big enough that the group won't become, socially, a single small group (b/c then groupthink will happen more --- the PM + cabinet can be a small group, though). i'm guessing that 12 is small enough to become a single small group. so how about 17 (the next prime after 12 -- it's good to have odd numbers, but i have no particular reason for picking primes, but they're neat so why not)? so, each of the three legislatures involving people are 17. remembering that the foreign legislatures were half the size (b/c there we DID want a small group), and rounding down to the nearest prime (or, heck, to the nearest odd number -- same answer in this case), we get 8.5->7.

so, 1/17 is about 6 percent, and 1/7 is about 15 percent, so in theory factions as small as 6% will be represented domestically, and factions as small as 15% foreign-ly. in fact we can expect about 1/3 (i just made that number up) of each legislature to not do a good job of representing a faction (even before accounting for the Condorcet series winners within the Loring PR legislature), so we have about 11 "representative" domestic guys and 5 "representative" foreign guys. this gives us factional sizes of 9% and 20% respectively. for comparison, a search for "libertarian party percent" on google yields #1 hit http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa580.pdf , which claims about 9-13% libertarians (by sentiment, not party affiliation) (i can't quickly find a similar statistic for the U.S. green party). ross perot got about 19% in 1992 and 8% in 1996 (but remember, he lost a lot by dropping out mid-stream in 1992). so, we can expect that small parties may have to fight to be represented in these bodies, although it will be possible. which sounds about right -- i'm a little uncomfortable with how large the minimal factional sizes are, but that's good, since i think it's really really important to minimize group sizes.

so, there's 3*17 = 51 domestic legislators, and 7*3 = 21 foreign = 72 total legislators on Capitol Hill. small enough that:

the 51 domestic legislators will be able to get acquainted with each other
the 21 foreign legislators form a medium-size group
the total 72 is small enough that professional politicians will be able to get acquainted with everybody, although it is too many for ordinary people to keep track of

nonrenewable 15-year terms for all judges. thx to http://www.amoreperfectconstitution.com/23_proposals.htm

ok i think i've been successfully propagandized that range voting is better than condorcet, for single-winner elections. since the problem withapproval/range voting seems to be that you can't choose your strategy until you know what others will be doing, how about 7 rounds of range voting (results are added) when small bodies vote? also, it seems like the broad range will make that problem worse, so how about allowing only 0,1,2, blank=1 with 1/2 quorum.

in small groups, range voting can go by "3 in a row" needed to win -- but what about instability? mb decay...

i sort of buy that asset voting is corrupting. the counterargument is that if you can buy a candidate in asset voting, you can buy the same candidate in another system (in the other system, they will still be elected, but they will secretly be under your control). but the counter-counter-argument is (1) in another system, you can't trust that they'll continue to follow your directions for their entire term of office, (2) there are other benefits to actually being elected besides the benefits of affecting policy; for instance, being in the news. in other systems, this can't be bought by corrupting a small group of people; in asset voting, it can.

also, asset voting is annoyingly indirect. also, the hier senate already provides some form of asset voting.

hier senate elections should be held n time more frequently than others, because due to the reverse staggered propagation, it will take n cycles for the popular will to bubble up -- with a 1/n cycle period (for instance, 1 per 1.33 yrs rather than 1 every 4 years), it will lag by exactly one std cycle.

recall that the formulas for calculating senate structure are:

k = (log(n)/log(S) - 1 - L)/sum(1:L)

s3 = S.^(1+k*(L - 3)) s2 = S.^(1+k*(L - 2)) s1 = S.^(1+k*(L - 1)) s0 = S.^(1+k*(L - 0))

code for calculating group sizes is in file govmt_size.m, and code for generating a report of interesting sizes is in file govmt_scale.m.

for P=17, we have: small_graduate_program = 30 my_elementary_school_class = 65 active_debian_voters = 400 my_high_school_class = 600 one_thousand = 1000 debian_developers = 1900 UCSD_graduate_students = 2500 san_diego_population = 1200000 illinois_population = 12000000 texas_population = 22000000 us_midwest_population = 66000000 us_population = 350000000 earth_current_population = 6.0000e+09 estimated_peak_pop = 1.0000e+10 estimated_peak_pop_times_100 = 1.0000e+12

Combined report: P= 17

n= 18 PR size= 5 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 37 PR size= 7 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 65 PR size= 9 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 101 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 145 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 7 no senate no sortition house

n= 197 PR size= 15 PR external relations size= 7 no senate no sortition house

n= 257 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 no senate no sortition house

n= 289 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 no senate no sortition house

n= 290 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 17 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 41 no sortition house

n= 400 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 23 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 57 no sortition house

n= 600 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 35 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 85 no sortition house

n= 1000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 58 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 142 no sortition house

n= 1900 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 111 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 271 no sortition house

n= 2500 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 147 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 357 no sortition house

n= 8103 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 17 group size in allsenate layer 0= 476 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1157 no sortition house

n= 8104 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 17 group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 group size in allsenate layer 0= 23 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 57 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 1200000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 17 group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 group size in allsenate layer 0= 664 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1613 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 8886110 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 17 group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 group size in allsenate layer 0= 2523 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 6128 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 8886111 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 37 group size in allsenate layer 1= 80 group size in allsenate layer 0= 175 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 27 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 108 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 425 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 12000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 38 group size in allsenate layer 1= 89 group size in allsenate layer 0= 203 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 28 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 119 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 494 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 22000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 43 group size in allsenate layer 1= 108 group size in allsenate layer 0= 275 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 32 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 146 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 670 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 66000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 51 group size in allsenate layer 1= 157 group size in allsenate layer 0= 477 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 38 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 211 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1160 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 350000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 68 group size in allsenate layer 1= 274 group size in allsenate layer 0= 1100 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 50 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 368 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 2672 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 6000000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 109 group size in allsenate layer 1= 706 group size in allsenate layer 0= 4556 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 81 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 949 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 11065 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

n= 10000000000 PR size= 17 PR external relations size= 7 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 17 group size in allsenate layer 2= 119 group size in allsenate layer 1= 837 group size in allsenate layer 0= 5882 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 7 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 88 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 1126 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 14285 sortition size= 17 sortition external relations size= 7

small_graduate_program = 30 my_elementary_school_class = 65 active_debian_voters = 400 my_high_school_class = 600 one_thousand = 1000 debian_developers = 1900 UCSD_graduate_students = 2500 san_diego_population = 1200000 illinois_population = 12000000 texas_population = 22000000 us_midwest_population = 66000000 us_population = 350000000 earth_current_population = 6.0000e+09 estimated_peak_pop = 1.0000e+10 estimated_peak_pop_times_100 = 1.0000e+12

Combined report: P= 11

n= 18 PR size= 5 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 37 PR size= 7 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 65 PR size= 9 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 101 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 121 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 122 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 11 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 24 no sortition house

n= 145 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 13 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 28 no sortition house

n= 197 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 17 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 39 no sortition house

n= 257 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 23 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 51 no sortition house

n= 400 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 36 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 80 no sortition house

n= 600 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 54 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 120 no sortition house

n= 1000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 90 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 200 no sortition house

n= 1900 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 172 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 380 no sortition house

n= 2500 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 227 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 500 no sortition house

n= 8103 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 11 group size in allsenate layer 0= 736 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1620 no sortition house

n= 8104 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 11 group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 group size in allsenate layer 0= 36 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 80 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 1200000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 11 group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 group size in allsenate layer 0= 1026 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 2258 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 8886110 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 11 group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 group size in allsenate layer 0= 3900 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 8580 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 8886111 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 32 group size in allsenate layer 1= 93 group size in allsenate layer 0= 270 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 24 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 121 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 596 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 12000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 33 group size in allsenate layer 1= 102 group size in allsenate layer 0= 314 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 25 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 133 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 692 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 22000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 37 group size in allsenate layer 1= 125 group size in allsenate layer 0= 426 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 28 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 163 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 938 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 66000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 44 group size in allsenate layer 1= 181 group size in allsenate layer 0= 738 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 34 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 236 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1624 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 350000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 59 group size in allsenate layer 1= 316 group size in allsenate layer 0= 1700 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 45 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 412 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 3741 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 6000000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 94 group size in allsenate layer 1= 817 group size in allsenate layer 0= 7041 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 72 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 1062 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 15491 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 10000000000 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 11 group size in allsenate layer 2= 103 group size in allsenate layer 1= 968 group size in allsenate layer 0= 9090 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 79 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 1259 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 20000 sortition size= 11 sortition external relations size= 5

Combined report: P= 13

n= 18 PR size= 5 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 37 PR size= 7 PR external relations size= 3 no senate no sortition house

n= 65 PR size= 9 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 101 PR size= 11 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 145 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 169 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 no senate no sortition house

n= 170 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 13 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 34 no sortition house

n= 197 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 15 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 39 no sortition house

n= 257 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 19 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 51 no sortition house

n= 400 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 30 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 80 no sortition house

n= 600 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 46 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 120 no sortition house

n= 1000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 76 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 200 no sortition house

n= 1900 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 146 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 380 no sortition house

n= 2500 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 192 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 500 no sortition house

n= 8103 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 1 group size in allsenate layer 1= 13 group size in allsenate layer 0= 623 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1620 no sortition house

n= 8104 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 13 group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 group size in allsenate layer 0= 31 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 20 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 80 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 1200000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 13 group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 group size in allsenate layer 0= 868 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 106 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 2258 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 8886110 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 2 group size in allsenate layer 2= 13 group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 group size in allsenate layer 0= 3300 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 207 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 8580 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 8886111 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 33 group size in allsenate layer 1= 88 group size in allsenate layer 0= 229 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 24 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 121 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 596 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 12000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 35 group size in allsenate layer 1= 97 group size in allsenate layer 0= 266 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 25 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 133 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 692 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 22000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 39 group size in allsenate layer 1= 119 group size in allsenate layer 0= 360 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 28 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 163 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 938 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 66000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 47 group size in allsenate layer 1= 171 group size in allsenate layer 0= 624 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 34 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 236 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 1624 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 350000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 62 group size in allsenate layer 1= 299 group size in allsenate layer 0= 1439 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 45 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 412 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 3741 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 6000000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 100 group size in allsenate layer 1= 772 group size in allsenate layer 0= 5958 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 72 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 1062 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 15491 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

n= 10000000000 PR size= 13 PR external relations size= 5 senate layers= 3 group size in allsenate layer 3= 13 group size in allsenate layer 2= 109 group size in allsenate layer 1= 916 group size in allsenate layer 0= 7692 external relations group size in allsenate layer 3= 5 external relations group size in allsenate layer 2= 79 external relations group size in allsenate layer 1= 1259 external relations group size in allsenate layer 0= 20000 sortition size= 13 sortition external relations size= 5

post-hoc justification for prime number of group members: you will never have m factions of n members each on any given issue; one faction will always have a plurity

the limit on Cabinet size is in order to ensure that the legislature and the public can keep track of all ministers. for instance, in the U.S., the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security are highest-profile; it would be desirable if the Cabinet-level positions were only a few more than this so that there was more accountability. The max number of ministers occurs when the group size maxes out at 17/7, and is 8 (domestic) + 3 (foreign) = 11. By contrast, the U.S. has 21 such positions.
the limitation that the PM/FM exercise power through the Cabinet prevents the circumvention of the purpose of the Cabinet via the creation of a zillion executive agencies like in the U.S. The PM/FM can still decide policy because they can fire the ministers, however a minister who disagrees can always resign, which may be a big deal because many ministers are high profile.
the submajority vote serves two purposes. first, it forces the PM/FM to build a coalition with at least 40% support, at least initially (after they have some confirmed ministers, later on they can fire some and reassign portfolios to the others without legislative approval). second, it raises the profile of the ministers, making them more independent of the PM/FM. third, it encourages the PM/FM to build a majority coalition if possible, because otherwise the fact that a majority of the legislative body voted against their choice will be glaringly apparent.

the effect is that a majority which is not quite strong enough to win in the High Council has an incentive to try to win in the Undercouncil by getting its members to negotiate with partisans from other factions. this may lead to compromises and greater understanding. the downside is that it allows another route for majoritarian force (i.e. by taking advantage of the statistics that sometimes the counselmembers from other factions will happen to agree with the majority anyways; therefore the votes in the Undersenate dd will be gerrymandered, since it requires a consensus to vote no as well as yes in the Undersenate dd). Council deliberations are private, except for the High Council, but resolutions of councils are signed by everyone who voted for them (i.e. consensus-2 names).

by a supersupermajority vote, the legislature may make a single, specific exception to the constitution. this exception cannot have the effect of making it easier to amend or to take exception to the constitution. an exception is not counted towards text limit for example, making an exception to the requirements for amending the constitution for the purpose of amending it 'just once' isn't allowed! for example, if the legislature wants to temporarily go over the text limit, it can do so by first passing an Exception

initiative constitutional referendum: requires 33% of the number of votes cast in the previous election as signatures. this is ridiculously difficult by design; usually the dd house is supposed to serve in place of the "initiative referendum" process -- members should use the process provided by that house to directly introduce proposals. the initiative constitutional referendum is only provided as a last-ditch measure in cases all 3 houses, including the dd house, because corrupted in some way -- for example if organized crime buys 1/3 of the votes in the dd, intimidates 1/3 of the people into joining their constituencies in the councils, and bribes 1/3 of the senate; then this procedure provides a way to change the constitution with the support of 3/4 of the voters by secret ballot. the point is that voting by secret ballot, without a participatory debate, is the most resistant to corruption, but the least deliberative, of all of these approaches.

	   diagram: a simple diagram of the structure of the state can be drawn as follows. draw a diamond. draw a horizontal line in the middle of it, connecting the two middle vertices. draw a vertical line from the center of that line up to the top vertex. draw a vertical line coming up off the top, like an antenna. now embolden or highlight or color the top three vertices of the diamond. now you should have a diamond, with an upside down T inside of the top half of the diamond, and an antenna on top of it. the three exterior vertices of the T are emboldened.
	   	    the interpretation is as follows. each of the 6 total vertices represents an entity. the 3 bold vertices represent the legislative entities. the lines represent control of a non-legislative entity by one or more legislative entities. 
		    	the top vertex of the diamond represents the people, and the popular house. the two middle vertices of the diamond represent the council and the senate. the vertex in the middle of the diamond, controlled by the previous three, represents the constitutional court and the office of procedure. the bottom vertex of the diamond, controlled by the council and senate, represents the administration. the topmost vertex, controlled by the people, represents the tribunes. 
			note: it doesn't have meaning in the diagram, but if you like, you can draw a smiley face in the empty space in the bottom of the diamond.

why P=17? P has 3 main effects :

1) group sizes of senate , high council 2) group sizes of councils 3) scaling transition point when council comes into being

for 1, want odd number and perhaps prime number . also want medium sized group -- small enough to have (inefficient )discussion , but large enough to have resistance to group think . its okay if it is too big to have efficient discussion -- that's what the cabinet is for . i fear that P=13 is too small because a faction of 2 (15%) or 3 (23%) will feel social pressure not to speak -- with P=17, the entire group is almost a crowd, hence a faction of 3 (18%) or 4 (24%) can delight in being nonconformist rebels -- in other words, i think that with P=13, small factions will be dominated by the group identity , but with P=17, they will act as factions . this is what is desired -- the senate and high council are supposed to be a microcosm of society, not a monolithic group .

another consideration for 1 is that some representatives will happen to misrepresent their constituencies, whether out of incompetence or malice or honest difference of opinion . in addition, if there are multiple orthogonal dimensions of ideological position, you need at least m^d factions to represent m positions along each dimension . allowing "c" to represent the number of representatives per faction needed in order to make it probable that at least 1 is representative, then cm^d is the minimum number . for c=2, m=2, d=3, we have 16, and for c=2, m=3 , d=2, we have 18. so, unless you're comfortable with having less than 2 representatives per faction, 13 appears to be too small . another way to look at it is to let "f" be the minimal desired factional size needed to win a representative, and then to look at P=cf. for c=2, P=13 yields f=15%, P=17 yields f=12%. by this metric, both of these seem reasonable.

for 2, want efficient discussion . for this purpose , 11 would be nice . however , in order to fulfill primary purpose of fighting group polarization effect , popular council size must be exactly the same as high council size . i think it is more important to fight group think in the representative legislature than to facilitate efficient discussion in popular councils . i recommend councils split into 2 groups of 8 and 9 for half of their meetings, and then have plenary sessions for the other half .

for 3, don't want council when group is too small -- 11 yields 121, which seems too small .

so i think 17 is best, but 13 is the runner-up; which one you choose depends on the balance to strike between fighting groupthink in representative legislature and having effective popular counsil discussions .

i initially thought that perhaps another reason to have 13 rather than 17 would be to make decisions more quickly, especially in corporations . however , right now i think that

even smaller corporations require protection from group think as much as government
for midsize corporations, having 17 rather than 13 people present at the meeting where a big decision was made (17 rather than 13 who deeply understand the pros and cons) may increase buy-in in the company in large enough to offset the loss in decision making speed
for huge corporations, having 17 rather than 13 may payoff in terms of bringing in direct information from more parts of the company
the function of a legislature is not to make the kind of decisions that need to be made quickly . a legislature is supposed to make decisions which require buy-in from the group (the selection of PM/FM is such a decision). other decisions should be delegated to the cabinet .

the ACLU may have 83 directors on its board of directors, however, it remains to be seen if the average corporation would accept replacing a 7-person board with four commissions with a total of 48 commissioners (17 central and 7 external delegate commissioners and 17 central and 7 external elected commissioners). with P=11 this would decrease only to 33. with P=7 it decreases to 20.

if we allow external commissioners to also be central commissioners, and assume that they always are (it may be a good idea in any case to have most of them be central also), we have 34, 22, and 14.

it's probably also a good idea to have some external specialists on the external side. i think i'll leave it that central + external can overlap but don't have to -- i.e. whoever gets elected/delegated can serve.

the elects and delegates' commissioners should be disjoint, however; and the tribunes should be disjoint from both the commissioners and the management.

i'm putting the councils' influence over the elect commission rather than the delegate commission (which would seem to be the more logical place), because the elects are already very unconstrained vs. the delegates.

currently i think the councils' influence should be exercised in terms of casting "council votes" in the elected commission. the sum total of possible "council votes" could be equal to the number of votes in the elected commission (i.e. 17 for internal issues, 7 for external). these could be divided up equally between the layers of the delegate constituencies, except for the delegate commissions, which are not included. for example, n = 290 there is just the members and then the delegate commission; in this case there are 17 members' central councils, and each of them has 1 vote in the elected commission, and 41 external councils, and in total these 41 have 7 votes in the external elected commission, so each of them has 7/41 or about 0.17 votes. as partially noted above, these votes may only be exercised when consensus-2 (in the case of the central councils) or consensus-1 (in the case of the external councils) (note: based on the considerations below, this has been changed to consensus-2 and consensus).

let's estimate majoritarian bias if we only allowed true consensus (caused because sometimes people will end up on the same council who already agree with each other), we calculate as if there is a 50% chance of each individual disagreeing with their faction. so if there is a council where just less than 2/3s of the total population is in favor of something, then on a 17-person council there are (rounding up) an average of 12 members in favor (and 5 opposed). so, .5^(17 - 12 = 5) yields the chance per council that the entire council will agree without anyone needing to compromise. note that, for the opposition, the relevant figure is .5^12, much smaller; so in this case we expect the proponents to have a lead of (.5^5 - .5^12 ~= (# councils)*.5^5 = (# councils)/32. if there are 17 votes for all the councils, then this is 17/32 = about half a vote. which seems tolerable.

for the 7-person external councils/commissions, it gets worse: 5 votes in favor, 2 opposed, 1/4 of the total votes = almost 2 votes of skew. o.t.o.h. one can argue that the point of the smaller external group sizes are to provide a more unified voice, so this majoritarian skew isn't as bad.

if 5/7 commissioners would be in favor, we have a 2/3s majority anyways, so mb we should round down, or not round. so now, we have .5^(7 - 2*7/3) = about 20%, or about 1.4 votes. let's try when 4/7 members even are actually in favor of something (57%). we have .5^3 = 1/8 = 12.5% of the votes, or about .9 of a vote. so in this case, 4/7 isn't enough to push the vote over 60% (but just barely).

what about if 60% of members are in favor? we have .5^(7 - 3*7/5)*7 = just over one vote. in other words, the distinction between 60% supermajorities and 2/3 supermajorities are practically abolished in this system for the external councils; if 3/5 members want to do something "external", (and assuming there is no actual deliberation and compromise in the councils), then the external elected council will find itself having not just 4 but 5/7 votes in favor (at least 4 elect votes, and 1 council vote).

(but how many councils cast "no" votes in this case? we have .5^(7 - 2*7/5) of the total, for .5^(7 - 2*7/5)*7 no votes, or .4. i don't like to rely on this, but if you do, then that brings it back down to .6. at 2/3s, we have .5^(7 - 1*7/3)*7 = about 1/4 of a "no" vote, for a total skew of .5^(7 - 2*7/3)*7 - .5^(7 - 1*7/3)*7 ~= 1.1 votes -- so now this doesn't seem so bad.

for consensus - 1, it gets worse:

.5^(6 - 2*7/3)*7 - .5^(6 - 1*7/3)*7 = 2.2 votes (at 2/3s) .5^(6 - 3*7/5)*7 - .5^(6 - 2*7/5)*7 = 1.25 votes (at 60%)

man, what's it like for consensus-2 at 17 people? it's

 .5^(15 - 2*17/3)*17 - .5^(15 - 1*17/3)*17ans = 1.3123 (votes at 2/3s)

.5^(15 - 3*17/5)*17 - .5^(15 - 2*17/5)*17 ans = 0.55244 (votes at 60%)

so, mb we should make it consensus-1 for 17, and consensus for 7:

 .5^(16 - 2*17/3)*17 - .5^(16 - 1*17/3)*17ans = 0.65616

.5^(16 - 3*17/5)*17 - .5^(16 - 2*17/5)*17 ans = 0.27622

that's better, but i worry about consensus-1 for a transient 17-person group.

so i think we'll stick with consensus-2 for the 17-person group, and consensus for the 7-person group.

for an example if there are multiple levels of delegate constituencies, with P = 17 at n=8104, we have 17,20,23. so, there are about 20*23 member's coucils with a total of 17/2 votes among them, and about 20 second-tier member's councils with 17/2 votes among them. so there's about (17/2)/(20*23) ~= .02 commission votes for each bottom-level council, and about .425 commission votes for each intermediate-level council. at n = n= 8886111 we make the transition to 2 middle layers and we have 17,37,80,175. so each bottom-level council has

(17/3)/(37*80*175) ans = 1.0940e-05

votes, the lower middle councils each have

 (17/3)/(37*80)ans = 0.0019144

votes, the upper middle councils have

(17/3)/(37) ans = 0.15315

votes each.

hmm, that's discouraging. but remember that the councils have their own dd interface. so, a small number of low-level councils can still force the elect commission to debate a proposal, even if it's difficult for them to force its passage. the vision is that perhaps the councils, driven by their consensus processes, will propose innovative forms of compromise bills. also, if there is actually discussion and deliberation, there may be issues in which a large number of councils cast votes, because one side of the issue is actually more persuasive than the other.

i'm wondering if the tribunes should be called "investigators" to emphasize their adversarial nature. i worry that ombudsman sounds like too much of a mediator.

hmmm, reconsidering, now i think that perhaps the arguments i gave for 17 rather than 13 work fine with smaller numbers because the number that those arguments applied 2 is the total number of commissioners, not the number in each commission.

also, i feel that most private organizations will balk at having 34 commissioners in place of a board of directors.

maybe we can even go down to 11. with 11, the size of the entire "board of directors" replacements could be as small as 22 (+ 3 tribunes = 25 representatives).

with 11 and 5, and absolute consensus in both primary and external councils, the council majoritarian biases are:

for 5: .5^(5 - 3*5/5) - .5^(5 - 2*5/5) = 12.5% at 60% so the distinction between 3/5 and 2/3 is effectively abolished in the external elect commission; however, this doesn't happen until you get above 57%: 2.85/5 = 0.57, and 2.85/5 + .5^(5 - 2.85*5/5) - .5^(5 - 2.15*5/5) = .65662)

for 11: .5^(11 - 3*11/5) - .5^(11 - 2*11/5) = 3.7% and note that 57% doesn't even get pushed above 60%: 2.85/5 + .5^(11 - 2.85*11/5) - .5^(11 - 2.15*11/5) = .5947

certainly there will be more groupthink in a group of 11 than a group of 17. perhaps governments will want to have P=13 or 17, and other organizations will want 11.

besides a smaller total number of representatives, a huge benefit of P=11 or P=13 is better deliberations in councils.

with P=11, the numbers are:

22 commissioners + 1 tribune = 23 representatives (in place of a board of directors) 1 CEO + at most 3 external officers + at most 6 internal officers = at most 10 officers, or 11 if the board chooses a separate EEO (upper management)

(research showing that boards >7 are bad: Board Size Effects in Closely Held Corporations, Morten Bennedsen, Hans Christian Kongsted and Kasper Meisner Nielsen, 1http://www.cebr.dk/Publications submenu/Discussion Papers/2004/DP 2004-23.aspx )

(research including a histogram of fortune 500 company board sizes: decision making dynamics in corporate boards, Stefano Battiston, Eric Bonabeaub and Gerard Weisbuch, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01930-1 -- 11 is right in the middle of the histogram, but 20 is way out. however, hopefully this structure works like "2 boards of 11" rather than "1 board of 23")

for organizations with unequal members (such as corporations), the voting strength of members in the forum, in the commission election, and in the constituencies varies (some members may form constituencies, or even multiple constituencies, all by themselves). however, each elect commissioner should have equal strength in their capacity as elect commissioner, to promote collegiality and independent thought. a powerful member can still exercise their disproportionate influence in the elect commission by the threat of the power of their vote.

in the forum, a powerful member directly exercises their strength.

in the delegate commission, a single delegate may have the strength of multiple delegates only if their constituency is a single member.

so for example, let's say that there is one person who holds 40% of the stock of some corporation.

they have the voting strength to elect themselves to about 4 spots on the elect commission (in practice, maybe sometimes a little less, due to the centralizing factor in the reweighted range, or the corresponding Condorcet factor in the Loring vote) (and they also have another "left over" .4 of a vote that influences the election of the other elect commissioners)

they would control 4.4 of 11 delegates in the delegate commission -- this means that they can stand themselves as a delegate in the delegate commmission, having 4 votes -- and they still get some votes in other constituencies (to account for the other .4).

so in this case, there are only about 8 people on each commission.

term limits and commissioner separation are waived when a single member has more than 1/11 of the votes -- that member is free to sit on all commissions as long as s/he has that many votes, or to give a proxy to any other person to vote in their place, either on individual issues or in general.

this prevents the preset sizes of the commissions from getting in the way when a substantial fraction of the power is really concentrated in a few individuals.

similarly, a powerful individual (or a pooled faction rep) can be placed in multiple councils. they don't even have to attend them (although it may annoy others if they don't...) -- if they want to never attend most of them (to lessen the power of the councils, which is against their interests after all), they can simply indicate such, and other individuals will be virtually placed with them and then "blocked". in fact, i guess we should let any citizen ruin the fun for others in this fashion -- in fact, it should be automatic for anyone who does not join a council. but the assignments should automatically try first to place the blockers together. de facto "blocking" by nonattendence should not be allowed; those who request council placement and then do not attend should be removed.

actually, i guess "blocking" automatically happens anyway if you refuse to be placed in council; if other factions want to be placed more than you, tough beans, they don't get to.

this means that if anyone controls more than 1/11th of the vote, they are on every council and can block all councils simply by not signing up!

in other words, any faction with 1/11th or more power can "temporarilly deactivate" the council system at will.

perhaps people who don't sign up can, at their option, allow councils to go on without them; this is equivalent to agreeing whatever the rest of council agrees to!

maybe it should, rather, be like this. it's unlikely that an entire 11% faction will have the solidarity to block, because if a few members defect, they will have lots of power (because there will be only a few councils). in fact, if a faction tried to block, it might be worth it for the other factions to infiltrate them so as to have a few non-blockers.

so, this will only really happen when there are a few individuals with >11%. so, give people who want to not attend council the power to allow the councils to go on without them. if they refuse, they may annoy everyone else.

(yes, there is always a first tribune. this may seem unnecessary, but it hammers home the importance of separation of powers, as well as of the majesty and high status of the tribune)

i changed my mind about the lifelong powers of the tribune. this would (a) be a lot of responsibility, which might discourage people from running; they would be bothered for the rest of their life by people seeking assistance, and (b) would make the voters think twice about electing a tribune who is strongly anti-secrecy. so tribunal powers expire at the end of their term.

    why so difficult (2/3) to refer to referendum? because if the people really care, the forum can take it up. we prefer business to be transacted in the forum because the transitive proxy voting makes it more deliberative than a straight-out vote.

if less people than the preset numbers for commissions/tribunes stand for election, that's okay -- everyone who stands is elected, and that's all.

the distinction between the officers of procedure and the constitutional court is that the OP is constantly involved in the day-to-day affairs of the commissions, whereas the court is only invoked if there is a problem that some part of the state (including the tribunals) 'takes to court'. furthermore, the OPs just make decisions willy-nilly, whereas the CC goes through a formal court proceedings for each case. the OP has final jurisdiction over questions of procedural details within each house of the legislature, and on which things need which majorities. the CC is obliged to respect the OP's decisions in such cases, except in case of corruption or mental problems. the CC has jurisdiction over anything else, including all substantive (rather than structural) rights, and over "big picture" items in the constitution involving the powers of and relation between different organs of government, or between government and individuals. the CC can also do the other things mentioned in the constitution: pardon individuals, Force Clarification, create law when Forced Clarification fails, and declare Found Rights, whereas the OP can do none of these things.

So now, for an organization with n=>144, the minimum number of high officials is:

3 tribunes
22 commissioners
1 CEO
1 Cxx

for 27 in total.

and the maximum is:

3 tribunes
22 commissioners
5 judges
5 parliamentarians
1 CEO, 1 EEO (m.b. CER -- chief of external relations -- would be better?)
6 primary, 3 external Cxxs

for 46 in total.

how many high officials there are in between 27 and 46 (inclusive) is determined by the commissioners -- if they wish to keep it at 27, they can simply refuse to appoint all (or any of the) judges and parliamentarians, they can make one person both CEO and CER, and they can confirm only 1 Cxx.

note that some commissioner spots may well be "independent outsider" spots, say on a corporate board.

compare to today's corporate boards; there is probably a corporate counsel (in place of 3 tribunes), and about 11 board members, 1 CEO and 1 President, for a total of 14. So we have 13 extra (the other commission, and 2 extra tribunes).

adjusting n for ownership: to calculate n when voters have unequal strength, order voters from strongest to weakest, and then start adding up the stakes of the strongest until you get over 50%. Multiply the number of voters you have gotten through by 2 to get an effective n.

For example, if there is a 40% stakeholder, a 30% stakeholder, and a lot of small stakeholders, then n = 4 -- only the forum exists. If there is a 40% stakeholder, and two 10% stakeholders, then n = 6 -- again, only the forum exists. If there is a 20% stakeholder, two 10% stakeholders, and four 5% stakeholders, then n = 16 -- primary commission size is 3.

note that for n=3.5e8, the total number of people in the top two layers of the delegation pyramid is 649, only about a hundred more than the size of the U.S. Congress. so if people worry than 11 (or 13 or 17) reps just aren't enough, they should be reassured that a representative body the size of Congress does exist in this system, it just isn't on top -- but in Congress the true situation is similar, in that real power rests with party leaders and committee chairs, of which there are much fewer than 535.

the tao of this system (compared to the tao of python):

explicit is better than implicit small groups are better than big the individual is better than the group peace is better than war less legal text is better than more both direct democracy and representative democracy have something to contribute both campaigning and small group delegation have something to contribute talking to the opposition makes a person more informed concentrations of power are scary

note that if there are no OPs and 2 tribunes, only 1 tribune (the senior one; the positions rotate as tribunes end their term, and the junior one becomes the new senior one) becomes OP. the OP can delegate functions to the other tribune, but is not obliged to. the other tribune still retains their fundamental tribunal powers of investigation, declassification, and prosecution.

mb make tribunes more like the head of state by giving them "competency to grant pardon, decorations and titles of honor, to address messages to the people and the Assembly and to promulgate the laws"? -- http://www.cecl.gr/RigasNetwork/databank/REPORTS/r4/GR_4_Katrougalos.html . i dunno -- it would be kinda funky to have the Official Adversary do all these lovey-dovy things. but i kinda like that. it might bring home the point that the adversarial role isn't bad but good, and it might also raise the stature of the tribune. at the least, they should be able to "address messages to the people and the Assembly".

i kinda like the idea of giving each of the three tribunes their own function --- the youngest one could be purely adversarial, the middle one could be ombudsperson, the oldest one could be head of state. the middle and oldest do not, however, lose their adversarial powers.

and by giving one of the tribunes the head of state role, we prevent it from falling on the PM (and we have a chance of having my rule that the legislature cannot bestow honors and commemorations stand!). and by giving one of them the ombudsperson role, we prevent it from falling on all of them.

note that, strictly speaking, the PM/FM's powers are just the nomination and dismissal of cabinet members (and to preside over cabinet meetings), except in times of emergency (and also their powers as legislator).

no laws or regulations shall apply to members acting in council that don't apply to them otherwise. they are not to be considered elgible for special scruity or intrusion like executive or legislative officials when in council or because they are members of a council. they are free to buy each other dinner, have romantic relationships with each other, etc (mb not free to bribe each other tho! but that falls under the no-bribing general rules, i.e. you can't trade a vote for anything but another vote)

thanks the obama in and his speechwriter in http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.text.html?_r=1 for the first two bullet pts in "Prohibited reasons for secrecy", taken from "we must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrassment to the government."

"parpolity", a political counterpart to a communism economic system ("parecon") has a hier indirect rep structure: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4957

note: in 1936 the soviet union switched from an indirect hier election to a direct election. "Soviet Politics in Perspective" by Richard Sakwa on page 109 makes it sound as if the main drafter, Bukharin, thought this would better restrain the official terror which was the order of the day. on page 109 this book credits the problem with the lack of enforcement, rather than a bad constitution. however, on page 106, it seems to place the blame on (a) the lack of explicitly and precisely defined political rights (instead using vague terminology such as "the interests of the people"), (b) the principal that the interests of individuals are subordinate to the interests of society, (c) no court of appeal against infringements of individual rights, (d) a presumption that "politics" had been transcended (hence no need for contestatory political parties), (e) no separation of legislative and executive power, (f) little attempt to restrain the exercise of power, (g) the Supreme Soviet (the highest legislative body) did not have independent legislative power (?) and was de facto politically irrelevant, (h) no explicit limits on state power in the constitution, (i) politics through conventino, informal practices, rather than through explicitly, legally defined perogatives, (j) "above all, the Soviet political order (particularly in the Stalin period) is best understood in terms of personalities rather than institutions". he concludes "Power in the Soviet Union was not defined and therefore not limited, although informal restraints, as in Britain, increasingly came to the fore." he goes on to say that the constitution had a declarative, rather than a defining function, meaning basically that they were statements of what the party thought of things -- the first one set the tone -- "It summed up the experience of the first 8 months of Bolshevik power but left the details of government uncertain."

as for not separating legislative and executive functions, he claims that "the lack of checks and balances and the absence of separation of powers allowed the enormous accumulation of power at the hands of executive bodies".

lessons: most of the safeguards implied in the above are already included. in addition, the constitution should make it clear that individual citizens wronged by the government can take the government to court (i assumed this, but best to make it explicit). second, it should be made explicit that the ministers do not have any authority to issue laws/regulations/decrees. the legislature can delegate such powers only in certain states of emergency, and such powers can be undelegated at any time, and individual decisions can be overruled (i.e. unlike the idea that corporate shareholders can not freely undelegate authority from management on any issue -- here the legislature explicitly can). (this is also different from the present-day U.S. system, in which there are executive branch regulatory agencies that can make regulations -- but perhaps the creation of quasi-independent regulatory agencies should be allowed? that is, if they don't answer to/aren't influenced by the ministers, then some legislative power can be delegated, so you can have the FCC and SEC but they must be quasi-independent, like the Fed? i dunno...).

reading pages 90-92 of "Soviet Politics in Perspective" by Richard Sakwa makes it sound as if a combination of:

democractic centralism, ban on factions, ban on rival parties, censorship, restriction of non-party soviet delegates from meeting on their own (while the party caucus of each soviet did meet beforehand, allowing them to control the soviet in which they were embedded despite having only about 40% in the lower soviets, although the party caucuses did have a majority in the higher soviets --- page 97)
nomination of delegates by party leadership rather than by the people
party conferences were part-time, and in between them, the executive committees interpreted them
non-secret ballots at the conferences

is to blame for everything. i.e. the problem was not the constitutional structure, but rather the prohibition on competitive politics that was the problem. as he puts it, democratic centralism "...guarantee[d] that the lines of communication remained vertical, from top to bottom, rather than horizontal, between like-minded individuals, groups or committees."

delegates were recallable. on 92, we see that the party even had separate "revisional committees" acting as watchdogs.

even China has a "convention that government committees contain at least one non-party member, a party membership is a definite aid in promotion and in being in crucial policy setting meetings." according to Wikipedia

Since their representative is only directly responsible to them, and not to their constituents, the representatives of the Undersenate are expected to pass information between their representative above, and their own constituents below. They are expected to communicate with their direct contituents, to discuss issues with their peers, and to advise, monitor, and judge the decisions of their representative.

tying of hands: 7

Limitations on Amendments during Emergency Conditions

One way that this Constitution might be attacked would be for an Amendment to be made during a Condition of Dire War, Emergency, or Martial Law; in this way, the normal procedures for the Electorate to deliberate might be bypassed8.

To protect against this, if the Constitution is amended during a Condition of Dire War, Emergency, or Martial Law, these amendments shall expire with the cancellation or expiration of such condition, and shall not be re-enacted for a period of at least one year. If they had an effect on the distribution of power (for instance, if they affected who is a Senator, who is Prime Minister, who is a Tribune, etc), this effect is reversed upon such expiration.

If the amendments are desirable, the Legislature is encouraged to re-enact them after the fallow period.

Technical vetos

Upon the passage of a bill in one chamber of the Legislature, that bill shall be considered to be vetoed by the other chamber unless the other chamber has reached quorum at least twice during the three-month veto period. If a bill is vetoed in this way, nothing shall prevent the original chamber from sending it back to the other chamber the next time that the other chamber meets\footnote{This is to prevent the situation where an attack on the Senate or a major accident which prevents it from meeting provides an excuse for the House to pass bills without Senate review. Note however that as a side effect, it allows a minority of Senators to veto a bill by preventing quorum. Even if the Senate never again met, the House could still send the bill to a referendum, however, so this would only be a good idea if a majority of the people supported that minority of Senators; if the Senate did eventually meet, the House could simply re-send the bill then. It also prevents the same situation with the roles of the House and the Senate switched. Notice that this means that "quorum" must somehow be defined for the House.}.

note: public membership roles in constituencies are needed in order to do cross-council assignments. but they present a major opportunity for corruption. however, this cannot really be avoided, because, unless deliberation is done exclusively online, people can see who else is in their constituency when they attend the meetings.

toread (general)

random note: if you ever need crypto paper ballots: http://rangevoting.org/RivSmiTB.html

The voting threshold for bills which repeal laws and which do not do any of the of the above is 50%10.

compare old text in ~/archive/hypotheticalConstitution.txt-old1 with intro, main text, to see if it is better in some respects

The Tribune has free reign to publicize any information that s/he has access to, but is not permitted to __selectively__ publicize information. If the Tribune gives any information to someone outside the Bureau Of The Tribune who is not normally allowed to access that information, the Tribune must first make the information publically available and announce its availability. The Tribune must continue to make that information available from that point forward (at the expense of the government).

If the Tribune does selectively release information, they are then acting in their capacity as a private citizen rather than in the role of Tribune, and they are liable to the same degree that another private citizen would be liable for that release.

toread (govmt application)

%% todo: study http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=secession+provisions&btnG=Search, http://mises.org/journals/scholar/kreptul.pdf

todo: research models of switzerland, nordic countries

STV-PR/asset mix: http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods@electorama.com/msg01644.html (by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)

todo: http://www.hrcr.org/chart/categories.html

todo: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=comparative+constitutional&btnG=Search

RFC 3797: Publicly Verifiable Nomcom Random Selectio

alternating rounds of sortition and approval voting may be useful for electing one of the censors (and perhaps also for an attorney general?): http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.html

	    the benefit here of the sortition is, as usual, to provide a non-zero probability of an uncorrupted individual receiving the job even if the media  (etc) is corrupt (in which case a simple election won't work)

dunbar's number

things to guard against : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

Characteristics

Theodore M. Vestal of Oklahoma State University has written that authoritarianism is characterized by:

"Highly concentrated and centralized power structures," in which political power is generated and maintained by a "repressive system that excludes potential challengers" and uses political parties and mass organizations to "mobilize people around the goals of the government";[1]
The following principles: "1) rule of men, not rule of law; 2) rigged elections; 3) all important political decisions made by unelected officials behind closed doors; 4) a bureaucracy operated quite independently of rules, the supervision of elected officials, or concerns of the constituencies they purportedly serve; 5) the informal and unregulated exercise of political power";[1]
Leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors" 6). Modern Democracy
No guarantee of civil liberties or tolerance for meaningful opposition;[1]
Weakening of civil society: "No freedom to create a broad range of groups, organizations, and political parties to compete for power or question the decisions of rulers," with instead an "attempt to impose controls on virtually all elements of society";[1] and
Political stability maintained by "control over and support of the military to provide security to the system and control of society; 2) a pervasive bureaucracy staffed by the regime; 3) control of internal opposition and dissent; 4) creation of allegiance through various means of socialization."

Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a single-party state) or other authority.

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is generally considered to be an extreme version of authoritarianism. Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:[4] Totalitarianism Authoritarianism Charisma High Low Role conception Leader as function Leader as individual Ends of power Public Private Corruption Low High Official ideology Yes No Limited pluralism No Yes Legitimacy Yes No

Sodrol argues that the while both authoritarians and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in "key dichotomies":

    (1) Unlike their bland and generally unpopular authoritarian brethren, totalitarian dictators develop a charismatic 'mystique' and a mass-based, pseudo-democratic interdependence with their followers via the conscious manipulation of a prophetic image. (2) Concomitant role conceptions differentiate totalitarians from authoritatians. Authoritarians view themselves as indvidual beings, largely content to control; and maintain the status quo. Totalitarian self-conceptions are largely teleological. The tyrant is less a person than an indispensable 'function' to guide and reshape the universe. (3) Consequently, the utilisation of power for personal aggrandizement is more evidence among authoritarians than totalitarians. Lacking the binding appeal of ideology, authoritarians support their rule by a mixture of instilling fear and granting rewards to loyal collaborators, engendering a kleptocracy.[4]

Thus, compared to totalitarian systems, authoritarian systems may also leave a larger sphere for private life, lack a guiding ideology, tolerate some pluralism in social organization, lack the power to mobilize the whole population in pursuit of national goals, and exercise their power within relatively predictable limits.

Democracies may be considered authoritarian. An illiberal democracy (or procedural democracy) is distinguished from liberal democracy (or substantive democracy) in that illiberal democracies lack some democratic features, such as the rule of law, an independent judiciary, separation of powers, civilian control of the military, freedom of expression and assembly, and freedom from censorship. The central characteristic of an illiberal democracy is that institutional political processes are skewed in favor of the incumbent regime. Opposition may be dealt with by means of onerous regulations on political organizations in civil society, unfair electoral processes (such as barriers to ballot access or extensive gerrymandering), manipulation of the media (either by ignoring or distorting opposition, or by biased coverage of opposition, often in state-owned press or oligarchical MSM). Illiberal democracy has also been termed "electoralism" or "soft authoritarianism."

Sir Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1961) developed an influential critique of totalitarianism: in both works, he contrasted the "open society" of liberal democracy with totalitarianism, and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future, in accord with knowable laws.

According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes was their ideology which provided a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future

For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity composed of the following: an elaborating guiding ideology; a single mass party, typically led by a dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of the means of communication and physical force; and central direction and control of the economy through state planning.

Bracher maintains that the essence of totalitarianism is the total claim to control and remake all aspects of society combined with an all-embracing ideology, the value on authoritarian leadership, and the pretence of the common identity of state and society, which distinguished the totalitarian "closed" understanding of politics from the "open" democratic understanding

 Lack of liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly make opposition extremely difficult. The rulers may centralize powers between branches of the central government and local government (having no separation of powers). Television and radio is often controlled by the state and strongly support the regime. Non-governmental organizations may face onerous regulations or simply be prohibited. The regime may use red tape, economic pressure, or violence against critics.

by the People's Republic of China when it resumed control of the territory in 1997. In contrast, Singapore acquired full independence, first from Britain and then from Malaysia in the 1960s. At that time, it was structured as a relatively liberal democracy, albeit with some internal security laws that allowed for detention without trial. Over time, as Singapore's Peoples Action Party government consolidated power in the 1960s and 1970s, it enacted a number of laws and policies that curtailed constitutional freedoms (such as the right to assemble or form associations), and extended its influence over the media, unions, NGOs and academia. Consequently, although technically free and fair multi-party elections are regularly conducted, the political realities in Singapore (including fear and self-censorship) make participation in opposition politics extremely difficult, leaving the dominant ruling party as the only credible option at the polls.

 universal suffrage, granting all adult citizens the right to vote regardless of race, gender or property ownership. Historically, however, some countries regarded as liberal democracies have had a more limited franchise, and some do not have secret ballots. There may also be qualifications such as voters being required to register before being allowed to vote. The decisions made through elections are made not by all of the citizens, but rather by those who choose to participate by voting.

According to the principles of liberal democracy, the elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive. Political pluralism is usually defined as the presence of multiple and distinct political parties.

The liberal democratic constitution defines the democratic character of the state. The purpose of a constitution is often seen as a limit on the authority of the government. The Anglo-American political tradition emphasises the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a system of checks and balances between branches of government. Many European democracies are more likely to emphasise the importance of the state being a Rechtsstaat that follows the principle of rule of law. Governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. Many democracies use federalism - (also known as vertical separation of powers) - in order to prevent abuse and increase public input by dividing governing powers between municipal, provincial and national governments. Eduskunta. Several nations and territories can present arguments for being the first with universal suffrage. The Grand Duchy of Finland had complete universal suffrage in 1906. Eduskunta. Several nations and territories can present arguments for being the first with universal suffrage. The Grand Duchy of Finland had complete universal suffrage in 1906.

[edit] Rights and freedoms

In practice, democracies do have specific limits on specific freedoms. There are various legal limitations such as copyright and laws against defamation. There may be limits on anti-democratic speech, on attempts to undermine human rights, and on the promotion or justification of terrorism. In the United States more than in Europe, during the Cold War, such restrictions applied to Communists. Now they are more commonly applied to organizations perceived as promoting terrorism or the incitement of group hatred. Examples include anti-terrorism legislation, the shutting down of Hezbollah satellite broadcasts, and some laws against hate speech. Critics claim that these limitations may go too far and that there may be no due and fair judicial process.

The common justification for these limits is that they are necessary to guarantee the existence of democracy, or the existence of the freedoms themselves. For example, allowing free speech for those advocating mass murder undermines the right to life and security. Opinion is divided on how far democracy can extend to include the enemies of democracy in the democratic process. If relatively small numbers of people are excluded from such freedoms for these reasons, a country may still be seen as a liberal democracy. Some argue that this is not qualitatively different from autocracies that persecutes opponents, but only quantitatively different, since only a small number of people are affected and the restrictions are less severe. Others emphasize that democracies are different. At least in theory, opponents of democracy are also allowed due process under the rule of law. In principle, democracies allow criticism and change of the leaders and the political and economic system itself; it is only attempts to do so violently and promotion of such violence that is prohibited.

However, many governments considered to be democratic have restrictions upon expressions considered anti-democratic, such as Holocaust denial and hate speech. Members of political organizations with connections to prior totalitarianism (typically communist, fascist, and nazi) parties prohibited and current or former members of such organizations may be deprived of the vote and the privilege of holding certain jobs. Discriminatory behavior may be prohibited, such as refusal by owners of public accommodations to serve persons on grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. In Canada, a printer who refused to print pro-homosexual materials was fined $5,000, incurred $100,000 in legal fees, and was ordered to pay a further $40,000 of his opponents' legal fees.[2]

Other rights considered fundamental in one country may be foreign to other governments. For instance, many Americans consider gun rights and freedom from double jeopardy to be important rights, while other countries do not recognize them as fundamental rights.

[edit] Preconditions

Although they are not part of the system of government as such, a modicum of individual and economic freedoms, which result in the formation of a significant middle class and a broad and flourishing civil society, are often seen as pre-conditions for liberal democracy.

For countries without a strong tradition of democratic majority rule, the introduction of free elections alone has rarely been sufficient to achieve a transition from dictatorship to democracy; a wider shift in the political culture and gradual formation of the institutions of democratic government are needed. There are various examples-- for instance, in Latin America-- of countries that were able to sustain democracy only temporarily or in a limited fashion until wider cultural changes established the conditions under which democracy could flourish.

One of the key aspects of democratic culture is the concept of a "loyal opposition". This is an especially difficult cultural shift to achieve in nations where transitions of power have historically taken place through violence. The term means, in essence, that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to its basic values. Political competitors may disagree, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge the legitimate and important roles that each play. The ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate. In such a society, the losers accept the judgment of the voters when the election is over, and allow for the peaceful transfer of power. The losers are safe in the knowledge that they will neither lose their lives nor their liberty, and will continue to participate in public life. They are loyal not to the specific policies of the government, but to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the democratic process itself.

assumptions:

"the assumption that humans are wise enough to control their own lives"

"free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion, "

freedom house criteria:

" Political Rights Checklist

A. Electoral Process

1. Is the head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?

Did established and reputable national and/or international election monitoring organizations judge the most recent elections for head of government to be free and fair? (Note: Heads of government chosen through various electoral frameworks, including direct elections for president, indirect elections for prime minister by parliament, and the electoral college system for electing presidents, are covered under this and the following sub-questions. In cases of indirect elections for the head of government, the elections for the legislature that chose the head of government, as well as the selection process of the head of government himself, should be taken into consideration.)
Have there been undue, politically motivated delays in holding the most recent election for head of government?
Is the registration of voters and candidates conducted in an accurate, timely, transparent, and nondiscriminatory manner?
Can candidates make speeches, hold public meetings, and enjoy media access throughout the campaign free of intimidation?
Does voting take place by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure?
Are voters able to vote for the candidate or party of their choice without undue pressure or intimidation?
Is the vote count transparent, and is it reported honestly with the official results made public? Can election monitors from independent groups and representing parties/candidates watch the counting of votes to ensure their honesty?
Is each person’s vote given equivalent weight to those of other voters in order to ensure equal representation?
Has a democratically elected head of government who was chosen in the most recent election subsequently been overthrown in a violent coup? (Note: Although a peaceful, “velvet coup” may ultimately lead to a positive outcome—particularly if it replaces a head of government who was not freely and fairly elected—the new leader has not been freely and fairly elected and cannot be treated as such.)
In cases where elections for regional, provincial, or state governors and/or other subnational officials differ significantly in conduct from national elections, does the conduct of the subnational elections reflect an opening toward improved political rights in the country, or, alternatively, a worsening of political rights?

2. Are the national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?

Did established and reputable domestic and/or international election monitoring organizations judge the most recent national legislative elections to be free and fair?
Have there been undue, politically motivated delays in holding the most recent national legislative election?
Is the registration of voters and candidates conducted in an accurate, timely, transparent, and nondiscriminatory manner?
Can candidates make speeches, hold public meetings, and enjoy media access throughout the campaign free of intimidation?
Does voting take place by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure?
Are voters able to vote for the candidate or party of their choice without undue pressure or intimidation?
Is the vote count transparent, and is it reported honestly with the official results made public? Can election monitors from independent groups and representing parties/candidates watch the counting of votes to ensure their honesty?
Is each person’s vote given equivalent weight to those of other voters in order to ensure equal representation?
Have the representatives of a democratically elected national legislature who were chosen in the most recent election subsequently been overthrown in a violent coup? (Note: Although a peaceful, “velvet coup” may ultimately lead to a positive outcome—particularly if it replaces a national legislature whose representatives were not freely and fairly elected—members of the new legislature have not been freely and fairly elected and cannot be treated as such.)
In cases where elections for subnational councils/parliaments differ significantly in conduct from national elections, does the conduct of the subnational elections reflect an opening toward improved political rights in the country, or, alternatively, a worsening of political rights?

3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair?

Is there a clear, detailed, and fair legislative framework for conducting elections? (Note: Changes to electoral laws should not be made immediately preceding an election if the ability of voters, candidates, or parties to fulfill their roles in the election is infringed.)
Are election commissions or other election authorities independent and free from government or other pressure and interference?
Is the composition of election commissions fair and balanced?
Do election commissions or other election authorities conduct their work in an effective and competent manner?
Do adult citizens enjoy universal and equal suffrage? (Note: Suffrage can be suspended or withdrawn for reasons of legal incapacity, such as mental incapacity or conviction of a serious criminal offense.)
Is the drawing of election districts conducted in a fair and nonpartisan manner, as opposed to gerrymandering for personal or partisan advantage?
Has the selection of a system for choosing legislative representatives (such as proportional versus majoritarian) been manipulated to advance certain political interests or to influence the electoral results?

B. Political Pluralism And Participation

1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?

Do political parties encounter undue legal or practical obstacles in their efforts to be formed and to operate, including onerous registration requirements, excessively large membership requirements, etc.?
Do parties face discriminatory or onerous restrictions in holding meetings, rallies, or other peaceful activities?
Are party members or leaders intimidated, harassed, arrested, imprisoned, or subjected to violent attacks as a result of their peaceful political activities?

2. Is there a significant opposition vote and a realistic possibility for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections?

Are various legal/administrative restrictions selectively applied to opposition parties to prevent them from increasing their support base or successfully competing in elections?
Are there legitimate opposition forces in positions of authority, such as in the national legislature or in subnational governments?
Are opposition party members or leaders intimidated, harassed, arrested, imprisoned, or subjected to violent attacks as a result of their peaceful political activities?

3. Are the people’s political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?

Do such groups offer bribes to voters and/or political figures in order to influence their political choices?
Do such groups intimidate, harass, or attack voters and/or political figures in order to influence their political choices?
Does the military control or enjoy a preponderant influence over government policy and activities, including in countries that nominally are under civilian control?
Do foreign governments control or enjoy a preponderant influence over government policy and activities by means including the presence of foreign military troops, the use of significant economic threats or sanctions, etc.?

4. Do cultural, ethnic, religious, or other minority groups have full political rights and electoral opportunities?

Do political parties of various ideological persuasions address issues of specific concern to minority groups?
Does the government inhibit the participation of minority groups in national or sub-national political life through laws and/or practical obstacles?
Are political parties based on ethnicity, culture, or religion which espouse peaceful, democratic values legally permitted and de facto allowed to operate?

C. Functioning Of Government

1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government?

Are the candidates who were elected freely and fairly duly installed in office?
Do other appointed or non-freely elected state actors interfere with or prevent freely elected representatives from adopting and implementing legislation and making meaningful policy decisions?
Do nonstate actors, including criminal gangs, the military, and foreign governments, interfere with or prevent elected representatives from adopting and implementing legislation and making meaningful policy decisions?

2. Is the government free from pervasive corruption?

Has the government implemented effective anticorruption laws or programs to prevent, detect, and punish corruption among public officials, including conflict of interest?
Is the government free from excessive bureaucratic regulations, registration requirements, or other controls that increase opportunities for corruption?
Are there independent and effective auditing and investigative bodies that function without impediment or political pressure or influence?
Are allegations of corruption by government officials thoroughly investigated and prosecuted without prejudice, particularly against political opponents?
Are allegations of corruption given wide and extensive airing in the media?
Do whistle-blowers, anticorruption activists, investigators, and journalists enjoy legal protections that make them feel secure about reporting cases of bribery and corruption?
What was the latest Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index score for this country?

3. Is the government accountable to the electorate between elections, and does it operate with openness and transparency?

Are civil society groups, interest groups, journalists, and other citizens able to comment on and influence pending policies of legislation?
Do citizens have the legal right and practical ability to obtain information about government operations and the means to petition government agencies for it?
Is the budget-making process subject to meaningful legislative review and public scrutiny?
Does the government publish detailed accounting expenditures in a timely fashion?
Does the state ensure transparency and effective competition in the awarding of government contracts?
Are the asset declarations of government officials open to public and media scrutiny and verification?

Additional Discretionary Political Rights Questions:

A. For traditional monarchies that have no parties or electoral process, does the system provide for genuine, meaningful consultation with the people, encourage public discussion of policy choices, and allow the right to petition the ruler?

Is there a non-elected legislature that advises the monarch on policy issues?
Are there formal mechanisms for individuals or civic groups to speak with or petition the monarch?
Does the monarch take petitions from the public under serious consideration?

B. Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?

Is the government providing economic or other incentives to certain people in order to change the ethnic composition of a region or regions?
Is the government forcibly moving people in or out of certain areas in order to change the ethnic composition of those regions?
Is the government arresting, imprisoning, or killing members of certain ethnic groups in order change the ethnic composition of a region or regions?

Civil Liberties Checklist

D. Freedom Of Expression And Belief

1. Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? (Note: In cases where the media are state controlled but offer pluralistic points of view, the survey gives the system credit.)

Does the government directly or indirectly censor print, broadcast, and/or Internet-based media?
Is self-censorship among journalists common, especially when reporting on politically sensitive issues, including corruption or the activities of senior officials?
Does the government use libel and security laws to punish those who scrutinize government officials and policies through either onerous fines or imprisonment?
Is it a crime to insult the honor and dignity of the president and/or other government officials? How broad is the range of such prohibitions, and how vigorously are they enforced?
If media outlets are dependent on the government for their financial survival, does the government withhold funding in order to propagandize, primarily provide official points of view, and/or limit access by opposition parties and civic critics?
Does the government attempt to influence media content and access through means including politically motivated awarding of broadcast frequencies and newspaper registrations, unfair control and influence over printing facilities and distribution networks, selective distribution of advertising, onerous registration requirements, prohibitive tariffs, and bribery?
Are journalists threatened, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, or killed by government or nongovernmental actors for their legitimate journalistic activities, and if such cases occur, are they investigated and prosecuted fairly and expeditiously?
Are works of literature, art, music, and other forms of cultural expression censored or banned for political purposes?

2. Are religious institutions and communities free to practice their faith and express themselves in public and private?

Are registration requirements employed to impede the free functioning of religious institutions?
Are members of religious groups, including minority faiths and movements, harassed, fined, arrested, or beaten by the authorities for engaging in their religious practices?
Does the government appoint or otherwise influence the appointment of religious leaders?
Does the government control the production and distribution of religious books and other materials and the content of sermons?
Is the construction of religious buildings banned or restricted?
Does the government place undue restrictions on religious education? Does the government require religious education?

3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free of extensive political indoctrination?

Are teachers and professors free to pursue academic activities of a political and quasi-political nature without fear of physical violence or intimidation by state or nonstate actors?
Does the government pressure, strongly influence, or control the content of school curriculums for political purposes?
Are student associations that address issues of a political nature allowed to function freely?
Does the government, including through school administration or other officials, pressure students and/or teachers to support certain political figures or agendas, including pressuring them to attend political rallies or vote for certain candidates? Conversely, does the government, including through school administration or other officials, discourage or forbid students and/or teachers from supporting certain candidates and parties?

4. Is there open and free private discussion?

Are people able to engage in private discussions, particularly of a political nature (in places including restaurants, public transportation, and their homes) without fear of harassment or arrest by the authorities?
Does the government employ people or groups to engage in public surveillance and to report alleged antigovernment conversations to the authorities?

E. Associational And Organizational Rights

1. Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion?

Are peaceful protests, particularly those of a political nature, banned or severely restricted?
Are the legal requirements to obtain permission to hold peaceful demonstrations particularly cumbersome and time consuming?
Are participants of peaceful demonstrations intimidated, arrested, or assaulted?
Are peaceful protestors detained by police in order to prevent them from engaging in such actions?

2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations? (Note: This includes civic organizations, interest groups, foundations, etc.)

Are registration and other legal requirements for nongovernmental organizations particularly onerous and intended to prevent them from functioning freely?
Are laws related to the financing of nongovernmental organizations unduly complicated and cumbersome?
Are donors and funders of nongovernmental organizations free of government pressure?
Are members of nongovernmental organizations intimidated, arrested, imprisoned, or assaulted because of their work?

3. Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?

Are trade unions allowed to be established and to operate free from government interference?
Are workers pressured by the government or employers to join or not to join certain trade unions, and do they face harassment, violence, or dismissal from their jobs if they do?
Are workers permitted to engage in strikes, and do members of unions face reprisals for engaging in peaceful strikes? (Note: This question may not apply to workers in essential government services or public safety jobs.)
Are unions able to bargain collectively with employers and able to negotiate collective bargaining agreements that are honored in practice?
For states with very small populations or primarily agriculturally-based economies that do not necessarily support the formation of trade unions, does the government allow for the establishment of peasant organizations or their equivalents? Is there legislation expressively forbidding the formation of trade unions?
Are professional organizations, including business associations, allowed to operate freely and without government interference?

F. Rule Of Law

1. Is there an independent judiciary?

Is the judiciary subject to interference from the executive branch of government or from other political, economic, or religious influences?
Are judges appointed and dismissed in a fair and unbiased manner?
Do judges rule fairly and impartially, or do they commonly render verdicts that favor the government or particular interests, whether in return for bribes or other reasons?
Do executive, legislative, and other governmental authorities comply with judicial decisions, and are these decisions effectively enforced?
Do powerful private concerns comply with judicial decisions, and are decisions that run counter to the interests of powerful actors effectively enforced?

2. Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Are police under direct civilian control?

Are defendants’ rights, including the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, protected?
Are detainees provided access to independent, competent legal counsel?
Are defendants given a fair, public, and timely hearing by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal?
Are prosecutors independent of political control and influence?
Are prosecutors independent of powerful private interests, whether legal or illegal?
Is there effective and democratic civilian state control of law enforcement officials through the judicial, legislative, and executive branches?
Are law enforcement officials free from the influence of nonstate actors, including organized crime, powerful commercial interests, or other groups?

3. Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that support or oppose the system? Is there freedom from war and insurgencies?

Do law enforcement officials make arbitrary arrests and detentions without warrants or fabricate or plant evidence on suspects?
Do law enforcement officials beat detainees during arrest and interrogation or use excessive force or torture to extract confessions?
Are conditions in pretrial facilities and prisons humane and respectful of the human dignity of inmates?
Do citizens have the means of effective petition and redress when their rights are violated by state authorities?
Is violent crime either against specific groups or within the general population widespread?
Is the population subjected to physical harm, forced removal, or other acts of violence or terror due to civil conflict or war?

4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population?

Are members of various distinct groups—including ethnic and religious minorities, homosexuals, and the disabled—able to exercise effectively their human rights with full equality before the law?
Is violence against such groups widespread, and if so, are perpetrators brought to justice?
Do members of such groups face legal and/or de facto discrimination in areas including employment, education, and housing because of their identification with a particular group?
Do women enjoy full equality in law and in practice as compared to men?
Do noncitizens—including migrant workers and noncitizen immigrants—enjoy basic internationally recognized human rights, including the right not to be subjected to torture or other forms of ill-treatment, the right to due process of law, and the rights of freedom of association, expression, and religion?
Do the country’s laws provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and other regional treaties regarding refugees? Has the government established a system for providing protection to refugees, including against refoulement (the return of persons to a country where there is reason to believe they fear persecution)?

G. Personal Autonomy And Individual Rights

1. Does the state control travel or choice of residence, employment, or institution of higher education?

Are there restrictions on foreign travel, including the use of an exit visa system, which may be issued selectively?
Is permission required from the authorities to move within the country?
Does the government determine or otherwise influence a person’s type and place of employment?
Are bribes or other inducements for government officials needed to obtain the necessary documents to travel, change one’s place of residence or employment, enter institutions of higher education, or advance in school?

2. Do citizens have the right to own property and establish private businesses? Is private business activity unduly influenced by government officials, the security forces, political parties/organizations, or organized crime?

Are people legally allowed to purchase and sell land and other property, and can they do so in practice without undue interference from the government or nonstate actors?
Does the government provide adequate and timely compensation to people whose property is expropriated under eminent domain laws?
Are people legally allowed to establish and operate private businesses with a reasonable minimum of registration, licensing, and other requirements?
Are bribes or other inducements needed to obtain the necessary legal documents to operate private businesses?
Do private/nonstate actors, including criminal groups, seriously impede private business activities through such measures as extortion?

3. Are there personal social freedoms, including gender equality, choice of marriage partners, and size of family?

Is violence against women, including wife-beating and rape, widespread, and are perpetrators brought to justice?
Is the trafficking of women and/or children abroad for prostitution widespread, and is the government taking adequate efforts to address the problem?
Do women face de jure and de facto discrimination in economic and social matters, including property and inheritance rights, divorce proceedings, and child custody matters?
Does the government directly or indirectly control choice of marriage partners through means such as requiring large payments to marry certain individuals (e.g., foreign citizens) or by not enforcing laws against child marriage or dowry payments?
Does the government determine the number of children that a couple may have?
Does the government engage in state-sponsored religious/cultural/ethnic indoctrination and related restrictions on personal freedoms?
Do private institutions, including religious groups, unduly infringe on the rights of individuals, including choice of marriage partner, dress, etc.?

4. Is there equality of opportunity and the absence of economic exploitation?

Does the government exert tight control over the economy, including through state ownership and the setting of prices and production quotas?
Do the economic benefits from large state industries, including the energy sector, benefit the general population or only a privileged few?
Do private interests exert undue influence on the economy through monopolistic practices, cartels, or illegal blacklists, boycotts, or discrimination?
Is entrance to institutions of higher education or the ability to obtain employment limited by widespread nepotism and the payment of bribes?
Are certain groups, including ethnic or religious minorities, less able to enjoy certain economic benefits than others? For example, are certain groups restricted from holding particular jobs, whether in the public or the private sector, because of de jure or de facto discrimination?
Do state or private employers exploit their workers through activities including unfairly withholding wages and permitting or forcing employees to work under unacceptably dangerous conditions, as well as through adult slave labor and child labor?

todo: read http://www.amoreperfectconstitution.com/23_proposals.htm

todo:

check out political science on federalism

http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/archive/ http://www.federalism-e.com/

todo: principle of Subsidiarity (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_of_Local_Self-Government)

todo: maybe everyone has a right to vote, but certain selected subsets are required to vote? college-educated people, perhaps?

todo: mandatory census every decade

some defs from http://www.jerf.org/iri/blogbook/communication_ethics/printable (Jeremy Bowers):

censorship Censorship is the act of changing a message, including the act of deletion, between the sender and the receiver, without the sender's and receiver's consent and knowledge.

the right to free speech The right to express any expression in public, and the corresponding right to experience anybody's expressions in public, without being pressured, denied access, arrested, or otherwise punished by anyone, subject to somewhat fuzzy, but fairly well-understood exceptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society

http://www.moreperfect.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The Scandinavian tradition of open government and the European Union: problems of compatibility? C Grønbech-Jensen - Journal of European Public Policy, 1998 - informaworld.com

'Freedom of the Press Act'. Today public access is regulated by a revised 'Freedom of the Press Act' which is one of Sweden's constitutional laws. The 'Transparency Principle' as outlined in the Act comprises four main elements. First, public access to official documents. Second, public access to Court hearings. Third, the right to attend meetings of parliamentary and municipal assemblies. Finally; freedom of expression for civil servants. The 'Transparency Principle' is not unrestricted, however. The Swedish 'Secrecy Act' of 1981 outlines the exemptions, under which ...

files and registers located at public authorities. The public authorities are obliged to provide documents or access to these without dela~ There are two exemptions, however, to the right of access. First, there is only a right of access to official docu- ments, not to internal documents such as personal notes and working documents, and draft legislation. When a document passes from one public authority to another it automatically takes the character of an official document. Second, official documents may be kept secret to protect the following interests: · the security of the realm and its relations to a foreign state or an international organization; · external economic policy interests of the realm; · the activities of a public authority for the purpose of inspection, control or other supervision; · the prevention or prosecution of a crime; · the economic interests of the state or the municipalities; · the protection of the personal or financial position of individuals. Official documents are not held secret according to category. Every request for access to a document must be subject to evaluation regarding the considerations listed above. A refusal of access must contain a justification and information on how and where to file a complaint. Should only a certain part of an official document seriously threaten one of the above mentioned interests, the public authority is obliged to provide the applicant with the rest of the document. Also, the public authority can choose to provide a document under the condition that it is not published but only used for research. Application for public access is controlled by the Ombudsman, who has himself extended access to documents to include internal documents of public authorities. Finally, a denial of access can be challenged in the national courts. In Sweden, all official documents including all in- and outgoing mail of public authorities - from field agencies of the public administration to the Prime Minister's office - are registered and the files are open to direct public access. This facilitates citizens' knowledge of available public documents and renders Swedish policy- making and administration more transparent than the Danish. Another element in Swedish legislation that clearly goes further than the Danish is the right of civil servants to communicate information to the press and other media. According to this principle, civil servants can pass on information, secret or not, to the media for the purpose of publication. However, this right does not include a right to pass over the actual documents which contain that confidential information. In Denmark, regulations governing the rights of civil servants to pass

To make changes to the Constitution, amendments must be approved twice by the Eduskunta, in two successive electoral periods with a general election held in between.

parliamentary immunity: without the Parliament's approval, members may not be prosecuted for anything they say in session or otherwise do in the course of parliamentary proceedings, or be arrested or detained except for serious offences.

If the bill entails a change in constitution, the second session takes place only after the next election unless the parliament decides to declare the matter to be urgent by a majority of five sixths

The committee statement is discussed by the parliament in two consecutive sessions. In the first session, the parliament discusses the bill and prepares its final form. In the first part of handling, a general discussion of the bill is undertaken. After this, the parliament discusses individual points of the bill and chooses between the bill proposed by the committee, minority opinions and the eventual other forms the members submit during the discussion. If the parliament wishes to do so, it may during the general discussion of the first handling submit the bill to the Grand Committee for further formulation. The bill is also always treated by the Grand Committee if the parliament decides to adopt any other form than the final opinion of the committee. The committee then formulates its own version of the bill and submits this to the parliament which then adopts either its former version or the version of the Grand Committee.

neat article:

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31927/title/The_undeciders_ http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2202

ideas for lists of cabinet responsibilities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Iceland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cabinet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Germany

names

ok, i'm renaming the three houses b/c "high council" sounds too fantasical.

dd house = "forum" (or "house of commons"?) indirect hier house = "assembly". (superior assembly? supreme assembly? principal assembly? high assembly? federal assembly? national assembly?). and the lower assemblies are "citizen's assemblies" or "member's assemblies" or "popular assemblies". pr house = "senate"

a remaining problem is that today's non-governmental groups may feel silly using names like these (even though they have "presidents"...). another idea could be to name the lower assemblies and upper assembly differently, allowing the lower ones to be "member's councils":

dd house = forum indirect hier house = senate pr house =

wait, how about just "central council" for the indirect hier house?

or, instead of separate two group words like "council" and "senate", have one group word (council or commission) and two types of rep words, like:

dd house = forum indirect hier house = central delegates commission pr house = elected commission

dd house = forum indirect hier house = central council of delegates pr house = council of elects

in either case, we have "citizen's councils".

these words sound properly boring and serious. the second phrasing has the advantage that all legislative groups are called "councils". but maybe that's a disadvantage, since it's hard to keep straight the principal bodies (i.e. everyone is a "councillor"). so:

dd house = forum indirect hier house = delegates commission (members are "delegate commissioners") (actually "central" and "external" delegates commisions) pr house = elected commision (members are "elects" for short, or "elected commissioners") (actually "central" and "external" elected commisions) influenced by "members' councils"

the commissioners appoint: CEO -- central executive officer EEO -- external executive officer and these people appoint the other high officials.

and the commissioners also appoint: procedural officers judicial officers

there are also the tribunes. if that word is too governmental, private organizations could call them "internal auditors" or "internal investigators". actually, maybe "ombudsman" is the current best term, although i want the tribunes to act proactively and on behalf of classes of members, rather than spending their time reacting to individual complaints. hmmm. maybe the oldest tribune (by election, not personal age) could also become "ombudsman", whereas the younger two are pure independent tribunes. that sounds good, because it prevents the office from reverting to a reactive ombudsman office.

using government terminology, we would call the members "citizens", the CEO a "prime minister" and the EAO "foreign minister", the commissions "legislative houses", the other high officials "ministers".

the three houses together correspond to "parliament" or to the corporate "board of directors". the CEO and EAO and their appointees constitute the "cabinet" or "upper management".

actually, i don't like "investigator"; let's stick with "tribune" or "auditor".

mb should call the OP the BP, "board of procedure".

todo (general)

forbid granting of honors by the state; naming things after people; declaring holidays or certain time periods or places or objects to be linked to/in commemoration of certain individuals or organizations or events or subject matters.

during a member's speaking time in live meetings, they can show a video or whatever if they want -- they are limited only by time

superior method for budget: http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/budget.htm

(wording) when the legislative group size exceeds 5, a Cabinet must be created. the Cabinet may never have more than floor(groupSz/2) members. Cabinet members are called Ministers. The PM/FM is not a Cabinet member. Cabinet members may be legislators or not. Cabinet members are nominated by the PM/FM and confirmed by a submajority (2/5) vote of the same body that chooses the PM/FM. Ministers may be removed at any time by the PM/FM and their portfolio may be temporarily reassigned to another confirmed Minister, for a period of time, and under conditions, that may be limited by law. Cabinet positions and portfolios are created and specified by law. Except as explicitly specified in this constitution, the PM/FM may not exercise power except through cabinet ministers.

replace dd senate layers with a single dd interface for the councils of every layer, with 1/(L-1) of the power going to each layer (the High Council is not in this).

 add 10% to  voting threshold for undercouncils b/c of gerrymandering.

despite ban on money, constituencies need SOME money in order to rent places to meet, communicate with members, and attract new members. say $2000 per 1000-person constituency (about .7 billion dollars for the US). maybe coordination is allowed between constituencies, but only when paid for by the upper-level constituency's small amount of funds. money cannot be used for political advertising aside from attracting members

some groups may not want to scale up as fast as these rules say, because most of the members are politically inactive. by a std (60%) majority, a resolution may be passed freezing the "effective n" less than or equal to some size, provided that, in the previous election, this is greater than or equal to the "effective n" that would be calculated if only those who cast votes in that election were members. furthermore, the "effective n" ceiling provided in the resolution may be raised to some other ceiling less than or equal to "m" if a list of signatures is presented to the OP, such that (a) there are more than m distinct signatures on the list, (b) the list members collectively own at least 1/4 of the votes.

so for example, the group may freeze at n = 143, in order to avoid going past the transition point beyond which commission of delegates, and term limits, are mandated. this is possible if, for example, less than 144 people voted in the previous election, or if many people voted but 50% of the votes are owned by a small group. however, this can be overturned if at least 144 distinct people, with at least 1/4 of the number of votes cast in the previous election, sign a petition to that effect.

(since a majority of the voters could simply overturn such a resolution, either in the forum or via the elected commission, the fact that is has not been so overturned implies that only a minority support raising the ceiling; so we can assume that the 144 people on the list are out of at least 288 total members. note that under a one-person/one-vote system, 144 people are sufficient to force the transition until there more than 577 members vote in elections, at which point they fall below the 1/4 requirement)

actual number of outstanding votes, not "effective n", is used to calculate delegate support thresholds (but "effective n" is used to decide how many layers of delegates there are).

heck, maybe effective n should just go up when votes cast in an election exceed some amount -- and remove the corresponding requirement in order to pass a ceiling resolution.

toread: warren smith's transitive issue juries: www.math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/dirdem.pdf

additional procedure for topic tokens that allows unknown proposals to bubble up:

in addition to their tokens, each person has 1 opportunity per time period (which is save-upable) to engage in "moderation", which is as follows. the system presents them with a proposed topic, and then can either vote it up, vote it down, or not vote on it (not voting has no effect, exactly as if they didn't use their moderation opportunity -- the moderation opportunity is not used up -- by not using up the moderation opp, you encourage them not to vote on things that they don't want to bother to read -- otherwise they might simply vote such things down).

each time someone votes "yes", the moderation system adds a "free" (i.e. not recycled/recyclable) token to the token count of the proposal.

here is how the system decides which proposal to give you each time you use an opportunity. the system keeps track of the vote tallies, and calculates (a) the number of people who have voted on each topic, (b) the proportion of yes/(yes+no) votes for each topic. once some threshold (a) of people have examined a proposal, the system stops presenting it to more people (alternately, we could use this system to completion to pass proposals, but if we did that, so many people would have seen the proposal before the debate and made a snap decision that the effect of the deliberation/debate might be lessened, because the people who saw the question this way made up their mind without thinking too hard and then maybe their position hardened). for all proposals below the (a) threshold, each time someone logs in, the system presents them with a randomly chosen proposal, with the propability of choosing each one proportional to its (b).

the threshold for (a) might be some fixed fraction of the average winning bid in the token contest for the last 5 topics, or something like that. perhaps (noting that a proposal that only 50% of people liked would only get 1/2 of the "fixed threshold" as tokens), this fraction should be rather large, such as 1. otoh, since the other system is necessary to decide between similar proposals, perhaps this fraction should be smaller, such as .5.

this bubbling-up system is similar to range voting. it is also similar to reddit's top, except that reddit doesn't have an (a) cap, and that users of the top view are only exposed to the k top candidates, rather than exposed to a distribution. (note also that neither this system, nor reddit's top are proportional -- otoh, mb this system IS proportional when you take in account the propensity of people to "save their moderation tokens" for proposals they really like (or dislike).

maybe a token should be taken away for dislikes, so that people don't feel they 'waste' their free tokens? in this case the "free tokens" assigned to each proposal represents the difference between likes and dislikes, and proposals with 60% support will only get .1*((a) ceiling) tokens at the end. but this allows the group to prevent disliked proposals from even coming to debate, unless the supporters save up double the usual amount of tokens (if (a) ceiling = 1, and about 100% of the group dislikes the proposal). then again, mb that ain't so bad. in this case, i guess the ceiling should be 1, or even greater, b/c otherwise even 60%-supported props won't be helped much.

also, mb this bubbling-up system should take into account transferred tokens and wanna-be transferred tokens, using it to "transfer" popularity only for the purpose of computing (b) (not for the actual tokens added or subtracted). this allows replacement proposals to be recognized. moderation tokens can't be transferred or wanna-be transferred, however (this would allow members of special interest groups to use their moderation tokens to support their special-interest proposals).

Tribunes may be impeached for any reason by a 2/3 vote of the Legislature. At this point, a referendum is held, and a 2/3 popular vote is needed to remove them.

echo '----' > /tmp/delimit.txt; cat bylaws.txt /tmp/delimit.txt enact.txt amend.txt /tmp/delimit.txt forum.txt /tmp/delimit.txt simplifiedForumRules.txt /tmp/delimit.txt forumRules.txt /tmp/delimit.txt electCommission.txt /tmp/delimit.txt councils.txt /tmp/delimit.txt delegatePyramid.txt /tmp/delimit.txt commissionRules.txt /tmp/delimit.txt executive.txt ceo.txt executiveTeam.txt quasiIndepenentAgency.txt /tmp/delimit.txt highCourt.txt chairs.txt selectionOfJudgesAndChairs.txt /tmp/delimit.txt tribune.txt /tmp/delimit.txt effectiveGroupSize.txt electoralCycle.txt internalExternal.txt franchise.txt partyDiscipline.txt majorContract.txt orderOfPrecedence.txt rank.txt electingRecallableDelegate.txt referendaInitiatives.txt removal.txt renew.txt simultaneousOffices.txt termLimits.txt transparency.txt tieHands.txt voteTrading.txt voteThresholds.txt /tmp/delimit.txt glossary.txt > singlePage.txt

Footnotes:

1. by counting the names in http://www.debian.org/devel/people

2. according to according to http://physics.ucsd.edu/was-sdphul/dept/pr/gintro.html

3. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population#Forecast_of_world_population, among other places

4. 1e18 is one estimate for the population supportable by a Dyson sphere (or swarm, whatever):

To estimate the population supportable by a Dyson sphere, I'll look at energy and land. The total energy output of the sun is about 4e26 watts (according to http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-dyson-sphere.htm and http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html). The current energy flux into the Earth is about 174e15 watts (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget). So energy-wise, a Dyson sphere would gain a factor of about 10^11 compared to the Earth. A Dyson sphere with a radius of one AU would have a surface area of at least 2.72e17 km^2, around 600 million times the surface area of the Earth. (according to http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html). http://users.rcn.com/jasp.javanet/dyson/ estimates a factor of about 300 million. So land-wise, that's a factor of about 10^8 compared to the Earth. So land appears to be the bottleneck. So we estimate a population gain of about 10^8. http://class.ee.iastate.edu/berleant/home/Research/Future/Course/sessionGott.html agrees with this estimate.

A current estimate for the peak population of the Earth, for the foreseeable future, is about 9e9; multiplied by 10^8, we get something on the order of 1e18.

Of course, if we were to build a Dyson sphere, other things would probably change in the meantime that would render these estimates incorrect, and perhaps someday there could be an assemblage of more than 1e18 individuals. But 1e18 is anyhow a number that is much, much, much, larger than anything we'll have to deal with in the forseeable future, so in any case, it's a ridiculously large number.

5. "voluntary constituencies"

6. Some bills, such as budgets, must regularly be re-issued and have very bad consequences (such as non-payment of government employees and defaults on debt) if they are not re-issued on time. A high voting threshold could make it hard to pass these bills on time. Therefore, such bills may be marked "Rewewable", in which case, as a stopgap measure, the bill may be re-issued exactly as before if a compromise cannot be reached.

7. For example, the Legislature may make a statue that delegates monetary policy to a quasi-independent agency, and that the Legislature cannot interfere with monetary policy without a 2/3 vote

8. this was in fact similar to the mechanism for Hitler's rise to power; see the Enabling Act, which was passed during a state of emergency established by the Reichstag Fire Decree, during which normal deliberation was suppressed (Communist and some Social Democratic representatives had been arrested, and the Reichstag was intimidated by the SA during voting). The Enabling Act permitted Hitler to ignore the constitution. With this power, he turned the legislature into his puppet and had the Enabling Act renewed.

9. One could imagine that, as a compromise or as a tactical maneuver, the Legislature might wish to pass an annual budget without a Renewable mark. This could cause trouble the next year if a new budget could not agreed upon in a timely manner. Therefore, it is prohibited.

10. This makes it easy to reduce the amount of legal text, aiding simplicity.

ideas-hypotheticalConstitution-notes

Notes

ideas specific to application

govmt app

External affairs

Public Auditors

Employment status of Public Auditors

Exceptional conditions

The Normal condition

Minor Exceptional Conditions

The Major Exceptional Condition

Time limits

Limitations on amendments to the bylaws

corp application

analysis notes (todo)

Motivation for the size of the senate, the number of layers, and the minimal vote thresholds for each layer

Limitations on Amendments during Emergency Conditions

Technical vetos

toread (general)

toread (govmt application)

names

todo (general)

related groups