Liquid Democracy in the Global Hash Village
Liquid democracy concept is great mixture of direct democracy (for example use of referendums) and indirect democracy (representatives, parliaments etc.). Each citizen has it’s own vote and can take part in any poll personally. If citizen is not willing to participate in voting or feels incompetent in some issues he or she can delegate the vote for specific category (or all categories) to another person - called delegate. The delegate is free to transfer his/her own and other’s votes further to another delegate. What is also interesting that in liquid democracy the voting could be separated to two stages - delegates could vote first and their votes are kind of proposals. In second stage the citizens that delegated their votes can review the vote of the delegate with possibility to revoke it and vote personally. In both stages each person can vote by himself/herself.
More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
This amazing system keeps delegates accountable all the time. Citizens who delegated their powers can review decisions of their delegates. It is hard to imagine for example bribing (by some lobbyists or groups of power) half of the voters - especially keeping in mind that next week or month after debate the vote can be repeated. The role of the parties in new system could be to deliver number of specialists and help with writing and validation of new proposals.
Liquid Democracy also encourages citizens to create their own proposals. There are no small issues. It is easy to propose your own change of law. When currently in most systems it is very hard to gather interest and push the problem through parties in future even the smallest idea can be published within the system on provided forum, get support of other citizens, get debated by specialists and public and finally get voted. The laws can be easily finetuned and improved. It is easy to prepare simple questions to be voted - for example “Do you agree to increase the taxes by ~2 bln in order to fully fund cancer treatment to everyone” with explanation what are all the pros and cons. Next month after some discussion citizens might improve the rule by adding conditions that only older citizens get treatment for free and others pay 50% etc or the treatment is extended not only to cancer treatment but also other illnesses...
One of possible weaknesses of the Liquid Democracy is its suitability for populist groups that publish rather emotional and sometimes anti-scientific arguments. Therefore the debates should have anti-populist and anti-fake mechanisms. Global Hash Village has a concept of the system that validates public information and statements. Such system allows invalidation of false claims and makes it much easier to debate ideas. The final proposal for the vote (for example the top page for the discussion on forum) should be written in very easy language with all pros and cons clearly stated to allow informed decision even for children (or people less skilled in given topic). Scientific consensus or lack of it should be clearly stated. Democratic system should still allow to make ideological choices (this is not a technocratic system) - but hopefully with such clear and meritorious debate and improved education all the false ideologies will be eradicated in time.
All the proposals of new rules, laws, taxes and excises should be (even if not at time when proposed then as a result of the debate) formulated and presented to the community with their motivation and reasoning and list of consequences plus they should contain links to published scientific papers if applicable and possible. Proposals should be validated by team of scientists and rationalists that would confirm they are science based and properly formed. Proposal can be then discussed, updated. All inputs (comments) to the discussion must also follow the validation/moderation process. Finally the proposal should contain consensus of all the comments with all pros and cons written in simplest possible terms. Such system should allow citizens to make informed decisions and ensure the decisions are well explained and debated with all the consequences known.
Such system provides ultimately proportional representation. Each citizen counts for one and no one can say he or she had no chance to vote. Ease of participation also allows everyone to propose new laws and take part in the debates. Without proper debate and support of half of population it is not possible to change the law (opposite to current system where lobbyist can get control over ruling party and enforce laws good for their groups of interest and not for the whole community and also obscure the public debate by their influence on media)
Modern technology could allow everyone to participate easily in voting and debate by means of any electronic devices - even phones. Most people nowadays have access to mobile phones, tablets and computers. For elderly and/or (technologically) disabled citizens there could be publicly accessible computers (public libraries, town halls) or even mobile service (public laptops delivered by public worker with help) that would allow everyone to take part at least in voting.
Public distributed debate and voting systems based on DLT technologies can be made very cheap while providing highest levels of security. There are examples, like https://www.democracy.earth/, of DLT systems showing possibility of incognito voting and feasibility of such system.
Liquid democracy implementation in Global Hash Village takes into account that we still have nations, countries, states and unions of states (EU, USA). Therefore it is needed to offer multi-level voting system. When there is some global decision to be made (vote) like for example carbon tax, it could automatically be ratified in each country just by counting the votes by each constituting country or union.
The delegates in the democratic countries are appointed naturally by other citizens. Noteworthy is fact that the unwillingness of some countries to democratize its governance is not a prohibiting factor to become important and valid partner for global decision making. In such cases the country can elect their representatives in the way they want while sharing the country’s voting power (population) among them. The system described here aims to provide governing methods from the smallest possible autonomous groups via the city-, county- and country- level up to the state unions and global world.
To propose the new laws or rules it is possible to use any kind of internet forum, Modern concepts how to present arguments and discuss can be seen here https://www.kialo.com/ It shows nicely how the public debate could look like in future and that people can show support for the issue in kind moderated manner to reach consensus.
To carry out the decisions made by the voters there is no need for strict and fixed government as we know today. Some Courts, Tribunals, Task Forces may be created to control if some laws are introduced and obeyed but each case should be debated separately and the "tool" should be proportional to the graveness of the issue.
Global Hash Village system offers the technical means for successful implementation of liquid democracy ideas on global scale while proposing direct and indirect methods to solve both country-wide and a worldwide problems that are forgotten by, or are stuck within the current political systems.