Would the Unix Philosophy when applied to country building help with this problem?
The next step, however, would be to educate the populous so that all voters were informed, and that voters would be presented (in an elegant fashion) with what is relevant to their districts on the three tiers of national, state, and local policy. I don't know if Unix has a good metaphor or reflection of this, but unix is meant to be a) modular and b) minimalist, so if we can sponsor the idea of true modularity in voting, I think we could see some full-participation schemes that are not overwhelming. I don't have to vote on every issue, but could vote on collections of issues that reflect my general ideology or current understanding of what best suits the republic.
Another issue though, is ownership. In the Feudalistic Republic of the United States (as of 2016) it's hard to describe a system that could be adopted reasonably that promotes the idea that all the nation belongs to everyone in it. We have some things like "the right to life, liberty, and property [often misquoted as 'happiness' at the end here]" and how does one reconcile this idea of property with a truly harmonious community? Good question.
So in short, the basis of the Unix philosophy would help (especially with law versioning, that is just what needs to happen and is so brilliant and clear I am surprised there is not greater traction for it). All Laws need time limits (and easy renew options if they are good)... And the entire populous needs higher quality information that [forces?] causes people to consider the community at large.
/rattle like a snake
Re "If all legislation followed the model presented by git (versioning, increments, branches, merges, and total transparency) I think that it would reflect positively on a true democracy."
I have had the exact same thought. It would be hugely inspiring for democracy and be an amazing vitamin injection into how we use the rules we have.
>SECTION 2. Said section 35 of said chapter 123, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by striking out the words “is an alcoholic or substance abuser”, in lines 17 and 18, and inserting in place thereof the following words:- has an alcohol or substance use disorder.
>SECTION 3. Said section 35 of said chapter 123, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by inserting after the word “a”, in line 36, the third time it appears, the following word:- qualified.
>SECTION 4. Said section 35 of said chapter 123, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by striking out the fourth and fifth paragraphs and inserting in place thereof the following 3 paragraphs:-
As someone who attempts to keep informed about changes to the law, this style is a huge obstacle. It often necessitates a lot of manual piecing-together in order to form a complete view of the final change. A simple diff view would make it much easier to understand.
I have considered tracking changes to the law in git, including representing bills as branches, as a side project idea, but I determined it would require far more effort than I am willing to put in.
Perhaps an open-source effort that does this (tracks and updates current laws and shows diffs) could be a worthwhile beginning?
I think every senator and representative that has ever had to amend legislation would delight at the thought.
It would be the perfect grad project for someone interesting in bridging the gap between computation/machine learning and legislation.
Of course, it would be a little tedious setting up the learning (thousands of sets of input cases and output cases) but in the end the findings could be used across the board.
How do you think the relations between institutions would be different, how do you think they would perform their functions differently? What would their structures be?
Or focus on some specific example -How would voting be different? -How would registering for a licence be different? -How would taxation be different?
Like maybe I want my 12.2 to go to education for kids 6mnths-12years, or maybe I want to fund state medicines, and my neighbor and I both pay the base rate that covers necessities like roads and stuff, but he may fund shelters instead of medicine specifically with his 12point2. It could be really wonderful.
In effect, people may become more participatory in their own governing systems, and could actually direct funds instead of relying on bill-makers to figure out where to spend monies/resources.