Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DemocracyOS

democracyos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 160 posts

Re: DemocracyOS

#21

Post by lugg »

r0naa wrote: post #13
broodbucket wrote: post #10

As with others, I am really struggling to see why this has "OS" in the name. It's not an operating system. I'm guessing it stands for "open source", which isn't really an acronym people use in favour of OSS/FOSS (probably because OS already has a very well established meaning). Can someone share some insight on the naming decision?

Well, I think that it's a relevant analogy to what an operating system does. Like an OS a system of government (like Democracy) manages a collection of physical elements (institutions) and serves as an interface between those and the end-users (citizens.)

That's a metaphor, and its confusing if not mildly infuriating.

Re: DemocracyOS

#22

Post by pekk »

If people scrape together a few votes and do not get their wishes rammed through, they will complain exactly like they complained about the White House petition site - because it was not a direct way of getting in legislation to (say) legalize marijuana. I don't see how DemocracyOS can solve that problem.

Re: DemocracyOS

#24

Post by piamancini »

joneil wrote: post #7

I think this is great - it's an attempted solution to an important, difficult problem, and they've got a number of interesting angles. In particular I think the branching of proposals, and hopefully being able to diff / blame, could be as important, or more important, than trusted voting. I look forward to seeing more of the implementation. Congrats on the launch, and thanks for working on a difficult problem that we…

Thank you! Totally agree with the branching aspect and yesterday we were playing with some ideas to order debate in pros&cons. Also, we are looking for funding to form a blockchain team, to validate democracyos votes in bc. All ideas are super welcome! pia@democracyos.org

Re: DemocracyOS

#25

Post by santisiri »

broodbucket wrote: post #10

As with others, I am really struggling to see why this has "OS" in the name. It's not an operating system. I'm guessing it stands for "open source", which isn't really an acronym people use in favour of OSS/FOSS (probably because OS already has a very well established meaning). Can someone share some insight on the naming decision?

It's meant to be open for many intepretations: - Open Source because, well, we are open source (github.com/democracyos/app) - Operating System because, well, we aim to build a layer on top of the current political system. - Open Society becasue, well, we aim for societies to become more participatory and democratic.

Pick your favorite flavor.. the goal is to nail how democracy should work in the 21st century.

Re: DemocracyOS

#26

Post by privong »

saraid216 wrote: post #18
jtmurphy wrote: post #9

Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

Ironically, the solution to tyranny of the majority is a strong executive.

> Ironically, the solution to tyranny of the majority is a strong executive.

That isn't sufficient in and of itself, to be ironic. If the strong executive lacks stringent limits on its power and domain of influence, then it is ironic. But, a strong executive is likely necessary in even a libertarian-styled government, to protect rights by enforcing "legitimate" laws (where "legitimate" is open to interpretation and opinion). But the distinction is that the strong executive in a libertarian-style government has a strictly limited domain over which it exercises power.

Strength and scope are different things, despite their frequent conflation in [American] politics.

Re: DemocracyOS

#27

Post by piamancini »

jtmurphy wrote: post #9

Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

It's a super valid point. We are not claiming all decisions should be taken this way. But we can imagine a system where a large chunk of decisions can be devolved to the citizens. The constitution and the bill or rights provide a framework in the same way congress today can't legislate (or shouldn't I would say) agains our rights.

Re: DemocracyOS

#28

Post by santisiri »

pekk wrote: post #19
jtmurphy wrote: post #9

Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

Who decides what the rights are? A majority?

We want to figure out the right combination of rules so we can get the best out of the collective intelligence of society.

Like Wikipedia: we believe this is an idea that works better in practice than in theory.

Democracy is always a "Work in progress", its never a complete idea because otherwise it would be an absolutist totalitarian ideology. It's the exception to all ideologies.

And adapting it to software is our biggest mission.

Re: DemocracyOS

#29

Post by santisiri »

andars wrote: post #8
mikermcneil wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's true-- for these guys it actually makes sense though based on what they're doing IMO

Maybe I'm just missing it, but why? I associate OS only with operating systems, and these guys don't seem to be making an OS.

Open Source / Open Society / work too.

Re: DemocracyOS

#30

Post by piamancini »

frozenport wrote: post #11
jtmurphy wrote: post #9

Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

The remedy is to require more than a majority threshold for decisions to be made. For example, a decision could require 80% agreement before it becomes law. In the USA we handle these issues with a representation by region (states) rather than by population. Solutions feel more like post-processing, then data gathering.

This is exactly the type of conversation we want to have. What institutions can we design for the internet society?
Post reply on HN