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

41–50 of 160 posts

Re: DemocracyOS

#41

Post by rbf_ »

jtmurphy wrote: post #17
wyager wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't defend against tyranny of the majority; it just requires a larger majority. In the USA we defend against tyranny of the majority with the constitution. The constitution places strict limits on what the majority can do to the minority through governmental force.

I agree with wyager. A political system should be a strong constitution that defines the rights of individuals. Something like DemocracyOS should be used to engage the population into ensuring that political actions are in fact constitutional and just.

If you think about how much carnage has been caused by the fact that we can in fact pass unconstitutional laws and then it takes decades of work to strike them down due to the bottleneck we have in our court system (supreme court). Would be much better to not pass the obviously unconstitutional laws and let the courts handle complicated exceptions that were not caught.

Re: DemocracyOS

#43

Post by santisiri »

jlgosse wrote: post #20
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?

Agreed, why not just choose "Democracy"?

I actually know who owns democracy.com but still, democracy reminisces a 2000 year old system.. we need to update that.

Re: DemocracyOS

#44

Post by freddier »

I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings.

Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of.

The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it only donations?

Re: DemocracyOS

#45

Post by piamancini »

freddier wrote: post #44

I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings. Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of. The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it…

Hi! We are trying to get enough philanthropic seed funding to find a sustainable model. Maybe OS SAS, or github's: free as long as it's open. For the moment it's all grants.

Re: DemocracyOS

#46

Post by santisiri »

freddier wrote: post #44

I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings. Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of. The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it…

We believe that you cannot put a price tag on the right to participate. So the nonprofit is a fundamental first step in our mission.

We want to figure a self-sustainable model, donations can only get you that far. The task ahead of us is a big one: we want to build governance for the internet society.

Re: DemocracyOS

#48

Post by dataker »

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?

All you need is a base of inviolable principles on a moral basis of respect, peace, etc. How one would get there is a good question.

Re: DemocracyOS

#49

Post by gghootch »

Love the direction this is going. Dreamt about such a system in the past as well. Looking forward to a mobile first experience which enables me to weigh-in on (local) issues in real-time.

Re: DemocracyOS

#50

Post by alecco »

santisiri wrote: post #47
alecco wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How self promotional of you.

it's not easy being an entrepreneur and building a network of likeminded people from around the world :)

It can't be that hard if that is most of your time. But maybe you are burning older contacts even faster than my limited sample.

YC: ask his previous investors and employees what they think, independently and in private.

Post reply on HN