Thoughts at Random

 The main idea: various amendments to the democratic procedure that may be of interest. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 11.12.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. I will keep adding new relevant ideas to this post as I go. 0.1 Whilst I have little faith in a possibly less shonky version of democracy to be attempted once ours crashes, such faith is still non-zero, so see below some ideas related to better electorate selection algorithms and other design changes to be considered for such a system. Goes without saying, that any such system would uphold the sovereignty of the legislature, enough of this judicial review nonsense. All these I consider inferior in promise to Gohlke's  idea on this matter. 1.1 First, everyone votes, but voting rights are issued well in advance of an election (probably right after any election, valid for the next one...

The main idea: poll knowledgeable parties on the probability of past events within basic logical rules.    0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 05.07.2023, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  1.1 Here’s a system that may be able to produce semi-useful probability estimates for past events. 1.2 Create a list of 10 - 20 past events, which include a combination of events that did and did not happen (ex. Germany to conquer France within 1940, Soviets to reach the moon first, etc.). 1.3 Ask a group of knowledgeable people to (independently of one-another) assign a probability to each event, assuming each event had a random chance of happening or not. Feel free to enforce logical rules if events are conditional upon one-another (ex. chance of Germans conquering France within 1940 must be lower than their chance of conquering France within September 1940...

The main idea: set the chance of being selected as a validator proportional to the square root of one’s stake, but allow reward to remain proportional to the stake itself. 0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 08.01.2025, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  1.1 Trying to limit the alleged tendency of Proof of Stake systems to centralise around large holders, one could do worse than adopt the following steps. 1.2 First, let one’s probability of being selected as a validator be proportional to the square root of one’s staked sum instead of the staked sum itself. To avoid the issue of numbers lower than one having squares larger than themselves, set the actual function SQRT [1+ STAKE] - 1.  1.21 We have now introduced an incentive for stakers to split their stakes into multiple wallets to, at the limit, recreate a linear relationship between chance of bein...

The main idea: Proportional Westminster government by way of either parallel voting or random ballot.   0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 22.09.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.   1 Business as usual 1.1 A rather obvious and low-risk way of making a Westminster design more proportional is to elect the vast majority of the House through single-winner ridings, and a small minority (a fifth to a quarter) from a nation-wide party-list. Such a small top-up is more than enough to ensure good (not perfect) proportionality. This would be enacted by issuing each voter two linked ballots, one for their riding (with the whole country allocated into ridings) and a nation-wide ballot listing parties only. 1.2 Those competing in the single-winner districts would not be allowed to also feature on their party’s closed lists and, more crucially, yo...