I think that current political systems are truly palaeolithic, in which opposing “tribes” (parties) compete for territory (e.g. votes, seats in parliament, congress, etc). Occasionally, a given tribe amasses too much power leading to monarchies, dictatorships, and all the spectrum of authoritarian and tyrannical systems.
I want to propose a new futuristic form of government in which, ultimately, after centuries, the process of rule becomes completely automated. Awesome, right?
In this new government there are no political parties, politicians, or people who “represents” the people. Instead, the government will be a dynamic, real-time, partially automated, data-driven, interaction between, what I call, “Curators of Policy” and the people.
First of all, everyone in a population can submit to this new government their own policies, it doesn't matter how silly they may appear. They submit policies that relate to the things they care personally. This submission can be done at any time, from any device. The different versions of policies will be compiled in a huge database, which the Curators of Policy, working at different levels, will have to scour and organize and then present back to the population. The people then can rank and vote for their favourite “versions” of the policies, whenever they want and from their mobile devices.
Being a Curator of Policy would be the most boring job in the world.
Not everyone has to vote for every policy, people vote for those issues that they find relevant in real-time. Then the selected policies are then simulated into models of economic stability and are then incorporated into a book of law if they pass rigorous statistical analysis.
Curators of policy do not take any decisions. They job is to compile and organize. We remove “personality” and “individual interests”, out of governing.
However, people will not have to vote for issues that are of a quantitative nature. Say for example, taxation, pricing (rent, housing, utilities, etc), and redistribution of wealth. Instead, there will be massive super-computers using powerful algorithms to deal with this mathematically. For example, how much tax everyone and every corporation has to pay and how it will be used in order to improve the quality of life of all citizens in a fair and equitable manner: this will be dealt with maths. Imagine something similar to climate models and weather forecast, but more advanced. The amount of tax or the price of products would be optimized taking into consideration the income levels of everyone and it can be readjusted in real-time. Into the pricing algorithms a system is put in place in such a way that companies contribute their fair share of tax in real time every time a transaction is made.
Another example, how many new houses are needed per year? This can be calculated by the government’s supercomputer taking into consideration population growth and immigration levels. This can be programmed into the algorithms, which then determines the exact number of houses needed according to the growth models. Using other algorithms, it can be calculated where is the best place for these new houses to be built in such a way that commuting times are optimal and environmental impact minimal.
The supercomputers and algorithms will be programmed by a multidisciplinary team of scientists from all branches of knowledge.
After centuries of optimization, most of these process can be completely automated, and the Curators of Policy will not be needed anymore.
What do you think? Should we replace all politicians with robots?
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