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Old 08-02-2018, 11:42 AM   #461
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
One problem not brought up is that officially everyone would have to have access to the assembly chamber while it is in session as legislators have no theoretical authority. That would make security difficult.
You could set a threshold (you have to hold at least X proxies to enter the chamber). As long as you require a majority of the number of proxies that *exist* and not the number that happen to be present to pass anything, that should still more or less reflect the will of the electorate. Though the potential downside there is you need an engaged electorate - if you don't get at least 50% voter participation, your government is automatically paralyzed, and in practice you need enough more to account for the proxies assigned to people who don't reach that entry threshold.
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Old 08-02-2018, 09:33 PM   #462
David Johnston2
 
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A democracy with such a constitutional constraint on taxation that the law enforcement system is supported only by the penalties for violating laws, fines or payment through forced labour. The result is very aggressive policing to pay the bills.
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Old 08-03-2018, 09:27 AM   #463
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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You could set a threshold (you have to hold at least X proxies to enter the chamber). As long as you require a majority of the number of proxies that *exist* and not the number that happen to be present to pass anything, that should still more or less reflect the will of the electorate. Though the potential downside there is you need an engaged electorate - if you don't get at least 50% voter participation, your government is automatically paralyzed, and in practice you need enough more to account for the proxies assigned to people who don't reach that entry threshold.

The best of these suggestions feel like a star trek episode waiting to happen.
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Old 08-03-2018, 08:02 PM   #464
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Social network aristocracy. The legislature is made up of the people who have the most social network "likes" and willing to accept the job.

Social network sanctioning. There are no codified punishments for crime, but if you accumulate too many dislikes people stop associating with you, and after a certain point people can gain likes for exacting vigilante justice on you.
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Wasn't that one on an episode of The Orville last year?
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Yup, it was.
Not quite. In Majority Rule, the use of social media likes was merely the meat of their legal system in that episode; not enough was shown to know about the other branches, but it's pretty clear that they had public works (roads, streetlights, traffic signals), an army (Mentioned in background dialogue), and a system of police (whose job is simply to catch the guy).

(And, it's a nifty mirror of the TNG Episode Justice - low chance of being caught, exceedingly high price if you are.)

It doesn't tell us at all about how the people doing those are selected, how they're funded, and if there are elected officials.
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Old 08-10-2018, 08:51 PM   #465
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Government is organized like a joint stock corporation with preferred shares and common. Preferred shares have supervoting rights, or have a monopoly of certain areas of government or what ever.

Common shares can be purchased by any citizen.

Preferred Shares can only be purchased by a noble, or by a citizen who has had residence for minimal years, or served in the military or other emergency services or whatever. Or they are only available to nobles. Or can only be corporately held by clans or guilds or whatever and cannot be held individually.

There can even be multiple levels of shares with differing powers.
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Old 08-12-2018, 01:22 AM   #466
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Social network aristocracy. The legislature is made up of the people who have the most social network "likes" and willing to accept the job.
I think one of the Stellaris pre-release livestreams invented a term for that: friendigarchy. "The oligarchy are the privileged few who have four or five friends."
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Old 08-13-2018, 08:50 AM   #467
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A democracy with such a constitutional constraint on taxation that the law enforcement system is supported only by the penalties for violating laws, fines or payment through forced labour. The result is very aggressive policing to pay the bills.
I once thought of a system where captured smugglers were fined based on the percentage expected in revenue based on the theory that the one's caught pay for the ones that get away. This would have to involve some algorithim perhaps something like expected yearly revenue divided by estimated tonnage with whatever modifiers.

The idea is that while proscribed goods (illegal drugs, unregistered weapons, slaves, etc) are punished accordingly, tax dodging is simply stealing from the government and need be paid with no more then wergild to the government. Furthermore the government is actually rather ambiguous about smugglers as it keeps them in practice to be used as privateers. Giving the idea of using incompetent smugglers to pay for successful ones an added bonus.
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Old 09-12-2018, 09:21 PM   #468
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A "democracy", but the only polling places are inside the capital, so anyone who wants to vote has to physically travel there.
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Old 09-13-2018, 06:33 PM   #469
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A "democracy", but the only polling places are inside the capital, so anyone who wants to vote has to physically travel there.
That would mean either A) it cannot expand beyond a certain point, B)everyone in the places it expands to remains a helot or C) expansion is limited to clientage and/or influence. Or D) it evolves into an Imperium. All of these have actual historical precedent, enough to make a plausible game.
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Old 09-15-2018, 10:41 AM   #470
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Not as much an exotic governmental or legal system, but this article over on the Atlantic How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars? may be worthy of consideration.

A quote that leapt out for me:
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Originally Posted by Kim Stanley Robinson
In the 1980s, a team from the National Science Foundation was sent to a research base in Antarctica with a single handgun for the entire crew. The gun was intended as a tool of last resort, for only the most dire of emergencies, but the scientists felt its potential for abuse was too serious to remain unchecked. [According to KSR] They dismantled the gun into three constituent parts and stored each piece with a different caretaker. That way, if someone got drunk and flew into a rage, or simply cracked under the loneliness and pressure, there would be no realistic scenario in which anyone could collect the separate pieces, reassemble the gun, load it, and begin holding people hostage (or worse).
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