Ask HN: What stands in the way of a landless, 100% digital government/state?
Web technology has come far enough that this seems do-able, at least on the technical side. What would be in the way of this from a social/legal standpoint? What could established local/global governments actually do to fight this?
I'm imagining a crowd-based, direct democracy, sort-of just like a social network. People would vote on the laws and policies (online/mobile of course) directly, and there wouldn't be any major "head of state", more like a representative committee like maybe how some Open Source projects work. This could help prevent established states using physical force against a leader.
Now of course this would take a lot of people to become legitimate but with how so many governments oppressing their people, or even the discontent in countries like the US or Canada, I feel like citizens would accept and desire a much more direct role in a modern government. With enough legitimacy maybe it could even provide security and lobbying power in global governments (ex. UN, EU).
I also realize this is overly optimistic and not original, so I'm just wondering what others here think actually stands in the way.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 94.4 ms ] thread- https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/about/
- https://e-estonia.com/components/
A lot of what I mentioned are things that they already provide and can do, which is why I think the technical side of things would be the easy part.
Now just apply this to a global state.
EDIT: Also look at what WeChat is like in China. You can pretty much do anything from your phone
- http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/
"Tax"-wise would be almost the same as other governments but more streamlined I suppose. Thinking of this as just a collection of digital/online services/resources would be the best way of looking at it. You pay your monthly/annual fees/"taxes" and get access to the services.
- Schooling/education would be done through a MOOC (ex. Coursera, Stanford Online) that would be then be open and "free" for users. - https://e-estonia.com/component/e-school/
- Healthcare would have 1-on-1 conferencing with doctors/medial professionals when needed, and maybe have some sort of partnership with existing clinics/hospitals. Prescriptions could all be done online as well - https://e-estonia.com/component/e-prescription/
For all laws and policies they would be directly voted on by the community, but with a base set (constitution) set in stone, basic freedoms etc. This would be a very progressive/modern society with all the freedoms and protections that comes with, but if something like 90% of the citizenry decided to vote against one of those, then the leading committee would review it.
What if he missed his "subscription" payment the previous month? Does he lose his fundamental human rights until he's paid up?
I can't think of a better solution to that yet, and there may not be one.
And no, you would still be a citizen without paying taxes, but you would lose access/be restricted from all services.
What has always been understood is what's written in the Declaration of Independence: that the purpose of government is to protect the fundamental rights of the citizens. You're proposing to discard that old purpose entirely, and just focus on providing services for money. I don't think I'd call it "government", myself. Not to discourage you, just want to point out that you've got a lot of work to do to convince people that the thing you're describing is actually capable of being what you think it is.
I still think people need to be protected, but the world is a lot different from what it was back then. International law needs to be changed, government needs to be more digitally connected with it's citizens, and the idea of governments and nations need to be revised for the modern world.
For the record, I didn't really think of this as a complete replacement for physical governments, but more of an overarching one that would protect your rights and freedoms using an international legal system while also providing services that some established governments might not be able to.
This would probably be more like a global NGO with a membership I guess.
Or it could be like a citizen-based lobbying group. If enough people are a part of it, voting for the rights and laws they want it could make more politicians take notice.
All you are left with is an organization that collects money from its citizens and then spends it for them.
Say you get married in a state that allows LGBT couples, and then move to one that doesn't, AFAIK your marriage is still valid and recognized. Maybe in some countries it isn't (ex. various Middle-eastern ones) but generally it is. If there was an international body that could allow you those rights and freedoms then could help use legal means to protect them.
Protection doesn't only mean physical force, especially not in this age. I'm not saying I don't agree with you in some way though. There would be very little/nothing an ephemeral government could do against physical aggression, which is what I meant by my earlier statement, "I can't think of a better solution to that yet, and there may not be one."
"International legal means" -- especially in those scenarios -- is just a thin layer of formalities wrapped around the threat that your country, perhaps with assistance from its allies, will impose consequences like trade sanctions, and, if necessary, ultimately wage war if their requests are not adhered to.
Sure, they could ultimately do nation-vs-nation legal action in the ICJ, but even if your nation wins, its not like the ICJ has marshals it can send in to enforce its orders. Enforcement is basically self-service.
> They would not just go and start a war.
No, but they would be threatening one, if only implicitly.
> This is what I mean by the world being different now where most regular citizens aren't scared of being jailed in a foreign country.
Lots of them, I would bet, are, they just choose not to travel to the countries they are afraid of being jailed in.
I've said before in other comments that this wouldn't just take over from your geographical citizenship, but would be a sort-of competition to it. Competition benefits the consumers, because both sides try to create a better value proposition. Right now there is no competition to your governance other than potentially voting for someone else or moving. If we created a global body that isn't just some black-box bureaucratic system, but a 100% open, transparent, run by the citizens system, that could help put some real pressure on international politics.
Here's just a few Wikipedia links that connect to everything I've written in my comments so far. There's more than these, but I'm still working through them:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_mundialization
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_globalization
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizens_movement
Maybe you could illustrate this idea with a few fictional scenarios. For example, let's say Citizens A and B are a law-abiding family in Germany, and the government there has just seized their children because they're Christian and they homeschool. Clear violation of the UN declaration of human rights. What does your online government do to help these citizens?
I've revised the term to not mean "government", that's just what term I first used. Think more of like a world citizenship, or NGO, or union fighting for collective rights.
Los Zetas, and the Mafia see things differently...
A country is just a word -- a global entity is just a collection of power of many people and influence combined with international recognition.
It doesn't matter if you open a bank - what matters is whether you can make other banks recognize you.
Think of bitcoin as an example - it's just a password .. it's worthless - it became worth something when websites started exchanging dollars for bitcoins. Once you can trade it - it has value.
IMO it applies to a country thus : Your "digital country" would exist once it's able to exert influence over others. How you defined it only matters once you can enforce your laws.
Open google and look for "transnistria" to understand just how vaguely defined the term "country" is.
I'm not familiar with how their citizenship process works as well, or how they provide services to expats.
I guess the Vatican would be an example of small area, but you could also look at something like Sealand, or other small island nations.
Even though this is a terrible example and comparison, you could also look at Scientology and their offices. They may not be a established state but they work in the way I'm imagining. Global offices, schooling, protection, etc.
I think you are confusing the governing hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church with the governing hierarchy of the State of Vatican City. While those hierarchies have the same head, the latter is strict (and small) subset of the former.
Thinking about my day-to-day interactions with the various levels of government here (Canada), the vast majority of it requires a physical presence: policing, firefighting, road maintenance, building inspection, etc. None of those things are very well served by a distributed/digital government. Taxation could be done digitally, of course.
If the primary goal is to affect public policy on a global scale, there's nothing preventing a "crowd-sourced lobbying organization" from being established.
Call it a government if you want, but for a lot of people the main things that government does for them is maintain infrastructure and protect public safety. It's a neat idea, no doubt, but there's a lot of things that citizenship (i.e. the right to live in Canada forever) gives me that couldn't really be replaced digitally.
So think of all the government things without the physical part, that's what I meant by landless. Education, healthcare, international representation, voting, identification, census/population metrics, maybe business services, and have this social network/connection tool built around it.
So yeah, like a "crowd-sourced lobbying organization" but with more perks. Maybe like a global union or something like that.
I'm not sure how something like this would have any impact on C-51. Despite being a member of the digital society, we'd still physically reside in places controlled by other governments, which means that our telecom cables would still run along places where they could be tapped and monitored.
The voting and representation is really interesting. Going back to the C-51 issue... If we had direct representation, is there any hope in hell that this would have passed?
An interesting question is how big of a critical mass would such a system need to start to have actual influence? I don't know the answer, but it's fascinating to think about.
With enough people voting within this digital society against things like telecoms spying and secret police powers, it would create a sort of citizen lobby group that may have an actual effect on politicians. With enough "critical mass" they would have no choice but to listen and respond.
I'm pretty sure all of the recent polls since before it was passed were mostly against C-51. I'm sure if there was a type of referendum it would've been squashed (like it should've been).
I'm also very interested in your last point's idea.
Here's country X oppressing people. Are they going to stop because you ask politely (or even sternly tell them to)? No. Why not? Because they want to keep going, and they have guns. The only thing you can stop them with is bigger guns.
(Yes, an appeal to their conscience can sometimes work. It worked for Gandhi against the British. It wouldn't have worked against Hitler or Stalin, though.)
So until you have the biggest guns, you're not going to be able to form a world government that has any real impact.
How would you try to get there? You'd have to persuade enough people in democratic countries to put enough pressure on their governments that they'd cooperate with you. You'd have to do that in enough countries that it carries weight even with those who don't want to listen.
I think we need something that is actually run by the people, for the people. As I've come to think of this more, it wouldn't be a complete replacement for established government, but more like a global union.
- online
- global
- international
What I'm proposing is a nation that could exist independent of borders/land area. You could live anywhere and still be a part of it. There are clubs/groups that exist for members across the world, but what's stopping a new nation from re-creating that same architecture?
Nations must have not only laws, but a way to enforce them, and a way to protect their citizens from foreign nations.
There are many online communities, such as ycombinator and reddit and WoW, and people feel like they are a part of them, but they are not nations. You can certainly create a community where you pool money and educate your digi-zens (digital citizens), you can provide disaster services by perhaps sending food/drinks to them in case of disaster, but they will still have to follow local laws - you wouldn't be able to request countries to extradite them to you for example.
Every service will become privatised.
Government will converge on what it does best, core business, collaborative decision making between representatives from diverse groups.
Contrary to popular belief it is not government inertia which slows this transition, it is public expectation. Society is not yet ready.
Services, as others say, require physical presence. Core Gov can become 100% digital and will, since gov is the nervous ( and circulatory ) system, which causes to function the diverse systems required for society's function.
Watch Zuckerberg make a play for government through FB. Gov is the network. It is already information. All that's missing is the social technology to trust that gov works like this to make it happen.
Northern Europe / Korea will go first.
Definitions. A government or state is an entity that exercises a monopoly on the legitimate use of force over some territory. If it doesn't have territory, its not a government/state.
> Consider a world government that doesn't have any real large land area, just offices/embassies. Everything from citizenship applications to paying taxes to providing social services would all be provided through digital/online means. Anyone living anywhere would be eligible to apply and receive services and representation.
While governments might (if there was enough motivation for them to do so) choose to treat such an entity like a foreign government/state for administrative purposes, essentially what that is a multinational corporation or NGO providing a defined set of services.
> What would be in the way of this from a social/legal standpoint?
Being treated like a government is a matter of legal recognition by the governments you want to recognize you as one. This is often difficult for entities that have some claim to actually be governments, its going to be harder for something that manifestly is not.
Especially given that you see it as serving as a counterbalance to existing governments -- that's actually a reason existing governments would be disinclined to recognize it.
> What could established local/global governments actually do to fight this?
At the most basic, refuse to recognize it as anything like a government. To the extent that people associated with it tried to do things of substance that actual governments didn't like, they could outlaw its activities (to the extent that they aren't already illegal), and prosecute and punish (or just extrajudicially punish) its members, associates, and collaborators.
With the discussion/debate here I've refined the idea a bit more, and instead of saying a "government" I'm more pushing towards something like a non-state actor or an NGO combined with a citizen run lobbyist group.
I believe that if governments tried to "prosecute and punish...its members, associates, and collaborators" that would have the opposite effect of strengthening the group and getting more support. From my perspective that's exactly what the Arab Spring was all about.
I'm not sure how the regulation part would go, since AFAIK there isn't anything like this already that has forced the creation of rules. Laws usually only come up as a reactive measure, which is something I would actually hope for and want to help shape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_non-governmental... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights-based_approach_to_devel... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Poverty_History -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARE_(relief_agency)#Programmi... -- https://www.fidh.org/International-Federation-for-Human-Righ...
The minute you start having non-trivial manifestations of your power in meat-space you become subject to a whole range of logistical concerns. Say you've got 1,000 people in your initial group but they're spread out all over the world, what can you actually do?
You want to provide services and representation, but - even if those people each paid 20% of their income to you - you exist largely in the web and your ability to manifest goods and services that are going to be useful to your members is almost non-existent.
Governments gain an advantage when they can provide goods or services in common. Thus making it cheaper than each person providing that resource for themselves.
Just to play the Devil's advocate here. I don't think that people should be able to "make their own laws". Most people (think the general population) are woefully uninformed about a lot stuff. Like pensions for example. A LOT of Americans DON'T have pensions/retirement savings. This is really bad and a real cause of worry.
In MY opinion, a government should care for it's people and make sure that they have mandatory participation in the pension system (first pillar/second pillar). However, there also should be the option to contribute more (third pillar) if you can/want to.
In some fields, people don't know what to choose and some people who have studied that field, should make the choices for them. Imho.