Elite rule

[Admin]

Pure elite rule definition
The system is pure elite rule if the ruling elite is fully in charge. In addition each member of the ruling elite having the formal full power should have more than 0.1% but less than 3/13 of the voting power (or exactly 3 of 13 without having the deciding vote in the case of a draw).

It's still pure elite rule even if other people have significant informal power or power outside the government itself (such ownership over a private company). In the case of individual businesses they could still be overruled by the government for any reason if they operate within the borders.

Lower courts and advisors would likely get significant power but they are still there to please the ones who have the formal power.

 

[Admin]

The Robinson Risk
The ruling elite could of course vote to get rid of some senators, that would require just ordinary majority in the senate.

But the senator(s) removed/replaced would naturally vote no (unless they really like the successor(s) chosen). And since the senate always has absolute power with ordinary majority you can do whatever you want without replacing them since they will just get outvoted. It might not actually be in your interest to get rid of them of you belong to the majority coalition since then they will no longer need your vote to pass various things and you might find yourself excluded instead.

Let's take the following system with 9 senators

Ruling faction: A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5
Opposition: A6 A7 A8

Here the ruling faction can have just one defection or the proposal will not go through the senate.

But what if they vote to remove A8 from the senate (not replacing him/her with anyone).

Now A0 would be able to case the potentially deciding vote (in the case of a draw) so you could end up with the following

Ruling faction: A0 A3 A4 A5
Opposition: A1 A2 A6 A7

It's probably not in the interest of A1 A2 A3 A6 A7 A8 to approve this change since then they will end up with a lot less power and these currently hold the majority.

 

[Admin]

Types of elite rule
There are 5 types of pure elite rule

Tiny: 5 to 14 senators
small: 15 to 48 senators
medium: 49 to 189 senators
large: 190 to 999 senators
gradual: a single person can have multiple senate seats

 

[Admin]

Why you don't want an adversarial legal system
Having people sue each other and pay for lawyers will result in a lot of resources being used for legal matters instead of actually making society as a whole better, this is especially the case if the loser is likely to have to pay for the legal fees of the winner.

So while lawyers benefit from the US system pretty much everyone else loses.

You also do not want an adversarial system for criminal trials, you do not want prosecuters to do everything they can to convict someone, you want the state to instead focus on finding out what's actually happened and what the best remedy for the situation is.

It's also very important that legal issues get quickly resolved and the current court system in most countries is very bad at that.

 

[Admin]

Factors to consider when evaluating a system of governance
These factors will not be constant, they will depend on what type of decision it is and who you are as an individual (whether or not you and people genetically close to you benefit).

0. Accuracy
You want the government to make the right decision 100% of the time, this in practice is near impossible to achieve.

1. Latency
It's very important that a decision is made before it's too late.

2. Authority
Having a perfect government itself isn't enough if their authority is limited (such as limited to a small area, not having the military of the country under proper control, having most people refusing to listen to the government). A perfect government might however be able to fix this problem over time gaining more and more authority by making smart decisions.

3. Throughput
You want the highest authority to be very involved in actually governing the country rather than relying on lower authorities they are not properly examining what decisions they are making and how they worked out.

4. Focusing on the right questions
Because the highest power will have limited time they will have to make good decisions regarding what they should focus the most on. Less important questions can be handled by non-senators (such as corporations, senate successors, C0 citizens) or by only having a part of the senate (such as 7 of 63) look at the decision (if the senate has the ultimate authority), you delay making a decision if it isn't urgent.

 

[Admin]

do u think ppl read all this ?

some do that.

I begin writing a shorter version earlier

https://www.vintologi.com/threads/simple-introduction-to-vintologi.10/

 

[Admin]

Defining authoritarianism
There isn't any consensus on this so i am going to propose a definition.

"Authoritarianism" is a system of government where 70 to 100% of the highest authority is centralized to a single individual or body consisting of less than 1% of the population with weak/no formal restrictions to their power over society.

Examples of authority is
0. The legal system.
1. The executive branch.
2. Media.
3. Ability to make/change laws.
4. Education.
5. selection of successors.
6. The power over government spending
7. Power over government funding

Having the highest authority does not require direct and detailed control, it just means that the ruling elite or individual can intervene at any time for any reason.

"Full Authoritarianism" is a system of government where a single body has complete authority society with no formal restrictions to their power over society.

While a fully authoritarian government can have full authority that itself does not make the government totalitarian, they are only totalitarian if they actually uses their power to exercise an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life.

Example: China is currently authoritarian while still not being totalitarian.

 

[Admin]

Time to embrace authoritarianism
One very common notion especially among Americans is that we should 'limit' the power of government by having all these institutions and decentralization. Not even i know all the various political bodies and posts for the US, here is just some of them

0. The president
1. The supreme court
2. Cabinet members
3. administrators
4. The senate.
5. The house of representatives.
6. Federal courts below the supreme court.
7. Governors
8. State legislators
9. School boards
10. Mayors.
11. state courts
12. city councils

This of course doesn't actually limit the total power of authorities, all it does is spread the authority out over different bodies that will then naturally try to expand their power at the expense of other bodies and the citizens.

People end up having to wait months/years for the supreme court to finally resolve some legal question.

Effective governance becomes impossible.

There will be way too many points of failure of the system such as a governor screwing up the covid response endangering the entire federation.

A note on 3 and 4 is that these generally belong to the executive branch and should in theory follow the laws and the president/governor but in practice these will get significant power in total due to the president not aggressively asserting his authority over them.

The solution is simple

Theoretically the solution is very simple and should be obvious. You just let a single individual or a ruling elite govern everything and you concentrate all power among these people, that way it's clear to everyone who has the highest authority, government decisions can be quick and accurate.

The practical issue with this is that often the people who end up grabbing power are not the people you actually want in power. What often happens is that people who are incompetent grab power for themselves only to run their country to the ground, this has happened many times before and it will continue to happen.

But once capable enough people grab power over a strong country they should be able to conquer the entire planet and establish themselves as the sole higher authority of our blue planet.

Examples of successful authoritarianism

All democratic countries rely heavily on the private sector dominated by authoritarian governments, other structures have been tried but generally these do not work out too well.

One very obvious case of authoritarianism working much better for government policy is the chinese covid response where they are not crushing omicron with R0 of 8 while most democratic governments who were not iseland countries failed at contolling the original variant with R0 of 2.

Western countries often also ended up depriving their citizens of basic freedoms (they few people had left) in order to combat covid only too fail because it was too late or they were too incompetent to do it effectively.

https://vintologi.com/threads/about-covid-19-lockdowns.821/

For example, not everybody has the same idea of what a "good" covid response would be

Yea many people (including you) are wrong which is why we need Authoritarianism in the first place.

I think it makes the most sense to just let it run its course to develop natural immunity in the population and thus any positive action is "bad" by my standard.

It's was obviously not the correct response since doing that would have killed at least a million and cuased massive disruption to society. By successfully doing covid-zero you can hold off until you have safe and effective vaccines/treatments available.

Right and wrong does exist.

And that's why Americans are always going on about limiting the power of government; It's a fundamental principle of American governance that the sole purpose of government is to protect the rights and liberties of the individual.

What you have been trying to do isn't even possible in the first place. Europe isn't into that nonsense and we arguably have overall more freedoms.

The government is needed in the first place to protect your freedoms (some people have ancap ideas but that's very unlikely to be viable).

So your argument is that we should value expediency and convenience over freedom? No thanks. This would amount to a kind modern form of serfdom and once that power is conceded you don’t have the option of getting it back. Also when you say “successful authoritarianism” for whom is successful? Are breadlines and lower quality of goods and services successful? You’re also ignoring the psychological damage that less freedom would have on individuals over time.

You are missing one important point, freedom isn't even an option in the first place.

You cannot limit the power of government, all you can do is move the authority somewhere else (such as making the supreme court more powerful at the expense of the president).

Covid-19 is a good example of that, a lot of countries first tried following the herd immunity strategy only to in panic introduce drackonian lockdowns due to hospitals getting overwhelmed and people being upset about people dying left and right.

I think what you suggest is already happening. It’s just being done in a very underhanded, Machiavellian way, rather than explicitly. The fact that it is masquerading as democracy is unfortunate, but necessary in a country like the US, where the majority of people favor personal liberty and sovereignty over the collective good.

What people don’t seem to realize (though it has become more obvious with the pandemic) is that these supposed “natural human rights” are actually just privileges which can be revoked by the authoritarian state when deemed necessary to do so.

It's probably unavoidable, eventually one individual or board should grab all the power since having a single body controlling everything is the only stable configuration.

The only problem is that there is no guarantee that the ones ultimately grabbing the power will actually govern well. If they will not do that you just have to flee before it's too late.

I also think that people increasingly lose faith in liberal democracy as a system, they do not get the liberties they expect from said system (which is to be expected) and people get increasingly atomized from each other. There is also the issue of mass incarceration (#1 in the world) while still failing to keep the citizens safe from violent criminals.

 

[Admin]

About different branches of government and democracy
Having all these different branches of government is not inherit to democracy.

Several democratic countries have the parliament be supreme and no real checks to their power besides the election they could rig if they really wanted, Sweden is a good example of this.

Sweden did like many other countries go for a herd immunity strategy against covid but the actual execution was relatively good. Many people died and many more got bad long-covid but we did did keep most of our freedoms and we did not have to deal with significant rebellions (since the government tried keeping restrictions at a minimum in time and scope).

People being democratically elected in countries like Sweden and Estonia does significantly limit how well governments can function, the ceiling in terms of how well the country is govern is much lower than for pure elite rule.

If you want to limit the effect of individual elections it's better to just elect some of the parliament for each election, ofc there would still be a high degree of mob rule but it will stop temporary passions for wrecking the country.

Having people completely replace the member of one powerful branch (such as the executive in the US) does not effectively stop a single election from wrecking the system since you could just elect a majority in the house of representatives and the president with a single election and then impeaching the president might not even be possible since he/she has loyal supporters in the house of representatives.

dysgenik wrote:

It doesn't even spread power out. Power is still highly concentrated, only it hides behind a faceless bureaucracy. Because it is not formalized, this power is perpetually insecure and therefore sociopathic. Power formally invested in and securely held by a monarch or dictator is free to do what it wants, not what it must. This does not mean it will benefit it's subjects, only that it has the potential to, whereas democracies and republics seem not to even have the potential for doing good. The worse are made the subjects of a democracy or republic, the more degenerated, stupid, addicted, deracinated, isolated, depressed, propagandized etc. the more secure is made the regime.

However many branches or however few, power transcends and bureaucratizes these political structures and remains centralized, but because it is not formalized it is both unaccountable and insecure, and this explains it's pathological character.

The most compelling criticisms of democracy were not that it was merely "bad" but that it was actually impossible, that power could never be held by "the people" and in trying to formalize such a system all that is created is a shield of bureaucratic abstraction behind which real power hides and is even less likely to be held to account.

 

[Admin]

Medieval Iceland
Medieval Iceland (which is the closest to anarcho-capitalism i know of) was a primitive society and it still collapsed after 290 years. The actual governance became more and more like pure elite rule (power centralization) but because they didn't have an exacutive power people ended up rebelling and later the norwegian king gain control over the country.

While anarchism has it's appeal it's important to recognize that with modern technology and the competition between societies it's not something that can last very long, it might be fun for the short term it lasts but it's not the final result. The best case scenario is some competent authority emerging over the area but if there are other competing societies around you might just get conquered instead.

oldsmoBuick67 wrote:

Some cultures might respond to authoritarianism better where they find comfort in the perception that a form of government will keep things fair, but it’s ultimately just that…a perception.

I, a westerner, trend towards anarchism personally because whether competent or not, a government cannot adequately protect your rights. It can decide on a whim that something isn’t right and with the stroke of a pen make anyone a criminal.

Competence in government is very much overrated for me. Upon closer inspection, many tin pot dictators were actually quite well educated so it must have been something else like ego or anger that leads to downfall.

Personally, I think it’s better to question the authority given to a figure rather than question the competence of the figure in authority.

 

[Admin]

Political survival of the fittest
If there isn't a political monopoly we will have different factions/individuals competing for power.

The more power a faction has the better their ability will be to influence society to gain even more power. This potentially creates a positive feedback loop where one group or individual eventually gain complete authority over the country.

Some factions will refrain from using their existing authority to gain more authority but these factions will then end up with a competitive disadvantage.

Smaller faction will find it hard to survive since they will probably not have any significant power-faction standing up for them. If they get deplatformed they might not have anywhere else to go because nobody likes them, Milo Yiannopoulos became irrelevant and powerless after conservatives, leftwingers and liberals all teamed up against him.

The more aggressive a political movement is in asserting itself the more it will grow and become mainstream, this is why trans activists in particular has been successful while people opposing genital mutilation of children have not been very successful. Talking about the genitals of children is not very socially acceptable and this allows harmful practices to continue.

The nazis ended up grabbing power in the Weimar republic in part because they pushed very aggressively for their ideology, Hitler ended up becoming dictator and millions of people died because of that.

The competition between political factions will naturally result in everything becoming politicized, instead of looking out for the country the different factions focus on growing/securing their own power.

 

[Admin]

Madman strategy on steroids via pure elite rule
One strategy to deal with hostile nations is to posture as insane while having powerful nukes making them afraid you might be crazy enough to pull the trigger, thus giving one individual power to launch nukes might be beneficial in terms of intimidating other countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

With pure elite rule you can do something similar against hostile nations but make it even more terrifying for countries causing you problems. If there are 15 senators you can let up to 7 approve a nuclear strike at any time meaning it just takes 1 of the ramaining 8 senators to launch a nuke, you can shift that around so it only takes 1 of 15 to launch the nuke, that might happen accidentally due to someone unintentionally touching the yes button.

 

[Admin]

Lobbyism
Politicians will often have a poor understanding about the realities of actually running some business. This create room for business interest to influence politics to the detriment of society by convincing clueless politicians to do what's good for them at the detriment for society as a whole.

Because of the conflict of interest non-government actors have leaders have to be careful when talking to people like business representatives. A politicians might be better of not even talking to lobbyists in the first place, this can be done by instead using staff to manage these conversations.

In a democracy it's often not actually in the interest of politicians to listen much to lobbyists, instead they will likely focus on getting re-elected even if it means passing some law that harms business (in order to please ignorant voters).

In elite eule the senators will rely heavily upon their successors when it comes to governance, these successors will also act as staff/advisors reducing/eliminated the need to rely on special interest groups for advice.

Senate Seat  0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8

Successor0   A0   A1   A2   A3   A4   A5   A6   A7   A8
Successor1   B0   B1   B2   B3   B4   B5   B6   B7   B8
Successor2   B9   B10  B11  B12  B13  B14  B15  B16  B17
Successor3   B18  B19  B20  B21  B22  B23  B24  B25  B26
Successor4   B27  B28  B29  B30  B31  B32  B33  B34  B35
Successor5   B36  B37  B38  B39  B40  B41  B42  B43  B44
Successor6   B45  B46  B47  B48  B49  B50  B51  B52  B53
Successor7   B54  B55  B56  B57  B58  B59  B60  B61  B62
Successor8   B63  B64  B65  B66  B67  B68  B69  B70  B71
Successor9   B72  B73  B74  B75  B76  B77  B78  B79  B80
Successor10  B81  B82  B83  B84  B85  B86  B87  B88  B89
Successor11  B90  B91  B92  B93  B94  B95  B96  B97  B98
Successor12  B99  B100 B101 B102 B103 B104 B105 B106 B107
Successor13  B108 B109 B110 B111 B112 B113 B114 B115 B116
Successor14  B117 B118 B119 B120 B121 B122 B123 B124 B125
Successor15  B126 B127 B128 B129 B130 B131 B132 B133 B134
Successor16  B135 B136 B137 B138 B139 B140 B141 B142 B143
Successor17  B144 B145 B146 B147 B148 B149 B150 B151 B152
Successor18  B153 B154 B155 B156 B157 B158 B159 B160 B161
Successor19  B162 B163 B164 B165 B166 B167 B168 B169 B170
Successor20  B171 B172 B173 B174 B175 B176 B177 B178 B179
Successor21  B180 B181 B182 B183 B184 B185 B186 B187 B188
Successor22  B189 B190 B191 B192 B193 B194 B195 B196 B197
Successor23  B198 B199 B200 B201 B202 B203 B204 B205 B206
Successor24  B207 B208 B209 B210 B211 B212 B213 B214 B215
Successor25  B216 B217 B218 B219 B220 B221 B222 B223 B224
Successor26  B225 B226 B227 B228 B229 B230 B231 B232 B233
Successor27  B234 B235 B236 B237 B238 B239 B240 B241 B242
Successor28  B243 B244 B245 B246 B247 B248 B249 B250 B251
Successor29  B252 B253 B254 B255 B256 B257 B258 B259 B260
Successor30  B261 B262 B263 B264 B265 B266 B267 B268 B269
Successor31  B270 B271 B272 B273 B274 B275 B276 B277 B278
Successor32  B279 B280 B281 B282 B283 B284 B285 B286 B287
Successor33  B288 B289 B290 B291 B292 B293 B294 B295 B296
Successor34  B297 B298 B299 B300 B301 B302 B303 B304 B305
Successor35  B306 B307 B308 B309 B310 B311 B312 B313 B314
Successor36  B315 B316 B317 B318 B319 B320 B321 B322 B323
Successor37  B324 B325 B326 B327 B328 B329 B330 B331 B332
Successor38  B333 B334 B335 B336 B337 B338 B339 B340 B341
Successor39  B342 B343 B344 B345 B346 B347 B348 B349 B350
Successor40  B351 B352 B353 B354 B355 B356 B357 B358 B359
Successor41  B360 B361 B362 B363 B364 B365 B366 B367 B368
Successor42  B369 B370 B371 B372 B373 B374 B375 B376 B377
Successor43  B378 B379 B380 B381 B382 B383 B384 B385 B386
Successor44  B387 B388 B389 B390 B391 B392 B393 B394 B395
Successor45  B396 B397 B398 B399 B400 B401 B402 B403 B404
Successor46  B405 B406 B407 B408 B409 B410 B411 B412 B413
Successor47  B414 B415 B416 B417 B418 B419 B420 B421 B422
Successor48  B423 B424 B425 B426 B427 B428 B429 B430 B431
Successor49  B432 B433 B434 B435 B436 B437 B438 B439 B440
Successor50  B441 B442 B443 B444 B445 B446 B447 B448 B449
Successor51  B450 B451 B452 B453 B454 B455 B456 B457 B458
Successor52  B459 B460 B461 B462 B463 B464 B465 B466 B467
Successor53  B468 B469 B470 B471 B472 B473 B474 B475 B476
Successor54  B477 B478 B479 B480 B481 B482 B483 B484 B485
Successor55  B486 B487 B488 B489 B490 B491 B492 B493 B494
Successor56  B495 B496 B497 B498 B499 B500 B501 B502 B503
Successor57  B504 B505 B506 B507 B508 B509 B510 B511 B512
Successor58  B513 B514 B515 B516 B517 B518 B519 B520 B521
Successor59  B522 B523 B524 B525 B526 B527 B528 B529 B530
Successor60  B531 B532 B533 B534 B535 B536 B537 B538 B539
Successor61  B540 B541 B542 B543 B544 B545 B546 B547 B548
Successor62  B549 B550 B551 B552 B553 B554 B555 B556 B557
Successor63  B558 B559 B560 B561 B562 B563 B564 B565 B566
Successor64  B567 B568 B569 B570 B571 B572 B573 B574 B575
Successor65  B576 B577 B578 B579 B580 B581 B582 B583 B584
Successor66  B585 B586 B587 B588 B589 B590 B591 B592 B593
Successor67  B594 B595 B596 B597 B598 B599 B600 B601 B602
Successor68  B603 B604 B605 B606 B607 B608 B609 B610 B611
Successor69  B612 B613 B614 B615 B616 B617 B618 B619 B620
Successor70  B621 B622 B623 B624 B625 B626 B627 B628 B629
Successor71  B630 B631 B632 B633 B634 B635 B636 B637 B638
Successor72  B639 B640 B641 B642 B643 B644 B645 B646 B647
Successor73  B648 B649 B650 B651 B652 B653 B654 B655 B656
Successor74  B657 B658 B659 B660 B661 B662 B663 B664 B665
Successor75  B666 B667 B668 B669 B670 B671 B672 B673 B674
Successor76  B675 B676 B677 B678 B679 B680 B681 B682 B683
Successor77  B684 B685 B686 B687 B688 B689 B690 B691 B692
Successor78  B693 B694 B695 B696 B697 B698 B699 B700 B701
Successor79  B702 B703 B704 B705 B706 B707 B708 B709 B710
Successor80  B711 B712 B713 B714 B715 B716 B717 B718 B719
Successor81  B720 B721 B722 B723 B724 B725 B726 B727 B728
Successor82  B729 B730 B731 B732 B733 B734 B735 B736 B737
Successor83  B738 B739 B740 B741 B742 B743 B744 B745 B746
Successor84  B747 B748 B749 B750 B751 B752 B753 B754 B755
Successor85  B756 B757 B758 B759 B760 B761 B762 B763 B764
Successor86  B765 B766 B767 B768 B769 B770 B771 B772 B773
Successor87  B774 B775 B776 B777 B778 B779 B780 B781 B782
Successor88  B783 B784 B785 B786 B787 B788 B789 B790 B791
Successor89  B792 B793 B794 B795 B796 B797 B798 B799 B800
Successor90  B801 B802 B803 B804 B805 B806 B807 B808 B809
Successor91  B810 B811 B812 B813 B814 B815 B816 B817 B818
Successor92  B819 B820 B821 B822 B823 B824 B825 B826 B827
Successor93  B828 B829 B830 B831 B832 B833 B834 B835 B836
Successor94  B837 B838 B839 B840 B841 B842 B843 B844 B845
Successor95  B846 B847 B848 B849 B850 B851 B852 B853 B854
Successor96  B855 B856 B857 B858 B859 B860 B861 B862 B863
Successor97  B864 B865 B866 B867 B868 B869 B870 B871 B872
Successor98  B873 B874 B875 B876 B877 B878 B879 B880 B881
Successor99  B882 B883 B884 B885 B886 B887 B888 B889 B890
Successor100 B891 B892 B893 B894 B895 B896 B897 B898 B899
Successor101 B900 B901 B902 B903 B904 B905 B906 B907 B908
Successor102 B909 B910 B911 B912 B913 B914 B915 B916 B917
Successor103 B918 B919 B920 B921 B922 B923 B924 B925 B926
Successor104 B927 B928 B929 B930 B931 B932 B933 B934 B935

 

[Admin]

Tax-credit voting
One system for voting is to have people earn credits as they pay taxes which can be used to vote.

If you do not use your tax-credit for one election it will be saved for the next (without interest).

You are not allowed to cast 2 cotes in the same election circuit but if you for example divide the parliaments into smaller section you could have independent election for these (the parliament could be spread out over the country that way).