Experimenting with Governance: Are Centuries Old National Constitutions Still Relevant in the 21st Century?

August 8, 2016 – Peter Diamandis in his latest email talks about experimentation applied to governance. He asks the question, “can we run meaningful experiments with government – how we vote, create policy and legislation?” This is a question I have raised upon occasion in political policy meetings that I attend here in Toronto noting that Canada’s confederation and constitution were established when the country was predominantly rural while today the vast majority of us live in cities. The mechanisms of governance created for that historic demographic including who controls the money may not make sense anymore in a world flipped upside down.

Similarly, the United States Constitution and its Second Amendment was designed to reflect the world in the 1780s, a world where the frontier was on America’s doorstep, a world that had just had Americans fight a war against the world’s superpower, and where flintlock muskets fired shots one at a time and were not only needed for defense but also for obtaining one’s daily meals. In the 21st century is this the world we live in?

That’s why I find Diamandis’ observations and speculations interesting to share. Hope you enjoy his notions on new ways to govern including space and the virtual world.

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The U.S. method of governance was set up hundreds of years ago. Surely things have changed, and I would bet there’s room for improvement. Shouldn’t we be experimenting?

Option 1: Small, Isolated Geographic Regions

Despite the fact that “all land has been accounted for,” I think there are a number of small communities, countries, city-states, and towns that should step up and test different governance models. Their “smallness” is important – it gives these groups agility, tight feedback loops, and a chance to test ideas with relatively minimal resources (financial, human and otherwise).

On the country scale, we’re already seeing countries like Finland (5.2 million people) and Switzerland (8 million people) experimenting with Universal Basic Income. While this isn’t a “new political system,” it’s at least a new feature within one that:

1. is tricky to test
2. might have dramatic implications on other, larger systems.

In academia, groups like the Political Science Department at Stanford have formed research networks of social scientists applying experimental methods to the study of governance and politics in developing countries. And even at the smallest scale, we’re seeing communities like Burning Man (~70,000 people) experimenting with some radical governance ideas by gathering for a week in the middle of a desert. Attendees, known as “burners,” agree to a set of 10 principles, such as: “radical” inclusion, self-reliance and self-expression, community cooperation, civic responsibility, gifting, de-commodification, participation, immediacy and leaving no trace.

We need to encourage more communities to step up and try new governing models, and then share the results.

Interestingly, improvements in our transportation systems (autonomous driving, point-to-point aerial transport, Hyperloop) will stimulate growth of new cities in underdeveloped areas all over the world – perhaps many of these will try to reinvent their political systems from first principles.

We’ve also seen the emergence of Free-Trade Zones… This concept started as an experiment in Shannon, Ireland. It was an attempt by the Irish government to promote employment within a rural area and generate revenue for the Irish economy. It was hugely successful, and is still in operation today.

I imagine smaller nations, from Iceland and Cyprus to Tonga and Isle of Man, might take it upon themselves to experiment. But where would they experiment? Where would you experiment if you have new ideas about governance? Here are a few of mine:

• An all-digital, decentralized currency: There are many advantages to having a decentralized, digital currency like Bitcoin, built on the blockchain protocol. I’ve talked about this in great length, but to review, some of the advantages include: the transparency/accountability of transactions would deter corruption, there would be no fees associated with transferring money from country to country, there would be no large banks or centralized government agency as middle men in the transactions, and a much lower risk of capital being stolen (when managed properly).
• A digital vote (true democracy): One person, one vote, on everything! If everyone could vote from his or her smartphones, we’d have record-shattering voter turnout. But what about votes on subjects that I’m not knowledgeable in? Sure, I could vote for the U.S. president, but what do I know about educational reform or tax laws? How might the average citizen vote on these matters?
• A new form of representative voting: Rather than assign my vote to a congressman or senator, what if I assign my vote on a specific topic to a colleague who I trust who knows the subject? So, for example, you might say, “If the vote has to do with space, assign my vote to Peter Diamandis. If the vote has to do with genetic issues, assign it to Craig Venter.”

Option 2: Colonies on Mars and in Space

Speaking of underdeveloped, unclaimed areas, let’s not forget about space. In the long term, what kind of governance will we have on Mars, the Moon, or perhaps in a free-floating O’Neil Colony? Humans will become multi-planetary in our lifetime. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Paul Allen (and yours truly) are working diligently to make this a reality. Google Lunar XPRIZE teams are planning to execute the first private robotic landings on the Moon by the end of 2017. SpaceX is aiming for a manned mission to Mars as soon as 2024. This will be an incredible opportunity to explore entirely new ways of building communities, literally from the ground up. Surely we can do better with these new societal developments than we have on terra firma.

Option 3: Virtual Worlds

In my opinion, perhaps the most exciting opportunity for experimentation lies in the governance of virtual worlds. As virtual reality technology exponentially improves, I believe that we are going to be spending a lot of time in it over the next two decades. As such, each of us may end up having “multiple citizenships” in the future. You’ll have a citizenship in the country where you were born, defined by your geo-location at the moment of birth. But, more importantly, we’ll also have a citizenship by “choice” in virtual worlds where you may spend most of your time socializing, playing and working. You may join communities of like-minded individuals, based on common interests and values, rather than the community of your location at birth. There might be a part of a virtual world for people who love space. Or those interested in exponential technologies and solving grand challenges. Or for artists and musicians. Or for athletes. magicians, etc. Only your imagination will be the limiting factor. These worlds, digitally inhabited by human avatars, will become places for rapid experiments with governance systems and political processes like those mentioned above.

Why is Change in Governance So Hard in the Real World?

Why is it so difficult to try new things within our existing governance systems? Largely for three reasons:

1. Those who rule make the rules. Special interest groups and incumbents write the rules that benefit them the most. Laws were created to support the current establishments, not to support possible future interests.
2. Most of today’s legal systems were designed hundreds of years ago, before things like information technology, the Internet, mobile phones and computers even existed.
3. One of the major reasons for government is stability. Most people hate change, and like waking up in the morning knowing that much hasn’t changed, tThat the rules of the game are still in play. But while governments are linear in nature, technology is exponential and requires agility.

Beyond this, self-interested parties, corruption, disagreement on ideology and cultural values create extraordinary gridlocks, preventing change. The reality is that governments don’t change gracefully — they change disruptively.

My hope is that these new outlets (small communities, space, VR) will allow us to experiment and iterate, rather than radicalize and disrupt. Hopefully we will find ways to better organize ourselves and work together. Our future requires agility. A lot is about to change.