We don't need politicians anymore
Why are we still paying politicians for doing NOTHING? Yeah, sure, we needed them before but, are we still need them in 2021?
Why we had this guys in the first place anyway?
Well I am not an expert, but I try to keep it simple and follow logic here.
We didn’t have the Internet before, not in all places like we have it today, so we needed someone to make decisions for us. For example, if two groups of people need to make a decision on an issue, instead of trying to reach an agreement between all (which would be chaotic), each group chooses someone they trust to represent them. In this way, only two people have to reach an agreement and then communicate the result to the group of people they represent.
We called this “Democracy”, but is it? The decisions are not being made democratically by the people. People choose democratically (sometimes ;-) here you have to take an act of faith) politicians, then politicians make choices for us and we pay them.
Power and People
Here we have the first and bigger problem: we choose them, give them power, and pay and trust them to do te right thing. They have power to choose their salary!! how do we get there?! So, we are humans, and humans are selfish and many other things (bad and good ones), if you give them power they are going to use it in their benefit. If you could choose your salary, would you set it to 500 USD? or as high as posible?… you have te answer.
OK, we have internet, now what?
The Internet give us the ability to stay connected wherever we are. We didn't had this before, but this is not enough. We basically need politicians for two things: first, centralise decision making, and second, act as trusted third party This is a bit technical term, but it only means that we agree to trust this third party.
The first thing can be achieved by the internet, we all can be connected asynchronously to make collaborative choices agreed by a majority of the people. BUT we lack the second part, we cannot trust the internet as a trusted third party.
So… We still need politicians right? NO, we don’t need them!
In 2021 we have a new technology called BLOCKCHAIN, and the main objective when it was created was to remove the need of a trusted third party entity! or set the network as the trusted third party itself. Yes, I know that you will think “oh, ok you are talking about Bitcoin”, but NO, I’m talking about Blockchain. Bitcoin was first generation blockchain and it removes the need of a trusted third party when transferring digitalized money (Bitcoin token). This does not solve our political problems.
Second Generation Blockchain
With the second generation Blockchain we have Smart Contracts. Which is basically the ability to execute code on a decentralised network, see this execution, store and check it forever. This execution (includes the input/output) will not change forever. This is what gives us the power to really make our choices as a group of people as a TRUE DEMOCRACY.
True Democracy
I have been trying to explain all of this at the highest level and as understandable as possible. I could get to the technical level you want, but that is not the goal here.
So, recap here: we needed politicians for two things, the internet and second gen blockchain sets them as DEPRECATED.
With this bases there can be many valid solutions, in the next sections I will propose/give you my vision of how should it look like.
The Blockchain Network
A blockchain network could be public, private or all the intermediate things tat you can imagine. This only makes sense if it's a public Blockchain.
From this there are many variants. From my point of view the ideal is that everyone, or every house, have a blockchain node. Ok, I know what are you thinking, but come on, we all have a router (at least) to access the internet so is not something stupid to ask.
All this nodes could be working to maintain the consensus of the network (creating blocks etc…). Here we have so much alternatives and it’s not important right now.
The user access and interaction
How do we identify ourselves against the blockchain or the system and at the same time be anonymous to the others? Applying the SSI model to control access.
Self-sovereign Identity is meant to give control of the identity to the users, and the concept match here in a very natural way. For example, in order to enter the “True Democracy” system you need to have a Verifiable Credential for your ID (like your physical ID) issued by a recognised issuer of the system itself, like the actual ID issuer of your country.
Then all your operations will be represented by your DID which cannot be linked with you by anyone.
The system or the logic
These are the Smart Contracts that will implement the logic part of the system, and the most important part.
This could be implemented in many ways, for example:
We can define that each week everyone have to vote for a decision and a topic that will become a decision for the next week, and so on. So, for example, this weekend we have to vote if we are going to remove all carbon based energy by 2022, which can be a yes or no answer or a four based choice or whatever. And the same weekend, the most voted proposal for the week is set for voting the next weekend.
If we do this we have a rate of one decision a week, which is way higher than the actual decision rate. This is because it has not have to go though an endless bureaucratic and personal interests based process. This ensures that the social related decisions are agreed by all people, so true democracy is achieved.
Here we have details to be solved, like the fact that if everybody has the same vote weight in all types of decisions. So, for example, if I am a verified telecommunication engineer, then I will have 5 times more vote weight than others in a telecommunication related decision.
Let’s talk about money!! $$
Here It comes the fun stuff. I am not going to get super mathematical here, just simple logic calcs. I will put Spain examples cause I understand it better.
Let’s say the mean gross anual salary of a mayor in Spain is 50000 EUR. We are low here, in 2018 Madrid’s Mayor earned 103667.64 for example. We have 8131 mayors across Spain, let’s keep 5000. So 50000 x 5000 = 250000000 EUR per year, that is 250 M EUR. And This is only mayors, there are approximately 100000 politicians in Spain.
So, to support the True Democracy platform, let’s shoot it high and say that we need 50 people that will be paid the same salary. It will cost 50000 x 50 = 2500000 EUR per year, 2.5 M EUR. That’s 1% of 250 M. And this will be people doing something, by the way.
<<mic drop>>
Conclusion
We have discuss how we are paying politicians for doing nothing (let’s assume this, they don’t do anything, period). And this “True Democracy” concept is not some bullshit I am making up myself, it is real and it is real now.
I know that we are afraid of things we don’t understand, but, the only other option is to smile while they are taking money from your wallet every day while you are working.
And don’t fool yourselves, no matter the political party they are, they are all the same, they say whatever you want to ear to make you smile more and nod while they are doing the same.
Thank you! think and trust code!
