Skip Navigation
328 comments
  • Just the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple:

    I empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

    II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

    III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

    IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.

    V Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.

    VI People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

    VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word. Crest image by Luciana Nedelea.

  • The entire body of the state, be it executive, legislative, or judiciary should have a youth quota.

    Like say at least 60% of members must be 40 or under.

    People over 50 are fundamentally incapable of comprehending the modern world and because they won't have to live in the world they are building -- They are more than willing to sacrifice us all to guarantee their own.

    Full disenfranchisement of the old would be reckless, but a quota? Yea.

    • Had shit to do. Had to stop short. Now that I'm back, a few additions:

      • Excessive Wealth and Political Activity are to be mutually exclusive -- If your net worth surpasses XXX (number to be determined) times the wealth of the average citizen of the nation, you are barred from all political participation, be it holding office or voting. You can reacquire your political rights by willfully surrendering assets (be it to the government or to a charity) until that condition is no longer met. -- If you are found using indirect methods to influence politics anyway your assets are to be seized and you tried as a criminal against national security. Vice-versa for politicians, if you become too wealthy while holding office, you forfeit your office or your wealth, you may not have both.
      • Human bodies are sovereign territory, not to be controlled by anyone but the individual themselves. Such sovereignty begins at birth and lasts until death. No family member, community backlash, or state intervention shall be allowed to intervene in that. Even if the individual is harming themselves, that is their right as their body belongs to them.
      • Free communication and free culture being recognised as rights, any law regulating trademarks or commercial copying rights should respect a person's fundamental right to sharing in human culture and human knowledge.
      • All laws, regulations and precedents must be reviewed every twenty years. In case they are no longer relevant and ought to be gone or need updating to match a changing world.
      • While I'm in board with the sentiment, I think there would be a lot of implementation problems with this. Just off the top of my head:

        1. I'm a parent, and my kid isn't competent to make decisions about his own body. Given the right to do what he wanted with it, he would immediately eat ice cream until he threw up, then do that every day in between gaming sessions until he died from diabetes.
        2. Existing laws being reviewed is a good idea, but I could see politicians with a slight majority holding fundamental laws hostage to extract concessions from other parties. You can work around this, but it could be difficult to avoid gotchas.
        3. Do we include right to free movement in the sovereign territory point? Because we have a large prison population. I'm on board with dismantling most of that, but there will probably always be people that need to be restrained from harming others.
        4. What counts as communication? Because if I can put a character on a shirt and sell them cheaper than the independent creator on patreon or wherever, most of their profits go away. I can subscribe and support them, then turn around and sell their work on the same website. I'm not a huge fan of copyright, but it did/does have a purpose beyond endless abuse by Disney.

        As for the wealth tax thing, I don't care if it has implementation issues lol

    • Aren't a lot of professionals who build this world 50-somethings?

      • Broadly because of gerontocracy and the idea that oldness = competency.

        It is also why the world is slowly dying and the people in charge don't give two shits: They'll be dead by the time it gets TRULY shitty so they don't have any incentive to care.

        And as far as like, work is concerned, gerontocracy is fine.

        Not so for politics. Hence, youth quota.

    • Too many too old politians. But how to slim the fat. Quota is a neat idea. How about senility test, based on current known conditions and the avg age they occur. The test needs to occur more frequently on people of older ages due to increase odds.

      I feel a quota alone would sometimes screen out perfectly fine older people, while keeping the ones who shouldn't be there .

      Also 40...damn. I think 20 and 30 year olds can, but rarely have enough life experience for something like this. 35-65 is probably prime age for politicians IMO.

      • Also a pretty interesting idea, a sort of per-election test to see if they are both fully sane and up to date on current events.

        ... Although the senility test might end up as a tool of disenfranchisement anyway. Just remember Literacy Tests in the American Slave States during Jim Crow.

  • 🤔🤔🤔

    Okay, so I have put a LOT of thought into this question, and after reading everyone else's opinions on the matter, I thought I'd share mine. You guys have a lot of good ideas, some of which I didn't think about before. I hope my ideas can inspire similar contemplation.

    Okay, here goes:


    IN THE NAME OF liberty, truth, justice, cupcakes, porn, and all that is good in this life, We The People of The Motherfucking Galactic Republic hereby establish and ordain this new Constitution, with blackjack and hookers.

    Based on the millennia of suffering of ourselves and our ancestors, We The People hereby establish and remind the reader that ALL PEOPLE HAVE BASIC NATURAL RIGHTS that either the government or any organization of people cannot violate, or must enable and adhere to, respectively. We lay out this Constitution to provide a Framework from which the government, organizations and the people can sort out what and how that should be done, and what ways most benefit the people.

    We also hereby establish in the name of harmony, justice, truth and goodness that along with RESPECTING AND ENABLING NATURAL RIGHTS, government, organizations and the people must also adhere to certain responsibilities to ensure the best and most positive outcome for the people and to protect the natural rights of everyone involved.


    NATURAL RIGHTS

    We the People hereby establish this list of Natural Rights we recognize from the start.

    We first stress that this list is not exhaustive, and that Natural Rights are not limited to only the contents of the list. As the future plays out, the people will experience situations new to humanity and therefore the Natural Rights of which the people expect the government and organizations to enforce and protect will, by its nature, expand. New amendments to this list shall be done in accordance with the instructions of this here Constitution.

    RIGHT #1: THE RIGHT TO HAVE ONE'S PHYSICAL NEEDS MET

    The most basic of all Natural Rights is the right to have one's physical needs met by the government and organizations. These rights include, but not limited to:

    • The right to steady and fair access to nutritious and delicious food, and clean, safe, drinkable water.
    • The right to a safe, clean, pestilence-free, and sturdy domicile that will comfortably meet a person's need for shelter, food, water, electricity and homeostasis.
    • The right to access to electricity, including but not limited to power generation for their shelter.
    • The right to access and use all publicly available or published information that has ever been created up to this point and in the future.
    • The right to access and use communications platforms, including but not limited to mail and any electronic communications systems developed before or since, especially Internet and interplanetary/interstellar communications systems.
    • The right to clean, suitably fitting clothing that will meet the wearer's need for protection from the external world and homeostasis.
    • The right to clean, safe, fast and efficient transportation, on all scopes as described later in this Constitution.

    No organization and no government can receive or require payment for the fulfillment of any of these aspects of the right to have one's needs met.

    RIGHT #2: THE RIGHT TO SAFETY

    We The People assert that we live in an objective reality with a natural world filled not only with wonders, but with many dangers, and therefore the government and organizations are mandated to protect, enforce and safeguard the very real need the people have to maintain and protect themselves, each other, their communities, nation and species.

    These rights include, but not limited to:

    • The inalienable right to use lethal or non-lethal force in self-defense and defense of other people in life-threatening situations, whether those situations be immediate, or long-term such as domestic abuse, stalking or harassment.
    • The right of all individuals to own weapons.
    • The right to access and receive combat training, including in the use of weapons.
    • The collective right to own ordnance for all communities.
    • The collective right to form militias and militaries, and to give combat training access to all individuals in a community.
    • The right to secure one's domicile against all forms of attack, whether foreign or domestic

    Weapons are defined as:

    • any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, drone or cannon, that can be held and operated by a single individual. Explosive devices equal to or less in power than a stick of TNT are also included.

    Ordnance is defined as:

    • any vehicle designed for military or combat use, including but not limited to tanks, ships, airplanes, or spaceships; large weapons that require more than one individual to operate; explosive devices more powerful than one stick of TNT; bioweapons; nuclear, relativistic (such as asteroids or missiles deliberately launched toward another) or antimatter weapons. Note that individuals are explicitly ALLOWED to have vehicles NOT designed for combat use as defined here. No government or organization can declare a clearly not combat-designed vehicle as one.

    FOR THE safety, protection, provision, and betterment of the people of The Motherfucking Galactic Republic, the government is mandated to have and operate A SPACE PROGRAM, to be given no less than 10% of the federal government's gross earnings (whether they be taxes, direct revenue, however the hypothetical government makes money).

    This space program must do, bare minimum:


    And that's as far as I've got. The Motherfucking Galactic Republic is obviously just a filler name; I don't know if any of these ideas would ever be implemented but they could be used for any new nation, so...

  • Funnily enough, I had this exact scenario assigned as a project in my political science class in college.

    What I came up with is a lottery-based council government. The system is designed with none of the "gentleman's agreements" that the US systems seems to be based on, and assumes that if it's possible to abuse the system, then the system WILL BE abused. So it's designed to minimize the ability for the system to be abused.

    You want to get rid of career politicians? Make it so they don't even have the option of running for office in the first place.

    Councils

    The way my system worked is that all governmental tasks are performed by a council created for a specific purpose. Every council is made up of an odd number of members, with a minimum of 5. Councils can be created to manage a geographical area, such as a state, county, or city, or for a topical purpose, for example, medical oversight. Each council has the ability to create lower councils that report to it, but only within the purview of the parent council. For example, a State Council can create a Municipal Council for a city within the state.

    Sitting at the top of the entire structure is the Prime Council, which always consists of exactly 11 members. Decisions of the Prime Council are final except in the case of a supermajority overrule as detailed below.

    Lower councils are subject to the decisions of higher councils with one exception - a parent council's ruling can be overturned and vacated if a supermajority* of child councils that existed at the time of the ruling vote to overturn it. For example, if a State Council outlaws gambling, but 75% of Municipal Councils vote to vacate the ruling, it is overturned. But, for example, if a Municipal Council votes to allow prostitution, the state or national council can overturn that ruling on its own. Again, however, this overturning can be overridden by a supermajority of child councils. However, the chain ends there. A parent council CANNOT vacate a supermajority vote passed by the collected child councils. Child councils must have a reason for existing can cannot be created simply to stack a supermajority vote.

    A singular case can only be tackled by ONE council at a time and cannot be interfered with during the proceedings by any other council at any other level. For example, if a Municipal Traffic Council is considering a motion to raise a speed limit on a road, no other council (Municipal, State, or even the Prime Council) can interfere in that case or tell the lower council how to rule on it. However, once the case is complete and the ruling announced, THEN a higher council may take up the issue and/or vacate the lower council's ruling.

    Decisions of lower councils can be appealed, but a parent council has no obligation to take up the issue and can simply deny the appeal.

    Courts

    Courts, as we understand them, do not exist in this system, per se. Civil and criminal cases are handled in the same way; there is no separation between the case types. Likewise, there is no differentiation between the natures of the decisions that can be handed down. Every court case is presided over by a council created especially for the purpose of hearing this single case. All the other rules surrounding how councils work detailed the Councils section still apply.

    The Lottery

    Council members are selected by lottery from all eligible citizens. Each lottery is specific to the seat being filled. To be considered eligible for a given lottery, a citizen:

    1. Must be a member of the geographical area that the seat's council represents. For example, if the seat is on a Municipal Planning Council, the citizen must live within the city.
    2. Must meet the qualifications defined by the higher council when this council was created. In this case, perhaps, qualification requires that the citizen hold a bachelor of science degree in any subject.
    3. Must NOT have previously served on this same council.
    4. Must NOT have been declared unfit for service by a medical professional.

    All citizens of legal age are automatically in the lottery pool by default, and the lottery operates on on opt-out basis.

    If a citizen is chosen for a council, they have the option of declining the position. In which case, another eligible citizen is selected.

    Additionally, a citizen can elect to be removed from the lottery pool for any or no reason for one year at a time. This election can be renewed indefinitely, but it must be renewed UNLESS a medical professional declares that they are unfit for service. An unfit-for-service declaration can be made for a specific amount of time or on a permanent basis.

    Antagonistic Resignation

    Any council member can resign their position on a council at any time before their term is over. In addition, a council member may enact the right of "Antagonistic Resignation" whereby they remove both themself and ONE other member of the council. There is no veto or override process allowed. To clarify, any council member can remove any other member from the same council by also removing themself at the same time. The replacement council member(s) will be chosen via the lottery.

    Antagonistic Recusement

    A council member MAY NOT vote on or interfere with the vote on any issue the results of which they may directly benefit from. That is to say that if a council member could personally benefit from a decision on a matter, they are REQUIRED to recuse themself from the case and may not interfere with the case in any way, including but not limited to public discussion or press releases related to the matter.

    A council member with a conflicting interest in a single case must either resign from the council or recuse themself from the case. As with Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member chooses ONE other council member that must also recuse themself from the case to preserve the odd number of council seats. Again, there is no veto or override process allowed. However, unlike Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member MUST choose one other member for recusement - they do not get the option to decline. If the number of active seats on the council would drop below five for this single issue, interim seats will be created and filled by lottery for this specific case only, after which the additional seats will be removed from the council and the interim council members' terms will be considered complete.

    Protection and Compensation

    Serving on a council is a full-time job and may require taking a sabbatical from work. While an individual citizen has the ability to decline a council seat, NO other entity, individual, or organization may punish or otherwise act against a citizen for choosing to accept the responsibility of service. Therefore, it is considered unconstitutional for any entity to retaliate against a citizen for accepting a council seat, punishable by a fine of not less than 50% of that entity's yearly income. It is understood that this is a harsh penalty, and the severity and calamitous nature of it is intentional and intended to avoid even the outward appearance of impropriety or retaliation. If a citizen CHOOSES of their own accord to decline a council seat out of a sense of duty to an organization, that's allowed, but it is absolutely not acceptable for an organization to demand, tell, ask, or even imply that a seat should be declined.

    It is required by law that an employee (and this shall be construed loosely, to include any person who is in any way a member of an organization) of an organization be reinstated at the end of their council service to their same position, pay, benefits, and tenure as though no sabbatical had been taken at all. This is inclusive of any required "re-onboarding" time.

    Council members shall be paid the greater of 125% of their reported yearly income or 200% of the average salary of the relevant lottery eligibility pool. This shall be to incentivize citizens to fulfill their duty and serve on a council.

    Councilar No-Confidence

    At any time, the citizens may petition a geographical council (Prime, State, County, Municipal, etc) for a status of Councilar No-Confidence. This petition shall require the signatures of 55% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented. Upon submission of a completed petition, the council will be dissolved, and a new council will be chosen by lottery according to all the requirements for the council being replaced. This action is automatic and cannot be vetoed or overruled.

    Branch No-Confidence (The Nuclear Option)

    If instead, the No-Confidence petition contains the signatures of 75% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented, the council and ALL LOWER COUNCILS created by it, directly or indirectly, are dissolved and replaced as above. This is akin to pruning a branch from a tree - every branch and leaf connected to the branch is also removed. Note that this applies to EVERY level of the system, so a No-Confidence petition signed by 75% of the citizens of the entire country and submitted to the Prime Council results in the entire system being wiped away and reset.

    It went a lot deeper than that, but I've already typed a LOT and think this mostly gets the gist of it.

  • Note: I used Community of Earth in case we discover other species, but I'd suggest changing the name according to the interplanetary travel and expeditions

    I'm not an expert, but I propose the following:

    First and most important

    1. Every individual, from any background and in accordance of the Community of Earth, has the right to the following:
    • a) To Housing in good living conditions, according to the Fourth Right rights and obligations
    • b) To Food
    • c) To Water
    • d) To Access of all public knowledge and knowledge funded completely or partially funded by the Community of Earth
    • e) To a Well-cared-for environment
    • f) To Migrate or Immigrate to any place in or out-of- the Earth
    • g) To reliable, well-cared-for, efficient Public Transport and any transport, in the conditions mentioned below
    • h) To Demand their personal data be protected and used only in the conditions mentioned below
    • i) None of the rights and obligations declared above can be overruled, modified or eliminated without the consent of the 100% of the population of the Community of Earth.
    1. Every individual has the right to be recognized by any entity, organization, individual or any group of individuals that need to use their information
    2. Every individual's identity and characteristics can't be damaged, abolished or affected in any way that invalidates their right to be recognized as they wish
    • a) All individuals and groups of individuals have to follow consent obligations, which can't be abolished nor modified unless they have the recognition of the entire Community of the Earth
    • b) There is no way, path, reform or modification that may affect the rights of the Community of Earth to vote
    1. All the individuals have the right to form organizations, which may be completely transparent in their financial background and members.
    • a) Organizations proclaiming an expert base to have a vote in knowledge or educational background have to adhere to the Second Right obligations and rights.
    • b) Organizations proclaiming an expert base to have a vote in the Community of Earth decisions have to follow the Third Right
    • c) Organizations can be overruled and stop being recognized according to the Community of Earth decisions

    Second. Right of decision making for the Community of Earth

    1. Expert entities are those that have an extensive, recognized and valid knowledge recognized by the Community of Earth, in the area they intend to be recognized as experts
    2. Any organization participating as an expert entity for the Community of Earth, included but not limited to: Rights, Economics, Knowledge, Spacial, Exploring, Architectural, Transport and other kinds of entities that may affect the Community of Earth as a whole have to adhere to the following rights and obligations:
    • a) Decisions have to be based on facts. Decisions can't be influenced by religion, moral, personal or any other kind of influence that is not based on facts.
    • b) Decisions and propositions have to be completely open to the Community of Earth, if hidden, organizations are subject to the Sxith Right rights and obligations.
    1. Any organization, participating as an expert entity for the Community of Earth as stated above, can't choose, propose nor influence individuals or groups of individuals without the knowledge of the Community of Earth. Otherwise, they may be subject to the obligations stated in the Sixth Right
    2. Any organization, participating as an expert entity for the Community of Earth has to use standardized, free and open source software and standards according to the Community of Earth.

    Third. The right of Knowledge

    1. Any organizations proclaiming educational and knowledge-access base have to be recognized by the Community of Earth
    2. Any school or educational organization may be funded by the Community of Earth, according to the following obligations:
    • a) All facts may be represented as facts, without any modifications and according to ages
    • b) All content may be reviewed by experts recognized by the several educational organizations of the Community of Earth
    • c) All knowledge, described by the several educational organizations of the Community of Earth, may be taught with enough evidence as the several educational organizations of the Community of Earth recognize
    • d) All individuals and groups of individuals, including those following a redemption path, have the right of education and knowledge
    • e) All software, hardware and equipment used with educational purposes has to be completely open to be reviewed by students and the several educational organizations of the Community of Earth
    1. All knowledge has to be based on facts, unless declared and approved by the several educational organizations of the Community of Earth as fictional content, included but not limited to: novels, sci-fi stories, movies, series, stories, myths, etc.
    • a) All knowledge declared and approved as fictional content can't be presented as facts nor used to influence Community of Earth decisions

    Fourth. Housing and Living Conditions Rights

    1. Living conditions are decided by the Community of Earth
    2. Architectural and Urban design decisions are made by the several Architectural, Urban Design, Civil Engineer and housing and urban design organizations recognized by the Community of Earth
    3. Every individual may be provided housing with good living conditions, following their necessities

    Fifth. Worker's Rights

    I mean, the basics and, you know, Marx propositions lol

    Sixth. Right of Punishment and Redemption

    i haven't decided yet, but the Norwegian proposition sounds good and, with all basics needs met, it may not be necessary to be so strict. But there are still other things to be clear and I already spent too much time writing this

    Seventh. Right of Exploration and Transport

    1. Pedestrians and cyclists will always be the priority
    2. Any vehicle that may be sold, interchanged, modified, gifted or any other kind of exchange, designed for private transport, has to follow the following obligations:
    • a) The vehicle has to follow environmental regulations, which are assigned by the several environmental organizations recognized by the Community of Earth
    • b) The vehicle has to follow the security for vehicle passengers and pedestrians regulations assigned by the several urban, environmental and other organizations selected by the Community of Earth
    1. Public and massive transport vehicles can only be acquired after the revision, auditory and recognition of the several urban, environmental and other organizations selected by the Community of Earth.
    • a) All information about the models, contracts, routes and other related information of Public transport, vehicles, software, hardware and other specifications selected by the several urban, environmental and other organizations selected by the Community of Earth has to be completely open to the Community of Earth and provided in an standardized, accessible and free (as in freedom and price) way.

    And i don't know, I'm a Free Software advocate so that too has to be considered. Any way, I have more ideas, but not the time

  • First No elected official is allowed to take money or goods in excess of 50% of the median salary for all workers in the country in total for the entirety of their time in office from any organization or unrelated individual nor sit on the board of any company following office. Any payments to said official totalling over 50% median salary in the 5 years prior to their election and 20 years after leaving office from a single entity must be declared. The state will provide a generous pension to ensure future employment is not a financial necessity.

    These measures are intended to allow elected officials to be free from influence.

    Second Any change in leadership of a political party immediately triggers a general election. Change in leadership generally means a failure of the manifesto and/or a change in the policies which were presented to the public when the leadership was elected.

    Third No advisory referendum shall be conducted without the intention to act upon the outcome and therefore any referenda should only be acted upon with a super majority of 66%. Prior to action following a referendum, the winning side must demonstrate how the result will be acted upon and where negotiation with outside interests is necessary, since the outcome cannot be known at the time of the first referendum the public should be offered a second referendum to decide whether to accept the outcome.

    Fourth Politicians shall be held to account for any lies or dishonesty. Burden of proof lies with the politician accused of misconduct to provide evidence for their claims which are in dispute. Therefore evidence provision at the time of any claims is encouraged and can be published to a publicly accessible repository. Punishments can range from fines to removal from office depending on the severity and frequency of misinformation.

    Fifth Proportional representation she'll be enacted to eliminate tactical voting. In addition any changes to the electoral district are subject to scrutiny by a randomly selected jury of 1000 residents in each of the affected areas. Voting by, and identity if the jurors shall be anonymous. The public may request redistricting at any time with a 2 year cool off via a petition meeting a minimum number of 100,000 signatures.

  • government policy will be primarily set by a peer validated group of experts in their fields. funding will be dictated by a multidisciplinary team that assesses need through funding requests by the expert bodies with accompanying impact assessments. that will dictate taxes and so on.

    elections will be performative and meaningless as you lot have absolutely shown you can't be trusted but also need to feel heard or you'll break things you don't understand.

    • peer validate group of expert in their fields

      With the restriction that there should be no financial interest in the policy being passed for a committee member.

      • good call. just well paid, expert professionals without a vested interest doing a job they are qualified to do, and being reviewed by people qualified to understand their performance.

    • so similar to current, except for the 'expert' part

      • currently governments fund and slash funding to all sorts of things according to political convenience.. I just want to see all those decisions validated entirely on merit by someone who understands it.

        if it's popular with the mob but it's not true or doesn't work, well, we don't do it. president isn't an expert and can't say shit, and especially can't do stupid things so he can sound tough in a media release. we can't afford to keep dicking around with whatever sounds good to win popular support with the lowest common denominator while the world goes to shit.

        the world is far beyond the level of complexity where any one person could understand enough to make off the cuff, meaningful decisions about big issues. people need to stop thinking they can vote sensibly on policy or policy performance on almost any issue, let alone all the issues.

328 comments