No! XD I need to refer you or anyone else interested to the other topic. I hadn’t realized how much I typed there, but it was a few pages, and my kid is home sick today so I can’t re-do it. See mostly posts 16-24, and 29-36.
(1). Of course geography is relevant. But people have a lot of choice about both their geographic location, and with whom they interact. I’d argue that the reason you expect other people and their laws to affect you is because you are accustomed to living in a coercive environment. People are given political and economic incentives to influence people rather than let them freely associate. Basically, there is no reason to assume that physical proximity implies that people living there have the same values or goals. But the prevailing paradigm of nation-states and municipalities has been that this uniformity must be assumed - or imposed. People in some urban environments are accustomed to a reality of people with different kinds of families, businesses, religions, and outlooks on life generally living within the same space. Generally they do this despite local laws, which tend to be normative, rather than facilitated by them.
(2). Coercion as protection from coercion not only makes the idea relative, but recursive, requiring regressive iterations to manage. And what do we do about those who prefer to not be protected by others? Part of my intention is to make the deciding factors ecological, rather than ideological, modelled upon what is least disruptive.
(3). What I proposed were not laws, but conditions. This might seem like a semantic slight to some. But I see initial conditions for participation as being distinctly different than prescriptions of behavior. The only “law” effectively being to make your ideology the concern of your own group, and not that of others. But I agree that this, by design, leaves much undecided which would currently be the province of governmental intervention.
(4). Why should they need to enforce their laws? People who find those laws objectionable can join another, or start their own group.
(5). Arbitrary rules are, by nature, coercive - because there is no way to explicitly know or comply with them. If they are conditions to membership in the first place, then they aren’t arbitrary. But this requires people to make some decisions. Sure, you might find yourself negotiating what church you go to, or health care. But the goal here is for the individual to have more options, which they have more participation in. You still seem to frame things in terms of individuals compliance with terms of a larger group, rather than equitable participation. Fairness requires participation and negotiation instead of some big policy-for-everyone which is supposed to somehow just “happen to be” fair.
(6). I agree that this is the most difficult part. Although you are once again drawing a sharp distinction between the group and the members. Groups are basically emergent properties of what the members do. If you can belong to or create whatever group you choose, there is minimal reason for friction within groups. It would more likely occur between different groups. What I am thinking of is something - to employ a misunderstood, overused term - cybernetic. That is, models which strive for a certain algorithmic homeostatis. I know it sounds like hand waving, but this part needs work.
As for dissolution of groups having bad consequences - partly, whatever consequences - good, bad, or indifferent - are merely the results of their actions. Also, such a system as this encourages many memberships. If you are a member of 100 groups for various reasons, and a few are created and dissolved every few months is not as drastic as in a hierarchical system where a big organizations dissolution could be perceived as catastrophic. The proliferation allows for much more redundancy. Many of these, because of size limitations, would be somewhat special purpose. So you would probably belong to separate groups for such things as your church, schools, stores, healthcare, etc. adding or subtracting a few when you are all free to join others is fairly safe.
This also helps to overcome one of the main reasons for entrenched coercive power structures - which is that of organizations overstaying their welcome, or mutating away from their original intentions. It encourages something more like a natural life-cycle for organizations where them being easier both to instantiate and dissolve is a feature. Meanwhile if something worked perfectly, nothing stops others from copying it, or the members from creating a group which carries on its most successful ideas and practices.
(7). I agree that ideally the status of the charters should be a democratic process. The trouble with this is that it could only reasonably be expected to be democratic within the group itself, or between it and another specific party(ies) in dispute. Without the “streamlining” which occurs by having hierarchies make decisions for others, there is no practical way to expect millions of other groups to take time out to evaluate yours.
I agree that some concept of due process is needed, and again should be known at the outset. This is in part why the reputation/risk assessment needs to be a homeostatic balance, rather than an absolute measurement. This allows groups to evaluate the effects of their actions. A large factor in my reasoning for having this algorithmically managed is precisely to avoid personal ideologies or mob rule becoming a problem. Of course it can be argued that algorithms can merely convey the implicit assumptions of their creators, which I agree is the case, but I think that implementing such a thing is workable.
(8). Corporations and churches only appear to be outside of democratic control because they have been perpetuated using dysfunctional democracies. Your nominally democratic state uses your authority as a citizen to charter these organizations. Typically with lots of metaphysical bias as baggage, and no time or size limits to expansion. These kinds of groups are no different than a civic 1000-person cryptocountry or a 50-person tribal marriage.
Such an opt-in, non-coercive system as this does not attack the currently-existing institutions. But if those continue working by their existing coercive status quo - they won’t be recognized as valid groups to interact with. Not unlike how the United Nations would refuse to acknowledge one of the countries I create by not conforming to their standards. If a current country, company, church, school, etc is sufficiently small and fair, it could participate in the system unchanged. Otherwise they would need to split into many, smaller groups. You can’t very well work for or do business with a corporation which isn’t a valid business, chartered by a country which isn’t a valid country!
(9). I think laws are generally unnecessarily and deliberately complicated. If you like your current government system, does this mean that you do read up on food and building codes there? Or is it merely that you feel you don’t need to? In most of the world, even in democratic countries, ignorance of law is actively exploited even now. If you live in an area with minimal corruption then perhaps you are lucky. If ignorance equals exploitation, then there is no easy answer to how or why you should expect to be safe without being aware. It is fortunate that you have someone you trust to handle this, but does not account for others who do not - or even directly suggest that you would be precluded from doing so in the future.
In pure democratic terms, I have found that most people by far do not even read the actual laws of where they currently reside. I could be wrong, but I think the general statistical trend here is accurate. What does law mean in a democracy when even in litigious, authoritative countries less than 1% of the population care to read or know just what those laws are?
(1) Not at all! Penalty doesn’t even enter into it. Although it can seem like that from the perspective of a system where groups are encouraged to be immortal and amass power and influence. The idea is to make the basic conditions known up front so that if people decide not to adhere to them that they are effectively opting out. This puts the responsibility on people evenly. But I agree that this does function as an optimization process. In a bureaucratic culture, these problems are designed to be intractable, and involve unsavory compromises, because these groups have been founded upon or exploited into systems which make careers from obfuscation and influence. For instance, laws are actually not currently meant to be understood by the people they apply to. Because interpreting them gives somebody a job. And since this total system is, as Kafka said, for everybody - there is no opting out, as things have been.
Enough for now! Got to go check on the little one!
