Goblinworks Executive Founder
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So, the Freevale thingy, which I don't have any opinion whatsoever about because I don't know anything about it, made me wonder about the concept of democracy, in a MMO.
I think that there is a misconception, about democracy. It doesn't mean that the majority always rule about everything. On the military subject for instance, it is not the point of a democracy, to decide strategy and tactic. Just as it is not up to everybody, to intervene in every diplomatic move.
What I would like to discuss, is how democracy CAN, be implemented in a settlement. Don't forget that there was a lot of different democracy : For example, in a constitutional monarchy, a leader will always have the keys of the country. So democracy doesn't mean that a settlement owner, should give up the "buttons", because the majority doesn't like him at a T instant.
But I think that there is still some room, for a lot of meaningful democracy. For example, about internal settlement laws, taxes, building... I don't know, and I would be interested in hearing your ideas.
(And yes, I am open to some people expressing a very bad experience with the evil TEO, just don't make a flood of it please.)
Goblin Squad Member
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In general, democracy, even a representative democracy, tend to entail too much un-fun management overhead to be practical.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, but popular rule by an autocrat or an obligarcy are infinitely more practical.
For Sunholm, we have an autocracy, informed by a council consisting of a rep from each company in the settlement. The expectation is that said autocrat will have final decision making power, but will largely follow the will of the council. It's not democracy, but it is a form of governance that allows maximum democratic input without sacrificing the agility of a single decision maker.
That said, I have seen one system done well that is much closer to a democratic approach. Every three months, everyone got to vote for someone. The x number of people (six, I think) with the most votes were the council for the quarter. The council decided by a vote amongst themselves with whom the final decision rests. And thus it was for the next three months. This worked fairly well.
Note that both system have someone with the power to make the final decision. Without that, you're gonna have a bad time. Consensus is a damn hard thing to find in a game, as in life.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In a game where voting with your feet is as simple as "/gc leave" or equivalent, every organization is effectively democratic to a large degree. A leader who fails to inspire and retain the trust of his followers will quickly find himself with nothing to lead.
With that said, a horse designed by committee is a camel. The way to be led well is to choose good leaders and then let them do their jobs, until it becomes clear that they need be replaced. The parliamentary "no confidence" system is ideal for this: the boss is the boss, until he isn't.
Yes
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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In general, democracy, even a representative democracy, tend to entail too much un-fun management overhead to be practical.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, but popular rule by an autocrat or an obligarcy are infinitely more practical.
For Sunholm, we have an autocracy, informed by a council consisting of a rep from each company in the settlement. The expectation is that said autocrat will have final decision making power, but will largely follow the will of the council. It's not democracy, but it is a form of governance that allows maximum democratic input without sacrificing the agility of a single decision maker.
That said, I have seen one system done well that is much closer to a democratic approach. Every three months, everyone got to vote for someone. The x number of people (six, I think) with the most votes were the council for the quarter. The council decided by a vote amongst themselves with whom the final decision rests. And thus it was for the next three months. This worked fairly well.
Note that both system have someone with the power to make the final decision. Without that, you're gonna have a bad time. Consensus is a damn hard thing to find in a game, as in life.
Well, you're bringing up an interesting point : the time between elections.
In a game like this one, were there is long-term gameplay, I don't think that we should do very different than IRL, which is not giving an opinion on every subject. We mostly chose a leader every few years, I think that we could just do the same in a MMO. Maybe not 5 years, but 2 things reasonable enough.
Ah, but this is a higher-conflict game that tests leaders more frequently. Moreover, it's a game. People are after faster returns on their votes, or "investments."
The sole reason America doesn't do elections every month is that it would be literally impossible—ideally (with regards to how the system now functions), we'd have in charge the person currently most popular all the time.
There's a reason we hear slogans like "2008 will be too late" and "Can't afford 4 more". Long terms aren't really well-liked save that they save us a whole lot of hassle.
A game election isn't nearly as much hassle and therefore can't be easily compared.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There is simply too much in the field labeled "democracy" to usefully discuss it using that term.
Well, I don't think so, actually. I think that the problem is exactly that we don't use the word "democracy", in the same way as we do IRL.
And by the way, I do not advocate in favour of democracy in any settlement. This one is purely a theorycal discussion.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Ah, but this is a higher-conflict game that tests leaders more frequently. Moreover, it's a game. People are after faster returns on their votes, or "investments."
The sole reason America doesn't do elections every month is that it would be literally impossible—ideally (with regards to how the system now functions), we'd have in charge the person currently most popular all the time.
There's a reason we hear slogans like "2008 will be too late" and "Can't afford 4 more". Long terms aren't really well-liked save that they save us a whole lot of hassle.
A game election isn't nearly as much hassle and therefore can't be easily compared.
I think that your point is valid if you consider the Democratic aspect as an attempt at having fun. But it can just be the will to stay close to your players desires in the long run.
And I don't really agree with your US comparison, because in France, from my perspective, most people would prefere to go back to the seven years presidency that we had, back in the 90's : lots of people think that five years isn't enough to do anything.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"I think that there is a misconception, about democracy. It doesn't mean that the majority always rule about everything."
Technicaly that is what it means, in the strictest sense of the word. It's just that what most people call democracies, aren't.
For instance, most people mistakenly believe that the United States is a democracy. We aren't, we are a Constitutional Republic.
I'm not sure if there are any nations that are really democracies in the technical sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Even Athenian democracy wasn't really all that democratic, voting rights being restricted to only adult male Athenians (about 20-25% of the population). Still, within the confines of that minority the democratic process had a delightful and terrifying flavor of "mob rule" about it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The meaning of democracy has changed over time. Traditionally a democracy means every issue is decided democratically.
Today America is described as a democracy yet the founding fathers were actually extremely critical of democratic government.
There are many sources of this but here is one from one of my all time favorite writings of the period. Federalist 51:
Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.
What the founding fathers condoned and established was not democracy but a republic.
Republics if engineered VERY carefully have proven to be an incredibly successful form of government in real life, unlike true democracies which are a proven/consistent failure.
However games are an entirely different format from real life. In real life you can oppress your citizens into doing your will at gunpoint. This isn't possible in-game. In real life everyone has a major interest and (generally) makes major contributions to the success of their nation. In games it is typical that the vast majority sit back and let a small minority do the work. In (modern) real life constant war is generally not something most people have to deal with. In Open World PvP games, it often is.
Because of all these factors combined it is best to place your government in the hands of the hardest working and most experienced among them. This gives them incentive to work harder where a system where they make the pies and then everyone get's an equal share does not. In other words MMO democracies ring closely to socialism, another proven/consistent failure. It also ensures the decisions are made quickly by people with the authority to make decisive action and the knowledge/experience to make them well. This is actually part of the upside of republics as well if representatives are well chosen. To put it bluntly, a democracy uses the average intelligence of the common citizen to make decisions where a well running republic or oligarchy should hopefully have the most intelligent/qualified people dealing with such issues.
That's why you don't see successful democracies and even very few successful republics in these kind of games. When the oligarchies and democracies go to war the oligarchies generally have more intelligent/qualified people manning the helm to lead them to victory. The democracies get ground into the dust.
IF a republic were to work however, it would need to function like America did when there was criteria to get a vote. In those days only white male land owners could vote. While I'm obviously not condoning the first two criteria I think there is something to be said for the third, especially in the MMO format. I would replace the word landowner with taxpayer and set a minimum tax contribution per month to be considered as such. People who are not contributing to the system really shouldn't get a say in how that system is run beyond the protection of some of their basic rights.
A republic set up using those kind of criteria, might just go somewhere in this kind of MMO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To put it bluntly, a democracy uses the average intelligence of the common citizen to make decisions where a well running Republic should hopefully have the most intelligent/qualified people dealing with such issues.
Which turns it into a meritocracy with all the inherit problems of who decides what is "most qualified" . :D
- Democracy as an ideal (everyone has a say) are wonderful but rarely work well in practice.
- Socialism as an ideal (workers own the farms and factories) also sounds wonderful but has been a disaster in practice.
- Fascism as an ideal (your country is greater than any individual and takes priority) sounds attractive to some but has been a disaster in practice.
- Anarchism is my personal preference but that has never been made to work aside from small areas in Spain during the civil war and its unlikely that would have ended well either.
You are dealing with people ... what can you do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Which turns it into a meritocracy with all the inherit problems of who decides what is "most qualified" . :D
The founders. You agree to what qualifies someone for a vote beforehand and then build the group around that. People who disagree with the criteria are free not to join. If the criteria are not reasonable nobody will.
Nobody in TEO complained about the government until Lifedragn tried handing them slices of the pie they didn't earn. It's easier to never give someone something they didn't earn then tell someone they don't deserve what someone is offering them for free.
It's like never giving people social programs with unsustainable payouts as opposed to trying to take them away from them. One will cause a lot more fuss.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Which turns it into a meritocracy with all the inherit problems of who decides what is "most qualified" . :DThe founders. You agree to what qualifies someone for a vote beforehand and then build the group around that. People who disagree with the criteria are free not to join. If the criteria are not reasonable nobody will.
As much as I have no problem with you thinking whatever you think, I was talking about democracy, you know, not oligarchy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right and I was describing the closest thing to a democracy you could make work.
Founders set up a system with criteria to become a citizen that ensure only contributing members get a vote.
Members join and meet those criteria.
The first elections are held replacing the founders (or just reaffirming them) as representatives, and then you have a Republic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To be clear what I'm describing hasn't been done yet. TEO did pass criteria to become a citizen but with no actual game to play and little work being done outside of the game by many of the members very few people reached that status, so it was still an oligarchy.
It was actually intended to be transitioned to a republic eventually though. I know we had talked about (and possibly passed) the idea that citizens would eventually become party to electing and demoting council members. I also had allowed elections by non-citizens to decide guild masters since guild masters had little real power.
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Democracy is like salt. It goes great in many dishes, in varying amounts but nobody would want to eat more than a tablespoon if the spice on its own. Your guests might be surprised and to find you made celery and tofu dip for your "snacks" when they were thinking Doritos and peanuts.
KotC is setup in a fashion that allows flexibility, CC wide voting rights, and encourages us each to voice our opinions freely. I'd liken us to an Onion Ring, not too much salt, but just enough to keep the palate excited. Maintaining at the same time formal (If simple) leadership chain implemented in such a way as for them to represent their constituents. We support 3 levels of this so far, with the head being our "Inner Circle" presided over by two executives. There are voting procedures for removing them from office, as well as term limits for such leadership appointments.
I think given the amount of positive feedback, and members we've recruited praising the model shows that it can work. Not everyone chooses to participate, but I believe the idea behind the democracy is that those who want to be hear, can and will be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To be honest the whole "founders set up a system" thing sounds a bit like they claim ownership.
In fact to all intents and purposes what you are describing sounds a lot like establishing a corporation.
That's as close as you're going to get and remain successful longterm. When you have a small minority of the members doing the vast majority of the work, and those doing nothing getting equal representation, what you're eventually going to find is your producers moving to settlements where they are rewarded with higher authority, and your non-producers getting pissed and leaving because nobody is doing everything for them anymore.
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That's as close as you're going to get and remain successful longterm. When you have a small minority of the members doing the vast majority of the work, and those doing nothing getting equal representation, what you're eventually going to find is your producers moving to settlements where they are rewarded with higher authority, and your non-producers getting pissed and leaving because nobody is doing everything for them anymore.
Holy Run-On-Sentence-Batman! I kid.
I agree, and I think most organizations have suffered a bit to non-participation and expect most of us will experience some amount of "wash-out" once things get started in earnest. At the same time however, interest in getting involved will never be greater as we begin our in-game recruitment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Besides having a group that tends to be smarter, fewer number of people in charge have a large impact on the speed of the decision making process. Which is quite critical in an MMO environment where not only the Socio-Political Landscape can change, over night, but where internal problems can cause a lot of turmoil.
Fewer people, smarter people, more experienced people is almost always the best option. The issue though is that sometimes these people are more self-serving and can end up rewarding the people closest to them, or making self-interested decisions. This can easily be seen, in real life, by corporate bought congressmen/women.
I do believe in these games Benevolent Dictators/Autocrats, Oligarchies, and Federal Republics (if they are time sensitive with a council that can make decision), in that order, tend to be the most successful with one caveat, everyone has basic rights. Having a system where you gain more power, but having an upper limit, based on how much work you put in can be very rewarding, but you are still going to have people that just don't give a crap, but as long as everyone has basic rights and the freedom to exercise those rights, then most people get along, and most don't care about the political landscape, even a sense of apathy can be applied.
Democracies, in the truer sense, just do not work. Altered Republics with Democratic features are usually your best options with satisfying the greater amount of the population, include basic rights, avenues that allow for self-protection, and you are set.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Democracy doesn't have to be absolute democracy nor direct democracy. Bascially (according to Popper and myself) it simply means that leadership is accountable to the people and can be controlled/replaced by them without needing to change the system (as opposed to a dictatorship/tyranny, where revolution is needed).
Democracy by representation is good enough for reality, and the government/administration/board/council can be fully accountable without everyone meddling in day-to-day affairs.
One feasible way of organizing a functional 'democracy' is by means of electing representatives for various committes and/or a centralized government. In practice, settlements and guilds will be divided into subgroups anyway which make logical units.
Mechanically, it is not possible to enforce unless GW give mechanisms that allow transfer of power (formal guild/settlement leadership) without the consent of the current holder. This was previously discussed in the context of settlement leaders going AWOL and crippling the settlement, so I'm sure there have been some thinking around the issue. On the other hand, if you need to enforce democracy it isn't a very good democracy in the first place.
My best solution: find a leader you trust, and talk to him/her as needed. (If large organization: make a hierarcy of such leaders).
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way Aragon expresses the sense of freedom is by allowing its companies to be autonomous.
If the citizens request a service for Aragon to provide, let's say a particular structure to be advanced, the settlement council will convene and review the pros and cons. A vote will then be held, and simple majority will win the vote.
In matters of security (defensive) the settlement management team will make all decisions. Even then, immediate action is preferred over exhaustive debate, and so a time limit will be placed on debate.
It appears some are equating chaotic with freedom, and freedom with voting, and that is not always the case. A Chaotic settlement can have rules. A free society can limit instances of voting. Freedom is not only having a voice, it is ultimately held in having the ability to walk away (this freedom can never be taken away).
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Democracy in strictu sensus is: "government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.".
We could point that every game need players assemble resources to win a conflict (player or computer mechanic). We could be exceptions, but it's not the case.
Said that, the power and advantage of a democracy in a conflict enviroment is inversely proportional of the quantity of members of considered group. Actualy, what we see getting better results in the matter is always oligarchy, where the dominante class taken his decision consistently and where the dominated class according with these decisions generally.
The ideal greek democracy, where everyone (lets forget a bit on their meritocracy of being citizen) have the same power of decision, same rights, etc... could be nice in a planning phase, where a lot of variants have to be considering and the time do not urge for a response. After that period of time, a democracy state do not only halt the decision process, but fall in a non-efficent timely decisions when the said conflict arise.
The closer of a democracy that works efficiently could be a small group (3-5 tops) the represent of majority in the decisions, this group could be elected in bigs conventions in a stipulated time (lets say 2 months) or be the founders, but don't have power to change some rules (like agreements between others groups per exemple). General long-term decisions could be make by voting/debatable by entire group. But the details will be left to small group to set.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How can you have a true 'one person - one vote' Democracy in an MMO ? Very simple.
-Write a short constitution detailing the voting sytem, and the offices empowered to enforce the consequences of those votes. Checks, Balances, w/e.
-Get a huge population.
-Pay tribute to the fitter forms of government around you so they don't wipe you out.
ps
You'd probably last exactly as long as you weren't where anyone else wanted to expand.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Note that in an MMO almost all player run organizations are representative in a sense. The player joins them because he wants to be a part of them (for whatever reason). He or she can walk away at any time... even if it means just not playing the game. It's the ultimate expression of government by consent of the goverened. An ideal that the Founding Fathers very much strove for in thier efforts to shape the government of the U.S..... even though, in practice, we fall a good bit short of that ideal.
For MMO's, that means the leadership of the organization really has to demonstrate consistantly it's commitment and respect to the membership, it's values and concerns and to demonstrate thier capacity to lead well. In practice this becomes alot harder to achieve then it sounds in theory, especialy if the size of the membership grows beyond a small select group. I've often equated running player organizations in MMO's to trying to herd cats.
The most stable and effective organizations I've seen have had....
1) A founding mission statement - So everyone new why they were joining and what the organization was about.
2) Multiple levels of membership with a written and well established set of rights, privilages and responsabilities for each level and an established procedure for earning each level. Usualy the level where you actualy get to vote on things requires approval from those already holding that level.
3) A set of established offices or leadership positions with well defined areas of authority and responsability. Including someone to act as overall leader to, at minimum, arbitrate between the different offices.
4) A method for people who have earned the privilage of input to vote on important planning decisions, if time allows for it, and to elect officers and leadership positions.
5) A well defined method for replacing officers or leadership positions.
The strength of something like this over a strict oligarchy or benevolent dictatorship is that players feel more invested in the organization if they have some ownership of the decisions and choices made. The organization also has a chance to survive if it's membership loses confidence or becomes disillusioned with the current leadership.
Having leadership and officers is critical because you need people who can take immediate and decisive decisions when there isn't time for debate or simply to provide expert advice when there is but they are always answerable to the membership as a whole for those actions. It's also critical that full membership with full voting rights not be something quick or easy to achieve. The quicker and easier it is achieved, the more chaotic (in terms of stability, not alignment), fickle and ineffictive the organization becomes. However, once it is achieved/earned.... you really have to allow those members to be fully empowered. YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For MMO's, that means the leadership of the organization really has to demonstrate consistantly it's commitment and respect to the membership, it's values and concerns and to demonstrate thier capacity to lead well. In practice this becomes alot harder to achieve then it sounds in theory, especialy if the size of the membership grows beyond a small select group. I've often equated running player organizations in MMO's to trying to herd cats.
Even harder to LEAD cats. It is a lesson in politics... and expectations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Democracy: A How to Guide
The settlement would need to be specialized in a single role to attempt to counter needless arguments due to differing role opinions. Even then you're likely to get lengthy delays in critical decision making.
In order to counter delays the community you are wanting to build would need several means to communicate. In addition: There would need to be a vote window of 24 Hours (Shortest reasonable amount of time for a critical decision). With a 24 Hour window this means your organization would need to have better communications that most groups. you would not be able to rely on forums, but instead need a whole slew of additional means. Text messaging, Emails, and phone calls are going to be more important to your group as you will need a direct line.
The next step involves an advisory council. Having a small council that determines what actually comes to vote will prevent your democracy from getting bogged down in useless petitions. The council would hold no more power than your everyday citizens, save they are the final say on what comes to vote.
(A good way to do this would be the leader from each charter company sits on this advisory council.)
Next:
Set a specific day for normal vote requirements(aka non-critical votes) that way your membership can utilize that 24 hour window more effectively for non-critical voting.
Finally:
There is still the issue of severe and critical time-frames which will be unrelenting.
In order to counter this the following may work:
Do not count votes that have yet to be cast for determining a majority.
If your population numbers 100. And there is a situation that requires immediate attention then you may be in trouble when it comes to getting a vote through. The above mentioned idea may counter your problems for a short while until all the votes are in.
Example:
War has been declared on your settlement and the settlement needs to decide between spending resources to equip your rag-tag militia or hire a professional mercenary group.
The emergency vote is called and the first 20 votes come in. 17 votes go towards equipping your militia and 3 votes go towards hiring mercenaries. Excluding those that have yet to vote (80 people) You get a majority for equipping your militia.
If at the end of the 24 hours(or during that time period) the vote changes in the other direction then focus should shift(and spending) towards hiring mercenaries.
(This is not a perfect solution, and I would not wish this on any organization, but if you are trying to get democracy to work.... Its a thought)
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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At some point, the person who makes the ballot determines what the outcome is. Normally the part of perfect voting that gets sacrificed is the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives- by adding several voting options that split the opposition to the desired outcome, the secretary can force whatever option they choose to have the plurality, provided that it is reasonably popular.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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IRV or other preferential voting systems can negate or greatly reduce the impact of such shenanigans.
Only at the costs that are widely considered unacceptable.
There's a mathematical proof of the characteristics you can't all have, by the way. IIA is widely considered the best option to avoid.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In another life time and another game, I had pretty significant experience with this. We were Knightly Order. Functionaly we were more representative republic then democracy, but still achieved pretty good representation of membership. We pretty much followed the outlines I set above.
We had weekly meetings on a regular night and time. The agenda for each meeting would be set by the Grand Marshall for the Order who was elected by majority vote of full members. The Grand Marshall esentialy acted as moderator for the meetings. Agenda items were decided by a majority vote of those present, no sour grapes if you weren't there to vote. The one agenda item that the Grand Marshall of the Order had no control over was a vote of no confidence in the Marshall. This could be raised by any full member in any meeting and must be voted on in the following weeks meeting. That meeting would be conducted by the Herald (another officer), if I remember right, and the mandatory first order of business would be a yea/nay vote of confidence in the current Marshall followed by an immediate election of a new Marshall if there was a result of no confidence.
We had officership positions with individual areas of responsability to handle day to day stuff, and they set thier own chain of commands/responsability. Each was elected, again by a majority vote of the full membership. Though they had autonomy to act on thier own initiative on matters as they came up, they were answerable to the membership for thier decisions and could be replaced by a majority vote of those present.
We had multiple levels of membership...
Recruit - This was someone who had an expressed an interest in the Order and were invited by one or more members. They could observe meetings but not speak or otherwise participate in them. They could participate in other events, if invited to do so by a member but had no official capacity as part of the Order.
Squire - If a recruit showed both promise, they might be accepted as a Squire by a member. The member was responsable for the conduct of thier Squire and also for thier training both proffesionaly and in the ways of the Order. No member could have more then one Squire at a time and thier training period typicaly lasted 3-6 months, although some took well over a year. Squire's could be present at meetings and could speak with permission of thier sponsor. They could participate in other events and were officialy considered part of the Order.
Member - When and if a Squire demonstrated a sufficient mastery of thier training and qualities that befitted membership in the order, they could be put forward for full membership. Approval for Membership was conducted as part of the regular weekly meetings. It consisted of 2 parts, first there would be an oral questioning of the candidate by the full members present, followed by a yea or nay vote to proceed. The 2nd part would be at the conclusion of the meeting and would consist of a Trial by Combat to determine the candidates worthiness. A champion would be selected to represent the Order by the Marshal, usualy a volunteer but never the candidates sponsor and the candidate would have to face them in a 1 on 1 combat, either to the death or until 1 party yielded or was declared unable to continue. The champion would then declare whether the candidate fought well and with honor and was worthy of membership. This served as a veto against the candidates membership. The candidate would not neccesarly have to win the combat, usualy they didn't, just demonstrate sufficiently thier abilities. Members had full voting rights, participation in meetings and events and could hold any office.
Knights - These were individuals who were actualy knighted by GM's in live role-play events (it was a commercial MUD, such things happaned). It was a completely honorific title. Other then formalities, thier privileges within the Order were identical to full members. However, they were usualy given significant deference by members in meetings and events and very often were the ones to hold an office of some type.
It was a remarkably stable and effective structure. However, a key part of that was that it was also relatively small. I don't think we got above 50-75 active full members, at least not in the time I was there... but we did have alot of people who wanted to be members. We realized that growing too large would quickly make such a structure unmanigable....which is why we purposefully tried to limit it's growth.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I just would like to point something : A minority doing all the work while the majority is useless is just a fantasm.
In a big structure composed of thousands of players, there is indeed a critical need of a "hard" structure, with a very serious and invested set of people.
But in the end, most of the work will be done by the majority. You can't just ignore the sheer work force of 500 little casual players. And if in an enterprise, which is a private thing, it is legitimate for the stockholders to decide because of the nature of a private enterprise, the same can't be said for a republic, a res publica, which is by definition a public thing.
And anyway, it will always be easier to replace a good leader, than 100 medium players, whatever said leader may think.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is democratic voting not already something planned for settlements?
I would see it used for some decisions, but not the majority.
I suspect there are going to be a great many oligarchies out there, it would be nice if they could easily poll or directly pass off a decision to the populace.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is democratic voting not already something planned for settlements?
I would see it used for some decisions, but not the majority.
I suspect there are going to be a great many oligarchies out there, it would be nice if they could easily poll or directly pass off a decision to the populace.
This is exactly what T7V hopes to do. At the moment, Decius holds the keys to the Settlement, Valkenr holds the keys to the website, and Skwiziks holds the key to... my heart?
Latest response from Ryan is, predictably, that we'll start out with a minimum viable product and iterate based on crowdforging. So, the more support we get for pawning off our workload on the plebes delegating authority to the citizens, the more likely we'll be to get it.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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You have to define democracy first.
In Athens for instance, democracy was originally defined as the specific and exclusive right of the Athenian Council to vote yes on whatever Pericles would propose.
Well, that's the point of this thread, actually. Discussing the possible and viable forms of democracy.
But I must to be weird, I don't know, but when I think about democracy, I don't immediately think about Greek antiquity or anarchist social experiments, I just think about what democracy is in half the planet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see a way to overthrow tyrants and establish a democracy, of course there is no such thing as a real democracy but the overthrowing part would be great fun. Viva la revolucion.The problem is the tendency for yesterday's rebels to become today's tyrants.
I wasn't hoping to cure mankind's sickness, the desire to play at being God, I was hoping for some new and interesting gameplay. I think the ability to have armed revolts to remove the government in PFO would be a first in an mmo. My idea is based on a Thomas Jefferson quote,
"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."No way to make that work with just voting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see a way to overthrow tyrants and establish a democracy, of course there is no such thing as a real democracy but the overthrowing part would be great fun. Viva la revolucion.The problem is the tendency for yesterday's rebels to become today's tyrants.
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of The Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover That they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
Tyler went on to suggest that democracies tended to go through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have to define democracy first.
In Athens for instance, democracy was originally defined as the specific and exclusive right of the Athenian Council to vote yes on whatever Pericles would propose.
Well, that's the point of this thread, actually. Discussing the possible and viable forms of democracy.
But I must to be weird, I don't know, but when I think about democracy, I don't immediately think about Greek antiquity or anarchist social experiments, I just think about what democracy is in half the planet.
..oh, a corrupt system dominated by big corporations, religious groups and media moguls ?
Not sure we can reproduce that successfully in PFO. :D