Theory Thursday: Thivic Thinking

[sythyry]

Well, that gave me a great deal to think about. [Apologies for not responding much, but Livejournal was being quite balky. -bb]

I don't know that it'll be a whole city-state quickly. (If all the traff-folk from the branch decide they want to live there, it might have enough people for that! But that is unlikely, especially if we are generous with monsters.) I expect to come up with some sort of semi-autonomous citylet sort of thing. We might be able to make our own laws; that happens sometimes.

And, as a lot of the point of the city is to have laws that we like ... how shall we make laws, in general?

A typical city has a legeriat, a dozen or so people representing the major factions and moieties in the city, who construct laws. Which, in some cities, simply become laws; in other cities, they must be promulgated by the duke (or whatever); in other cities, they must be voted on popularly, or approved by a court, or various other things.

Or, some other cities have, say, the duke proclaim all laws. Or a pure democratic approach, in which the citizens as a whole vote on all laws. Or a prophetic mirror that reveals wise laws. Or, I suppose, nearly anything else imaginable.

In any case, I want two things from a legal system.

First: I want to have some laws that please me. The city must be traff-friendly. In essence, it is Castle Wrong (or Strayway) in city form.

Second: I want to have just, fair, wise, and good laws. Not that I could give a good definition of any of those adjectives, or even necessarily recognize them if I were confronted by them.

So, how would you suggest designing a lawmaking apparatus for a young and probably tiny World Tree city?

Comments

[arenhaus.livejournal.com]

For a nasty thought, Syhtyry might use Vae to carve out a city-state somewhere not worth going to a major war for, and with such a military power get the opportunity to make the laws zie likes. I mean, Vae is an army on her own! What other wall could a city-state want to keep the troublemakers out?

Granted, this is given to scandalize Sythyry's reputation beyond even the current level. Becoming known in the ages to come as Crazy Duke Sythyry or something worse...

As for the laws being just and fair... someone is going to be upset anyway, it's a law of nature.

One option might be an official procedure of naturalization for anyone, monster or prime or angel or god, which would reasonably ensure the new citizen's loyalty to the city-state and good conduct towards other citizens. So you'll at least get a criterion to sort out the deliberately harmful monsters from the harmless or useful monsters, and not even have to keep Vae out. Whatever isn't able to understand or keep an oath of fealty should not be let in; the rest may. Whatever the laws are beyond that is less of an issue, as long as they reflect the cohesion of the state and society.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Simple democracy is popular, with the majority of the voters having more or less absolute power. It's also a bad idea in hindsight, though not as bad as some other systems. You end up with a majority that votes to kill or enslave the minority (something that'd be even easier to argue for on the Tree than here), or one that figures out it can vote itself more and more "free" stuff to be doled out at someone else's expense, or one that's a busybody passing more and more obnoxious restrictions on the rest. Or all of the above, with different shares of the population rotating between the various victim and oppressor chairs.

As usual, I suggest some sort of super-law that overrides anything the legislature or duke (even yourself) wants, with public flogging* for anyone who tries to skirt or re-interpret or otherwise squirm out of the super-law. But then you need a population that understands why you set that up and why upholding it is more important than passing a surely-harmless law for protection of orphaned otter children.

*(A traditional punishment here involved foul sticky tar and feathers.)

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

Does the prophetic mirror actually work at creating wise laws? Because if you had some kind of oracle that you knew produced laws conforming to some notion of 'good' that seems like the best way to go.

Failing that, I like the idea of having a set of Immutable Laws that limit how bad anything can get for anyone and govern the means by which laws are created, which starts out as direct democracy since the city will be small. Have it require a supermajority to make one of the immutable laws mutable before changing it.

(This is also a fun game to play with friends over long distances.)

[xolo.livejournal.com]

If you can get or construct one of those prophetic mirrors, that sounds like your best and safest option. Beware of democracy - it works very well with small groups, and reasonably well with larger groups, so long as there's a guarantee that all of the voters have a strong stake in the stability of society, generally through social rank or property ownership. The honeyed trap of democracy lies in the charitable tendency to slowly extend the franchise to voters who have much to gain, but little to lose from radical change.

That being said, it is important to allow the common citizenry input on laws. They should always be free to debate and express their opinions, and those opinions ought to be accomodated when reasonably possible.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

What we have found in our universe is that a mix of a democracy and a republic works well. Democracy in the sense that the people vote to elect representatives, and republic in the sense that the the lawmakers serve those that vote for them, and those lawmakers have limited terms. It also works best if the is a written constitution that lays out the rights inherent to everyone, and the responsibilities inherent in the various positions of government. Those responsibilities should be set up so that each branch of government has a vested interest in making sure that no other branch (or individual) can overstep their boundaries too badly. It should also be set up such that the representatives have a vested interest in not just helping the absolute majority, but in being fair and making compromises, and making sure all groups get fairly represented.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Any system of laws can be gamed, so there's no point worrying about it -- it'll work as long as the people in general act in good faith, and fail to the extent that they try to abuse things. Trying to make the process of government more and more restrictive or foolproof just gives the jerks extra stuff to game. On the other hand having no structure opens you up to charismatic demigogues.

So, pick something in the middle. What exactly you pick probably doesn't matter; there've been a lot of variants and there's no clear winner.

Of course, you *do* want to have some say in it, so you might want to consider giving yourself veto power over the government. Duke for Life or something. It's inherently unfair, but it's your city, right?

... on second thought -- I do have an idea. Put Namie in charge of making all laws. She's an angel of Mircannis, so you can claim she has prophetic power, and maybe people who don't know her will believe you.

[rowyn]

I suggest that most laws be made by a supermajority -- two-thirds or three-quarters of whoever gets a say. If you can't get at least 66% of people to agree it's a good idea, it probably isn't *that* good an idea. You might need to make exceptions for a few things that the government *has* to settle quicky and can't just ignore forever.

A prophetic mirror would be awesome. Even if you can't get it to reveal wise laws, maybe you could get it to reveal the probable results of a given proposed law? We argue endlessly over whether or not our laws are really doing what they're intended to do and if there's a better way of achieving the same goal. Most laws are about means, not ends, and it'd be awfully handy to know what the ends are.

Oh, and avoid concentrating power. Like whoever's in charge of collecting taxes shouldn't decide how to spend it, and whoever's in charge of the guard shouldn't be in charge of the judiciary. Make the whole organization separate and independent.

[rowyn]

I don't think Sythyry wants to be called Duke. People will expect zir to be in charge or something. Zie needs a special designation, like 'Architect'. Maybe with the power to rearrange the city structure if zie deems it necessary. Or maybe just veto power is enough. You don't want people to be expecting zir to get involved with government all the time, though. That'd be annoying.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I have too much power on Strayway. I am a terrible leader, and don't want to do it any more than I have to.

[rowyn]

Yeah, and we can't have you just picking someone to delegate power to, unless you don't mind dealing with Zascalle Mk. II

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

You need the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz!

There is a story told in our world of a girl who visited another world, in which the country was ruled over by the Wizard of Oz, who was reputed to be able to solve all problems, but also to appear so fearsome that few wanted to bring all their problems before him unless there was no other way.

In reality, the Wizard of Oz was a nice person from the girl's world, who had somehow gotten trapped into running things. He concocted this device that would make him appear fearsome in order to deter frivolous seekers and wasters of time. A similar device might allow Sythyry to put on the facade that zie has nothing to do with running the city, but in fact could pass such laws as seemed wise and necessary, and to hear out the complaints of those who are brave enough to come before the Great and Powerful Wizard.

In addition, by requiring that seekers complete some kind of quest before receiving judgment, you could set these people to solving each others' problems! If they fail - well, it was their fault.

[arenhaus.livejournal.com]

Well, we can always make Vae the duke. That'll go well.

[arenhaus.livejournal.com]

"Even if you can't get it to reveal wise laws, maybe you could get it to reveal the probable results of a given proposed law?"

Good news, everyone! I have invented a What-If machine!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Snrrkkkk.... oh wow... that'd be great...

Uh, arenhaus is making a reference to a famous series of... short comedic plays in our world.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also separation of duties is EXTREMELY important. You want to build accountability and ownership of failures and issues into the system...

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Devious and subtle!

[ragarth.livejournal.com]

Who's Namie? I don't remember this person!

[ragarth.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Sythyry can speak through the prophetic mirror.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Prophetic mirrors are a bit too nice and approachable! Sythyry needs something with a bit more menace!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Namie the Namegiver, from the Heaven of Mircannis.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

I would suggest hiring several off-world dragons to do it. A bit of extra amber never goes so far amiss...

[foomf.livejournal.com]

I have the extreme good fortune of living in a nation-state founded by generally altruistic men who thought carefully and deeply.

As a result the inequities they wrote into law have been for the most part remedied, but there are still major structural issues with the whole process and it can be 'gamed' by people who use changes in technologies and social order to take advantage of the unforeseen results.

So, first you need to plan for the long term success of the city. This means having a way to prevent the installation of tyrants, thieves, and parasites, and a mechanism for easily and reliably detecting and removing them when they inevitably manage to get in anyway. I'll leave details of that up to you; in our case, having a fixed, short term for service in positions of high authority, and a maximum number of turns at a position, is generally effective at reducing the incursions. However, we failed to install sufficient controls to prevent the sequential installation of a conspiracy of thieves and scoundrels, so we have a problem with occasional spates of virtual (and so far relatively bloodless) revolution where the conspiracies are detected and overthrown.

Our founders wanted to be done with oppressive rule. They had no love for the rule of tyrant-kings. They also wanted to prevent the intrusion of the organizations of religion into the mechanisms of government. (As noted before, our god(s), if they exist, are evasive, subtle and currently unwilling to coerce our belief by forceful manifestation on the grand scale. Any two supplicants can beg for an answer to a "why" and receive three replies, all subtle and subjective, and mutually contradictory. Thus, the organizations of religion can be populated by the same tyrants, thieves, and parasites as other governments.)

They determined that a form of representative democracy would be the best solution for our nation, and to prevent the oppression of the minority by the majority, wrote in rules to ensure the uniform respectful treatment under law of all law-abiding citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, wealth, or any other transient or ineffable trait. Because they were rebelling against tyranny, they couched this in the language of freedoms, and as a result, some rather important concepts were insufficiently supported, but in all, it's worked fairly well and is widely copied.

For your city, what do you want your goals to be? There will of course be the temptation to add many, many goals, but each goal interacts with the others to increase the complexity and risk of failure in a non-linear fashion.

I would recommend, protect the minorities from oppression by the majority, and protect the majority from the oppression of the disproportionately powerful minority.
Determine in general what mode of government will be able to rule the city in a manner driven by and supportive of the goals, don't expect perfection at the outset, but expect continual improvement towards "good enough".

That's my advice. But I'm an armchair social engineer.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Actually, that second sentence? That is, for many people, tantamount to an admission of being the best one for the job, even though that's a HUGE oversimplification.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Ah, you mean Nomic? An old friend of mine was involved in a game of that that legislated countries into existence and became an RPG.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

The best form that I can think of: Distributed democracy under a constitution.

Constitution
The constitution must limit the powers of the government: describe what the government may not do. Without a constitution, governments tend to silence their critics, borrow voraciously then requisition their citizens' possessions, or attack other cities just for conquest's sake.


Distributed Democracy
Every citizen has a vote, every vote is expected on every issue of law, and every vote is recorded and public.

However, since not every citizen wants to be consulted on (or has the time to research) every issue that comes up with law every citizen may proxy her vote to someone else. These proxies may be canceled or passed to another person at any time, with or without a reason.

Over time, representatives will gain proxies, and the number of people who need to meet for laws will shrink.