Sounds weird? It does, right? But It is not at all. It seems strange just the first time you read about it. And not, it is not the future. It is happening right now, as you read.
Digital Democracy, Decentralized Governance, Liquid Democracy, Digital Sovereignty…
While in the real world regular human beings manage to barely make sense of an archaic legal system, in “the other real world” called The Internet, a group of brilliant minds is already building a set of rules based on common sense.
Long live the Web! as Sir Tim Berners-Lee himself once wrote about his very own baby. *
As Paula Berman´s story on Medium Organizing your right to gather & ability to petition on the blockchain says, “As the situation is completely novel, it’s still a difficult concept to embrace with our minds.” I recommend jumping into Paula´s post to start digging after you finish this one.
Who are these “not-so-new” kids on the Blockchain? Let´s see some of them,
The Aragon Network: A digital jurisdiction. A platform in plain words. It will provide a built-in governance system, so the organizations using it will decide which services are provided, their cost, and other parameters. (I would need another five paragraphs for the Governance System and arbitration procedures details. It´s a fantastic concept).
Aragon organizations will be able to solve human disputes using a decentralized court system. Aragon aims to provide automatic contract upgrades and a decentralized court service.
Aragon Network community is one of the most actives and renowned within the Blockchain community.
On the other hand, Democracy Earth motto states “A borderless peer to peer democracy. For everyone, anywhere”. Powerful, isn´t it? They believe in Liquid Democracy where you Vote on issues you care or Delegate power to those you already trust. More Power!
They work on an open source and decentralized democratic governance platform for any kind of organization called Sovereign.
Democracy Earth Foundation is a not for profit corporation located in San Francisco. They coined themselves as “a community of hackers, thinkers, and makers distributed around the globe.” Don´t miss Santiago Siri´s video on their website. It could blow your mind.
In District0x introduction post, co-founder Joe Urgo writes: “The district0x Network Token (DNT) is a staking token, used by holders to join districts and participate in their governance. Upon staking district0x Network Tokens to a district, participants receive an equivalent amount of voting rights in the district. Voting rights can be used to determine everything from a district’s branding to its accepted code of conduct, to the auxiliary modules that are integrated, to the way that fees collected by revenue-generating auxiliary modules are utilized, and beyond.”
Voting Power + Liquid Democracy
You can bring in the Delegated Voting model for collective decision making and make it work, especially in large communities. Say you should vote on a particular issue out of your scope of expertise or knowledge. Let´s say, Real Estate Transactions Mandatory Disclosures. But you are a Professor of Philosophy. Your vote counts, not doubt. So, why not delegating your vote to your long time Real Estate Broker Christian? Or maybe you may want to delegate your vote to Mary, who is the founder of a Blockchain-based Real Estate platform. If you have the power to delegate, then you have the power to vote. That´s Liquid Democracy.
Aragon platform will utilize liquid democracy for its voting systems. Implemented by Democracy Earth, it will enable every member to have equal and full participation in the decisions. The district0x will be established as an Aragon Network Jurisdiction entity, granting limited voting rights to all district0x Network Token holders.
In my experience as an Aragon Network community member, I can certainly tell that Transparency is not a simple concept the founders want to promote. Instead, it is just the way these two guys handle every step of their communications. District0x´s Joe and Matus seems to be following the same path of Transparency.
Back in 2015 Dominik Schiener, in one of his Top stories´ conclusion wrote “Liquid Democracy is the democracy model fit for today’s society. The technology is ready, the only thing missing is more effort into working on concrete implementations that research this area in more detail. Most importantly, we need to determine which models are applicable for the actual governance (directive or administrative) of a country.” **
And here´s the beauty, humanizing the power of our voice can be happening on the Blockchain, for the people by the people. Sounds weird? I don´t think it does anymore. It is happening right now, as you read.
___________________
* Scientific American. December 2010 issue. Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality. Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
**Medium. Nov 23, 2015. Liquid Democracy: True Democracy for the 21st Century. Dominik Schiener
__________________
Maria T Vidal. Co-founder at Laudox. @mariatvidal