[EM] Rob Lanphier's hierarchical scheme

[Jan Kok]

I think "free choice" might be a little better than "people's choice"
as a term to describe how the proxy structure is created in Abd
Lomax's DP method. The proxy-client relationship is created by mutual
agreement of the proxy and the client.

As a political activist, I wish I had some special power to say to
people, vote this way on that issue, and they would just do it.
Unfortunately (from my viewpoint) I don't have that power :-(.  So, I
don't think I would be able to con people who don''t share my
political viewpoint to let me be their proxy. What this means is that
proxy "trees" will tend to be internally homogeneous; there will be
Democrat trees, Republican trees, Libertarian trees, and of course,
Green trees, etc. And the top proxies should be pretty good
representatives of their constituencies.

Another important aspect of Lomax's method is that a person can
_always_ cast his vote directly, which overrides any vote cast for him
by proxies. (More generally, a proxy casts votes for his constituency,
which overrides the votes cast by higher-level proxies.)

All these factors mean that the results of voting though DP should be
pretty close to how all the people would vote if they voted directly.


HOWEVER, as Abd has frequently mentioned, voting is a minor detail of
the political process. Imagine the chaos and the bad decisions that
would be made if citizens or a legislature just voted without first
deliberating!

The top proxies will tend to be prominent and eloquent spokespeople
for the political position of the proxy tree they lead. Their direct
clients will also tend to be well-informed activists - in other words,
good advisors to the top proxies. Bringing these top proxies together
in effect brings together all the best ideas of all the people. The
internal homogeneity of the trees allows good ideas to pass up and
down the trees more easily than if the trees were internally
heterogeneous. For example, a good Democratic idea would have a better
chance of travelling to the top of a Democratic tree than a Republican
tree. Thus, the DP structure doubles as a communication network which
is the infrastructure needed for deliberation.


Folks, there is an opportunity for all of you to participate in a Free
Association with Delegable Proxy. I have proposed the creation of the
Boston Tea Free Association (BTFA), and put in place part of the DP
infrastructure for it. The purpose of the BTFA is to serve as advisors
to the new, libertarian Boston Tea Party. There is a Yahoo group,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/btpnc-talk/ that _anyone_ can join.
Check out the first post in that group for details.

Let's try it out and see how it works! I hope to see you over there!

Cheers,
- Jan