AUTOGOV
Political, Economic and Social
Self-Government Platform for Communities

What should be the future of
human organization?

The world is evolving rapidly in the 21st century, the rate of its change is actually accelerating exponentially.

Yet, the way communities organize themselves, to best reflect their members’ wills and achieve their goals, is basically the same as two centuries ago. Everywhere you look you see evidence that change is needed, and if we look ahead to what is coming, that change is critical. 

 Autogov is an attempt to address that need. To harness the power of the internet, and create a softer, more efficient way of political, economic and social organization. To approach the project of universal ethics and happiness as a philosophical engineering problem, and formulate a minimal meta algorithm that lets the ‘contained substance’ (ourselves included), to live, enjoy life, create, change, love, expand, develop, in a soft, efficient flow.

One where what is is freely occurring, and ‘what better be’ according to its members, is continually heard, discussed and implemented. 

The name Autogov refers both to Autonomous Governance: we govern ourselves; and Automatic Governance: once running, it all happens algorithmically except for our human choices. Government is not an entity, it is a feature.

Autogov is not a .com, i.e. a for profit Company. It is not a .org, i.e. a hierarchical Organization. It is just a .systems, i.e. a free to use in any way Metasystem.

Three main Sections

Autogov has 3 sections that work in synergy; however they can also function independently, and communities can choose to use only one or two of them.

 

1. POLITICS

At its most basic, Autogov is an internet software that enables communities of any size to take the decisions that best reflect the will of its members about any issue that affects them in the space-time-topic continuum.

Through its meta and neutral basic structural units called Vontests, composed by: a question raising a problem or need, unlimited answers, structured debate, and cumulative voting; it is able to generate laws, actions, tasks and positions in a continuous, dynamic, transparent, genuinely direct-democracy way.  Everyone has access to everything, but focuses on what is important or interesting to her/him.

2. ECONOMY

Making good decisions is important, but you also need power and freedom to execute them. That is the basic purpose of the Economy section. It has a Creative Market where members are encouraged and enabled to offer what they are really passionate about (possibly several different things).
It has its own internal virtual currency so as to generate its own value, a universal basic income and a public fund, so that the members can strive to live in freedom working on their passions, and the community as a whole can have the power to stand on its own and advance towards whatever goals were decided in the Political section.

3. SOCIAL

And finally, it has a Social section, a Culture, Collaboration and friendly Competition space where members can communicate with each other, express their creativity, forge partnerships and groups, collaborate and compete in a gamified environment aimed at encouraging participation and having fun.

This can be as modest as a messaging and notification system or as ambitious as a whole social network, only much better since the only objective is us all (not raising some company’s share price).



How each section works?

Politics

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What is the objective of Politics?
The Ship's Rudder
When we say Politics we don't mean " that which current politicians do" or even " the exercise of power".
We take a step back meta, and define Politics as the means to decide continually, what is best for us all, within any community.

But... how do we really know what is best for us all?
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What is the best for us all?
"We shape our buildings and therafter they shape us" Winston Churchill
This was traditionally decided hierarchically by a king, priest, dictator or small group of experts (as now), but slowly, as we evolve, has become more and more horizontal, recognizing we all have a unique perspective and something to contribute to answer that queen of questions. And also, that failing to take everybody into account ends up creating unhealthy social divisions: If a system assumes the mob is stupid it creates a stupid mob. If it gives everyone responsibility, it creates responsible members.
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We don't know, we decide it
The Pragmatic Theory of Truth
When we as individuals face an important decision, we make an effort to perceive the situation and its possible consequences, we formulate several options of action, we ask all our internal parts for their opinion, and finally we perceive which option won the comparison.

Politics, in this sense, tries to reflect the optimized (debated), will of its members
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We don't know.
Vontest
A Betterment Engine
We don't know what is best, but through the Vontest algotythm we approximate as much as we can at any given moment for any given issue. A Vontest (from Voted Contest) is decision-making algorithm with 6 steps: a Question, Multiple Answers, Debate, Voting, Votography and Resolution.

Through Autogov, Anything, even this sentence, can be Vontested by anyone at any time, which amounts to put it into revision and see if, according to the community, it can be improved.

A 'Betterment Engine?: If in a Search Engine you explore 'what is', in a Betterment Engine you explore how can 'what is' be better.
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Diagram
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A Question
We always start with a question describing a problem or need. Even if what prompted your participation was a proposal, you are asked to first describe the question that your proposal pretends to answer, and in that way allow for other alternative plans. Any member can post a question at any time.

Example: What do we do with the abandoned factory on Bleeker st.?
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Multiple Answers
2. Multiple Answers. The proposals to fix that problem or fulfill that opportunity in the best possible way. Any member can post an answer at any time.

Examples:
We should transform it into a museum.
We should demolish it and make a park there.
We should build affordable housing.
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The Debate
What are the Pros and Cons of each proposal? Can they be further refined or combined to gain support? Any member can comment on any answer at any time. Special attention is taken to wether an answer is in conflict with a previous law or resolution. If so it is marked and should it win, a vontest resolving that conflict follows.

Example Comments:
No one ever goes to the other museum we have.
A park would be great for air quality.
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Cumulative Voting
We the humans decide
Cumulative Voting. To make preferences more accurate, promote attention to all answers, and avoid the cornell effect, Autogov uses a simple cumulative voting mechanism: You dispose of 10 votes per question, but can assign maximum 4 to a single answer. Any member can vote, and modify her vote, at any moment on any answer.

Example: 4 votes to answer 2, 3 votes to answer 5 and 1 vote to answer 4 (you are not forced to use all your 10 votes).
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The Votography
Votes Fotography
When the Question was created, a Votography date was set. That is when all votes are tallied and a winer answer is declared. All members who participated in the Vontest or are subscribed to the Vontest’s topic are notified of the Votography imminence.
Note: Some vontests are ongoing and remain open after the Votography for another round.

Example: Answer 1 = 31 votes,  Answer 2 = 62 votes, and so on. 

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The Resolution
And finally, a Resolution that implements the winning proposal. Depending on the content of the proposal
, this can be an execution order for an action, or the creation of another Vontest to determine
who will take care to execute the order. Any member can compete to implement the winning
answer.

Example: Creation of the following new Vontest: Who takes care of demolishing the old factory
and build a park in its place?
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Trials and Conflict resolution
Private and Public Trials
A Vontest could actually be an appropriate tool to resolve conflicts and judge behaviour: the case is described in the Question, the verdicts are proposed in the Answers, the Trial itself would occur in the Debate, and the outcome would be decided through votes/votography. Perhaps, to avoid popularity concerns, the voting can be restricted to some random chosen jury, or to some Judging provider with good reviews in the Creative Market.
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Optional Addons
WP Meeting Virtual Room

WP Blockchain Stamping

Voting Subject Quiz

Needs listing

Fiat selling

Fiat donations

Initial content and laws

Economy

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What is the objective of the Economy?
When we say Economy we don't mean "the administration of scarcity", not even the administration of abundance or of attention.
We mean that which gives us the energy and the freedom to, in a pleasant manner, pursue our ever changing political objectives.

This section is like the ship’s engine or sails, empowering the passengers to have a pleasant journey and reach their desired destination.
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Creative Market
Where users can offer (what is, I mean are, your passions?) and acquire unlimited services, products and events (offerd passionately), and receive payment in Voins (or fiat, or bitcoin, or all, if so configured).

Users are encouraged to offer several different things reflecting their passions and skills.

All offered items are then easy to find, and can be reviewed to promote quality and fairness.
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Virtual Currency
A virtual currency called Voins (from Virtual Coins). Its monetary policy is decided through the Vontests, having as main aim its credibility and the preservation of its value. If that is achieved the Voins provide maximum independence and power to the community. The use of Voins can be combined with the use of the local fiat currency.
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A Basic Income
A Basic Income in Voins (and in fiat if available) to guarantee that members are free to dedicate their time to what is meaningful to them and avoid poverty and exploitation.
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A Public Fund
The amount of this fund, at least to begin with but the community can modify this, is equal to the sum of basic incomes delivered every month. How it is spent every period is decided by a public Vontest, except instead of just one winner, all top proposal that fit within the budget get selected to be realized. If the community has fiat currency, through activities or donations or fees from the users, it can have a Public Fund in fiat too, and be administered in the same manner
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Limits and/or Taxes
An Accumulation Ceiling of Voins (ACV) to prevent excessive power on one part which could damage the balance and correct functioning of the whole, which would be undesirable even for that part. The amount or percentage of this ceiling is determined in a special vontest and could be 0% if so voted. 

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Optional Addons

Oxidation is an optional measure to promote exchange and participation where earned Voins are lost if unused after a certain period of time.

Fiat/Dual currency

Criptocurrency and Blockchain

Needs

Social

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The Plaza
A Transparent Horizontal Social Fabric
This section is like the ship’s plaza, or pub, allowing members to express themselves, learn,
 mingle, communicate, join forces, and play. Groups of people can then participate in the Politics and Economy sections.
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Groups
From a small club, to a big company to an ideological movement, any association of members to pursue an end within the community is a Group.
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Members Profiles
Who is saying that, who is offering this service.
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Culture
Blogs, picture galleries, videos...
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The Game
We recognize humans like challenges and a friendly competition is a good way to promote engagement, participation and recognition. Thus Autogov introduces a level of gamification in its social section where the best participation: Questions, Answers. Services, etc. are rewarded and awarded.
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Internal Messaging and Notifications
Autogov includes internal messaging system and email notification of various events and subscriptions.
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Optional Addons
As this section is based upon the BuddyPress, all plugins of Buddypress could be easily added

The actual Interface
(and a few Diagrams):

Public Modules

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Public Positions
Like Jobs but much better: Vobs, Vureaucracy.
These are temporary (3 months to begin with) supervision tasks paid with Voins (through the Public Fund). For instance, there might be a coordinator for each main Topic, or for emergencies, or for security. They are like the government ministers and functionaries, except their task is to decide things as little as possible. Instead they are to coordinate the Vontests necessary to decide and solve any situation within their topic.
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Public Tasks
Quite often, proposals that win in the Public Fund Vontest need someone in charge of getting them to fruition, thus through its resolution a new Task Vontest is created. Everybody can propose himself or others to do it for a fee and the Vontest winner gets the commission. These tasks are generally supervised by the corresponding Position holder.
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Public News
What is important for everyone to know? Who decides that? Well a What is news Vontest of course, to begin with, to which everyone is subscribed and notified. However, there could be some urgent events that cannot wait for a Vontest and need to be publicized immediately. That is the work of the News and Warnings Position
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Public Log and Stats
It All depends on its credibility
The main strength and security for Autogov is its transparency, that is why everything that occurs within it is logged and available for public scrutiny in the Public Log.
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Our main Values and Goals ongoing Vontest.
This list is simply the answer to the continuous Vontest: “What values are most important for us?” 
 We could expect Happiness, Love, Freedom. Peace, Progress, Self- realization, etc to figure up there. It is just a reference to be used in debates as an evaluation parameter. What do we mean exactly by each concept? Well, obviously for Autogov, that also depends on the outcome of the Vontests: “What is freedom?”, “What is Peace?”, etc.

Similarly with the continuous Vontest "What are our communities main goals?"
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Meta Laws
Autogov strives to be as neutral and meta a structure as possible. A transparent glass to contain and transform the liquid content living within it. It intents to be a Nothing that facilitates All and then selects the Best of each from it. However, even a glass requires some limits that give the whole stability and long term confidence. For that purpose we introduce the Metalaws. These special laws can only be changed by a special majority (by default 70%)
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Meta Laws Defaults and Examples
- The Golden Rule
- The Autonomy Principle
- No one above, no one behind (in terms of static power)
- Altruism equals long term thought Egoism
- Rights of the minority, individual
- No one knows what is good, only the vontests do
- Everything should be decided and perform as horizontally, atomically, and publically as possible.
- The UN Declaration of Human Rights
- The Local Constitution


Autogov General Features

What kind of Democracy is Autogov? It is a...


Sure, we each think we know better, or that the experts we prefer do. But when it comes to “what is best for us all”, there is no real expertise to learn, and there are alleged experts in favor of all contradictory opinions.

We should, and can only, trust ourselves, and that trust will in turn promote through time and facilitate the inclusion and optimization of everybody into the debate.

Everybody can do everything, directly, should she want to.

To avoid dependence and exploitation, and to ensure independence of voting and debate, users most feel secure in life and thus total gained resources should be distributed among users assuring a universal basic income. Without this minimum playing field the system is rigged and bound to fail.

 Each part knows better about itself than the rest. As long as it does not directly affect the freedom of the rest, it should be free to choose about itself.

Confidence and accountability is essential. In Autogov, everything is public by default, except for personal and group communications. But even those are logged and, should there be an important incidence, can be consulted.

With Autogov there is no need to ask for money or for power or for permission. The community creates its own money, power and legitimacy, and is therefore independent and resilient.

Can you imagine the feeling of knowing that every time you come home frustrated from something or every time you get outraged from reading the news, you actually can do something about it immediately?

Why do we say ‘creative’ market? Is it just a marketing term? We believe, once automation and technology create enough abundance, humans will discover their creativity. We believe creativity in every sphere will become more and more essential in the human experience.

We all (mostly) know by now about the massive unemployment due to automation threat due to arrive in the next decade. 

Autogov with its basic income and creative market is ready to turn that threat into a freedom for humans opportunity.

As to the challenge to create a future friendly relationship and power balance between AI agents and humans, Autogov can provide two good scenarios: (1) Humans decide with expert help from AI in the debate stage of the Vontests. (2) Humans and Robots (and anything in between) debate and decide together as equal members of Autogov.

Al issues remain open for further debate, refinement, nudging and re-voting after they have been decided some way or other. Its all permanently softly rebalancing like a liquid. The frequency of a decision, the notoriety it gets, the credibility of any user, all vary according to time and topic and balance…

Let us divide every issue into its smallest components and carefully analyze its pros and cons, refine it, variate it, simulate it, compare it, mix it. (“Shake well before voting”) A lot of the extremism, anger and impotence in current 2OptionsPer4Years democracies will be solved just with that.

Through the Internet and Software a level of flexible interaction is possible without which it was mechanichally impossible to effectuate a Ddddddemocracy.

 

In the space-time-topic continuum. Whereas in todays democracies or todays community meetings few questions can be addressed at the same time and those take weeks to properly discuss and decide, in the dynamic always on internet, every second, every topic or tag, everybody can participate all the time. Plus decisions can be broken down to their most elemental questions, and often only that makes for easier decision making

Hate how some question was voted and decided? Already seeing something didn’t work as expected? No need to wait 4 years or even a month. The debate is continuous and if the leading answer in any ongoing Vontest changes, a new Votography is automatically set.

We can be proud of the freedoms we have gained, but, if we have to dedicate our time to something we don’t care about and obey our often stupid bosses or else we starve, how free we really are? Real freedom to do what we want with our life (within the no harm limits of course) is within reach in our times through the super efficient mechanism of UBI. With Autogov, with its independent and democratic currency, the implementation of it becomes much easier.

One of the main fears of people when faced with the prospect of doing the political decisions themselves is boredom or tedious. Through its gamification tools, Autogov can make participating in society an existential game. Each community can give this more or less importance by assigning monetary or just recognition awards.

Should a community prefer to use Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other altcoin instead of Voins, it can directly do so.

As for the decentralized security and accountability provided by Blockchain technology, there is a WordPress plugin: WP Blockchain that can easily be installed and configured to provide it for Autogov.

IMPLEMENTATION
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FAQ

Nothing, Autogov is all free always. This is necessary for its complete transparency and thus credibility.

No one is, we all are. That’s the whole point. 

Of course, there might be some organizers on a community made with Autogov as it is free to use.

Autogov was created by Barcelona Philosopher/Political Scientist Zury Asse (Mexico City 1967).

The idea was than anyone could easily install, customize, and modify the code easily. WordPress is the most popular easy to use open-source platform out there.

Non and both. We say it is not Left or Right but Meta. 

It might be very attractive to both a certain left: as a means of economic equality and freedom and a transparent horizontal governance, and to certain right; as liberal, minimal government, decentralized, un-bureaucratic, free market society.

It is probably not attractive for the “let’s keep fighting so next year we get 5% augment on wages and 2 days more vacation days” left. Nor to the “We are superior, lets just bribe the government and increase the military” right.

Sure, you could for instance use more and extend the lapse of the Positions Vontests, lower the Basic Income, and increase the difficulty to change Metalaws.

Yes, hopefully soon. Before it’s too late.

A Political Party anywhere in the world could adopt Autogov in their party platform. It would be an autogovist party.

Sure, a lot, this is no simple task, but whatever the problem, with Autogov it’s much easier and faster to find and implement the right answer to fix them than with traditional systems.

Autogov can change its own basic functioning and constitutive laws; so a question could be asked: Is there a minimum without which it ceases to be Autogov?

The answer is the “MetaPragmatic minimum”, which means you have to provide neutral, transparent, rich, debate, which can only be achieved from a Meta perspective with free individuals; and you have to allow and foment evolution and improvement in everything, which aligns with philosophical pragmatism and the Pragmatic theory of truth.

The same as any other currency, believing in it and using it in an exchange market and a public fund.

“So what, you expect me to be fine with people staying at home watching TV while I do all the work?” This is a deeply rooted attitude and critisism to Basic Income and so we though we should try to address it.


First of all, we don’t really know at any given time if an act is a contribution to society or not.

What is a contribution to society? Can we really tell? A man working in an arms factory is contributing to society? An artist making strange paintings few people like is contributing? An executive in a transnational corporation?

First, we don’t have a consensual goal for society against which we could measure our advances.

Second, even if we had such a consensual goal, it is not easy at all to assess whether an act leads us to it or not, specially in a complex society like ours.

Third, an act in this context, cannot be judged disregarding the Time dimension: John Doe is indeed doing nothing all day, but his mind is working, maybe it is restructuring itself, maybe it is planting the seeds for a great contribution to society in a few years. We really don’t know what consequences a moment has over time. Notably, from an ecological point of view, there is actually an excess of production in our society, so someone not producing could be contributing more to society than someone producing.

2. When left free, people eventually begin to do something with their lives.

This assertion should be confirmed by scientific studies, but in my experience and observations, inactivity comes mostly from a reaction to previous ‘bad’ activity. It is a rest and purification from it. After a few years, we naturally begin to want to do something with our lives.

If a persons’ motivations for doing something were usually ‘external’, to the person and to the act, it takes a few years to develop, or find again, internal motivations for doing something. 3. Contributing to society should be seen as a good in itself for the contributor, the reward is in the act itself.

The exploitation objection’ is based on the premise that contributing to society is a sacrifice, but that needs not be the case, specially in a BI society. You might want to contribute because you feel good doing it, not because you have to, or because you’ll get a reward from it.

People usually want to feel they are ‘good’, so if they do a ‘good’ act, they will feel good doing it. Thus if a person is not contributing to society right now, well, too bad for him.

4. Work under BI should be justified by measuring satisfaction plus payment, minus effort plus sacrifice.

Should the satisfaction of doing something good not be enough motivation, let us not forget that under BI, acts are still payed for. So the exploitation objection is mitigated by the fact that the active get paid more than the inactive.

If satisfaction from action plus payment is not enough to compensate an effort, then let it not be done.

What if too many people end up not doing anything all day for too long and BI cannot be maintained? Well that would be a different problem. Perhaps society could address it through all kinds of work incentives and education. But it is my personal belief, that few people enjoy inactivity for a long time, even if they are free to do it. We seem to have a deep need to justify our own existence, at least to ourselves, and that is hard to achieve not doing anything.

Add to all the above the social pressure of having a good answer to the question “so what do you do in life?” and we shan’t worry anymore.


“People are stupid”, and so Direct Democracy won’t work.

One of the hardest temptations to let go is to think “sure, we all have opinions, but in the end, mine (my group, my guru) is the right one”. We need to remind ourselves that the others think so too. We need to go meta and realize that the whole, if properly wired internally, knows more about its will and its path, than any one part alone. If your part is right, it should eventually be able to persuade, through Autogov structured debates, the rest of people.


“But only experts, with special studies know what is right”

Well, the thing is there are usually experts supporting all positions, which ones are right? Furthermore, in the case of people governance, what studies exactly enable you to decide what is best for all? Some could argue that the more you study and specialize with your mind, the further detached you become from some other more natural or more spiritual wisdom.


“But we have seen how a charismatic leader can manipulate the masses”

First of all, we are all always manipulated, thats just part of culture, but we tend to see only the other parties manipulation and not ours. Second, such manipulation is much harder when the issues are small and concrete, like in Autogov, than when you only get two or three packages of ideas every four years. Thirdly, if a ‘bad’ decision wins, since its debate and voting remains open in Autogov, it can be corrected quite quickly and smoothly.

Forthly, reputation scores can act dynamically to bring attention to de facto experts or groups on each field, but without giving them any authority. In Autogov ideas compete, not persons. And last, if you create a governance based on the idea that people are stupid, that system is bound to create and perpetrate stupid people. “We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us”
 – Winston Churchill

"With some luck (maybe even without it) Autogov could be to current methods of community governance
as Wikipedia has been to traditional written encyclopedias"- said Hipotetical Someone -
"It just answers 'what should be' questions, instead of what is X, or what was X questions.

Play Video
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Watching (feeling) fractal zooming and learning about Complex Adaptive Systems
can help you grasp the environment where Autogov was conceived