Using adhocracy.de
by NEET
There is finally some useful decentralized decision making software! Naturally, it was made in Germany. While it has been around for a while, but only recently has it been translated enough for the average American to make use of it. It doesn’t have many of the proposed integrated features of the democracy 2.0 system but it’s the best we got right now. Identity verification could potentially be accomplished by providing a social network page and a voter registry page with corresponding data. There’s still not a whole lot of people (almost zero Americans) using adhocracy and I think that’s partially because the tutorial they provide is not super helpful. So I made one. Here we go:
This is the first screen you should see on adhocracy.de
Fill out your information and create an account
Log in
Change your settings to English
You need to create an instance for your community if it doesn’t already exist
Continue setting up your community
Access the instance of your community
Create a new proposal for your community. You don’t have to follow the format outlined in the D-2.0 patent, but it might be easier to deal with larger community if proposals are more standardized.
Fill out all necessary fields for your proposal.
View, edit, and vote for proposals made by you and other community members.
Get others to join your community or become a member of a community started by someone else.
Finalize becoming a member of an existing community.
That’s all for today! There will be more posts later detailing the advanced intricacies of adhocracy. But that should be enough help to get you started. And please, if you still need help with this, don’t be shy about contacting me!
Democracy 2.0 
Hi,
I posted a few comments awhile ago here. It is sad to see little discussion about direct democracy going on here. Or elsewhere. But maybe I am just not aware of such places. Any suggestions? Thanks.
On my own I could only spot many disconnected efforts by various people, with little collaboration. At least superficially. May be they are collaborating in stealth mode. But why not to involve more people, openly? This would seem to be in spirit of direct democracy.
Thanks.
Creator of this website here. You could check out metagovernment.org if you haven’t already, but the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of people think democracy 2.0 is a bad idea right now. It’s kinda why I stopped working on this site.
Of course, people don’t know what they want until it’s there in front of them. Unfortunately I don’t have the skills to develop a bitcoin based voting system. Really this system must be created first before this idea can move forward. I’m traveling the world right now (the anti D-2.0 pattern persists globally btw) and when I stop I’m moving to San Francisco where I presume it will be easier to find like minded, skilled programmers.
Here’s what people say in response to D-2.0 in my experience from most common to least common:
1. Anarchy. Everyone just needs to smoke weed mannnn
2. I don’t know. But democracy is tyranny of the majority! Have you seen how dumb the average person is?
3. Theocracy. Everyone just needs God mannnn
4. It’s fine the way it is. You have more bread and circuses than you can possibly consume.
5. Communism. We need to come up with the perfect society first on paper *then* we’ll change the system.
I checked metagovernment.org some time ago, but I incorrectly viewed it as mostly a collection of links to various sources and projects. I now see that a good deal of discussing is also happening there. I will read their archive and then consider joining their mailing list.
It is hard for me to understand why most people would oppose direct democracy. Any argument against it is fundamentally an argument against democracy, which most people seem to support (at least in the west). I think people could reasonably object to a particular implementation, though. For example some may dislike the idea of (voluntary) vote delegation (if I remember correctly, you do). I think it is really important to make the system of governance efficient. But these are just details (albeit important ones) that need to be sorted out.
Hello Austin,
I’ve been advocating creating a direct democracy website for years and started working on one a few months ago, with occasional help from a friend who doesn’t have much time, and am talking with a few other people who might collaborate with me.
I just found this website of yours. I’m very disappointed to read that you stopped working on your project last year. I’ve also frequently heard various arguments against direct democracy, but also think, as you wrote, that if people see a functioning website with people participating they might change their minds. Would you change your mind about the idea if you had people to collaborate with you?
While the website I’m working on is compatible with direct democracy candidates running for office within the existing political system, as in your idea, along with every other direct democracy advocate I know of, what I advocate is unique as far as I know, and just what you reject. The existing system in the US is so undemocratic and corrupted and rigged that candidates not supported by the establishment can almost never win offices, much less enough direct democracy candidates to win a majority of seats in government and control government policy. Therefore my website would function as a parallel government. If it catches on and a majority of Americans eventually participate in it, they would see how what the people vote for is completely different than what the current government does, and could vote to declare the website the legitimate government. If (as I expect), the current government refused to disband, the people could use the website to organize a revolution against it.
On the other hand, I’m in contact with someone you might collaborate with who’s working on a website that’s similar to your idea of working within the system.
Hi Roy,
I have some questions for you.
1) I think votetocracy.com may be similar to what you have in mind, at least the voting part. People can vote on congressional laws and compare results to congress votes. How is your idea different?
2) You wrote “If it catches on and a majority of Americans eventually participate in it”. What kind of participation are you taking about? Voting seems the easiest form of participation. Do you expect many Americans to vote regularly on many laws?
3) How do you explain that participation on votetocracy.org is not that high?
Thanks
Voteocracy doesnt let people propose their own legislation. This would be necessary for a parallel government. I think there is a high degree of apathy in today’s american voter and voteocracy doesn’t seem like it produces immediate results. The congressmen aren’t obligated to acknowledge its existence, let alone alter their voting behavior.
If people could propose their own legislation on votetocracy, would it affect significantly number of people voting? I think the fraction of people willing to simply read laws and vote on them is small. I would not call it apathy. Most people are still participating in national elections. It just that amount of effort people are ready to contribute is small on average. Which is quite reasonable. Imaging everyone has to read and vote on all the laws. It would be huge waist of resources.
On the other hand, if only a small number of (willing) people participates, this can be easily portrayed as undemocratic. This situation is also very susceptible to influence by powerful players. Would you agree?
This was ment to be a response to austincapobianco comment.
Only the people who want to read and write and vote on laws have to. If they don’t participate, they don’t get a voice, just like how it is now. Vote delegation would be another reasonable solution to this problem.
This is still democratic because everyone who wants a vote gets one. I think you also may be underestimating how interested people are in politics. Politics are sometimes called ‘football for intellectuals’ because men like to discuss it so much casually. Look at the internet, have dinner with your extended family. Everyone has opinions, but democracy would give those a voice. There’s only this pseudoapathy as you say because people don’t know where to direct their energy.