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Governance

Politics is what happens where systems fail.

Are decision markets the answer to better governance?

The Incentive Problem

Voting for politicians and expecting meaningful change is like putting faith in a group of fleas to teach dog obedience. The fleas have no incentive to train the dog - the fleas just want a warm place to eat.

The root problem: Politicians are motivated to stay in power, the world economy is too complex for them or us to truly understand, so corridors of power become channels for corruption not by accident, but by design.

The question becomes: can we build systems where the rules are encoded in protocols rather than dependent on intermediaries who benefit from opacity?

Subjects

Communities that are most collaborative are the most effective

Context

  • The VVFL — The alternative to politics: validated, virtuous feedback loops
  • Control System — Three types of loop: positive (runaway), negative (corrective), VVFL
  • Culture — The strongest cultures are judged by how they look after their weakest
  • Crypto — Coordination mechanisms that outlast any individual player
  • Leverage — Multiply output without corresponding increase in input
  • Digital Mycelium — Nature's internet for intelligent coordination

Predictions

Countries that have the worst digital systems but culture of collaborative coordination, sense and respond, have the most to gain from AI.

Countries that have strong centralized systems for top-down control risk falling to the innovator's dilemma.

People will vote with their feet to live in nation states that merge successfully into network states.

Any doubts? Ask AI: What is the best form of money to drive a fair and prosperous society?

The Capability Gap

Who has authority to decide? Who is accountable when it breaks? Who distributes the gains?

These questions have always mattered. What changed is the speed at which they must be answered.

DimensionGovernance CycleAI Cycle
CapabilityYears to legislateMonths to deploy
AuthorityElections, appointmentsWhoever ships first
AccountabilityCourts, regulatorsUnclear, evolving

The paradox: AI concentrates capability in few hands while making centralized control obsolete. Models now have judgment, complete multi-hour tasks autonomously, and build themselves. The gap between what AI can do and what governance can regulate widens every quarter.

Countries with collaborative culture adapt fastest—not because their governments are smarter, but because distributed decision-making matches the speed of distributed capability. Centralized systems face the innovator's dilemma: the control that made them strong makes them slow.

The question is not whether AI exceeds governance capacity. It already has. The question is which societies build coordination mechanisms that keep pace.

The Legacy Game

The game runs from cradle to grave. Early loops serve survival. Later loops serve legacy.

The highest-leverage move any player can make is improving the system itself—building better platforms for future generations to play on. This is what governance is for: not managing today's problems, but creating compounding returns across generations.

StageFocusGovernance Role
SurviveLearn the rulesProtect from exploitation
ImproveFind good mates, build teamsEnable coordination
BuildCreate better platformsEncode wisdom in protocols

Bad governance traps everyone in worse games. Good governance—rules encoded in protocols rather than dependent on intermediaries—creates the conditions where the next generation starts further ahead.

This is why crypto matters: not for speculation, but for building coordination mechanisms that outlast any individual player.

Blockchain Integrity

The Dept of Govt Effectiveness

Coordination Incentives

The strongest potential benefit of adopting crypto is better coordination mechanisms for the greater good.

The greatest potential opportunity for crypto adoption is better coordination mechanisms. Organisations that build the strongest culture through incentive design that rewards truth seeking, will win big.

Evolve better collective decisions by backing commitment with bets. Analyse onchain decision logic to identify leaders with vision and judgement worth making bets on.