arendjr

Ha, I better not tell you about the Apple Keyboard I use with my Linux laptop then. Don’t like macOS much, but I love their flat keyboards.

Another data structure that you can consider is the red green tree: https://willspeak.me/2021/11/24/red-green-syntax-trees-an-overview.html

We use it in Biome too, and it’s great for building trees that are immutable and yet still need frequent updates, as well as traversal in all directions. Its implementation contains quite a bit of unsafe to make it fast, though as a consumer you’re not really exposed to that.

There is a serious attempt for that actually: https://www.assemblyscript.org/

It doesn’t offer full compatibility with the regular TypeScript though, despite being very similar.

In fairness, this also happens to me when I write the bash script myself 😂

Thanks! I’d be happy to hear your thoughts.

Mostly the same reason why democracy worked for quite a while too. As long as people believe in a system and see the benefits to themselves as well, they can go quite a while with it.

In general I also think most people aren’t out to screw one another, no matter how much it may seem that way sometimes, so as long as that keeps for the monarchs in a majority of districts, the system could balance itself.

But yeah, I’m not going to say it’s perfect. Sooner or later it would collapse, and when it does my money would be on the same reason as yours.

So I think the main question is: would it be able to last longer than democracies can, especially in the face of mass media manipulation and other challenges. I can’t prove it, but I suspect it might have a decent shot, mostly because the monarchs would be more agile to respond against unforeseen threats.

Pray tell, what does it tell?

Your proposal is just an idealistic version of early US.

Thanks, I guess :)

You claim that corruption is fundamentally impossible, but assume that magically “the monarchs aren’t allowed to own property” without regard to enforcement.

I make no such claim, and I don't make assumptions regarding enforcement either. Constitutional enforcement is discussed in quite some detail.

You claim to have an alternative to democracy but still propose majority voting on replacing rulers and constitutions.

There is majority voting on deposal of rulers, to be specific. Their replacement isn't voted on by a majority of the population.

Constitutional changes are voted on through majority, but first require a majority of the monarchs to be on board.

Both these limitations are intentionally designed to mitigate manipulation of the population.

You simply assume that monarchs will keep each other in check and not devolve into the conspiring, warmongering tyrants that history is full of.

There is quite some detail about the enforcement mechanisms. The idea is very much not to assume, but to persuade the monarchs to act in a benevolent manner, by enticement through both the carrot (wealth for as long as they rule), but also the stick (deposal if the majority doesn't vote in favour of their actions, with a threat of assassination if they refuse to be deposed).

Power can always be abused to get more power and go against all your original ideals. The only way to definitely prevent corruption is to ensure power is never concentrated in the hands of few.

Ah. So it wasn't me that claimed that corruption is fundamentally impossible, it's you that claim to have the definitive answer.

For what it's worth, I agree power shouldn't be concentrated in the few. Which is why I split power across districts, and between citizens and monarchs, and why the group of monarchs for each district cannot be too small either. It's all there if you could try to be a little less dismissive.

:D

From your other responses I can see you're being sarcastic, but yeah, seems that many won't read any further after seeing the word monarchy :shrug:

There is a huge difference between how things should work and how they will though. Without any system of enforcement, I would call it nothing but wishful thinking.

In fairness, democracy was a kind of wishful thinking too, which is why I would propose a new form of monarchy instead: https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/

Ah, but that’s no reason to give into defeatism. Words and wisdom can survive our lifetimes, so it’s never too early to practice them.

Preach.

You’re right a coup or revolution is probably the only way out for the US at this point. But when that day comes, reestablishing democracy with the rules of today would be a bad idea, since the capitalists know how to game the system. So if we acknowledge that democracy is broken, and authoritarianism isn’t the way, we need a new system. Hopefully this post helped to give some ideas what a new system could look like.