Why Solvocracy
Solvocracy came to me all at once, in a vision, and it took me years to get the design out of my head. The idea captivated me almost like a pressure desperate for release. Could a big part of the world's problems be resolved by figuring out how to structure problems and their solutions so that people would be incentivized to cooperate towards their common goals? This question has become one of my purpose questions.
Abel Patten, founder
Why it starts small
The big idea is a public hierarchy of the questions people would like to find solutions for. It has to work for a group of neighbors before it can work for anyone else, so that is where it starts. Making sure that Solvocracy works to help your group solve its problems is a critical step towards making sure that it can solve the bigger problems we face.
How it is built, and why
Everything is a question or an answer, with its reasons.
An idea has to arrive as a real question or a real proposal, and every point carries its reason. That is what lets a decision be reopened later without starting the argument over.
What is published stays published.
Corrections happen visibly, with credit, and the changes are documented. A record you can quietly edit is not a record of truth.
Standing is earned by contributing.
Solvocracy keeps a record called Influence of who has actually contributed to your group's decisions, by asking, answering and arguing well. It cannot be bought. Your group chooses whether to give it any weight at all.
The assistant asks. It never judges.
You will meet some AI help inside Solvocracy. It never tells you an idea is good or bad, never rewrites your words, and never stops you publishing. Judgment stays with the people who answer for it.
The rules assume someone will try to game them.
Most people act in good faith, but a system is tested by the few who do not. So the fair move is built to be the sensible one.
Solvocracy follows its own rules.
Its own purpose sits in its own canopy like anyone else's, and the person running it is not exempt.
One thing that is not done yet
Solvocracy's purpose and principles will eventually be held in a legal trust, so that nobody can change them, its founder included. That trust does not exist yet. Until it does, our word and these written commitments are what bind.
