Making decisions in groups is a core part of harmonious human life. It's something we do naturally and spontaneously. We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years and have developed ingenious processes. My point in writing this isn't to offer new methods of group decision-making, but to offer a mandate and a practical proposal to protect this beneficial human activity.

At best, governments allow complete freedom and flexibility in group decision-making, and at worst, they greatly hamper it. The best government is equal to no government in this regard, which may lead us to wonder why we tolerate governments at all. I'll argue that with an easy to understand mandate, we can protect group decision-making.

Governments commit the following three sins.

1. They give special privileges to an elite group.

2. They prescribe decision-making rules that are too rigid to best handle a decision at hand.

3. They forcibly interfere with non-forceful decision-making alternatives.

Let's address each separately.

Governments often bestow special decision making powers on certain individuals. They may be elected, delegated, appointed, or buy their way into this status. This overpowered decision-making status is often accompanied by a reduced accountability for decision outcomes. We hear of "immunity" being granted to officials in power. The best a government can do is offer no increased decision-making power or decreased accountability to anyone.

People have been coming up with various ways to make group decisions for millennia. We do it all the time and are accustomed to it. When the process to make decisions is prescribed by a government, it limits us from choosing the best ad hoc methods. The best position for a government to take in this regard is to not prescribe any rules at all. Society can record and remember how they made decisions and choose to repeat successful patterns, but repeating a pattern should never be mandatory.

People have the right to disengage from a decision-making process and engage in an alternative. Reconciling decisions made by different groups or processes touching the same subject is part of life. No one--including governments--should have the power to block decision-making alternatives.

Maybe it's clear that since we know how to make decisions on our own, governments actually serve no useful purpose. Or maybe we see them as a way to prevent crime or to prevent an even worse government from arising. I leave it to someone else to show that crime can be prevented by an organization with a mandate to do so, without requiring a government. What's left to guard against are abuses of power in which a group (such as a military or police force) takes more than its fair share of decision-making power and commits the sins of the previous section. What I hope to show is that we can protect against such abuses of power without the use of governments.

The mandate to protect group decision-making is to oppose with authorized force any group that:

1. Gives one person decision-making privilege above another

2. -OR- Prescribes strict rules for decision-making

3. -AND- Prevents competing processes with force

We will fund a "Decision Guard" with military, strategic, and reconnaissance power equal to that of the strongest national power. A decision guard is an autonomous organization that can act decisively to enforce the protective mandate.

The guard itself has no special governmental powers, as that would violate the protective mandate. The reason it can act autonomously is that the mandate is clear enough that everyone can understand it.

What if a guard becomes abusive and violates its own mandate?

We can achieve resilience through the creation of many guards. If one guard becomes abusive, the remaining guards will combine to oppose it. We want to have enough guards that any attempt to collude to oppose honest guards is ineffective.

When nation states are entrusted with military power, there is natural conflict: each nation defines its own mandate. When war happens, there are differences of opinion as to which side is right.

Decision guards have a neutral and simple mandate that everyone can understand and benefit from. The protective mandate should be universally accepted. Decision guards crush abuses to decision-making freedom wherever they arise. Differences in opinion, decisions, and processes are natural and--with the right protective system in place--won't lead to wars over who should wield power.

A protective mandate and decision guards are enough to let group decision-making flourish. We no longer have to suffer under a "least evil" government for protection.

• Do the Protective Mandate and Decision Guards prevent war?

The Protective Mandate and Decision Guards don't stop groups from becoming violent or amassing an army in an attempt to plunder, but they can ensure that neither aggressors, nor "liberators," nor "peacekeepers" opportunistically seize decision-making control for themselves. In other words, they keep peace-keeping neutral. They create an environment where aggressors are easily seen as such, and liberators aren't self-motivated. They prevent further aggression over "which side is right."

Making decisions in groups is a core part of harmonious human life. It's something we do naturally and spontaneously. We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years and have developed ingenious processes. My point in writing this isn't to offer new methods of group decision-making, but to offer a mandate and a practical proposal to protect this beneficial human activity.

At best, governments allow complete freedom and flexibility in group decision-making, and at worst, they greatly hamper it. The best government is equal to no government in this regard, which may lead us to wonder why we tolerate governments at all. I'll argue that with an easy to understand mandate, we can protect group decision-making.

Governments commit the following three sins.

1. They give special privileges to an elite group.

2. They prescribe decision-making rules that are too rigid to best handle a decision at hand.

3. They forcibly interfere with non-forceful decision-making alternatives.

Let's address each separately.

Governments often bestow special decision making powers on certain individuals. They may be elected, delegated, appointed, or buy their way into this status. This overpowered decision-making status is often accompanied by a reduced accountability for decision outcomes. We hear of "immunity" being granted to officials in power. The best a government can do is offer no increased decision-making power or decreased accountability to anyone.

People have been coming up with various ways to make group decisions for millennia. We do it all the time and are accustomed to it. When the process to make decisions is prescribed by a government, it limits us from choosing the best ad hoc methods. The best position for a government to take in this regard is to not prescribe any rules at all. Society can record and remember how they made decisions and choose to repeat successful patterns, but repeating a pattern should never be mandatory.

People have the right to disengage from a decision-making process and engage in an alternative. Reconciling decisions made by different groups or processes touching the same subject is part of life. No one--including governments--should have the power to block decision-making alternatives.

Maybe it's clear that since we know how to make decisions on our own, governments actually serve no useful purpose. Or maybe we see them as a way to prevent crime or to prevent an even worse government from arising. I leave it to someone else to show that crime can be prevented by an organization with a mandate to do so, without requiring a government. What's left to guard against are abuses of power in which a group (such as a military or police force) takes more than its fair share of decision-making power and commits the sins of the previous section. What I hope to show is that we can protect against such abuses of power without the use of governments.

The mandate to protect group decision-making is to oppose with authorized force any group that:

1. Gives one person decision-making privilege above another

2. -OR- Prescribes strict rules for decision-making

3. -AND- Prevents competing processes with force

We will fund a "Decision Guard" with military, strategic, and reconnaissance power equal to that of the strongest national power. A decision guard is an autonomous organization that can act decisively to enforce the protective mandate.

The guard itself has no special governmental powers, as that would violate the protective mandate. The reason it can act autonomously is that the mandate is clear enough that everyone can understand it.

What if a guard becomes abusive and violates its own mandate?

We can achieve resilience through the creation of many guards. If one guard becomes abusive, the remaining guards will combine to oppose it. We want to have enough guards that any attempt to collude to oppose honest guards is ineffective.

When nation states are entrusted with military power, there is natural conflict: each nation defines its own mandate. When war happens, there are differences of opinion as to which side is right.

Decision guards have a neutral and simple mandate that everyone can understand and benefit from. The protective mandate should be universally accepted. Decision guards crush abuses to decision-making freedom wherever they arise. Differences in opinion, decisions, and processes are natural and--with the right protective system in place--won't lead to wars over who should wield power.

A protective mandate and decision guards are enough to let group decision-making flourish. We no longer have to suffer under a "least evil" government for protection.

• Do the Protective Mandate and Decision Guards prevent war?

The Protective Mandate and Decision Guards don't stop groups from becoming violent or amassing an army in an attempt to plunder, but they can ensure that neither aggressors, nor "liberators," nor "peacekeepers" opportunistically seize decision-making control for themselves. In other words, they keep peace-keeping neutral. They create an environment where aggressors are easily seen as such, and liberators aren't self-motivated. They prevent further aggression over "which side is right."