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.

Yeah, I think we’re pretty much aligned on that.

I also wish I could do more in those regards, but I’m neither an American nor a politician. The latter I could change, but even if I were successful, then by the time I could affect some change it would probably be too late.

Still refusing to sit idly by, I decided to have a thought on how this could be prevented. A system with similar values as democracy, but better resilience against corruption could theoretically prevent a lot of harm. I don’t when or if anyone would be willing and able to do something with these ideas, but I figured it was the best I could do for now.

Yeah, here it is: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/1f52fa44062e9395d54ed6733780aea0830ee6a5.camel@HansenPartnership.com/T/#m8f8599678bc864662eae28756cba25981fc2c0ac

But he did step in, albeit privately. I actually agree an earlier public statement would have helped, but we don’t know the specifics of what went on behind the scenes.

In any case, I don’t think it’s fair to assign blame for Marcan’s burnout to Linus, as the post above did. Marcan himself mentioned personal reasons too when he announced his departure. I think we should show understanding and patience with both sides, and assigning blame isn’t helping with that.

That now involves fixing Rust drivers, so you’re going to need to know Rust.

I also don’t think the latter follows from the former. You can continue to not know Rust as long as you’re willing to work with those that can. Problems only start if you’re unwilling to collaborate.

You’re implying that Linus is somehow responsible for burning out Marcan? I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.

So far, the only good argument I have really seen from the ones opposing the Rust4Linux effort comes down to: adding Rust to a C codebase introduces a lot of complexity that is hard to deal with.

But the argument offers no solution except to give up and not even attempt to address the real issues the kernel struggles with. It’s effectively a form of defeatism when you want to give up and don’t want to let others attempt to do what you don’t see as feasible.

Fair, just wanted to point out that the monarchy class I’m proposing is actually a communist class intended to keep the capitalist/socialist citizenry in check. So there may be more in it than you might have realised from the abstract alone.

in my case at least leads me to questioning how our political and social systems can change for the better.

Glad to see like-minded people here! I actually just finished a manifesto on this exact topic:

https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/

It’s quite the read, but I’d be happy to hear your feedback.

So far, it doesn’t seem that they have broken any laws or whatever, that would cause the system to reject their workings.

They are breaking laws, including the constitution. The courts are trying to reject it, but have no method to enforce their rulings when the executive branch willingly ignores them and even explicitly lies the blame with the courts for trying to protect the system.

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5294666/trump-white-house-constitutional-crisis-judges

The formatter is similar to Prettier in that regard, yes. Recently we decided to deviate in one specific case for accessibility reasons, but it’s a rare exception: https://fosstodon.org/@biomejs/113163964170882716

The linter is less opinionated, but it’s not concerned with formatting.

“Shadow fart” - ehhhhhhh, no

What no? I think you just proved their point 🤣