Make Governance Fun

I've been thinking a lot about how to make governance (and all it's pieces) fun. It might be argued that governance shouldn't be fun, but I think it probably should be. We spend tons of time playing video games and sending snaps because it's fun. If we put the same effort into making good societal decisions, that's probably a good thing.

What are the pieces of governance?

• Voting: Signaling your support or anti-support (lack of support? idk the word for this lol) for a certain issue.

• Campaigning: Trying to get someone to vote a certain way on an issue.

• Research: Deciding which way to vote on an issue.

What things are fun?

Videogames.

Why are video games fun?

• Fast feedback loops: We evolved to like getting fast results and games provide this. One way to do this in governance is to have votes resolve quickly, but this doesn't leave time to make good decisions. A better way might be to drop an undecided voter into a chatroom with a pro-voter and an anti-voter. They then each have an X amount of time to try to convince the undecided voter onto their side.

• Social aspect: Games are also fun because we can play them with our friends. This is kinda strange in terms of governance because we usually think of voting as a private thing. OTOH, we share our political beliefs all the time, so maybe just having the option of private voting is enough.

• Game mechanics: This one is hard. Most game mechanics can't be perfectly replicated into governance because societies have different goals then game developers. However, something like leaderboards could possibly be implemented. People who are successful in making good decisions (however this is determined) or at changing minds could be given points. This is dangerous though, it's important to avoid perverse incentives.

Posting on Instagram, snapping, and making TikTok videos is also fun. Some reasons for this are:

• Social sharing: Mostly covered in the video game section. We're social animals, we like sharing. There might be some way of FOMOing people into participating in governance. IDK if this is good or not though.

• Creation: It's also fun to create and remix content. The analogue to governance would be creating bills to be voted on and creating campaigns for various bills. The fun aspect of this could be enhanced with various social sharing features.

Again, I'm not 100% sure that making governance as fun as possible is the right way to go, but I'm confident that aspects of gamification will increase the power and efficacy of democracy.