I urge any bright mind reading these words to reflect on this and try to help me brainstorm. I am constantly amazed at how bitcoin took pieces that already existed and combined them in a novel and unexpected way to generate a solution to an ancient problem. The theme of that solution though, in many ways, was to stop resisting the inevitable and embrace it.
I am convinced that there may be other significant problems that puzzle us today (including ideal social governance) that may fall to the same techniques of creative thought.
On the topic of governence, take a look at this Bitcoin Panel Discussion published today:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iQSRGT3nfEI'm particularly inspired by Greg Maxwell's note that a 51% consensus leaves the remaining 49% disenfranchised.
I was thinking about a voting portal which could reside on a website.
www.aeonocracy.org? Rather than a conventional voting system which could potentially lead to a disenfranchised userbase, an alternate system could be conceived whereby each votable component is given a score from 1 to 10. The component with the highest total score wins the vote, and thereby minimises vote disenfranchisement.
That doesn't solve voter distribution problems or nefarious voters, but it's a better system than the conventional polling systems so could at least function as a useful module within a future system.
On the interim, it could function closed-shop with a smaller electorate for smaller affairs, such as the choosing of the symbol.
...And on the subject of the symbol, I have to admit I've changed my mind and I'm kinda moving towards Æ. Seems a lot more futuristic somehow, and æ would most likely just be written as ae, which doesn't look quite as unique for a currency symbol.