I’ve been thinking about it some, too.
Definitely more than an app. There are aspects of it that are related to the Crowd Found Hub, discussed here and in this podcast, a project which @chadrickm started, and @MrAnderson and myself were working on with him for a time, though stalled currently (temporarily, I hope).
Also, some aspects of what Daniel Dabek talked about for the SAFE Exchange as discussed in this podcast. He’s still pursuing some of this effort, less (or perhaps not) connected to the SAFE Network. I’ve not kept up.
I’m thinking about everybody having a vested share or equity stake in whatever group, public-utility, company, town, distributed organization, clan or whatever. Their vesting could be weighted according to what they have invested in terms of time, money, effort, heritage–i.e., value or stake–that they have earned or been granted.
They then can vote those shares, or proxy them to anyone they trust to know more about the matters at hand, or whatever, but the proxies would be revocable at any time. Perhaps their share, or whatever you call it, could be set to revert to them at the end of some term, or on demand.
We have heard political voting being referred to as “a franchise.” This was probably much more true in the past but has become rather less meaningful in the current state of political organization, but using these tools, perhaps things could be made much better.
If the representative (mayor, congressman, president, judge, sheriff, whatever) acts way out of line, people just repossess their share tokens to depower the “official” or trusted “public servant.” No need to wait till the next election to vote an errant politician out. Just neuter them.
This is somewhat like holding voting stock in a company but more granular.
Of course, what I’ve said above opens up all sorts of cans of worms to be sorted through. Not a panacea, but perhaps a tool. Any of it has to function within a really clear perimeter of trust, including social agreement and culture, so by itself the technology couldn’t be an end-all. But could be a pretty effective tool in the right scene.
Culture is a real key, but the structure–if well formed and initiated–might help evolve the culture in a cohesive yet generally voluntary way.
More thought needed, but those are some stabs at what I think you may be reaching for. Definitely something I’m interested in.