How small of a group do you imagine? City? District of a city? We already have these structures in place and they ultimately produce the current environment. Cities want someone to dispute their conflicts which leads to counties and states and the federal level.

There is not a nation state in the world that is not centrally governed. The world has q already optimized for this structure. You always need someone to settle disputes without resorting to violence, and this dispute resolution just goes up the ladder, eventually escalating in war.

Id like to see an example of self governance in the real world or even an imagined one that takes into consideration the current state of the world.

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For everything the catchment size will be a little different. Basic health services might be smaller, specialities slightly larger. Education likely to be very small (neighborhood level). There are likely to be very high level agreements on basic stuff like, "Don't dump toxic waste in the river" and high level arbitration mechanisms to deal with that. But those don't have to be government run. In fact, the whole reason that many companies choose Delaware for incorporation is that they have their own system of chancery courts that make it faster, cheaper, and easier to settle disputes.

The logical fallacy in your thinking is that people look up the ladder right now because that's what we've been trained to do. There's no reason that this is the natural state of things. Giant nation states are a remnant of colonialism and imperialism. We have decentralized planetary light speed communications and decentralized planetary light speed money now. People are far more self-organizing and cooperative than you're giving them credit for here.

Don't fall into the Hobbesian "Nasty, brutish, and short" trap.

I think one of the core issues is the political education. I think it is crutial, that participants of a community learn to elect their representation based on their actions.

To see their actions freedom of speech and a lot of good journalist, practicing this right to documant what politicians vote for is crutial.

Since I think democracy can only work fine, if the actions of politicians are all transparent. And most voters elect their politicians based on their actions. Not their words. When we accomplish to propagate how to do this, maby people grow and start understanding democracy, importance of objective quality journalism and the participation of themselves.