> Both. At a philosophical level, democracy is a just (while imperfect) method for long-term decision making of a large system of humans.

At the abstract philosophical level, democracy doesn't dictate specific implementations, does it? And if it does, who enforces these dictates?

> Concretely, our democracy has a lot of flaws but hasn't been awful enough to degrade into totalitarianism in many many years, so I'd say it's doing its job.

If "not degrading into totalitarianism in many many years" is the standard/goal, but I'd rather we aim a bit higher than that.

> It's even amenable to upgrades, if with difficulty from the enormous consensus required.

In abstract theory - whether our concrete implementation is upgradeable in fact is unknown.

> Nothing else comes close.

Nothing else that we've tried, within recorded history up to the present , under a disorganized, poorly understood, multivariate environment. How many things have we tried? How many minds are working on the idea?

There was a time where nothing came close to the horse and buggy, but then something did.

There was a time when broad humanity was not very good at reading, writing, or even thinking in general, but then they became better.

> In reality, there's significant risk of destabilization that comes with re-architecting a political system

Only if you choose to physically roll out the new design (well, it may be a bit more complex)...but even if you do, there is a wide variety of options for how you might roll it out. It seems within the range of possibilities that if a clearly superior design/implementation existed (or was even under serious discussion), and the public had adequate knowledge of the details/philosophy of it, it would exert a kind of psychological force on the current system...kind of like when a business ups its game in response to a new rival showing up on the scene, as well as the effect that has on consumer perceptions, preferences, and demands.

> so it's hard to say

It is indeed...but with the internet, we can (well, we have the technical ability to at least) start a broad discussion on the topic, which may start shedding some light on the question (depending on the quality, format, etc of that discussion). Perhaps the new system itself could even be used to facilitate a high quality discussion, which would also provide some beta testing feedback.

> Specifically founders and funders as they exist in our economy under our current sociopolitical system (hence: they have competing interests in making society better vs owning a company that isn't bankrupt and returns value to shareholders)

> I'm not sure what that means.

Perhaps some innovation is needed here as well (with respect to this project at least).

> Governments have a monopoly on force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/how-did-gand...

> so you must have system A or B but not both.

Maybe, maybe not, I've heard many such predictions over the years during system refactoring. If it is not an immutable physical law of nature, and we are discussing what is possible in the future, I am skeptical of claims that things cannot be done.

> Funding/founding is decentralized, so you may have both systems A and B, and the dominant system over time tends to be the one that makes the most money.

Key word: tends.

Implicit: under the current system (for a given, fairly arbitrary set of variables).

> So am I open to an alternative founding/funding approach? Sure. Do I think it's going to improve the social contract in a world of ruthless capitalism? No.

If only there was a way to change the world. What does history have to say on that?