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Max Alexander Morrow

@maxamorrow.bsky.social
131 followers 609 following 116 posts

Nuclear Engineer, M.S. in the Puget Sound Area. Interested in Science, Technology, and Politics. Developing, discussing, and defending a digital democracy framework. substack.com/@4dproject He/Him/His.

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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My piece for the New Ideas Corner of Expand Democracy's Substack is up! This is a brief summary of my larger 4dproject.substack.com. Thanks to @expanddemocracy.bsky.social substack.com/@expanddemoc...
substack.com
Beyond Geography: A Serious Consideration of Constitutional Replacement
By Max Morrow
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
So no, it's not an American only problem, it's a judicial design problem. The UK has the same problem just quieter because of demographic factors.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
The effects are less severe in the UK bc the population is ~1/6th of the US and the US is more diverse (58% white vs 76% white-british). This means the UKs geography approximates peers better, and the UK has fewer specialized industries. That a layperson would need to make a judgement on.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Plus, the UK abolished unanimous verdicts in 1967, so ~15% are ruled by a majority not the whole jury. The lineage of this policy in particular is Jim Crowe (Waller & Sakande). I know, you probably weren't expecting that in the UK.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
My arguments are based on psychology and group dynamics, you do not escape by jumping the pond. Let's take the UK then, Crown Court guilty plea rate is 62%, lower than 97%/94% but still the majority, and it's rising. Median time from charge to completion is 179 days, or 414 for contested trials.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Cited: Kalven & Ziesel, The American Jury, 1966 Equal Justice Initiative, Post-Batson v Kentucky, 2021 Wells & Olson, Annual Review of Psychology, 2003 BJS Federal Crime Statistics, 2023 Devers, Conviction Data, 2011
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
That's the system your defending, this isn't justice, it's attrition with a performance. We can do better without losing the benefits of a citizen jury. 4dproject.substack.com/credential-violation-reporting 4dproject.substack.com/the-digital-jury 4dproject.substack.com/true-quick-and-speedy
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
All this adds up to a jury system that barely runs. 97% of federal and94% of state convictions are pleas, not trials (BJS, 2023). The inefficiencies give prosecutors leverage to convince defendants to take a guilty plea rather than wait for court to plead innocent.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Finally the concept of "peers". What reason is my neighbor more my peer than a colleague who lives elsewhere but I talk to every day? This was once tuned correctly as the peer is who you can also organize with politically to fix unjust laws, but the most important violations are unbound by geography
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Notably, courts also fail to "make arcane cases understandable". Witness confidence is a greater indicator of jury acceptance than accuracy (Wells & Olson, 2003). Plus it requires significant time and resources to partially educate 12 people that the state gets no return on.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
In addition, the pool itself is rigged by lawyers (who you note, can be crap) may use peremptory striking to remove jurors without reason. For example, race-neutral justifications are trivial to construct and the pattern has been both known and ignored for decades (Equal Justice Initiative, 2021).
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
It is a wonderfully optimistic sentiment but it does not hold up to scrutiny. First ballot vote predicts jury results in 90% of cases (Kalven & Ziesel, 1966). Deliberation is an illusion, it appears "serious and compassionate" but under a modern statistical lens it is clearly simple groupthink.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
12 random people from a geographic pool are asked to evaluate everything from medical malpractice to securities fraud. We built a system that selects for ignorance and called it impartiality. What if the jury pool was drawn from a pool of qualified citizens. 4dproject.substack.com/the-digital-jury
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
4dproject.substack.com/noncivic-corporations New Article about the measured abandonment of corporate personhood, using economic affiliations and true liability tracking. Corporations are not people, but they are made up of people who are increasingly unaccountable for the costs they socialize.
open.substack.com
Institutions: Noncivic Corporations
Corporate Non-personhood, Civic Standing, and the Classification of Institutions by What They Do
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
4dproject.substack.com/socialized-disposal Sustainability requires authority as the protection of our environment is foundational to the social contract. Here's a thorough solution of how we should be handling waste in a capable digital democracy. Spoiler: it's not for profit regional monopolies.
open.substack.com
Civic Infrastructure: Socialized Disposal
Why the Democracy Takes the Garbage, and What It Demands of the Producers in Returns
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Another beautiful day where everyone's acknowledging the downfall of our democracy without proposing comprehsnive solutions. Please join me in rebuilding democracy FROM SCRATCH and check out my Substack! New article posted yesterday about the Judiciary. substack.com/@4dproject/n...
substack.com
Magistrate: The Domain Magistrate
Independence, Appointment, the Sealed Bridge, and the Officer Who Cannot Be Told What to Find
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Saw a bald eagle bathing under a rainbow yesterday at around 3:33pm. Now I'm not a religious man but even I can take a heavy handed sign like that. Please check out my Substack where I am developing a d.democracy constitution for replacing the U.S. 1787 Constitution substack.com/@4dproject/n...
substack.com
Enforcement: Remediation, Expungement, and Tuning
What it means to treat enforcement as a negotiation rather than a verdict, and why the Magistrate’s acceptance of a remediation pathway creates obligations that run in both directions.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
If your looking for radical new ideas about digital democracy, true creative and data works ownership, and new axes of constitutionalized representation, come check out my Substack! I'd welcome any level of debate and discussion. Posting daily for 8 more days! open.substack.com/pub/4dprojec...
open.substack.com
Legislature: Three-Axis Architecture
On the difference between a system that represents addresses and one that represents lives, and why geography, occupation, and generation each require their own constitutional seat.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
A 2024 National Academies report found that digital anonymity emboldens behavior that would be unacceptable in person, from cyberbullying to child exploitation. The scale of the network and anonymity of participants both influence security of harm. substack.com/@4dproject/n...
substack.com
Our Surveillance State: Identity, Anonymity, and Rights in a Digital Democracy
Balancing public civic identity with privacy and private legal identity with accountability.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
In 1787, geography was the most rational axis to politically organize on. But in a digital democracy, we can do better. substack.com/@4dproject/n...
substack.com
Neighbors, Colleagues, and Peers: A Tricameral Proposal
Why geographic representation was never going to be enough.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
The administrative state wasn't placed under the executive after careful deliberation. It was improvised. We've been paying for it ever since. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
A New Home for the Abandoned Administrative State
Why regulatory agencies belong with the judiciary, not the executive.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Started a Substack targeting my Development and Defense of Digital Democracy project. If you are interest in democratic theory, next generation governance, and nuanced looks at constitutional structures please subscribe! Link in bio!
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
There's many national issues that we could resolve if we didn't have a single executive with a 4yr term, but rather many execs with undefined term lengths that stay until their approval for the position falls. A system like this would enable passionate single issue executives to refine government.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
I understand in academia and journalism the hatred for AI. However, these institutions should accept some accountability for putting everything behind individually-inaccessible paywalls, data trackers, and advertisements/affiliate links. Yall made it impossible to research freely, AI re-enables it.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Establishing money as speech and corporations as people in Citizens United was what I consider the beginning of the end of the US Constitution. No system which simultaneously allows unlimited resource routing while protecting individuals from accountability can succeed.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Deferal voting, as I propose it, sharpens the signal to representatives through fewer influential and informed people and allows general consensus to be separate from individual idiosyncrasies. Mixed with a tricameral legislature with 10% vote threshold bridges the large local/federal gap.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Low information voters are not uninformed by character flaw, but by legitimate barriers to knowledge: availability, time, and interest, are the big ones. A deferred voting system can allow communities to concentrate political researcher effort by few people independent from the reps themselves.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
There is a common theme among Dems that the more informed voters are, the more Dem wins in the US. But this is directly at odds with a broad/diverse coalition. Diversity of thought requires diversity of background and knowledge. We should fight for a system where good policies are self evident.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
A labor first democracy would be able to communicate industry status directly to universities and set quotas for the number of degrees available preventing oversaturation, hugh over employment rates, and diluted bargaining power.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
A labor first democracy would allow for guaranteed collective bargaining, actual experts working on relevant legislation, and a permanent position for "non productive" careers such as arts or culture which tend to be cut first when budgets tighten.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Probably the single largest failure in the 20th century was the failure to enshrine labor rights and labor representation in the framework of our government. Right now we have two chambers which derive their power based on the same thing, geography. Imagine a chamber based on labor category instead.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
I don't know which is more disturbing, that our government doesn't seem to care if millions lose access to food; or that the second people started losing benefits I've been hammered by payday loan ads (highly predatory loans) targeting people losing EBT. Consumer protections are dead.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
The most controversial take in my digital democracy framework is that religion is not special in a highly connected society. There's little distinction in celebrity followers, corporation supporters, and religious groups; all are similar systems to establish and spread a resource allocation message.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
It is hard to discuss AI as we still put "human intelligence" up on a pedestal - we should be learning that sentience is not some cut and dry achievement, but a spectrum of intelligence caused by naturally occuring organic CPUs and memories (brains). It's not that AGI's special, it's that we're not.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
If we are going to allow prisons to run for profit, we as tax payers should start treating their service like any other product. If released prisoners commit a related offense within 5 years, the prison should be fined and eventually shut down if it persists. This also extended to rehab clinics.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
It's very annoying to feel like the rich are trying to make everything terrible and the government is the best tool to fight back when talking to people who feel the government is trying to make everything terrible and the rich are the best tool to fight back.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
I understand the point you're making and I am not so prideful that I'd die on this hill I have no expertise in; I'll move forward with the term Primary Earner or Wagemaker if you believe these would be well understood and acceptable.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
The issue is if talk to non politically engaged people(most people), they don't want to have these semantic debates. This is what people mean when they say their tired of "identity politics", they're tired of their words being picked a part in lieu of the full meaning. However,
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
My true thoughts on this are that you're defense has forced gender into a term which does not have it. Those who believe that head of household must be man are not going to be persuaded by a vocabulary swap. HOH colloquially means "the person who brings money from the economy to the home".
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
I don't ascribe to your view that terms which elevate a group member are inherently patriarchal, and the "head" vs "heart" statement seems to be a you thing - I don't see historical evidence for that being the subtext of the term. Also these semantic debates rarely help anything.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
An interesting read! The downside of this kind of legislation is interpreting "fair and reasonable" and "frugal comfort". A system that people rely on to feed their family should not leave room for interpretation by those in power. UBI needs to be proven adequate practically and continuously.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Although I respect the criticism, the term "head of household" is not inherently gendered, and the employment location and status of this individual would generally control where the family lives, who they meet (and in my DD framework who represents them). I am open to alternative terms though.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Ah, good call, you're right, I fell into that common trap. The work of an unemployed partnet is obviously extremely valuable to the communities they live in! They volunteer at nonprofits, they help at school, they raise children and care for the sick and elderly. Thank you for the correction 🤝
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
To expand on this, people are capable of having sex without anything from society directly. Teens are not capable of downloading and using social media without a supply chain. In addition, this significantly reduces the FOMO for teenagers so they have a less incentive to find a work around.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
That is a false equivalency. There are two types of commodities: Autocommodities (self producable like sex work, plants, labor, even abortion) and Sociocommodities (requiring participation and supply chains like advanced guns, computers, and social media). These should not be regulated the same.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
One of largest backslides for workers (and a big reason generations are nostalgic for a pre-inclusive society) is the loss of head of house salaries. Individuals should be paid enough that they can support a nonworking spouse. This would support parenting and community building. UBI is the best path
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
In addition to the digital art and content benefits of implementing individual blockchain identification, better tracking of data allows us to scrutinize the inputs of AI. If these systems are to become as powerful as their founder imagine we should be far more discerning in their training sets.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Block chain technology is publicly considered the gimmick behind crypto and NFTs, but when used in a digital democracy system it could allow individuals to tag all the data they produce online enabling monetization, digital art ownership, and even revocation rights.
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
As someone advocating hard for a digital government, I fully support the Australian social media ban for 16 and under. This is a vital first step to save thousands of lives right now. I'm sure there will be a drop in depression and suicide rates amongst Australian teens as a result!
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Max Alexander Morrow @maxamorrow.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
100% agree, we need to gather experts in law, security, and digital communications to create a framework that countries can turn to when transitioning to digital democracies. Preferably one which fits into each country's current legislative environment.
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