Pan Demos

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pan-Demos?

Pan-Demos is a website that allows people to choose how they want their taxes spent.

YOU decide, not the politicians, where and how your money gets used because we all know that what they say and what they actually do, is almost never the same.

How does Pan-Demos work?

Today, UK government spending falls into ten principal ‘buckets’. Pan-Demos allows you to decide how much you want spent in each bucket.

For example, you might choose 10% on health, 10% on education, 2% on defence, and so on.

Once you've spent 100%, Pan-Demos can add your choices to everyone else's so that, together, you end up with a very clear message to government on what you, as a tax payer and voter, want them to do.

How often can I use Pan-Demos?

That's one of the other great things about this. You don't have to wait four years, or until some politician feels like running an election. Pan-Demos allows you to revisit your choices every day, so you can change your mind as your opinions and understanding develops.

Do you think any government will actually pay attention to this?

If enough people use Pan-Demos, no truly democratic government could ignore such a clear message from its people – even a few thousand users has the potential to be significant (election-night polls are typically based on 2,000-5,000 responses).

However, simply capturing these choices in this way means there is a very easy mechanism for communicating the wish of the people. As a result, politicians will no longer be able to hide behind the excuses of saying they don't know what the people want, or it's too hard to find out, or people are too stupid to make such decisions.

How many users do you need to make government pay attention?

The more the better, obviously, but it doesn't have to be a majority and, the smaller the total population, the smaller the number needed to become significant, which is one reason why Iceland is perfect (see below).

What's the plan?

This is really important to get right. So, before attempting to tackle a nation as populous and complex as the UK, I plan to run a proof-of-concept in Iceland, to iron-out the conceptual, operational, legal, security, and technological wrinkles.

Once I've got it working well in Iceland, I can start thinking about rolling it out in other countries.

Why start in Iceland?

The population is very unhappy with the political status quo:

The population is small in number but smart, and with the right attitude!

Why not the UK first?

The UK has a population of 68million (2022) and the political mechanisms are very ossified by which I mean, lots of vested interest, complex, and hard to change.

So, it's just too tough a project for a start-up. That said, if Iceland goes well, I'd love the next target to be the UK because it's my home, I love it, and I hate seeing these stupid politicians ruining it.

Do you need any help?

Yes! We would welcome help from anyone with a shared vision and with skills that would help us develop this project further. We have especial need for:

What made you start Pan-Demos?

It was anger at, and frustration with, lying and incompetent governments ruining our, and other, countries, plus the absolute certainty that voting was pointless, because you only get a choice of one liar/fool over another.

Pan-Demos means real choice and real power, if enough people use it.

How will Pan-Demos be funded short-term?

Angel investors could be an option but the simplest source would seem to be socially coordinated funding via KICKSTARTER [URL to follow].

What do you need funding for?

Whilst I'm hoping to secure as much help as I can on a goodwill/pro-bono basis, I can't assume that I'll get anything for free. As such, the following elements will have to be budgeted for.

Firstly, to pursue this project properly, I'll need to be full-time, and probably on-site in Iceland, for the proof-of-concept stage of development. So, a basic wage and expenses will be required for me.

Pan-Demos will need development work around user interface, multi-platform compatibility, security, data capture, data storage, data analytics, and hosting.

For the Iceland proof-of-concept kick-off project, Pan-Demos will need to be configured to reflect the Icelandic government spending ‘buckets’ and in the Icelandic language, so a translator will be required.

Pan-Demos will need thorough review from a legal perspective, and I’ll need to pay to protect the Intellectual Property rights, all of which will be expensive.

Pan-Demos will need to be on people's radars if it's going to work. So, marketing and publicity are going to be crucial. The vast majority of this will be online social media based, so budget will be needed for this and other mediums too including filming, editing, and new animations (the current one was written, designed, and paid for by me but executed by a student - thanks Yuyi 😊).

Are you linked to/supported by any organisations?

Not at this point but we will have to be, if we are to survive and evolve (see below). We will carefully vet all donations/grants/etc and be totally transparent about our sources and uses of funding.

How will Pan-Demos be funded long-term?

For Pan-Demos to work, it must be trusted.

So, to protect trust, and ensure absolute faith in the integrity of Pan-Demos, there is no commercial model, I am aware of, that works other than that of a charity, or ‘social enterprise’ i.e. being reliant on donations, grants, and bequests. The Wikimedia Foundation ($120million revenue 2018-19) is my model, in this regard.

Will you monetise the Pan-Demos data and/or community?

Clearly, the data and the community that Pan-Demos will build could be vast, if it's successful. Both could very easily be monetised, but doing so would expose Pan-Demos to the risk of commercial influence and interests, thus undermining its impartiality, integrity, and trust.

As such, a perpetual promise, and immutable fundamental feature of Pan-Demos, will be to never monetise the data or community.

Won't governments oppose any challenge to their authority and freedom of action?

Yes. Most governments will not want to have their autonomy from, and disregard for, the will of the people eroded.

Some will be more receptive to change (Iceland and Scandinavia generally) than others, but all will use their resources, to a greater or lesser degree, to challenge/hinder/stop this initiative. Whilst legitimate challenge of this tool is perfectly acceptable, many politicians and associates will have selfish (illegitimate) reasons for challenging it.

How do you think vested interests will oppose and undermine Pan-Demos?

Opposition will target the People (running the site) and the Platform (the site itself).

Challenges against the People will be legal (restricting action/communication/movement, plus time/money lost to defence), financial (defending legal challenges will demand time/money), reputational (smear-campaigns to undermine public image/trust), abuse of Police and Security services (surveillance/threats/intimidation/false charges).

Challenges against the Platform will be technical (denial of service attacks, virus attacks, data leakage/tapping/hijack, sabotage, etc.), legal (as above plus introduction of new legislation to curtail operations), financial (as above plus pressure on banks to deny services (as done to WikiLeaks)), reputational (as above).

This is such an obvious idea. Hasn’t it been tried before?

Not that I'm aware of.

Research revealed that related, or sympathetic, ideas exist (Flat-pack Democracy, The Alternative Party in Denmark, The Piratar Party in Iceland, democracy.earth etc). One in Iceland (Citizens Foundation) binds the local council to spend on community projects that gain sufficient votes, so is close, but none attempts to influence government spending at a macro/strategic/policy/national level.

How did you come up with the idea?

Over many years I (KN) have been casually trying to understand how our society works. Indeed, my choice of work has been (in part) to gain first-hand insight into strategic sectors of society (media, energy, finance). Over the years, tax rose ever higher in my awareness as a priority for consideration/understanding. This led to a broader awareness of government income sources and spending decisions.

Frustration with those decisions led me to wonder how I might spend the nation’s resources, if I were running things...

It seemed obvious that offering millions of people the chance to answer that same question had value and could be used to influence actual government spending.

Once the idea was born, it was a matter of design and implementation. Having spent years analysing complex material and turning it into training, this was not alien to me, and I knew my friend (AW) was skilled enough to build it, if willing to do so unpaid (which, luckily, he was - thanks mate 😊).

What does Pan-Demos mean?

I wanted something that stressed the inclusion of all people, the primacy of democracy, and progress (beyond the malaise of 21st century democracy).

Of the many names I thought of, Pan-Demos was the only one whose domain name was still available! I turned to Greek when all my English-language choices were unavailable but I’m very pleased to have been forced down this route, as the bond between this, and the historic origins of Western democracy in Ancient Greece, are wholly appropriate. Pan-Demos.org merely follows on from that tradition.

Democracy (Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía)) meaning: demo- (people) +‎ -cracy (rule).
Pan (Greek πᾶν) meaning: all, of everything, involving all members (of a group).
Demos (Greek δῆμος) meaning: the people.

Pan-Demos is therefore: all the people/citizens (together)

Who are you?

KN (Founder and Website Design) is a UK born/raised British citizen. Being poor (a council-flat kid), the only things he could afford to do as a child/adolescent was read, think, and walk.

Before going to university, he worked as a dustman, postman, factory worker, farm-hand, delivery-driver, barman, waiter, secretary, office temp, salesman, and more.

Later, he got a first-class degree (English Literature & History of Art), was accepted at Cambridge to do a post-grad, and has worked for the BBC, BP, HSBC and other Financial Institutions.

From 2008-2018 he specialised in Ethics and Compliance training (Code of Conduct, Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Bribery & Corruption, Trade Sanctions, Counter-Terrorist Financing, etc.). Since 2018 he’s been a consultant, helping Financial Institutions optimise their regulatory reporting of Derivatives and Securities Financing Transactions.

He lives in London, is amicably divorced, and has a wonderful daughter.

AW (Website Build and co-Design) is a UK born/raised British citizen.

KN and AW met and became friends at University.