When the US Founders innovated governance, their actual lives were at stake. 

I conjecture that these are the conditions under which novel forms of governance — eg onchain — will also begin to actually work. 

(Another reason why real attempts at Network State will be illuminating.)

playing /bracket, assisting /bracky, talking /greatbooks

Strong agree. Basically the costs of coordination onchain are far too high to justify using right now. They offer tremendous capture-resistance, but the ROI on that cost is insufficient, except in circumstances like you describe

The other thing we can do is work on decreasing the costs