If you were to start a new country, what would the legislative process look like there? For example, how should new "startup nations" like BlueSeed (http://blueseed.co) inspired by Seasteading Institute go about passing and storing laws? Should they have some sort of open github repo to which anyone can make pull requests? How do you see the congress of the future?
You can look at relatively small jurisdictions and copy what's appropriate. Throw out hunting and fishing and take Alaska's laws in 1959 and you've got the minimum for a jurisdiction. Same for the Canal Zone. You can add legislation from other jurisdictions that works, like New Zealand's torrens (not torrent) system. Alberta's condo laws. I wrote a set of laws for a new jurisdiction, there's no reason to start from scratch.
You just say that the laws in force on a particular date apply locally, minus anything that physically can't apply (eg laws about particular locations).
The law of every country in the English-speaking world started that way. Australia's current system of law, for example, commenced as a branch of British law on 26 January 1788. All the laws in force in Britain at that moment were presumed to apply; laws governing institutions and issues peculiar to Britain-as-a-place just weren't of any consequence.
Periodically you go into the collection and clear it out. In Australia in the 80s and 90s there was a law reform movement and as a positive side-effect enormous research was done to discover the true coverage of "Imperial" laws still technically in force. Our various Parliaments passed various Acts to repeal and replace old laws.
For example, where I come from, in the Northern Territory, the Law of Property Act repealed laws going all the way back to shortly after the Norman conquest.
You just say that the laws in force on a particular date apply locally, minus anything that physically can't apply (eg laws about particular locations).
Yep. Or you give yourself a new constitution and say "All laws previously in force automatically come into force, unless they contradict the new constitution". Ireland did that.
Likewise Ireland cleared out a lot of old laws in the 200X's. It was done by saying "Anything pre-1922 is repealed unless it's on this list".
I'm unsure why they kept some laws, like the 1204 law on "Erection of castle and fortifications at Dublin; establishment of fairs at Donnybrook,Waterford and Limerick", but at least now we can refer to it as the Fairs Act of 1204....
