Social Decision Support System
Mark
People,
Apparently Rodriguez has been googling around and he stumbled accross
my thread.
He has since sent me this paper for us to read:
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~okram/papers/grammar-decision-hicss2007.pdf
Rodriguez,
since Brad and Victor have been slow about getting me onto Smartocracy,
I would like to critique a few points about its current form, both
theoreticly and how it is implimented, here at this site instead of
waiting to get onto Smartocracy:
1. Smartocracy started as a generalist system, then became a specialist
system.
By contast, SD2 is generalist *umbrella* system. SD2-Smartocracy has
the best of both worlds by defaulting the specialist selections to the
general *trustees*.
2. Smartocracy has ten choices. By contrast, SD2-Smartocracy would have
only two semi-manditory choices, and would allow for upto ten.
*Semi*-manditory, meaning that the algorithm would choose default reps
if none are chosen - PageRank would be directed to gaps in the rank
distribution, to the lower ranked node to help to linearize the rank
distribution. This *gap* could be defined by actual numerical value and
by relative value.
This would allow for *direct democracy*-like voting inputs which may be
useful for newcomers who don't know the players.
3. From your Humancollective paper you wrote this:
"DecisionError = NetworkDeci sion - PerfectDeci sion (4)"
What the hell is a 'perfect' decision? Its as if you were using DD as
the ideal by which to measure your(also *our*- SD2 is augmented too) RD
system.
If so, why not just have DD?
My approach is this:
some centrality algorithms(when used democraticly) are more predictive
of the future outputs of competing algoithms then vice-versa.
This ties into the idea that RD is for leadership selection, and real
leaders are *pre-emptive* of knowing what policies should be popular in
the future.
So any good centrality algorithm should find such people, making their
output more pre-emptive than competing outputs.
4. Should I trust Brad?
I asked him directly if Smartocracy was open-source.
And Victor didn't seem to know.
Shouldn't the program be on Rubyforge?
Rodriguez, these are only nit-picks, and I am jazzed Smartocracy.
I would love to get involved.
shanti
Mark, Seattle WA USA
Mark
above I meant to say "these are only nit-picks, and I am jazzed *about*
Smartocracy. I would love to get involved."
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~okram/papers/grammar-decision-hicss2007.pdf
you said:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...] 3) Dynamically Distributed Democracy Swarm:Dynamically
distributed democracy (DDD) was firstintroduced in [14] and is a
slightly modified form of the representative democracy swarm. If every
individual participates in the decision making process by providing a
solution ranking, then DDD is identical to direct democracy.[...]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-M: I must have missed this in reading your earlier works. It appears
that you are doing a delegable proxy input constraint like Karl does
for AD and Emmanuel does for Parlement/EC-D. By contrast my SD2
modified Smartocracy is always RD, even when the inputs appear DD-like.
So to continue from above:
5. Why issue position *OR* representitive?
People have to administer the decision anyway, so just make the vote
for them manditory, right? Also, when reps are always present, this
makes the voting data PageRankable. People's issue vote would be
optional. This gives each issue both a PageRank and a popular rank,
with the decision thresholds determined popularly.
You continue:
------------------------------------------------------------------
[...] However, as individuals abstain from voting, DDD models the
representative form of democracy in which an individual can delegate
their decision making influence to a representative. Unlike
representative democracy, that representative is not required to be a
participating, or voting, individual. Therefore, representation is
recursive as demonstrated in Figure 11.[...]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-M:
-DDD - delegable proxy, multiple choice, PageRank
-AD - delegable proxy, single choice, (unknown centrality algorithm)
-Parlement/EC-D - delegable proxy, single choice, input constrained
directional Markov algorithm
-SD2-Smartocracy - manditory RD/optional DD, multiple choice, PageRank
Everyone, is this accurate?
Marko A. Rodriguez
(please don't reply to my gmail email account...I never check it.)
Note that I do not have a deep undertanding of SD2, therefore, my
replies are based solely on my knowledge of my personal research and
the Media Venture implementation of Smartocracy. I would appreciate a
white paper on the SD2 paradigm.
> 1. Smartocracy started as a generalist system, then became a specialist
> system.
> By contast, SD2 is generalist *umbrella* system. SD2-Smartocracy has
> the best of both worlds by defaulting the specialist selections to the
> general *trustees*.
Smartocracy has many limitations as it is still in its infancy. For
one, Smartocracy does not support the concept of domains (as
articulated in the paper I recently sent you). For instance, in
Smartocracy I can not say I trust Dan in the domain of 'computer
science' and Carlos in the domain of 'complexity science'. Human beings
are multi-dimensional entities that are strong in certain domains and
not in others. The limitations of the Smartocracy implementation are
found in the data structure supporting its social network. The social
network data structure is an un-labeled un-weighted multi-relational
network. Such a design will not be able to maintain the type of
information needed to capture the concept of domains.
> 2. Smartocracy has ten choices. By contrast, SD2-Smartocracy would have
> only two semi-manditory choices, and would allow for upto ten.
> *Semi*-manditory, meaning that the algorithm would choose default reps
> if none are chosen - PageRank would be directed to gaps in the rank
> distribution, to the lower ranked node to help to linearize the rank
> distribution. This *gap* could be defined by actual numerical value and
> by relative value.
> This would allow for *direct democracy*-like voting inputs which may be
> useful for newcomers who don't know the players.
Not 'knowing the players' is an interesting problem that can be solved
by a Hebbian Learning algorithm. The more two people vote similarily
the stronger the social network tie between them becomes (and vice
versa for weakining edge strength). Therefore, newbies to the system
need only vote (even on past problems) such that the system can
automatically generate trust relationships for them.
> 3. From your Humancollective paper you wrote this:
> "DecisionError = NetworkDeci sion - PerfectDeci sion (4)"
>
> What the hell is a 'perfect' decision? Its as if you were using DD as
> the ideal by which to measure your(also *our*- SD2 is augmented too) RD
> system.
> If so, why not just have DD?
> My approach is this:
> some centrality algorithms(when used democraticly) are more predictive
> of the future outputs of competing algoithms then vice-versa.
> This ties into the idea that RD is for leadership selection, and real
> leaders are *pre-emptive* of knowing what policies should be popular in
> the future.
> So any good centrality algorithm should find such people, making their
> output more pre-emptive than competing outputs.
I have been attacked repeatedly for the term Perfect Decision. I state
that a perfect decision is the direct democracy decision (though I wish
I never named it perfect decision). The direct democracy decision is
the decision when everyone participates. The point of DDD (dynamically
distributed democracy) is to replicate the direct democracy decision as
user participation wanes. In such situations you get a holographic
model of the entire group within the subset of the participating
individuals. A subset of the population is a lossy model of the whole.
> 4. Should I trust Brad?
> I asked him directly if Smartocracy was open-source.
> And Victor didn't seem to know.
> Shouldn't the program be on Rubyforge?
Should you trust Brad? Do you know Brad? This is why local knowledge in
decision making is important. I don't trust my leaders because I don't
know my leaders (in our current US system). I trust the people I work
with in certain respects because I know them. The trickle of trust
allows for a model of the whole--this is why I state DD as the 'pefect
decision'...what I should have said is the decision that models the
perspective of the whole the best.
Smartocracy, to my knowledge, is not open source. Any software
developer looking at the Smartocracy implementation will tell you that
its implementation is simple and limited. A SourceForge push for a
general pupose decision making system would be a nice addition to
discussions on the topic.
> Rodriguez, these are only nit-picks, and I am jazzed Smartocracy.
> I would love to get involved.
Nit-pick away. With any chosen design one pigeon holes himself and thus
contrains their possibilities. I don't claim to have a great solution,
I only hope to stimulate thought in this area which seems severely
limited. In our age of information technology, it has become apparent
to me that the way we implement our government is weak and shortsighted
at best.
Marko A. Rodriguez
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~okram
Mark
> Note that I do not have a deep undertanding of SD2, therefore, my
> replies are based solely on my knowledge of my personal research and
> the Media Venture implementation of Smartocracy. I would appreciate a
> white paper on the SD2 paradigm.
-M: SD2 is just a form of representitive democracy that uses PageRank
for its centrality algorithm instead of in-degree. Because its a
strictly RD umbrella system, those selected can use other systems like
Smartocracy as sub-systems.
> > 1. Smartocracy started as a generalist system, then became a specialist
> > system. By contast, SD2 is generalist *umbrella* system. SD2-Smartocracy has
> > the best of both worlds by defaulting the specialist selections to the
> > general *trustees*.
>Rm: Smartocracy has many limitations as it is still in its infancy. For one, Smartocracy does not support the concept of domains (as articulated in the paper I recently sent you). For instance, in Smartocracy I can not say I trust Dan in the domain of 'computer science' and Carlos in the domain of 'complexity science'. Human beings are multi-dimensional entities that are strong in certain domains and not in others. The limitations of the Smartocracy implementation are found in the data structure supporting its social network. The social network data structure is an un-labeled un-weighted multi-relational network. Such a design will not be able to maintain the type of information needed to capture the concept of domains.
-M: I am of the understanding that the current Smartocracy forms a
trust network for each decision. Correct? If so, wouldn't this fuction
the same as domains?
My modification would do the same, but the individual voter would
default to his/her selected generalists if specialists weren't chosen.
> > 2. Smartocracy has ten choices. By contrast, SD2-Smartocracy would have
> > only two semi-manditory choices, and would allow for upto ten. *Semi*-manditory, meaning that the algorithm would choose default reps if none are chosen - PageRank would be directed to gaps in the rank distribution, to the lower ranked node to help to linearize the rank distribution. This *gap* could be defined by actual numerical value and by relative value. This would allow for *direct democracy*-like voting inputs which may be useful for newcomers who don't know the players.
>Rm: Not 'knowing the players' is an interesting problem that can be solved by a Hebbian Learning algorithm. The more two people vote similarily the stronger the social network tie between them becomes (and vice versa for weakining edge strength). Therefore, newbies to the system need only vote (even on past problems) such that the system can automatically generate trust relationships for them.
-M: OK - this is fun and interesting - it forms an *ideological* RD,
but people's *positions* on policy are different than their *approach*
to policy, and their competency in *administering* policy. You may be
arbitrarily focusing on only one tree and not the forest.
By contrast, my approach simply diverts rank to those who may be in
positions to challenge those of higher rank. I support underdogs who
may challenge those in higher ranked cliques. Since I am focusing on
the *people* and not the *ideology*, I am not dis-embodying information
out of its context.
> > 3. From your Humancollective paper you wrote this:
> > "DecisionError = NetworkDeci sion - PerfectDeci sion (4)"
> > What the hell is a 'perfect' decision? Its as if you were using DD as
> > the ideal by which to measure your(also *our*- SD2 is augmented too) RD
> > system. If so, why not just have DD? My approach is this:
> > some centrality algorithms(when used democraticly) are more predictive
> > of the future outputs of competing algoithms then vice-versa.
> > This ties into the idea that RD is for leadership selection, and real
> > leaders are *pre-emptive* of knowing what policies should be popular in
> > the future. So any good centrality algorithm should find such people, making their
> > output more pre-emptive than competing outputs.
>Rm: I have been attacked repeatedly for the term Perfect Decision. I state
> that a perfect decision is the direct democracy decision (though I wish
> I never named it perfect decision). The direct democracy decision is
> the decision when everyone participates. The point of DDD (dynamically
> distributed democracy) is to replicate the direct democracy decision as
> user participation wanes. In such situations you get a holographic
> model of the entire group within the subset of the participating
> individuals. A subset of the population is a lossy model of the whole.
-M: It still appears that 'Perfect Decision' is indicative of emotional
bias toward DD.
Your interest in replicating DD seems to show a populist bent.
What is it that you want, DD *OR* participatory democracy?
They aren't the same, infact I think that are not compatible.
Well, what about my points about *pre-emptiveness*?
I am trying to find republican leadership with centrality algorithms so
as to determine what people *really* want, not what they *think* that
they want.
You are an American -
aren't you disappointed by the Bushmonkey's high *in-degree* rank?
I wish to counter populism with REAL republicanism.
> > 4. Should I trust Brad?
> > I asked him directly if Smartocracy was open-source.
> > And Victor didn't seem to know.
> > Shouldn't the program be on Rubyforge?
>Rm: Should you trust Brad? Do you know Brad?
-M: No, but I wish I knew him - he seems interesting.
>Rm: This is why local knowledge in decision making is important.
-M: Agreed, this is why I asked you. :-)
>Rm: I don't trust my leaders because I don't know my leaders (in our current US system). I trust the people I work with in certain respects because I know them. The trickle of trust allows for a model of the whole--this is why I state DD as the 'pefect decision'...what I should have said is the decision that models the perspective of the whole the best.
-M: DDD = a localized global-DD. I did tell Karl here that
conventional DD was not scaleable for the reasons that you mentioned.
(He has a system called AD.)
>Rm: Smartocracy, to my knowledge, is not open source. Any software
> developer looking at the Smartocracy implementation will tell you that
> its implementation is simple and limited. A SourceForge push for a
> general pupose decision making system would be a nice addition to
> discussions on the topic.
-M: OK. Emmanuel here has a system on RubyForge called Parlement:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/parlement
Its Ruby on Rails based like Smartocracy(assuming its using the RoR
based Typo)
but the only centrality algorithm support now seems to be in-degree.
He seems to want a Markov-chain algorithm combined with delegable proxy
contraints, but seems not even willing to discuss the math concerning
Markov-chains. He is a good techie, but seems theoreticly and
emotionaly challenged.(He calls me a 'prick' because I find his
numerous contradictions.)
He can be good conversation if you get him in the mood, and I would
like to see a conversation between you and him.
> > Rodriguez, these are only nit-picks, and I am jazzed [about]Smartocracy.
> > I would love to get involved.
>Rm: Nit-pick away. With any chosen design one pigeon holes himself and thus contrains their possibilities. I don't claim to have a great solution, I only hope to stimulate thought in this area which seems severely limited.
-M: OK. My idea is to try to enhance participatory democracy as much as
possible by having competitive political hierarchies. The informal
element of SD2 could have people of similar political ranks engage each
other in attempt to raise their own rank and reduce the rank of
competitors. By contrast, DD systems have no such reward - this spreads
people's efforts thinly.
>Rm: In our age of information technology, it has become apparent to me that the way we implement our government is weak and shortsighted at best.
-M: Agreed, infact I think that the most *leveraged* way of solving
world problems is with more effective leadership selection methods.
Problems are solved with *collective action*,
and collective action is best done democraticly-
this means thet we need the best form of democracy that we can develop,
one that ideally should be as republican as possible.
Mark
>Rm:[...]Note that I do not have a deep undertanding of SD2, therefore, my
> replies are based solely on my knowledge of my personal research and
> the Media Venture implementation of Smartocracy. I would appreciate a
-M: To better understand SD2, here is an input field followed by
explaination:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: [ _Mark Rosst____]
Manditory Representitives(2):
[(1)Marko Rodriguez, (2)(default)]
Optional Representitves(upto 8):
[___________(blank)__________]
Issue X
Position: yes[x], deliberate[ ], no[ ]
Issue delegate, one manditory(defaults to representitves if no delegate
is selected.)
[__________Brad deGraff]
Optional additional delegates(4)[______(blank)_______]
Decision threshold, PageRank (>50%-70%) [[60]%(default)]
AND Popular vote (>35%-50%) [[40]%(default)]
Decision Number 5(min number) + 0%-85% of voting population
[[50]%(default)]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. voter's name, here its me, Mark Rosst.
2. 'Manditory representitives', here I chose only one out of two reps,
which means that the algorithm puts the other half of my voting power
to fill gaps in the rank distribution curve. This ensures that there
are:
a. no breaks in the Markov chains of the trust network.
b. reduces rank clustering - less identifyable 'in-groups' reduces the
likelihood of clique entrenchment
c. produces more difinitive rank outputs
3. 'Issue X', here I voted 'yes' on hypothetical "Issue X"
This counts toward the popular vote on the issue.
4 .'Issue delegate' - here I voted for Brad, and the Markov chain for
"Issue X" extends to him, giving a PageRank for "Issue X". If I voted
for Victor also, then each would get half of my PageRank for "Issue X".
If I voted for no one, then my PageRank would be defaulted to my
representitives, so you(Marko) would get half of my PageRank, and the
lower ranked in rank distribution gaps would get the other half.
5. SD2 is variable RD. Decisions default to 60% of the PageRank vote,
as long as atleast 40% of the popular vote allows for this. SD2 can be
as DD as 50%/50%, or as RD as 70%/35%.
6. A decision can't be active unless a percentage of the voting
poulation votes on it.
50% seems like a fair default number.
AbdLomax
interest in it, and so I came across this thread in this group....
Mark wrote:
> -M: It still appears that 'Perfect Decision' is indicative of emotional
> bias toward DD.
> Your interest in replicating DD seems to show a populist bent.
> What is it that you want, DD *OR* participatory democracy?
> They aren't the same, infact I think that are not compatible.
What Mark wrote is standard wisdom, with one qualification: that one is
considering a large organization. Direct Democracy (DD) is known to
work quite well when the group is small. As the group grows, we
encounter the well-known problem of scale.
Democracy as pure populism, with direct vote, however, is pretty
dangerous, because most people simply don't have the time to become
sufficiently informed. In order to become informed and especially to
participate in assemblies that consider issues, increasing amounts of
time are required; when the group size becomes large enough, as when a
New England Town Meeting town grows sufficiently in population, the
meetings expand beyond all sustainability, causing the percentage of
voters who attend to plummet, which then causes Town Meeting to become
increasingly non-representative; ultimately, these towns replace Town
Meeting with, usually, Mayor/Council government.
However, I've seen no evidence that the proxy possibilty has ever been
considered. Standard proxy voting allows people who are absent or who
do not have sufficient time to become specifically informed to
designate another to exercise their vote. This is absolutely Standard
Operating Procedure in share corporates. As a European inventor of
Delegable Proxy wrote, proxy voting is what rich people do. Apparently,
our political systems don't trust that people would make good decisions
about whom to choose as proxies.... In my view, this is a vestige of
ancient anti-democratic sentiment.
But standard proxy voting only adds one layer of scalability. As the
group size continues to grow, the distance between the "citizens"
(voters, members, shareholders) grows, for to be functional, a full
assembly must have a limited number of participants, limiting the
number of functional proxies and thus requiring that proxies represent
large numbers of members, with whom they cannot possibly have good
communication. Further, where the members -- shareholders I'm thinking
of -- have little knowledge of their rights and the importance of
proxies, all too often, they respond to management requests to sign a
proxy form, thus giving far to much concentration of power to existing
management. I saw this with the California State Automobile
Association, which allows one vote per member, and which allows proxy
voting. The CSAA, however, is actually an organization centered around
the sale of insurance, and where insurance industry interests conflict
with actual driver interests, it is not rocket science to understand
where CSAA comes down. An attempt by members to unseat the existing
management failed. Far, far too many members simply sign that proxy
statement sent to them by management. After all, they want to be
helpful members....
Hence the new concept: delegable proxy. With delegable proxy, there are
two kinds of proxies: direct and delegated. When I name A as my proxy,
that is a direct proxy. A must accept for the proxy to be fully valid,
in the systems we are considering. By accepting the proxy, A agrees to
accept communication with me. Again, with what is under consideration,
I'd probably have A's phone number. I can change my assignment at any
time. I can attempt to instruct A, but it is completely voluntary
whether or not A accepts and follows my instructions. (Or, more
accurately, whether or not A follows could be a matter of free contract
between me and A).
So far, this is standard proxy. But what is added is something that
makes it scalable. If there is a vote on an issue, and I don't vote
directly -- my appointment of A does not inhibit my own right to vote
at all --, A's vote, if A votes, stands as mine. But if A does not
vote, and A has named B, B holds my *delegated proxy* and B's vote
stands for mine. And this delegation is extendable without limit.
The network which is thus formed is founded on relationships of trust
and rapport. If I can't communicate with my proxy, perhaps because my
proxy is too busy, I can name someone else. Or I can ask my proxy to
suggest one of his or her clients to serve as my direct proxy. The real
goal here is to create not only relationships of trust, but also of
fluid and easy communication.
And voting is only half of the matter, or not even that much. Most of
democracy is really not voting, but deliberation. My proxy not only
votes for me, my proxy deliberates for me. If the deliberation is in an
open forum, perhaps on the internet or fully reported there, I can
watch this. If I don't like what my proxy has said, I can intervene, I
can ask my proxy to forward my own arguments, or I can send them to any
other member of the assembly. But, remember, I've chosen my proxy
because I trust this person.
Is this Direct Democracy? Well, if my right to vote is never impaired,
if the systems always provide that I can vote directly whenever I
choose to do so, it is, by most definitions, Direct Democracy. However,
it is also Representative Democracy.
Most of what I could write, and what I've written, about Delegable
Proxy and its likely consequences are really what I think nearly anyone
would come across if our presumptions about democracy are set aside
(such as the one about Direct vs. Participatory Democracy).
If I don't like what my proxy has said, or for any other reason I want
to *address* the top assembly, whether or not I can do so depends on
the assembly rules. In small assemblies, almost certainly any member
could routinely address the assembly. The size can get quite a bit
larger with mailing list meetings, without requiring posting
restrictions. But, still, very large lists become cumbersome, the
traffic expands beyond sustainability. So my opinion is that larger
meetings will restrict, so to speak, floor access. The rules for doing
this would be completely under the control of the meeting, and,
remember, the right to vote, which includes voting on the rules, is
never impaired. An obvious criterion for rule-driven right to vote
would be the number of proxies held. This can get a little complicated,
and, to my mind, it is a detail which can quite easily be addressed as
the need arises.
All I'm really suggesting is that there is a solution to the problem of
scale in democracy, and it is actually quite simple. Delegable proxy,
the core of which is simply a list of proxy assignments where a member
may appoint a proxy and the proxy may accept (or refuse to accept, or
accept conditionally, i.e., okay, I'll accept your proxy but I can't
promise to answer your email and no way am I giving you my home phone.)
How this list is used is another matter.
And then we come to the other wing of my proposals. DP is untried. It
looks, in theory, to be an excellent solution to the problem of scale.
However, what will happen in actual practice? It's important that it be
tried, preferably in organizations where failure would have little, if
any, negative consequences.
I'm suggesting what I call Free Associations (FA). Free Associations
follow the principles well-explained by Bill Wilson in his book on the
traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was actually an engineered
organization, designed to avoid the pitfalls which destroyed prior
attempts at similar organizations. Bottom line, FAs don't take
controversial positions, they don't concentrate power, and they have
other characteristics that allow them to be maximally inclusive. (If
you don't know AA from personal experience, many common opinions about
it and what it allegedly promotes are not correct. AA is really just a
device that facilitates communication among alcoholics, anything else,
such as positions on whether or not an alcoholic can socially drink,
are just suggestions based on a developed consensus of members, and
members are free to believe quite differently.)
FA/DP organizations could transform the face of our society, not to
mention politics. It's a huge subject, but most objections that I've
seen about DP are essentially irrelevant in the FA concept. FAs may
conduct votes, but they are really only polls which measure the degree
of consensus that exists on a subject. Votes in FAs do not mobilize
large collected resources, because FAs don't collect such resources.
A political FA (that is, an FA intended to facilitate communication,
coordination, and cooperation around political issues) might conduct a
poll, say, on whom to support for Presidential nomination. But the poll
wouldn't shift one vote, unless *deliberation* among the members caused
the members to voluntarily shift their votes, as well as their campaign
contributions. Caucuses within FAs would form to promote particular
positions -- FAs don't take controversial positions, but there is no
such restriction on caucuses.
But because FA caucuses exist within an organization designed to
facilitate communication and large-scale deliberation, I think they
will notice that, if they can negotiate proposals that enjoy broader
consensus, the FA membership will exert more focused power.
This is not populism, even though the basis is popular power. Rather, a
device has been created which allows collective knowledge and
intelligence to be efficiently communicated. The proxy structure acts
as the filter that is necessary for intelligence ot function: if the
top is under constant barrage from the periphery, the top becomes
paralyzed. So filtration is necessary. Democracy through elected
Representatives uses the Reps as filters. However, elections
intrinsically cut out large chunks of the population from chosen
representation, and the election process requires terms of office and
thus a certain level of disconnect between office-holders and their
constituencies.
DP uses chosen reps as filters. I choose who filters my input to high
level meetings.
But, note this, for it is often overlooked. I'm not proposing FA/DP for
governmental structures. If that is going to come, it can come later,
perhaps much later. I'm proposing direct and immediate organizations
that are Free Associations, and that explicitly, from the beginning,
allow participation by proxy. Proxy representation is actually a
common-law right; we don't have it in politics only because it has been
made explicitly illegal. I've seen quite a few nonprofits likewise
outlaw proxy voting, and the reason is clear: proxy voting gives the
general membership power, and this is threatening to the existing
oligarchy that comes to control the organization. They think that they
know better than the general membership how to run the organization, so
for everyone's good, they block proxy voting. Ultimately, they do not
trust democracy. It is an ancient sentiment, as I mentioned.
The problem, though, is not proxy voting. To the extent that the
oligarchs are correct, the problem is a public that has not been
educated to make smart choices of proxies; rather, some would-be
officer with a special interest conducts a proxy campaign and gathers a
pile of proxies; if nobody else has collected proxies, because the
right was unused, that special interest gains a privileged position.
This is alleged to have happened at the last Libertarian convention in
the U.S. (or at the one before, I'm not sure).
It's possible to have proxy rules that limit the number of direct
proxies that may be held, and other rules to prevent abuse, but
implementing DP in FAs trumps the whole problem. A proxy hunter ends up
with a handful of sand, since FA votes don't move anything of
substance. Even if the proxy hunter ends up with a controlling
majority, the rest of the members may simply ignore him if they choose,
and this is quite what they will do with fraudulent proxies (based on
phony members). The FA context makes serious security unnecessary.
But, as needed, such security can be implemented and rules, as they are
found necessary, created. I'm recommending that organizations start
with something extremely simple: just a proxy list, publically
readable, and, if it's on a wiki that shows edit history and the
identity of editors, there is no need for security, anyone will be able
to tell if someone pretends to be someone else to assign a false proxy.
The list can be used by anyone who cares to expand votes. If you think
that only one vote should be allowed for one participating person, no
matter how many proxies they claim to hold, or the list shows that they
hold, you can simply not analyze the results. However, I think that
pretty quickly you would learn to value it.
I'll say one thing again: proxy voting is a common-law right. Those who
oppose proxy voting are essentially saying that voters should not have
the right to delegate their vote; the effects of this are quite clear:
they establish an oligarchy of the active. Not surprising, quite a few
active members of organizations don't mind this. But, in the end, the
organization is weakened, as members who are effectively shut out of
decision-making, perhaps because they have children to care for, leave
or simply don't pay attention to what the organization recommends.
In an FA/DP organization, a high-level consensus will be communicated
back to the members through the proxy structure. Your proxy, the one
you chose because you trust this person, might even telephone you with
the recommendation. You could discuss it with someone who participated
in the decision (or who is closer than you to someone who
participated). I think that FA/DP organizations will be extraordinarily
effective, and that any PAC, for example, that adopts it as a concept
and structure will attract imitation.
(How can a PAC become FA/DP? Technically, it becomes a caucus with a
defined position within a larger FA, even if the larger FA does not
exist yet. The larger FA can and will come into existence if any member
of the PAC FA joins it and engages in discussion and deliberation with
non-PAC members. Ultimately, a neutral overall FA forms for the topic
or field of interest.)
What about issue-specific proxies? Well, my view is that this would
drastically increase the complexity, and, especially at the beginning,
simple is good. FAs, however, are, indeed, free, and issue-specific
proxies are quite possible. But I think that most members would not use
them. I think, instead, that where there are a multiplicity of issues,
each will have its own FA or FA caucus. Caucuses may maintain their own
proxy list if they choose, though, again, I think that most will find
it unnecessary. We'll know much better when DP is actually tried.
AbdLomax
(perhaps more) who independently invented delegable proxy over the last
decade; I've actually been working on it for over twenty years.
We have a web site and wiki:
http://beyondpolitics.org
http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki
and there is also an attempt to start a political FA/DP organization at
http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org
Criticism of the FA/DP concept is quite welcome, indeed, it is quite
hard to come by. Metaparty was founded by one Election Methods
participant who decided to, finally, ask questions, and apparently was
satisfied by the answers.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
Mark
AbdLomax wrote:
> I occasionally search for "delegable proxy," because of my special
> interest in it, and so I came across this thread in this group....
-M: Welcome!
> Mark wrote:
> > -M: It still appears that 'Perfect Decision' is indicative of emotional
> > bias toward DD. Your interest in replicating DD seems to show a populist bent.
> > What is it that you want, DD *OR* participatory democracy?
> > They aren't the same, infact I think that are not compatible.
>AL: What Mark wrote is standard wisdom, with one qualification: that one is
> considering a large organization. Direct Democracy (DD) is known to
> work quite well when the group is small. As the group grows, we
> encounter the well-known problem of scale.
-M: DD can work at a small scale, and I have mentioned the problem of
scaleability to Karl here.
>AL: [...] Apparently, our political systems don't trust that people would make good decisions about whom to choose as proxies.... In my view, this is a vestige of ancient anti-democratic sentiment.
-M: Its also based on observation:
people voting for Bushmonkies.
The lemmings are not to be trusted for a direct vote for reps or for
issues.
>[...]AL: Is this Direct Democracy? Well, if my right to vote is never impaired,
> if the systems always provide that I can vote directly whenever I
> choose to do so, it is, by most definitions, Direct Democracy. However,
> it is also Representative Democracy.
-M: Its a mixture of lemmingized RD and lemmingized DD. :-(
>AL: This is not populism, even though the basis is popular power. Rather, a
> device has been created which allows collective knowledge and
> intelligence to be efficiently communicated.
-M: This is a system that communicates populism.
Fuck it.
>AL: [...]Ultimately, they do not trust democracy. It is an ancient sentiment, as I mentioned.
-M: An ancient and current sentiment to distrust
popular-democracy(lemming-DD and RD.)
After all of this you haven't explained why its RD *OR* DD instead of
RD, *OR* RD and DD.
You also havent explained why you limit the Markov-chains to the
first-order.
Well?
Mark
AbdLomax wrote:
> By the way, I didn't really identify myself. I'm one of the four or so
> (perhaps more) who independently invented delegable proxy over the last
> decade; I've actually been working on it for over twenty years.
-M: I have heard of you.
> AL: We have a web site and wiki:
> http://beyondpolitics.org
> http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki
> and there is also an attempt to start a political FA/DP organization at
> http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org
> Criticism of the FA/DP concept is quite welcome, indeed, it is quite
> hard to come by.
-M: This is what others have said, until I started whupping them.
Lets see if you will last, or will turn into another dodge-monkey like
Eric, Emmanuel, Karl (and maybe even Marko).
>AL: Metaparty was founded by one Election Methods participant who decided to, finally, ask questions, and apparently was satisfied by the answers. Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
-M: You appear to be painfully presumptous about your input
constraints(DD *or* RD) and your outdated centrality algorithm
(indegree/counting).
At least Marko uses PageRank for his DDD. But for some unknown reason
he wants to break the Markov-chains with delegable proxy constraints.
By contrast I make RD manditory which combines well with PageRank
because it uses the Markov-chains that RD allows for.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>-M: Its also based on observation:
>people voting for Bushmonkies.
>The lemmings are not to be trusted for a direct vote for reps or for
>issues.
As I wrote, an ancient sentiment, a belief that the common people are
not qualified to make decisions for themselves. It's somewhat
understandable when we are talking about "issues," but either the
common people are represented by someone they accept as such, or they
are not. Elitists prefer that the common people have no choice. They
justify this by asserting that the common people would choose poorly.
What people vote for in a system which allows them very little free
choice, and which encourages them to vote for representatives on a
scale such that it is impossible for them to know the people whom
they are choosing, says nothing about how people would choose if they
could choose freely and with personal knowledge.
The existing systems leave voters highly vulnerable to manipulation
through mass media. But if people were choosing proxies on a scale
such that they would actually know these people, up close and
personal, the situation would be entirely different.
And I know that it would be different because I've seen, up close and
personal, how Town Meeting government works. Keep people in the dark
and feed them BS and, guess what, they behave like mushrooms. But
when they can see what they are doing, when they have knowledge of
the issues and the people, they do, in fact, vote much better than
the elitists would expect.
But this is mostly moot, believe it or not. I'm proposing DP for Free
Associations, which do not centralize power; they only function as
communications structures, as devices for developing consensus.
Again, I've seen this work amazingly well on a small scale. DP makes
it scalable.
It's going to happen, in spite of the ravings of some, and in spite
of more coherent objections. It's going to happen, that is, unless
the "cabal" is much more powerful than I expect. Here is the plan:
FAs don't take controversial positions. All they do is set up a
communications structure. *Caucuses* can form independently of the FA
itself, to undertake projects that are controversial, or that require
centralized power -- like money. The FA itself stays clear of such
entanglements. I think FA/DP is possible in China, for example, under
a severely repressive government. The FA/DP organizations that would
work there could, for example, be formed around environmental issues.
The official position of the government is to support environmental
protection, so the FA/DP organization would merely promote the
official position of the government by coordinating citizen efforts.
But the medium is the message. Once people are organized coherently
around *anything*, other things become possible. Sooner or later, the
network established to deal with the environment can, and will, be
used to "communicate, coordinate, and cooperate" around other things.
A DP network is a *personal* network, and it is quite like the
internet. It does not depend on some top-level organization, some web
site, some corruptible software. It is really just people talking
with people. And something that simple can change the world, and I
think it *will* change the world, the only question I've got is how
long it will take and how many people will die needlessly in the meantime.
My theory, by the way, is that FA/DP networks will function to
concentrate trust and trustworthiness. The Chinese government
actually would have less to fear from an FA/DP organization than some
would expect. An FA/DP organization of the students at Tienanmen
Square would have been able to come to an agreement with the
government, and the ensuing action by the Red Army to crush the
students could have been avoided. Instead, there was no way for
coherent representation of the students to come into being, and the
loudest voices prevailed. *That* was populism. With FA/DP,
representatives of the students, freely chosen, would have been able
to sit down with the government and negotiate. The government
attempted this; it's been too often overlooked that the firebrands
were able to torpedo the negotiations, insisting on nothing less than
total humiliation of the oligarchs. Essentially, stupid, this would
have been unlikely to work anywhere, much less in China. It is
possible for democracy to be much smarter than that.
If you are seriously interested in changing the way in which society
communicates, which *is* the basic problem, by all means, join with
us at http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki. BeyondPolitics is an FA/DP
organization, which means, among other things, that my opinions are
just my own opinions, even though I founded BP. I fully expect BP and
FA/DP to grow far beyond what I can personally conceive. I'm not the
center of the universe.
On the other hand, the world is full of "idiots," i.e., people who
are fixed on ideas that are not firmly grounded in reality, such as,
quite commonly, a firm belief in the absolute superiority of their
own incomplete understanding. If I stopped to try to disabuse more
than a tiny fraction of them, I'd get utterly nothing done. So I
don't and won't.
If I have time to watch this group, I will, and if I see that it will
serve the future of my children for me to respond here, I hope I'll
be able to. But don't hold your breath. I'm quite content to allow
idiots to believe that they have "won" because I abstained from
response. I've been doing this -- internet conferencing -- since the
mid 1980s, and if I've learned one thing, it is this:
One who persistently argues with idiots is an idiot.
illegale
Glad to see you on the list. Fresh blod with some respected knowledge
about this exact issue is something that makes me pretty happy to see.
Soon as possible I will join this discussion as long as you are
handling with several rather interesting thoughts.
ATB,
Gale
Mark
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 06:42 AM 8/20/2006, Mark wrote:
> >-M: Its also based on observation:
> >people voting for Bushmonkies.
> >The lemmings are not to be trusted for a direct vote for reps or for
> >issues.
>AL: As I wrote, an ancient sentiment, a belief that the common people are not qualified to make decisions for themselves.
-M: Common people are qualified to make decisions for themselves, just
not *political* decisions. (Please don't try to mix things up.) And
this is also a *current sentiment*, as most prefer RD over DD.
>AL: It's somewhat understandable when we are talking about "issues," but either the
> common people are represented by someone they accept as such, or they
> are not. Elitists prefer that the common people have no choice.
-M: There are also elitists such as myself who think that the lemmings
should have choices, just not *direct* political decisions.
>AL: They justify this by asserting that the common people would choose poorly.
-M: Lemmings do choose poorly. Witness:
1. Slavery in the American South
2. Rise of Nazi Germany
3. The re-election of the Bushmonkey
Also witness the research that show that people 'get high' from dodging
reason to feed their entrenched ideological beliefs. WTF good is this?
>AL: What people vote for in a system which allows them very little free
> choice, and which encourages them to vote for representatives on a
> scale such that it is impossible for them to know the people whom
> they are choosing, says nothing about how people would choose if they
> could choose freely and with personal knowledge.
-M: This isn't the debate. I don't support conventional RD.
>AL: The existing systems leave voters highly vulnerable to manipulation
> through mass media.
-M: Your system is more vulnerable to this than mine is because your
system is populistic.
>AL: But if people were choosing proxies on a scale
> such that they would actually know these people, up close and
> personal, the situation would be entirely different.
-M: No, your system still uses the lemming-algorithm(with only slightly
different input constraints).
>AL: And I know that it would be different because I've seen, up close and
> personal, how Town Meeting government works. Keep people in the dark
> and feed them BS and, guess what, they behave like mushrooms. But
> when they can see what they are doing, when they have knowledge of
> the issues and the people, they do, in fact, vote much better than
> the elitists would expect.
-M: Your system would not unentrench the mushroom-growing elitists.
>AL: But this is mostly moot, believe it or not. I'm proposing DP for Free
> Associations, which do not centralize power;
-M: Exactly! Your system has no centralized opposition to the elitists
- this is because of your elite anti-elitism!
Its contradictions like this that create your LEMMINGISM! Doink!
>AL: they only function as communications structures, as devices for developing consensus.
-M: Yes, lemming consensus.
>AL: Again, I've seen this work amazingly well on a small scale. DP makes
> it scalable. It's going to happen, in spite of the ravings of some, and in spite
> of more coherent objections. It's going to happen, that is, unless
> the "cabal" is much more powerful than I expect.
-M: Their power is in keeping people like you in a state of continual
contradiction.
>AL: On the other hand, the world is full of "idiots,"
-M: Most are idiots and history proves this.
>AL: i.e., people who are fixed on ideas that are not firmly grounded in reality, such as,
-M: Like your elite anti-elitism.
>AL: quite commonly, a firm belief in the absolute superiority of their own incomplete understanding.
-M: Then don't have certainty about your contradictions. And don't take
a superior position against superiority.
>AL: But don't hold your breath. I'm quite content to allow
> idiots to believe that they have "won" because I abstained from
> response.
-M: And the alternative is?:
>AL: I've been doing this -- internet conferencing -- since the mid 1980s, and if I've learned one thing, it is this:One who persistently argues with idiots is an idiot.
-M: I argue against idiots to show how their contradictions make for
false and harmful ideologies.
echarp
Welcome to the group, I am so glad you found it, we can talk about
delegable proxy! :)
I think we met online before, I remember some of your ideas about Free
Association, at that time I was probably working on "VeniVidiVoti".
Nowadays I've abandoned that tool (too complex), and am working on a
simpler one: parlement.
Maybe we can talk about how you envision proxy, direct votes,
communications, transparency.
In a global place, with issues on any and every thing, why not have as
many proxies on as many issues as one like? (one proxy per issue)
For example, delegate your votes on ecology on that person, and your
votes on you the town council to that other fellow?
> One who persistently argues with idiots is an idiot.
Discussing with mark is that dangerous, yes! :)
echarp - http://leparlement.org
Mark
>ec: Hello hello Welcome to the group, I am so glad you found it, we can talk about
> delegable proxy! :)
-M: Lets see if you all can without dodging points about directional
Markov algorithms.
>ec:[...]"VeniVidiVoti". Nowadays I've abandoned that tool (too complex), ...
-M: Maybe you realized that it would need PageRank.
>ec:...and am working on a simpler one: parlement.
-M: Simpler... and lemmingized.
>ec: Maybe we can talk about how you envision proxy, direct votes,
> communications, transparency.
-M: His system is lemmingized, in an elite anti-elitist way.
>ec: In a global place, with issues on any and every thing, why not have as
many proxies on as many issues as one like?
-M: 2-5 proxies per issue. More than 5 spreads the excellence to thin.
>ec: (one proxy per issue)
-M: No, this is too centralized and unstable. There is too much
reliance on the *one* proxy, and it doesn't yield DD data because it
overrides the DD data.
By contrast SD2-S always provides DD data for comparison with the
RD/PageRank data. This DD data can be used to put the reps into a state
of decision deliberation if a certain DD threshold isn't met.
>ec: For example, delegate your votes on ecology on that person, and your votes on you the town council to that other fellow?
-M: Yes. This is how Brad's Smartocracy system works, but it needs to
default its proxies to generalists.
> > One who persistently argues with idiots is an idiot.
>ec: Discussing with mark is that dangerous, yes! :)
-M: I am dangerous only to people's egos.
Other than that, I am a nice guy.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Maybe we can talk about how you envision proxy, direct votes,
>communications, transparency.
Delegable proxy is becoming a respected concept among election
methods people. But I see it as much more than an election method; in
fact, I'm not particularly interested in elections, as we normally
think of them. A parliament, like a corporation, essentially hires
its officers. Sure, there's a vote to do this, but the officers serve
at will, it is not the same thing at all as elections to fixed terms,
which I consider to be antidemocratic, except possibly for judges or
other officers where independence is essential.
>In a global place, with issues on any and every thing, why not have as
>many proxies on as many issues as one like? (one proxy per issue)
I'll tell you why: complexity.
In the Free Association/Delegable Proxy organizations I envision, you
can name special issue proxies if you want. But it is a *lot* more
work than simply focusing on "whom do I trust most among those who
are or who will participate in this organization."
It is my opinion that people who have the opportunity to communicate
directly with "candidates" will *usually or on the average* make good
choices in whom to trust. That is, they will choose, *mostly*, people
who are as trustworthy or more trustworthy than themselves. I make a
distinction between direct proxies and delegated proxies. It is
essential that direct proxies and their clients have rapport, have
good communication, ongoing (that is, open when needed from either
side). This sets up natural limits on the number of direct proxies
that would be able to function well; and it is my expectation that
the DP culture will come to expect good service from direct proxies.
There need be no limit on indirect proxies.
>For example, delegate your votes on ecology on that person, and your
>votes on you the town council to that other fellow?
But then you must monitor the issues yourself. Many decisions cross issues.
What I see instead is a multiplicity of Free Associations. You'd have
a Town Free Association -- in fact, one of our projects is just that.
But let me explain first about Free Associations. FAs are modeled on
the organizational concepts of Bill Wilson, who founded Alcoholics
Anonymous more than a half-century ago. AA rapidly grew in a field
where many other efforts had failed and fallen apart. Wilson was a
stockbroker, and studied what had gone wrong in the past, and
essentially engineered the organization to avoid the pitfalls. He
succeeded brilliantly, AA grew very, very rapidly, and remains pretty
much the only giant in its field. There is an AA meeting in every
small town in North America, not to mention hundreds of meetings
every week in large cities.
All done without any significant money. You can look up his book, The
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; it is the 12 Traditions which are
significant for our purposes. The Steps were developed out of an
organizational consensus, and they are still being reinterpreted as
society changes. For example, the word "God" in them has often been
replaced at the meeting level with "Higher Power," which can mean
anything from a personal god to the group, the collection of people
who will support the alcoholic. There is another book called the
Twelve Concepts, which gives further organizational thought.
We aren't *following* AA, but AA is, through and through, what we
call a Free Association. It does not collect power. It does not take
controversial positions. It does not govern its members.
All it does is to facilitate communication. I could say it this way:
an FA/DP organization is to a political problem as a brain is to any
problem. The proxies are synapses. One might well say that a brain
has no power. However, each person in an FA retains full individual
power. None of it is surrendered to the organization. This is a
*tremendous* protection. An FA/DP does something by (1) developing a
consensus and (2) recommending that its members implement the
consensus. Technically, the FA does *not* make the recommendation;
rather a caucus of proxies supporting the consensus makes it, to their clients.
Caucuses remain completely free, just as the members are free. DP
creates "natural caucuses," for the constituency of a high-level
proxy can be an effective caucus. Just as an individual member may
take a controversial position, so to a caucus can communicate,
cooperate, and coordinate toward implementing it. There is no
requirement that a caucus win any votes in order to do this.
*However*, if a caucus attempts to act in a controversial matter
without first finding a general consensus, its action will be
weakened by actions of caucuses that oppose this action. FA/DP
organizations set up a strong motivation to find consensus, but they
do not *require* it. It is up to any caucus when it has found enough
consensus to consider the time ripe for action.
All this means that it is unnecessary to have strong protection
against fraud, the organization itself would be very difficult to
hijack and, if the central administration came under the control of
some special interest, the DP structure can easily reconstitute itself.
I should mention that for this to be true, every proxy should have
full contact information for his or her clients, just as the clients
would have this information for their direct proxy. Further, it will
be very helpful for many reasons if proxies generally run, say, a
mailing list for their direct clients.
This allows, again, any individual synapse to fail; cross-connections
can reform the structure practically immediately.
DP makes this kind of robust organization possible. Robust because free.
Special interest proxies make communication paths far more complex.
Distributing the proxy responsibility dilutes it, as well as
increasing traffic for the proxies and members.
But the nature of DP implementation that we are currently proposing
is quite simple: an organization creates a proxy list, which is a
file which can be publicly edited. It can easily be done on any wiki,
for example; I think that yahoogroup databases will do the same thing
in a bit more organized fashion. The form of the list is a
tab-delimited database, with one record per member. The fields in the
records are
Member Handle, Proxy Handle, Proxy Acceptance/Rejection, Comments.
The member is allowed to add or delete his or her record, and to name
a proxy. The proxy is allowed to Accept or Reject the Proxy. Comments
may be added by the member, the proxy, or by any member who edits the
file to remove obvious errors.
IP security on wikis leave an audit trail showing who made what
edits: special purpose software could handle security automatically,
but the big mistake I see being made about DP is an assumption that
it takes complex software. It's not a software problem; but software
can be used to make certain things easy when an organization gets
big. When an organization is relatively small, software isn't
needed.... beyond what many people already have. Any member can
download that file and use it to analyze votes or representation.
A lot of effort is being put into private, secret proxy assignments.
Yet we are talking about direct democracy. Essential to direct
democracy is deliberation, and deliberation is actually quite
personal. We don't take secret votes in Congress, in legislatures, or
at Town Meeting. All these are direct democracies within their membership.
To review, there are two wings to the Beyond Politics concept: Free
Association and Delegable Proxy. Free Associations have been tried
and they have worked spectacularly. In fact, most informal
associations, when they first start up, are like Free Associations in
many respects. It is when they grow, when they acquire property, when
they start to have a crystallized structure, that they move away from
this. AA, quite simply, established traditions to prevent this from happening.
(Because of the anonymity which is part of the AA traditions --
something often misunderstood -- most people who aren't alcoholics
have very little idea of what AA is about. I'm not an alcoholic, but
I've been to many AA meetings -- most areas have open meetings that
anyone can attend -- but I studied the structure, and I've also had
extensive experience in other organizations supposedly imitating the
AA traditions.)
Delegable Proxy has very little actual experience. However, proxy
voting is a common-law right. Whenever one has a property right,
unless otherwise prohibited by law, one may name a proxy to exercise
it. Delegable Proxy merely includes the right to further delegation
of the proxy in what may be done when naming a proxy. Delegability
is, I think, a common-law right as well, if explicit in the proxy
contract, but delegation has not been routinely used. But it is an
obvious extension, and, really, an obvious solution to the problem of
scale in democracy.
Put FA and DP together creates something that, to my knowledge, is
truly untried. But FAs, by nature, can't do much damage that couldn't
already be done by any group of people, the same people who would do
it using the FA. FAs are not like political parties; but political
parties could exist as caucuses within FAs. Indeed, that is what I
see happening to existing parties.
The FA/DP concept is to organize *outside* of existing organizations,
bypassing the institutional intertias that we know so well. FA/DP
organizations don't control anything except their own communications
structure, and even that is actually in the hands of the members;
central administration is a convenience, not a necessity.
One of the AA slogans is "Keep It Simple, Stupid." There is some
controversy over whether or not this actually orginated in AA, but it
very much sounds like something that could have started there. I'm
suggesting that we start simple. If we need complications, we can add
them later.
I tend to think that most of the FA/DP concepts are really obvious,
but my experience is that most people miss most of it on first
contact, it can take a few years to sink in. For example, DP is
implemented simply by creating a proxy list: members use that list as
they choose. Somebody wants to create a specialized proxy list, no
problem. They just do it. But will others use it? If the need is
there, they will.
Frankly, it is hard enough to get people to sign on to the concept of
naming a proxy, simple as it is. They will think that they don't need
it when the organization is small. But they don't realize that
without DP, when the organization gets large, almost always an
oligarchy has formed that will strongly resist the loss of power that
implementing DP would represent. Now, an awakened membership can
easily bypass this, but the very problem is that most people aren't
awake. Still, all it would take is for a relatively small percentage
of members to start functioning with a proxy network, amplifying
their own power.
For example, corporations aren't going to recognize delegable proxy
unless it is crammed down their throats. But it is not necessary.
Shareholders are already totally free to organize *outside* the
corporation, to, say, form a mailing list. If they set up a proxy
list, shareholders who don't have time to follow the traffic can just
name a proxy, whose job is to contact them when action is needed (as
well as the function that most DP people are thinking of, to
represent them in discussion and vote). Then, the collection of
active members, including individuals acting on their own behalf,
plus such individuals who are also proxies, can identify proxies to
actually serve as corporate proxies, and then the FA proxies can
recommend to their clients that they name such-and-such a proxy on
the actual proxy form for the corporation.
Large institutional shareholders already hire firms to serve as
proxies at annual corporate meetings. FA/DP organizations should be
so low overhead, so light, that they are an obvious solution to the
gap that forms between management-dominated boards and the large body
of shareholders. FA/DP is a method to quickly organize large numbers
of people *without* requiring the huge effort that mostly keeps such
organizations from forming.
There would be no need for the FA to agree on, for example, a single
proxy. But, of course, a single proxy would minimize the expense; but
any caucus that can physically get a proxy to the meeting can be
represented there. There is thus a value to come to agreement on the
identity of a proxy, or to minimize the number of actual corporate
proxies, but not a necessity.
Now, as to lemmings. Soft, furry rodents, very cute, which, like all
species, have adapted to their conditions with far more natural
intelligence than those who imagine that they are stupid creatures.
Lemmings don't leap off of cliffs. Rather, when they find their local
population to be excessive, they migrate. Migration can be dangerous,
because lemmings don't have good enough eyesight to distinguish a
small river, which they could swim across, from a fjord, which they
might not be able to manage.
Human beings exhibit group behaviors which can be frustrating to
those who would change things, but we can be quite sure that behavior
which is common is, at least in some ways, functional. Resistance to
new ideas protects, for example, people from being swayed this way
and that by every meme that reaches them. People, for the most part,
won't give much consideration to new ideas until they see that they
are being accepted by groups of people, and especially people like
them, rather than isolated nut cases.
People have only so much time, so much attention resource, and they
need that attention, at least most of it, for the ordinary business
of life. So they depend on collective judgement of new ideas. Any new
idea, to gain wide acceptance, must first convince a small number, at
least enough for it to propagate. Most people don't participate in
this vetting of new ideas until they have reached substantial levels
of acceptance.
DP is, in fact, a method of speeding this up without removing the
protections. The proxy network filters in both directions. If we had
DP working, it would be easy to implement DP, unless it was a bad idea.
It's frustrating behavior -- or, more accurately, lack of behavior --
but it is functional. Anyone who wants to work for change is going to
have to recognize this. I'm happy just to find one more person who
gets the concepts. One more, and one more, pretty soon there will be
enough to start to look like a movement, and then more people will
pay attention, etc.
If FA/DP really is a good idea, I think it's going to happen. In
fact, it would be difficult to stop it from happening. It would take
draconian repression, preventing people from assembling at all.
Now, as to lemmings having the right to vote: my question is, "Who
decides who has the right to vote?" Direct democracy works quite well
on a small scale, in spite of the predictions of elitists. Ordinary
people have shown again and again that they can take on and
understand complex issues when they are close to those issues. I saw
particular examples when our Town Meeting town was considering
Cluster Zoning. It is the problem of scale that makes, political
scientists have traditionally thought, Direct Democracy impossible
for large jurisdictions.
Now, I'm *not* proposing *any* structural changes to existing
governments. Rather, I'm proposing that the people organize outside
of government, through FAs using DP to make the development of broad
consensus possible. DP theoretically allows large numbers of people
to concentrate themselves into small groups, making it function as if
the organization were small, as far as meeting efficiency is
concerned. Would those small meetings allow direct vote of members,
or would they restrict votes to, say, those holding a certain number
of proxies?
I see no reason whatever to prevent members from directly voting. I'd
say that it is up to the *member* to decide if they have sufficient
knowledge to have an opinion on an issue. I think that most
"ordinary" people will, quite sensibly -- I think that ordinary
people are quite sensible *within constraints* -- refrain from direct
voting when they can delegate their vote to someone who has the time
to study the issues -- or to hire staff, etc. In an FA, there is
*especially* no reason to prevent members from voting. Voting is
quite possible with low cost, it is practically free. It is *active
participation in discussion* that can't be universal at the top level
in a large organization. That is, the right to address the assembly
and to enter motions must be restricted, once an organization gets
beyond a certain size, or else there comes to be far too much
traffic. But voting does not increase that kind of traffic.
Simple: I recommend that FA/DP organizations reserve for members the
right to vote directly on all issues and questions, but any meeting
may choose to create rules for active participation other than
reading, observing, and voting, in order to keep traffic within
manageable bounds. If members can vote on all issues, they can,
likewise, vote on meeting bylaws that would restrict their own right
to address the assembly. And they will do this, I can guarantee it.
Town Meeting towns love Town Meeting; but when the town gets so large
that Town Meeting becomes intractable, they vote to replace it with
Mayor/Council or some other elected structure, reducing their own
power in favor of what has become a very necessary efficiency.
DP gives them another option...., retaining direct democracy where it
works, but becoming, in effect, a representative democracy. Without
elections for representatives.
Jan Kok
I'm the "other person" that Abd mentioned has gotten interested in the
FA/DP ideas. I wrote the home page of metaparty.beyondpolitics.org,
and the glossary page of the beyondpolitics.org wiki.
There is a brand-new political party, the Boston Tea Party, that has
formed within the last two months, at bostontea.us . I have briefly
mentioned on their discussion groups that I am interested in getting
them to adopt the FA/DP ideas. I think they are already very close to
that already.
Abd and I enjoy philosophical discussions, but we are also desperately
eager to try these ideas out, to get them used in the real world (such
as in the Boston Tea Party), because we believe they can have a huge
positive influence on all of human society.
We can try out the FA/DP ideas right here in this top-politics group.
This group is already an FA. All that remains is to implement DP in
this group. The first step, as Abd mentioned, is to create a proxy
list. Is there a way to create a database associated with this group
(the way Yahoo groups lets you create databases)? If so, we could use
that. But I don't think so. Therefore, I invite you to join the
Metaparty FA by registering at metaparty.beyondpolitics.org (takes a
minute or so), and then editing the wiki page at
http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org/tiki-index.php?page=Metaparty+proxy+list
Nothing dramatic will happen as a result of doing that. However, it
will, I hope, start you thinking about how FA/DP can work in practice,
in real life. And it might also reveal some bugs (flaws) in our
thinking about FA/DP. It is the difference between reading and talking
about chemistry, and going into a chemistry lab and doing some
experiments.
By adding your names to the proxy list and choosing a proxy to
represent you (I would expect that some of the old-timers in the
top-politics group might represent each other, the same way Abd and I
have done), you become part of Metaparty's DP structure. And this
top-politics group becomes a forum of the Metaparty FA. (There is no
requirement that top-politics be a part of the
metaparty.beyondpolitics.org web side.)
Please try this exercise. It should only take a few minutes to
register and edit the wiki page. Less time than it took you to read
Abd's 3000-word (but excellent) previous post!
Thanks,
- Jan
Mark
[...]
>AL: I'll tell you why: complexity. In the Free Association/Delegable Proxy organizations I envision, you can name special issue proxies if you want. But it is a *lot* more work than simply focusing on "whom do I trust most among those who are or who will participate in this organization."
-M: The technology is here:
http://smartocracy.org/voters/about
This explains how Brad does his delegable proxy constraints.
Again, my criticism of this system is how there is a RD override of DD
inputs, and how there is a DD override of RD inputs.
Over-and-over people refuse to explain why there are such overrides.
>AL: It is my opinion that people who have the opportunity to communicate
> directly with "candidates" will *usually or on the average* make good
> choices in whom to trust. That is, they will choose, *mostly*, people
> who are as trustworthy or more trustworthy than themselves.
-M: OK, this is RD.
How about if people vote for *BOTH* generalists *AND* issue specific
delegates?
My system, SD2-S, defaults to the voters' generalists when delegates
are not selected.
>AL: I make a distinction between direct proxies and delegated proxies.
-M: [Mark opens a new window to look at Lomax's system.]
Lomax, in http://www.beyondpolitics.org/
you said:
"Delegable Proxy is deceptively simple: To traditional proxy
representation (proxies are chosen, not elected) is added delegability
of proxy assignments (the proxy of a proxy represents all those
represented by the original proxy)."
How many layers deep does this go?(Mine is potentially infinate, but
would probably be about 6 layers deep(on average) using real world
data.)
>L: It is essential that direct proxies and their clients have rapport, have good communication, ongoing (that is, open when needed from either side). This sets up natural limits on the number of direct proxies that would be able to function well;
-M: I do 2-10 for generalists, and 1-5 for specific delegates.
>L: and it is my expectation that the DP culture will come to expect good service from direct proxies. There need be no limit on indirect proxies.
-M: OK.
[...]
>L: Now, as to lemmings. Soft, furry rodents, very cute, which, like all
> species, have adapted to their conditions with far more natural
> intelligence than those who imagine that they are stupid creatures.
> Lemmings don't leap off of cliffs. Rather, when they find their local
> population to be excessive, they migrate. Migration can be dangerous,
> because lemmings don't have good enough eyesight to distinguish a
> small river, which they could swim across, from a fjord, which they
> might not be able to manage.
-M: LOL! The lemming metaphor isn't entirely fair to lemmings, but it
does communicate what I am trying to say.
>L: Human beings exhibit group behaviors which can be frustrating to
> those who would change things, but we can be quite sure that behavior
> which is common is, at least in some ways, functional. Resistance to
> new ideas protects, for example, people from being swayed this way
> and that by every meme that reaches them.
-M: OK, memes protecting themselves.
>L: People, for the most part, won't give much consideration to new ideas until they see that they are being accepted by groups of people, and especially people like them, rather than isolated nut cases.
-M: See, they mass together like lemmings instead of letting reason be
their guide.
:-(
>L: People have only so much time, so much attention resource, and they
> need that attention, at least most of it, for the ordinary business
> of life. So they depend on collective judgement of new ideas. Any new
> idea, to gain wide acceptance, must first convince a small number, at
> least enough for it to propagate. Most people don't participate in
> this vetting of new ideas until they have reached substantial levels
> of acceptance.
-M: OK.
>L: DP is, in fact, a method of speeding this up without removing the
> protections. The proxy network filters in both directions. If we had
> DP working, it would be easy to implement DP, unless it was a bad idea.
> It's frustrating behavior -- or, more accurately, lack of behavior --
> but it is functional. Anyone who wants to work for change is going to
> have to recognize this. I'm happy just to find one more person who
> gets the concepts. One more, and one more, pretty soon there will be
> enough to start to look like a movement, and then more people will
> pay attention, etc.
-M: OK, have hope my friend.
>L: If FA/DP really is a good idea, I think it's going to happen. In
> fact, it would be difficult to stop it from happening. It would take
> draconian repression, preventing people from assembling at all.
> Now, as to lemmings having the right to vote: my question is, "Who
> decides who has the right to vote?"
-M: SD2-S is democratic, so the lemmings do vote, and they can hold an
issue in deliberation unless a lemming threshold is met(as much as
50%).
But SD2-S is also a RD-republican system, and the idea of the analysis
of the voting structures is to filter the non-lemmings form the
lemmings.
>L: Direct democracy works quite well on a small scale,...
-M: Those in DD intentional communities are only marginally impressed,
and RD is both the norm and trend for intentional communities.
>L....in spite of the predictions of elitists.
-M: 'elitists' - you are an elitist by taking an *elite position*
against elitism.
This also makes you contradictory.(You aren't the only one.)
>L: Ordinary people have shown again and again that they can take on and
> understand complex issues when they are close to those issues.
-M: RD is still better.
[...]
>L: I see no reason whatever to prevent members from directly voting.
-M:
1. It hasen't proven to work better than RD at a large scale.
2. It isn't logicly compliant to the issue at hand:
A policy needs to be adminstered centrally anyway, which means that
people *always* need to be selected - this is the *innate* RD component
of even DD.
This is why SD2-S is always RD, and gives people a choice of *RD*, or
*RD and DD*.
(People continually DODGE this and think that it has to be a choice
between RD and DD. Polar-thinkers.)
>L: I'd say that it is up to the *member* to decide if they have sufficient knowledge to have an opinion on an issue.[...]
-M: Did you get a majority decision to approve of this point?
If not, then you are appointing yourself as a representitive, which
makes you an opponent of DD.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>[...]
> >AL: I'll tell you why: complexity. In the Free
> Association/Delegable Proxy organizations I envision, you can name
> special issue proxies if you want. But it is a *lot* more work than
> simply focusing on "whom do I trust most among those who are or who
> will participate in this organization."
>
>-M: The technology is here:
>http://smartocracy.org/voters/about
>This explains how Brad does his delegable proxy constraints.
>Again, my criticism of this system is how there is a RD override of DD
>inputs, and how there is a DD override of RD inputs.
>Over-and-over people refuse to explain why there are such overrides.
What follows is not a discussion of "smartocracy," as such. The
smartocracy site appears to be -- I have not investigated it in depth
-- about a specific system or method, which may incorporate certain
delegable proxy concepts, it was unclear to me from a quick perusal
of the page above and the Rules page.
Given that what Mark has written has very little to do with the FA/DP
proposals, but seems to assume a great deal about them, I'm certainly
not about to "explain why there are such overrides," since I'm not
writing about automated systems nor about power control systems
(except to the extent that intelligence *is* power), and thus there
are no "overrides" except the ultimate one: the right of members to
"override" suggestions made to them by other members of the
organization. Mark's writing is dense with jargon; perhaps this is
appropriate on this list, but I have to make a lot of assumptions in
order to make sense of the assertions. For example, I'll assume that
RD means Representative Democracy and DD means Direct Democracy.
The assumption is common that a system is either one or the other.
Delegable Proxy (DP), however, could be both. It might not be both;
which it is if it is not both depends on the system. In a Free
Association (FA) -- which I use as a technical term, and a great deal
of what I write won't make sense without understanding it, but it is
defined elsewhere -- the organization does not exercise sovereignty
over the members nor over anyone else, except in a very, very limited
sense, so one might not even call it a "democracy." However, in the
realm of thought and the collection and analysis of intelligence, it
is a libertarian democracy, and, if combined with delegable proxy,
the potential exists for the collective intelligence to act in the
world, i.e., to exercise power. But it will do so through overlap of
membership rather than through concentration of power in the FA. FAs
don't concentrate power, which is what protects them from falling
into the oligarchical traps.
> >AL: It is my opinion that people who have the opportunity to communicate
> > directly with "candidates" will *usually or on the average* make good
> > choices in whom to trust. That is, they will choose, *mostly*, people
> > who are as trustworthy or more trustworthy than themselves.
>
>-M: OK, this is RD.
Ah, but members do not delegate any authority to the proxies, beyond
one. (Well, they *may*, after all, it is a free association, but it
is not required nor would it necessarily be routine.) Clients
authorize their proxies to contact them. However, those analyzing
such things as attendance lists and vote lists may use proxy
assignment lists, in an assumption that when a client does not vote,
the proxy's vote is a reasonable approximation of what that vote
would be. In FAs, "votes" are really only polls, attempts to measure
consensus, for the FA is not going to move power based on a vote.
Rather, those who favor some action may either directly take that
action ("Send $20 to the campaign of...) or may create organizations
to collect power. This is found in the Alcoholics Anonymous
traditions as: "AA as such ought never be organized, but we may
create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve."
>How about if people vote for *BOTH* generalists *AND* issue specific
>delegates?
As I wrote, they are free to do so. However, it is my opinion that
the vast majority of people won't do it, and, further, that the
people using the available data won't find it advantageous to use
such special lists, if they exist. Nevertheless, if you will look at
Metaparty (metaparty.beyondpolitics.org), this has been discussed and
how it could work was described.
>My system, SD2-S, defaults to the voters' generalists when delegates
>are not selected.
As we recommended. It was recommended that analysts substitute the
general proxy's vote for an absent member, unless a special proxy to
the caucus is named. I would assume that the analyst would also, if
the named special proxy does not vote, use the special proxy/general
proxy of that proxy, i.e., delegated proxies, and so on recursively
as necessary until a vote is determined.
"Caucuses" may form at any time and for any purpose desired by
members. They can include special-issue caucuses, ideological
caucuses or caucuses regarding or representing any special interest.
Unlike the overall FA, they may take controversial positions, though,
strictly speaking, when they do so, they are representing an
independent organization, but merely one that might be using the
overall FA tools. Caucuses, obviously, do not speak for the FA.
> >AL: I make a distinction between direct proxies and delegated proxies.
>
>-M: [Mark opens a new window to look at Lomax's system.]
>Lomax, in http://www.beyondpolitics.org/
>you said:
>"Delegable Proxy is deceptively simple: To traditional proxy
>representation (proxies are chosen, not elected) is added delegability
>of proxy assignments (the proxy of a proxy represents all those
>represented by the original proxy)."
>
>How many layers deep does this go?(Mine is potentially infinate, but
>would probably be about 6 layers deep(on average) using real world
>data.)
If you read more extensively, I think you would realize that,
explicitly, the delegation is not limited. However, in an FA,
analysts *might* decide to limit how deeply they would search. My own
opinion is that there should be no limit. Normally, I'd expect, with
the entire population of the earth in an general-purpose, high
traffic FA, the proxy tree would be exhausted within 7 levels.
However, there could be chains longer than that. Note that it is
obvious that the simple proxy assignment procedures I've suggested
would lead to proxy loops. Many writers have considered this a
defect, on first examination. I consider it merely a characteristic
of the system, desirable in some cases, deleterious in others. All
that is necessary, in the case of harmful effects, is that members of
loops be notified; if they are content with the system, the system is
content with the loop. Loops may exist that, in practice, never or
only rarely result in the absence of the loop members from a meeting or vote.
In particular, it is highly recommended, I'd say, that all members,
when practical and as possible, identify and name a proxy. If all
members do this, it is clear that there *must* be loops, for a
top-level proxy will either name as a proxy a member of his or her
own constituency, or will name someone outside his or her
constituency, thus connecting his otherwise-loop to another. I
consider that, at a high level, the former is what will mostly happen.
(But a superproxy is theoretically possible. But then even the
superproxy would normally name a proxy, who *must* be a member of his
or her constituency.)
All this is simply a consequence of setting up and using a simple
proxy list and analyzing it assuming delegability. Proxy lists could,
of course, include a prohibition of delegability; members are
permitted to be as foolish as they like!
(Given that the member may revoke the proxy at any time and for any
reason, if a member did not approve of a delegated proxy up the line,
the member has many options to prevent undesirable outcomes. And,
given that in an FA/DP organization, the true and basic function of
the proxy is communication and advice, what disapproving of a
delegated proxy would amount to is disapproving that the direct proxy
receive advice from someone freely chosen by him or her. Frankly, if
my client did this to me, I'd probably drop him as a client....)
> >L: It is essential that direct proxies and their clients have
> rapport, have good communication, ongoing (that is, open when
> needed from either side). This sets up natural limits on the number
> of direct proxies that would be able to function well;
>
>-M: I do 2-10 for generalists, and 1-5 for specific delegates.
The number I've used is 20. But we need actual practice to really
know what will work. I don't necessarily agree with the numbers
proposed, and in particular, specific delegates, as experts, would,
I'd think, be expected to serve for many more people. It's only a
specific issue, so the traffic has to be far less than with a general
organization covering many issues....
The limit on the number of clients who can be well served exists
because of the traffic, and the traffic will vary greatly with the
organization, as well as the personalities of the proxy and
constituents. This is why, in an FA, I'd not place any organizational
limit. In any case, as I've proposed the basic FA operating
structure, the details of analysis are up to those who choose to
analyze the available data. Think a proxy has too many clients,
discount the votes or representation count.
There are many consequences of the proposed concepts that simply fall
out from the application of common law to the organizational
structures. Meetings, for example, are presumed to have the kinds of
rule-making power that meetings under Robert's Rules have, which
includes the right to use their own rules. People don't like the
meeting rules, find or create another meeting.... That is exactly
what AA does. And it is one reason that AA grew so rapidly. "All it
takes to start a new AA meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot."
> >L: and it is my expectation that the DP culture will come to
> expect good service from direct proxies. There need be no limit on
> indirect proxies.
>
>-M: OK.
To amplify this a little, if the direct relationships are sound, the
indirect ones will be chains of direct links, each one of which is
sound. Yes, there is the telephone game effect, but FA/DP
organizations will have a great deal of redundancy available, and, in
transmitting information and advice, original texts can be used. They
don't have to be limited to talking on the phone!
If what is happening is that information is forwarded, what the proxy
is essentially doing is acting as a filter. This is, in fact, the
essential job of the proxy, just as it is the essential job of
neurons. ("Pass this on, don't pass that on....")
>[...]
> >L: Now, as to lemmings. Soft, furry rodents, very cute, which, like all
> > species, have adapted to their conditions with far more natural
> > intelligence than those who imagine that they are stupid creatures.
>
>-M: LOL! The lemming metaphor isn't entirely fair to lemmings, but it
>does communicate what I am trying to say.
Now that we have noticed that it is foolish to criticize lemmings for
acting like lemmings, given that they have survived for many millions
of years, I expect, by doing so, we might stop to think that
behaviors that are nearly universal among humans might likewise have
sound evolutionary reasons for existing.
People are social animals, and information is filtered through social
acceptance, and for very good reason. However, the filtering,
sometimes, results in the unwarranted rejection of good ideas; DP is
designed to ameliorate this. Every person's inward input (toward the
center, toward higher proxy levels) is through a direct proxy, chosen
*by the person* for maximum rapport. If I can't explain and get my
brilliant idea past my proxy, maybe it isn't such a brilliant idea!
However, I remain free to try to find another path, the system will
have many, many entry points for ideas and information.
> >L: Human beings exhibit group behaviors which can be frustrating to
> > those who would change things, but we can be quite sure that behavior
> > which is common is, at least in some ways, functional. Resistance to
> > new ideas protects, for example, people from being swayed this way
> > and that by every meme that reaches them.
>
>-M: OK, memes protecting themselves.
Yes. A crucial function, just as controls on mutations are crucial.
When those controls break down, cancer.
> >L: People, for the most part, won't give much consideration to new
> ideas until they see that they are being accepted by groups of
> people, and especially people like them, rather than isolated nut cases.
>
>-M: See, they mass together like lemmings instead of letting reason be
>their guide.
>:-(
Reason is not all that it is cracked up to be. In particular, reason
generally serves a set of assumptions that are not questioned, and it
can be very difficult to even identify those assumptions. My view is
that it is actually impossible, though some people can certainly see
more than others. Mass intelligence is just that, mass intelligence.
Obviously, it has its limitations; but there has been no attempt, as
far as I've seen, to move around the limitations without falling into
the trap of oligarchy.
By the way, I do not use oligarchy, per se, as a perjorative term. It
simply describes a system where some people enjoy (or are burdened
by) more power than others. Oligarchy is appropriate for some kinds
of organizations.
But if what we are looking for is maximized group intelligence,
oligarchy prevents it by institutionalizing the systemic blindness of
the oligarchs. I suppose that a statistical oligarchy might get
around this (i.e, the oligarchs are chosen by random process and thus
represent a cross-section of society), but this would still limit
input in an unnecessary way.
> >L: People have only so much time, so much attention resource, and they
> > need that attention, at least most of it, for the ordinary business
> > of life. So they depend on collective judgement of new ideas. Any new
> > idea, to gain wide acceptance, must first convince a small number, at
> > least enough for it to propagate. Most people don't participate in
> > this vetting of new ideas until they have reached substantial levels
> > of acceptance.
>
>-M: OK.
Progress.
> >L: If FA/DP really is a good idea, I think it's going to happen. In
> > fact, it would be difficult to stop it from happening. It would take
> > draconian repression, preventing people from assembling at all.
> > Now, as to lemmings having the right to vote: my question is, "Who
> > decides who has the right to vote?"
>
>-M: SD2-S is democratic, so the lemmings do vote, and they can hold an
>issue in deliberation unless a lemming threshold is met(as much as
>50%).
I have no idea what defines a member as a lemming. It would be a
crucial question, not?
In an FA, there is no body or agency with the authority to
unconditionally define someone as an inferior member. However,
caucuses or meetings may set their own rules.
>But SD2-S is also a RD-republican system, and the idea of the analysis
>of the voting structures is to filter the non-lemmings form the
>lemmings.
>
> >L: Direct democracy works quite well on a small scale,...
>
>-M: Those in DD intentional communities are only marginally impressed,
>and RD is both the norm and trend for intentional communities.
Depends on scale. RD is rare in very small intentional communities.
Most town governments in the U.S. devolved from a royalist system
with power at the top; even in New England the central state
authority gradually encroached upon town sovereignty; in most other
areas the towns never did have local law-making authority other than
through, originally, appointed bodies (royally appointed, or
appointed by delegation of power from the crown). States, however,
did constitute representative bodies through elections.
The most well-known presently functioning example of Direct Democracy
in the political sphere is the New England Town Meeting, very common
in small towns in New England. Almost all the town in western
Massachusetts have Town Meeting government, but by the time they get
to the size of Easthampton, for example, not a particular large town,
most have moved to electoral representative governments, typically
mayor/council, though some large towns (Amherst is most notable)
stubbornly cling to Town Meeting.
Amherst actually got the state to charter a special form of
government for Amherst, though, and it is ironic that Amerst still
thinks of itself as a Town Meeting town. Actually, what they have is
a huge representative assembly; their answer to the problem of scale
was to elect neighborhood representatives, several hundred of them.
This "Town Meeting" is quite controversial in Amherst, in two recent
votes, it narrowly escaped being dropped for Mayor/Council. It seems
to have been lost on the defenders of Amherst Town Meeting that the
democracy of it is questionable if only a few votes shy of 50% of
voters want it gone....
What would the FA/DP solution to this be? Delegable Proxy, per se, in
the governmental structure, could quite well be illegal; but there
would be nothing to prevent an extragovernmental "Town Meeting" from
forming, using Delegable Proxy, to advise voters and the town
regarding town issues. Mayor/Council is easily susceptible to control
by special interests -- it is a claim of Amherst Town Meeting
supporters that big money wants Mayor/Council in order to push
through business development agendas -- but what, it seems, few have
realized is that the citizenry is the largest and wealthiest "special
interest," collectively. *If* there were a way to organize the
citizenry, outside of government, without coercion, without
substantial cost in money, nor substantial cost in wasted time spent
in contentious meetings, it would be easy for the citizens to manage
a Mayor/Council government. Just think of them (the Mayor and
Council) as employees. Citizens, when organized, can quite readily
recall public officers if they need to, but, more importantly, they,
if organized, are more likely to *hire* trustworthy officers. Under
these conditions, a public election, required by state law, would
really just be a ratification and proof that the extragovernmental
process was working.
Would this be RD or DD? I think if one is fixed on the idea that it
must be one or the other, one is limiting what one can see.
As I've mentioned, FA/DP is rigorously libertarian, but it is not
Libertarian, which would properly be understood as opposing coercion
in government. FA/DP finesses the problem. It has no position on what
should be done in government. But it makes it possible for better
solutions, better than coercion, to be considered and to be
implemented if they can find consensus.
> >L....in spite of the predictions of elitists.
>
>-M: 'elitists' - you are an elitist by taking an *elite position*
>against elitism.
Hogwash. I'm not against elitism. I merely think it foolish, unless
clearly founded in what is functional. Anyone is free to disagree
with me. One could join the Beyond Politics Free Association and
advocate special rights for any group, perhaps people with a measured
IQ over 150, or wealth or education at a certain level. In fact,
high-level proxies could be considered an elite, albeit dependent
continuously on maintaining the support of their consituencies. In
governmental DP, they would clearly be an elite, selected by
measuring the level of trust that they enjoy. In FAs, they enjoy
special communications privileges, probably, when an organization
reaches a certain size, the size where traffic at open meetings of
members becomes a problem.
We have, in fact, suggested that the size of constituency for each
member, were the member to vote alone, i.e., nobody else votes, could
be used as a standard to determine the right to address the assembly.
Some of what Mark has written indicates to me that he understands the
problem: direct democracy is impractical in large assemblies because
of the traffic, or, another way to put it, because of the noise.
However, and he may have this as well, were he to express it
coherently and simply, the right to vote does not increase traffic in
any significant way, because votes are expressible quite concisely,
ultimately, they are just a few numbers. But taking up everyone's
time, or even just pushing a large number of subject headers in front
of readers, this is the problem. Large groups must find a way to
manage the flow of information, and this is what delegable proxy is
really about. Voting is a detail.
Proxies, together with appropriate rules -- which are up to each
assembly to determine, though we certainly could put together generic
rules, as General Robert did so long ago -- can protect assemblies
from excess traffic from members, but proxies also protect members
from excess traffic from the organization.
FA/DP should make it possible to join and participate effectively in
hundreds of organizations, leaving a proxy to handle most business
except for what the proxy judges requires the client's personal attention.
I think most political analysts, when they consider delegable proxy,
get it backwards. Being a proxy is a *job*, a burden; from long habit
and experience in standard electoral democracy, the analysts expect
that people will seek to gather as many proxies as possible. Not in
an FA; proxies will, quite correctly, recognize that it is a job.
Hopefully one that they enjoy, but the only advantage that a proxy
gets by being a high-level proxy is an ability to speak more directly
to a high level in the organization. The fact is that the largest
benefit of this, the ability to be heard, will exist in FA/DP
organizations for bottom level members who represent nobody but
themselves. If the latter have good ideas, all they have to do is
convince their proxy, or *anyone* else in the organization, and the
idea can advance. No, being a proxy, in the FA/DP context, is being a
servant, not being a master.
Another of the AA formal traditions: "Our leaders are but trusted
servants, they do not govern."
>This also makes you contradictory.(You aren't the only one.)
Honi soit qui mal y pense; contradiction is in the eye of the
beholder. You see *this* and you imagine that I think *that*, and
further you are of the opinion that *this* and *that* are in
contradiction. It's quite an involved process.
But, yes, I'm quite sure that I hold various positions and views that
are contradictory to each other. Hopefully, though, I'm attached to
none of them.
> >L: Ordinary people have shown again and again that they can take on and
> > understand complex issues when they are close to those issues.
>
>-M: RD is still better.
Depends on context, doesn't it? RD is better for a group of ten
people who want to, say, create a volunteer organization? The Town of
Cummington, Massachusetts, population about 1000, would be better off
with RD? (You'd be laughed at, proposing it. There are problems with
Town Meeting, even at that size, but I think a proposal to drop Town
Meeting for Cummington would fail by a landslide.
(And the problems would, quite simply, disappear if there were a
Cummington Free Association using Delegable Proxy. It exists, and
there are a few people in town who support the idea, but ... this is
important ... most people, quite simply, don't see the need. Give me
a few more years.... What I've seen is that, come back to people who
have heard about FA/DP a year later, and they understand more. That
is another one of the natural filters: people will pay more attention
to an idea that they have heard more than once, over a long period of
time. Persistence helps.)
>[...]
> >L: I see no reason whatever to prevent members from directly voting.
>
>-M:
>1. It hasen't proven to work better than RD at a large scale.
It's never been tried on a large scale in a context where
deliberation takes place through a thorough representative structure.
Note that, in a mature FA/DP organization, most members would *not*
vote on most issues. They don't have time, they have jobs and
children, and, besides, they belong to several hundred FAs, most of
them they might get a message once a year from their proxy.
But they retain the *right* to vote, all they have to do is show up,
either in person or through any means that the organization makes
available. Does this work on a large scale?
Well, if it did not work at least to some degree, why is it universal
practice in corporate governance, at the annual meeting?
>2. It isn't logicly compliant to the issue at hand:
>A policy needs to be adminstered centrally anyway, which means that
>people *always* need to be selected - this is the *innate* RD component
>of even DD.
There is no policy, there is only the right of members do pretty much
whatever they please (within governing law, of course). The only
reason that the defective RD structures that exist in all too many
nonprofits survive is that people do not understand that there is an
alternative.
Once enough people understand that, they will use the alternatives,
and those using the alternatives will, essentially, be better
organized than those who do not, they will be able to quickly muster
necessary resources.
FA/DP organizations need a very minimum of centralized structure.
Really, I'd recommend looking at the AA model, there is a great deal
of experience there, coupled with a foundation laid by an excellent
organizational theoretician. If the New York office of AA World
Services were to drop into the Atlantic, the organization would sail
along with little disruption. Local intergroups published information
before, some continue to do it, and they can do it again if New York
disappears. They could reconstitute a national office quite rapidly.
In an FA/DP organization, there might be a central web site. But
there would be many subsites and mailing lists. The DP structure is
self-healing, for proxies will, I expect, routinely have full contact
information for their clients (I wouldn't agree to function as a
proxy for anyone who didn't allow me that right and the tools to use
it), so any "natural caucus" can restablish communication through
creating a new mailing list, within a few days. Further, I'd expect
that most proxies would moderate mailing lists for their clients,
and, routinely, clients would have contact information for many of
their peers, i.e., other clients of the same proxy.
Got a better way to do it? Fine, try. Many people have tried to set
up organizations to compete with AA. AA is not at all concerned. It
has no position regarding any outside organizations, it neither
supports nor opposes any causes. (that is close to the formal
statement.) But, guess what? These other organizations are truly tiny
compared to AA. AA does not advertise. It does not promote its
services. *Others* may promote it, but, of course, anyone is free to
promote whatever he wants (within the law, again).
>This is why SD2-S is always RD, and gives people a choice of *RD*, or
>*RD and DD*.
>
>(People continually DODGE this and think that it has to be a choice
>between RD and DD. Polar-thinkers.)
Perhaps "people" do. But perhaps also someone is a polar thinker,
imagining that *other* people are or are not as sophisticated as he is.
One thing I've seen many times over the years: writers on newsgroups
and mailing lists who think that others have an *obligation* to
answer their questions and objections. So if the others don't answer,
they are morally defective in some way, or at least *unable* to
answer. That's it! If they don't answer, it must mean that I'm right!
Or does it just mean that I'm obnoxious, or perhaps bipolar? Maybe I
*should* take my meds.... Funny how it is, I take my meds and it
makes everyone else reasonable!
> >L: I'd say that it is up to the *member* to decide if they have
> sufficient knowledge to have an opinion on an issue.[...]
>
>-M: Did you get a majority decision to approve of this point?
>If not, then you are appointing yourself as a representitive, which
>makes you an opponent of DD.
Word salad. Whatever I write about FA/DP is just my opinion. Where
that opinion has come to enjoy some kind of consensus or broad
agreement, I may use "we," which simply means "me and those who
agree," but I have no authority to definitively speak for Beyond
Politics, even though I own the domain and administer the sites. I do
the latter only as a trustee. I've *personally* committed to certain
values, so, for example, if a majority of members of an FA/DP
organization that I was a trustee for voted to abolish the
protections I've suggested for FA/DP members, and dissent existed, I
expect I would convert the previous home page of that organization to
a pointer to two or more web sites. One would be owned and
administered as directed by the majority (and, I think, not by me),
and the others would be as established by any dissident factions. The
home page would not advocate any of the successor organizations, it
would merely inform. (That home page would be a wiki, probably, with
admin making sure that material there wasn't POV.)
The FA/DP traditions and structure would, in any case, protect the
members from such a loss of rights, though, and even if the home page
were hijacked, the proxies could simply reform the organization elsewhere.
FAs, remember, don't collect power and more resources than necessary
for a bare minimum of function. So there isn't anything to fight
over, not in terms of control of those resources. People will fight,
but they will fight over issues, not power. Members of an FA have no
power through their membership, no power through positions of
responsibility in the structure, to coerce members to do *anything*,
not even the power of threat to expect. Members can be forbidden to
write to a list, perhaps, but one list is not the FA. As long as the
member can communicate with his or her proxy, the member can't be cut off.
Of course, if a member can't get anyone to agree to be his or her
proxy, or at least not someone trusted or willing to communicate with
the member, then the member has a problem. And the member might well
consider: "Why is it that nobody will listen to me? Is it my problem
or everyone else's problem? Perhaps I need to revise the way I communicate?"
It would appear that an objection has been raised to the implied
proposal that members ought to have the right to determine,
individually, whether they are or are not qualified to vote on a
matter affecting them. (Which, of course, includes the right to
determine whether or not the matter affects them, though sometimes
this would be structurally determined.) Okay, what's the alternative?
*Who* or *What* is going to decide which members have the right to
vote and which do not?
How does it come to be, if it is to be, that some members have the
right to vote and others don't? What is the *process*?
Is it that the members have accepted, at the outset, some software
controlling how they relate to each other? Or that they have assumed
that, to be successful, organizations must limit who can vote? How,
exactly, do members give up their right to vote, or is it taken away
from them by someone or some group?
In the devolution of Town Meeting, the right to vote of citizens to
vote directly is taken away from them by the majority, so voting. The
majority of voters at that moment in time has decided that allowing
general vote is wrong or defective or harmful. Did the majority have
the right to remove the right to vote from a minority without their
consent? Note that the representative forms which have universally
followed leave many citizens (often, actually, *most* citizens)
without a representative of their choice. Was this just? What about
"No taxation without representation? Can I appoint *your* representation?
You might well not be able to guess my answers. If you do, congratulations.
However, I think many of those reading this do realize that DP
provides an alternative. Universal direct vote is not essential to
DP, though it solves certain problems, and I, frankly, see no reason
to prohibit direct voting. If I imagine that somehow the U.S. House
has become a DP organization, with a requirement that, to vote
directly, one must be personally present, what harm would there be?
The direct votes would be a tiny fraction of the expressed votes,
once delegation was considered. Frankly, I think that on most issues,
very few people would vote directly on what was before the House,
even if internet voting were allowed; only rarely would it affect the
outcomes. And where it affected the outcome, I'd say that the proxies
were not doing their job: a very important part of their job is to
keep their clients informed sufficiently that those of them who are
interested in an issue have reliable information and analysis to consult.
Mark
> > Association/Delegable Proxy organizations I envision, you can name
> > special issue proxies if you want. But it is a *lot* more work than
> > simply focusing on "whom do I trust most among those who are or who
> > will participate in this organization."
> >
> >-M: The technology is here:
> >http://smartocracy.org/voters/about
> >This explains how Brad does his delegable proxy constraints.
> >Again, my criticism of this system is how there is a RD override of DD
> >inputs, and how there is a DD override of RD inputs.
> >Over-and-over people refuse to explain why there are such overrides.
>AL: What follows is not a discussion of "smartocracy," as such. The
> smartocracy site appears to be -- I have not investigated it in depth
> -- about a specific system or method, which may incorporate certain
> delegable proxy concepts, it was unclear to me from a quick perusal
> of the page above and the Rules page. Given that what Mark has written has very little to do with the FA/DP proposals, but seems to assume a great deal about them, I'm certainly not about to "explain why there are such overrides," since I'm not writing about automated systems nor about power control systems
-M: All SD2-S is, is just rule structures that yield output.
These can be implimented by humans alone, or can be combined with
software to yield varying degrees of automation, as with *all*
democratic systems, including your own.
This means that I still want an explaination why there are DD overrides
of RD.
>AL: (except to the extent that intelligence *is* power), and thus there
> are no "overrides" except the ultimate one: the right of members to
> "override" suggestions made to them by other members of the
> organization.
-M: That is an override. Computers don't change anything.
>AL: Mark's writing is dense with jargon; perhaps this is
> appropriate on this list, but I have to make a lot of assumptions in
> order to make sense of the assertions. For example, I'll assume that
> RD means Representative Democracy and DD means Direct Democracy.
-M: Your assumptions are correct.
>AL: The assumption is common that a system is either one or the other. Delegable Proxy (DP), however, could be both.
-M: "Both" - OK, thank you.
But why would it be anything but *both*?
>AL: [...] FAs don't concentrate power, which is what protects them from falling
> into the oligarchical traps.
-M: Then they are just discussion forums, correct?
> > >AL: It is my opinion that people who have the opportunity to communicate
> > > directly with "candidates" will *usually or on the average* make good
> > > choices in whom to trust. That is, they will choose, *mostly*, people
> > > who are as trustworthy or more trustworthy than themselves.
> >
> >-M: OK, this is RD.
>AL: Ah, but members do not delegate any authority to the proxies, beyond one.
-M: :-(
[...]
> >How about if people vote for *BOTH* generalists *AND* issue specific
> >delegates?
>AL: As I wrote, they are free to do so. However, it is my opinion that
> the vast majority of people won't do it,...
-M: I am not saying that the individual voter would vote for both
generalists and delegates, but we, the system designers should give the
voter the option to vote for issues and/or generalists and/or
delegates.
I think most would prefer to vote for at least two representitives than
have the computer vote for them.
>AL: ...and, further, that the people using the available data won't find it advantageous to use such special lists, if they exist.
-M: What lists? All voters are candidates.
> >My system, SD2-S, defaults to the voters' generalists when delegates
> >are not selected.
>AL: As we recommended.
-M: Rock on.
>AL: It was recommended that analysts substitute the general proxy's vote for an absent member, unless a special proxy to the caucus is named.
-M: My system generates a ranked hierarchy, so a chair could be filled
by the highest ranked person who wants it. If someone is absent, then
the next highest ranked person steps in. Simple. Just let the
centrality algorithm do all the selection work.
>AL: I would assume that the analyst would also, if the named special proxy does not vote, use the special proxy/general proxy of that proxy, i.e., delegated proxies, and so on recursively as necessary until a vote is determined.[...]
-M: :-(
[...]
> >"Delegable Proxy is deceptively simple: To traditional proxy
> >representation (proxies are chosen, not elected) is added delegability
> >of proxy assignments (the proxy of a proxy represents all those
> >represented by the original proxy)."
> >How many layers deep does this go?(Mine is potentially infinate, but
> >would probably be about 6 layers deep(on average) using real world
> >data.)
>AL: If you read more extensively, I think you would realize that,
> explicitly, the delegation is not limited.
-M: OK. This means that Emmanuel was OK in calling his V-V-V system
"delegable proxy" despite wanting unlimited depth.
Here is a system comparison for your convenience:
1. Marko's DDD - delegable proxy(DD or RD) for generalists, multiple RD
choice, PageRank
2. Karl's AD - delegable proxy(DD or RD), single RD choice, (unknown
centrality algorithm)
3. Emmanuel's V-V-V - delegable proxy(DD or RD), single RD choice,
input constrained directional Markov algorithm (unknown constraints,
non-PageRank (if possible))
4. Brad and Marko's Smartocracy - delegable proxy(DD or RD) for
specialists, multiple RD choice, PageRank
5. Mark's SD2-Smartocracy - manditory RD/optional DD, multiple choice,
PageRank
6. Lomax's DP - delegable proxy (RD and/or DD), single choice,
(implicitly) PageRank
>AL: However, in an FA, analysts *might* decide to limit how deeply they would search. My own opinion is that there should be no limit.
-M: :-)
>AL: Normally, I'd expect, with the entire population of the earth in an general-purpose, high traffic FA, the proxy tree would be exhausted within 7 levels. However, there could be chains longer than that. Note that it is obvious that the simple proxy assignment procedures I've suggested would lead to proxy loops. Many writers have considered this a defect, on first examination.
-M: Agreed, there is no defect here. PageRank can handle loops
perfectly well.
>AL: I consider it merely a characteristic of the system, desirable in some cases, deleterious in others. All that is necessary, in the case of harmful effects, is that members of loops be notified;
-M: The main reason that I want a person with two or more reps is to
have these chains *fork around* any loops - this ensures that people's
voting power is conserved by the network as much as possible.
>AL: if they are content with the system, the system is content with the loop. Loops may exist that, in practice, never or only rarely result in the absence of the loop members from a meeting or vote. In particular, it is highly recommended, I'd say, that all members, when practical and as possible, identify and name a proxy. If all members do this, it is clear that there *must* be loops,
-M: Yes, there must be loops.
>AL: for a top-level proxy will either name as a proxy a member of his or her own constituency, or will name someone outside his or her constituency, thus connecting his otherwise-loop to another. I consider that, at a high level, the former is what will mostly happen. (But a superproxy is theoretically possible. But then even the
superproxy would normally name a proxy, who *must* be a member of his
or her constituency.)
-M: 'a proxy' - one? Why only one? This seems unstable, overly
centralized, and doesn't give the network as statisticly significant
data as with multiple proxies.
[...]
> >-M: I do 2-10 for generalists, and 1-5 for specific delegates.
[...]
>AL: The number I've used is 20. But we need actual practice to really
> know what will work. I don't necessarily agree with the numbers
> proposed, and in particular, specific delegates, as experts, would,
> I'd think, be expected to serve for many more people.
-M: A voter would vote for 20 people? I thought your system was single
proxy.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding here:
I am giving the *range* of the number of people that a voter could vote
for.
>AL: [...]Think a proxy has too many clients, discount the votes or representation count.
-M: With my system the client determines the limits of the proxy by
voting for him/her or not.
[...]
>AL: If what is happening is that information is forwarded, what the proxy
> is essentially doing is acting as a filter. This is, in fact, the
> essential job of the proxy, just as it is the essential job of
> neurons. ("Pass this on, don't pass that on....")
-M: I use rank itself as the filter.
If a rep/proxy isn't doing his/her job, he/she loses rank.
> >[...]
> > >L: Now, as to lemmings. Soft, furry rodents, very cute, which, like all
> > > species, have adapted to their conditions with far more natural
> > > intelligence than those who imagine that they are stupid creatures.
> >-M: LOL! The lemming metaphor isn't entirely fair to lemmings, but it
> >does communicate what I am trying to say.
>L: [...] People are social animals, and information is filtered through social
> acceptance, and for very good reason. However, the filtering,
> sometimes, results in the unwarranted rejection of good ideas; DP is
> designed to ameliorate this. Every person's inward input (toward the
> center, toward higher proxy levels) is through a direct proxy, chosen
> *by the person* for maximum rapport. If I can't explain and get my
> brilliant idea past my proxy, maybe it isn't such a brilliant idea!
> However, I remain free to try to find another path, the system will
> have many, many entry points for ideas and information.
-M: Sounds like rank-based filtering to me. Rank that is determined
democraticly in a way that is not limited to initial (lemming) inputs.
> > >L: Human beings exhibit group behaviors which can be frustrating to
> > > those who would change things, but we can be quite sure that behavior
> > > which is common is, at least in some ways, functional. Resistance to
> > > new ideas protects, for example, people from being swayed this way
> > > and that by every meme that reaches them.
> >-M: OK, memes protecting themselves.
>L: Yes. A crucial function, just as controls on mutations are crucial. When those controls break down, cancer.
-M: Evolutionary system parallels. :-)
> > >L: People, for the most part, won't give much consideration to new
> > ideas until they see that they are being accepted by groups of
> > people, and especially people like them, rather than isolated nut cases.
> >-M: See, they mass together like lemmings instead of letting reason be
> >their guide. :-(
>L: Reason is not all that it is cracked up to be. In particular, reason
> generally serves a set of assumptions that are not questioned, and it
> can be very difficult to even identify those assumptions.
-M: Presumptousness is a form of Lemmingism too.
Misapplied logic is not the same as reason, it is irrationality.
>L: My view is that it is actually impossible, though some people can certainly see more than others. Mass intelligence is just that, mass intelligence.
-M: Should this mass intelligence be filtered and amplified or not?
>L: Obviously, it has its limitations; but there has been no attempt, as far as I've seen, to move around the limitations without falling into the trap of oligarchy.
-M: The limitation is solved by using the best centrality algorithm by
which to analyze the data inputs(votes).
>L: By the way, I do not use oligarchy, per se, as a perjorative term. It
> simply describes a system where some people enjoy (or are burdened
> by) more power than others. Oligarchy is appropriate for some kinds
> of organizations.
-M: Oligarchy(rule by the few) is fine where it is not entrenched. But
if its not entrenched, and the oligarchs can be replaced by the
underlings, is it now democracy(rule by the many)?
>L: But if what we are looking for is maximized group intelligence,
> oligarchy prevents it by institutionalizing the systemic blindness of
> the oligarchs.
-M: OK.
>L: I suppose that a statistical oligarchy might get around this (i.e, the oligarchs are chosen by random process and thus represent a cross-section of society), but this would still limit input in an unnecessary way.
-M: 'random' - :-(
> >-M: SD2-S is democratic, so the lemmings do vote, and they can hold an
> >issue in deliberation unless a lemming threshold is met(as much as
> >50%).
>L: I have no idea what defines a member as a lemming. It would be a
> crucial question, not?
-M: Most people are lemmings, so lemmings control direct majorities.
>L: In an FA, there is no body or agency with the authority to unconditionally define someone as an inferior member. However, caucuses or meetings may set their own rules.
-M: No one is innately inferior (except those who are forbidden to
vote), however they may just not be chosen as representives.
> >But SD2-S is also a RD-republican system, and the idea of the analysis
> >of the voting structures is to filter the non-lemmings form the
> >lemmings.
[...]
> > >L....in spite of the predictions of elitists.
> >-M: 'elitists' - you are an elitist by taking an *elite position*
> >against elitism.
>L: Hogwash. I'm not against elitism.
-M: :-)
>L: I merely think it foolish, unless clearly founded in what is functional.[...] In fact,
> high-level proxies could be considered an elite, albeit dependent
> continuously on maintaining the support of their consituencies. In
> governmental DP, they would clearly be an elite, selected by
> measuring the level of trust that they enjoy. In FAs, they enjoy
> special communications privileges, probably, when an organization
> reaches a certain size, the size where traffic at open meetings of
> members becomes a problem.
-M: Lomax is elitist like me!
See that Emmanuel, Eric and Karl!
>L: We have, in fact, suggested that the size of constituency for each
> member, were the member to vote alone, i.e., nobody else votes, could
> be used as a standard to determine the right to address the assembly.
> Some of what Mark has written indicates to me that he understands the
> problem: direct democracy is impractical in large assemblies because
> of the traffic, or, another way to put it, because of the noise.
> However, and he may have this as well, were he to express it
> coherently and simply, the right to vote does not increase traffic in
> any significant way, because votes are expressible quite concisely,
> ultimately, they are just a few numbers. But taking up everyone's
> time, or even just pushing a large number of subject headers in front
> of readers, this is the problem. Large groups must find a way to
> manage the flow of information, and this is what delegable proxy is
> really about. Voting is a detail.
-M: Why not just have the voting structures parallel the communication
structure?
> >This also makes you contradictory.(You aren't the only one.)
>L: Honi soit qui mal y pense; contradiction is in the eye of the
> beholder. You see *this* and you imagine that I think *that*, and
> further you are of the opinion that *this* and *that* are in
> contradiction. It's quite an involved process.
-M: In this case, it *was* in the eye of the beholder, but this isn't
true of all contradiction.
>L: But, yes, I'm quite sure that I hold various positions and views that
> are contradictory to each other. Hopefully, though, I'm attached to
> none of them.
-M: :-)
> > >L: Ordinary people have shown again and again that they can take on and
> > > understand complex issues when they are close to those issues.
> >
> >-M: RD is still better.
>L: Depends on context, doesn't it? RD is better for a group of ten
> people who want to, say, create a volunteer organization?
-M: I'd have DD for that. (The only context I discuss is for groups 30
or more *active* members).
>L: The Town of Cummington, Massachusetts, population about 1000, would be better off with RD? (You'd be laughed at, proposing it. There are problems with Town Meeting, even at that size, but I think a proposal to drop Town Meeting for Cummington would fail by a landslide.
-M: They are fond of *particapatory democracy* and would view
conventional RD as interfering with this - I think so.
I would give them a FA form of SD2-S where the top ranked would get
positions in the front of the hall.
> >[...]
> > >L: I see no reason whatever to prevent members from directly voting.
> >-M:
> >1. It hasen't proven to work better than RD at a large scale.
>L: It's never been tried on a large scale in a context where
> deliberation takes place through a thorough representative structure.
> Note that, in a mature FA/DP organization, most members would *not*
> vote on most issues.
-M: OK, same is true for SD2-S when used politicly.
>L: They don't have time, they have jobs and children, and, besides, they belong to several hundred FAs, most of them they might get a message once a year from their proxy. But they retain the *right* to vote, all they have to do is show up, either in person or through any means that the organization makes available. Does this work on a large scale? Well, if it did not work at least to some degree, why is it universal practice in corporate governance, at the annual meeting?
-M: I am critical only of direct votes on issues, and direct votes for
political proxies who have power over others. With corporate proxies,
people are making decisions about their *own* money instead of others'
money - this increased accountability suddenly makes them much more
intelligent.
> >2. It isn't logicly compliant to the issue at hand:
> >A policy needs to be adminstered centrally anyway, which means that
> >people *always* need to be selected - this is the *innate* RD component
> >of even DD.
>L: There is no policy, there is only the right of members do pretty much
> whatever they please (within governing law, of course). [...]
-M: This is just a *communication protocal*. Boring.
> >This is why SD2-S is always RD, and gives people a choice of *RD*, or
> >*RD and DD*.
> >(People continually DODGE this and think that it has to be a choice
> >between RD and DD. Polar-thinkers.)
>L: Perhaps "people" do.
-M: I have asked those who advocate *DD or RD*.
Emmanuel, Marko, and Karl are examples.
>L: But perhaps also someone is a polar thinker, imagining that *other* people are or are not as sophisticated as he is. One thing I've seen many times over the years: writers on newsgroups and mailing lists who think that others have an *obligation* to answer their questions and objections.
-M: Those *engaged* are morally obligated to answer one another.
>L: So if the others don't answer, they are morally defective in some way,
-M: Sometimes.
>L: or at least *unable* to answer.
-M: Sometimes.
>L: That's it! If they don't answer, it must mean that I'm right!
-M: Its called 'burden of rejoinder', and those involved in an
important issue should follow through with established processes of
exchange - this is what leads to memetic optimization and subsiquent
socio-cultural evolutionary advancement.
>L: Or does it just mean that I'm obnoxious, or perhaps bipolar? Maybe I *should* take my meds.... Funny how it is, I take my meds and it makes everyone else reasonable!
-M: :-)
> > >L: I'd say that it is up to the *member* to decide if they have
> > sufficient knowledge to have an opinion on an issue.[...]
> >-M: Did you get a majority decision to approve of this point?
> >If not, then you are appointing yourself as a representitive, which
> >makes you an opponent of DD.
>L: Word salad.
-M: LOL!
>L: Whatever I write about FA/DP is just my opinion.
-M: OK, now does your opinion pass the test of *performative
consistency*?
How can someone advocate DD without getting a majority vote for such an
opinion?
>L: Where that opinion has come to enjoy some kind of consensus or broad
> agreement, I may use "we," which simply means "me and those who
> agree," but I have no authority[...]
-M: Do you have authority to speak for yourself?
If not, then you don't have an authoritative opinion.
If you do, then this authority should be self-consistent, and you
should advocate DD only under DD approved conditions.
As for FA/DP, you seem to be just making it a communication protocal.
What is needed are systems for *binding collective action*.
Mark
> >M: This is why SD2-S is always RD, and gives people a choice of *RD*, or *RD and DD*. (People continually DODGE this and think that it has to be a choice between RD and DD. Polar-thinkers.)
>L: Perhaps "people" do.
-M: Yes, you just dodged this one again. Why?
Are you trying to be mean to me?
I just want ot help humanity, and I get so much resistance.
:-(
>L: But perhaps also someone is a polar thinker, imagining that *other* people are or are not as sophisticated as he is. One thing I've seen many times over the years: writers on newsgroups and mailing lists who think that others have an *obligation* to
answer their questions and objections. So if the others don't answer,
they are morally defective in some way, or at least *unable* to answer.
That's it! If they don't answer, it must mean that I'm right!
-M: Are you going to answer or not?
Why *DD and/or RD* instead of *RD or, RD-and-DD*?
>L: Or does it just mean that I'm obnoxious, or perhaps bipolar? Maybe I *should* take my meds....
-M: Maybe I need meds to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, so as not to
miss all the DODGES.
>L: Funny how it is, I take my meds and it makes everyone else reasonable!
[...]
-M: Give me meds, and it makes everyone more fucked-up.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>This means that I still want an explaination why there are DD overrides
>of RD.
There are no "overrides," technically, in the simple system I'm
proposing. Rather, we must understand the uses to which votes are put.
In an FA, votes don't move power. All FAs do is to deliberate and,
possibly, to generate consensus. Polls in that context are only
measures of consensus. In an FA/DP organization, proxy votes are
presumed to be a kind of measure of what a full vote might look like,
should the voting members be similarly informed as are the proxies voting.
And, if that assumption is not true, in the moment, it has a very
good chance of becoming true, after the proxies are finished advising
their clients. After all, the proxies have been chosen as
trustworthy. If anyone can convince the clients, the proxies can.
The actual exercise of power, in FAs, is reserved for the members. A
political action FA, for example, exists to organize political action
*without having any institutional bias toward what that action
actually will be." It organizes action by facilitating the
organization of caucuses (which *can* have a bias or determined
position, as well as membership restrictions) which can then act;
however, members are not bound. If we want to anticipate, through a
poll, how members will act, so that we can determine if further
deliberation or negotiation is required or advisable before
proceeding, I cannot imagine why we would prefer the opinion of a
proxy to the opinion of a member who had decided to vote directly on
the issue. The proxy may indeed be better informed, *but the actual
power will be exercised by the member.* That is, the member will
write a check to such and such an organization or will cast such and
such a vote in a public election or will join a demonstration or
whatever action is being proposed.
Can members delegate the check-writing power to proxies? Sure they can.
It would seem that Mark is considering DP in a governmental context,
or in a traditional organization which collects property and which
makes decisions as to the disposition of that property. In such a
context, there may be reasons, possibly, to disallow direct voting,
but only consider the votes of qualified proxies. Which, of course,
requires a definition of qualified; but a simple one might be that
the proxy represents a certain minimum number of members. This raises
a host of issues and problems, though, which I consider it
unnecessary to address and solve at this time. FA/DP organizations,
quite simply, don't have those problems.
What *obviously* is necessary in an FA/DP organization of sufficient
size is restriction on communication at a high level. If everyone can
address a top-level meeting, the meeting will be impossibly jammed
with traffic. However, each meeting can develop its own rules.
Software may be developed that would implement rules automatically,
but I prefer to see the rules develop deliberatively, and over time
in connection with actual experience, rather than based on purely
theoretical considerations by programmers, and even by theoreticians
such as myself.
But voting is technically possible no matter what the size of the
organization, and I see no reason to restrict it.
Given that the right to vote is a given in a very small democratic
organization, I would want to know the reason for prohibiting it in a
large one. It is argued that "ordinary" members don't have the
knowledge to properly vote, and certainly this will largely be true.
But, in my view, it is up to each member to make that determination.
Most members, in any case, in a large organization, I expect, simply
aren't going to have *time* to vote.
Trying to prohibit them from voting, in any case, will be fruitless
unless it has their consent. They can simply choose proxies who agree
to vote according to the votes of their constituencies. Which would
be a shame. If they can vote directly, such manipulation would be unnecessary.
The core of DP culture, I expect, will be trust. Choose a proxy you
trust and trust your proxy. If there is an issue where you expect an
exception, perhaps the proxy is a great person but isn't reliable
when it comes to some particular issue, then pay attention to that
issue and vote directly regarding it.
As to the subject given this by Mark, "Binding collective action,"
I'll note that, while I am interested in DP in general, and the right
of direct vote is not intrinsic to DP, I am specifically advocating
the combination of DP with FA traditions, where there is essentially
no binding collective action that takes place within the
organization. The organization is utterly non-coercive. If there are
to be binding decisions, they are made and implemented by those who
agree with them. They are binding on those members, not on others.
There are, of course, exceptions having to do with organizational
structure and process decisions, but FAs have a *minimum* of binding
structure, and that structure is almost irrelevant. Members who don't
support it have alternatives.
> >AL: (except to the extent that intelligence *is* power), and thus there
> > are no "overrides" except the ultimate one: the right of members to
> > "override" suggestions made to them by other members of the
> > organization.
>
>-M: That is an override. Computers don't change anything.
That is, if the organization suggests that members donate $20 to X
political cause, the members can "override" this and not contribute
anything, or even contribute to an opposing cause.
Yes, computers don't change anything.
> >AL: The assumption is common that a system is either one or the
> other. Delegable Proxy (DP), however, could be both.
>
>-M: "Both" - OK, thank you.
>But why would it be anything but *both*?
Well, a DP system can prohibit direct voting except by qualified
members, according to some qualification. That's not DD, it is only
RD, though it is an advance over traditional RD because of the free
choice of proxies, as distinct from the election of proxies in a
contest. DP, however, is, by definition, RD. A proxy is a representative.
> >AL: [...] FAs don't concentrate power, which is what protects them
> from falling
> > into the oligarchical traps.
>
>-M: Then they are just discussion forums, correct?
You could say that. However, the *members* have power, which they can
decide to apply based on what they discover through the discussions.
Add to this, DP, and the process becomes efficient. Not everyone must
sit through the seemingly endless discussions that it can take to
find a working consensus, and, because the number of people actually
taking part is reduced -- and, we think, *drastically* reduced --
those discussions themselves become more fluid, more rapidly
converging on agreement. It is much easier for small groups to find
consensus than for large groups.
> >AL: Ah, but members do not delegate any authority to the proxies,
> beyond one.
>
>-M: :-(
This is in an FA. In non-FAs, which control property -- such as a
for-profit corporation, the proxy's decisions are binding.
What most overlook at first is the possible relationship between FAs
and non-FAs. As an example, consider the group of shareholders of a
large corporation. Each of them has the right to designate a proxy to
exercise their votes (and each has a number of votes equal to the
number of ordinary shares). Generally, as well, each of them has the
right to attend the annual meeting and vote directly, by the way.
It is probably not going to happen that the corporation itself will
revise its rules to allow Delegable Proxy.
However, there is nothing but inertia to prevent the shareholders
from organizing independently. They could form an FA/DP organization
which would consider shareholder interests, and then the FA, through
the DP structure, could recommend actual corporate proxies to be
named in the formal, legal (and binding) process.
The FA/DP organization does not make binding decisions. Each
shareholder makes that decision when assigning real corporate
proxies. I do believe that shareholders could delegate the right to
name proxies, but this would be legally complex. Much, much simpler
to once a year name a proxy on the form provided by the corporation,
and whether this is as advised by the FA/DP organization, or is done
otherwise, is and must remain completely the right of the member to decide.
But this would be a way for small shareholders to collectively find
trustworthy representation, making them collectively stand on the
same footing as do large institutional shareholders, who typically
hire professional proxies. The shareholders, if they wanted to, could
similarly hire the professionals, or some of them, if it were
convenient, could agree to attend the meeting.
And the FA/DP organization itself does *not* make the
recommendations. The recommendations are made by the proxies
themselves to their clients, back down through the structure. So
there is no need for a binding decision. The FA/DP organization is
"merely" a discussion group. Yes.
>-M: I am not saying that the individual voter would vote for both
>generalists and delegates, but we, the system designers should give the
>voter the option to vote for issues and/or generalists and/or
>delegates.
Perhaps. What I would say is that, in what I propose, they have the
option. This is because I'm proposing direct, more-or-less manual
systems, where anyone can take whatever lists exist (general proxy
lists, special proxy lists, even alternate proxy lists, whatever that
means) and combine them with poll results (which must be open) to
determine expanded vote.
I assume that many tools will be developed to make this quick, but it
would be quick enough manually to be practical unless there were
millions of votes.... and when there are millions of votes, hey, we
can develop whatever we want.
Develop a DP voting system? Fine. But FAs aren't going to have a lot
of money, when they are small. I'm sure we will look at whatever exists....
>-M: The main reason that I want a person with two or more reps is to
>have these chains *fork around* any loops - this ensures that people's
>voting power is conserved by the network as much as possible.
I'm not trying to solve the general DP problem, there is, in my
opinion, far too little experience to know what is and what is not
necessary. I'm interested, mostly, in the likely consequences of a
terminally simple DP structure. The structure with a single proxy,
given that the number of clients is quite variable, is hard enough to
visualize, being a fractal. With two reps ... forget about it. Next
lifetime, maybe.
If we were only talking about voting, fine. That's easy. There are
still questions not so easy to resolve, such as whether or not one
looks first at the secondary proxy of each unrepresented member, in a
vote, or one looks first for the highest secondary proxy -- I won't
bother defining that now --, but I'm sure they can be resolved.
But, to me, DP creates a bidirectional communications structure. The
consequences of adding secondary reps would include a dilution of the
communication responsibility. Is this good or bad? The answer is not
immediately obvious to me.
In an FA, the whole thing becomes much less important. It is easy
enough for *most* members to be represented in a DP poll, even if
there are a few gaps because everyone from a proxy loop failed to
vote. This becomes increasingly unlikely with large loops. It is
quite possible that whatever problem remains could be addressed with
a few secondary proxies assigned at high levels. Essentially, each
loop would advisedly act to ensure that a member of the loop always
votes. (If there are voting restrictions, this becomes more complex,
by the way).
> >AL: The number I've used is 20. But we need actual practice to really
> > know what will work. I don't necessarily agree with the numbers
> > proposed, and in particular, specific delegates, as experts, would,
> > I'd think, be expected to serve for many more people.
>
>-M: A voter would vote for 20 people? I thought your system was single
>proxy.
No, this was misunderstood. The "number" is the average number of
clients that each proxy has. Or the maximum number, or something like
that. I do not advocate, at this time, maximums, but understand that,
in a non-FA context, there could be reasons to limit the number of
direct clients allowed per proxy. That protection isn't needed in FAs.
>-M: With my system the client determines the limits of the proxy by
>voting for him/her or not.
This is because you are designing a fixed software system. I'm
proposing independent analysis, which could include many factors, as
desired by the analyst. It could use the general proxy list, it could
use special proxy lists, it could, yes, use alternate proxy lists
(which could be just another field in the general proxy list), but it
could also use member demographics, for example. It depends on the purpose.
> > >-M: LOL! The lemming metaphor isn't entirely fair to lemmings, but it
> > >does communicate what I am trying to say.
It seems to me that Mark is using the term "lemming" to refer to
aggregative democracy. That is, the decision is generated as the
average opinion of the members. This is distinct from deliberative
democracy, in fact, which has the potential of generating decisions
which are superior to what any member alone would determine.
And deliberative democracy is the only democracy that works, outside
certain special applications. Even some of those work better when a
deliberative element is added, though not without some hazard. The
example I most have in mind is the market as a means of setting prices.
The market, absent manipulation, is an aggregative method of
determining prices. Lemmings. Definitely superior to the
institutionalized opinion of any individual lemming, but not
necessarily the best possible decision. Markets, for one thing, have
trouble dealing with the need for long-term planning. They will often
risk waiting too long in the presence of declining resources, leading
to crashes, especially if the problem is seriously long-term. Most
investors aren't looking beyond ten or twenty years; indeed, most are
working for much shorter-term gain than that.
> >-M: Sounds like rank-based filtering to me. Rank that is determined
>democraticly in a way that is not limited to initial (lemming) inputs.
Yes, it is rank-based filtering, in fact, though rank is not
necessarily formalized by a single criterion. As I've written, each
meeting may determine its own rules, subject to vote by the members
of the meeting. That vote does not bind non-members. In an FA,
indeed, it does not even bind members except in the sense that the
rule they have approved may limit their own access. I'm quite certain
that they will do this when needed, there are plenty of examples.
> > >-M: OK, memes protecting themselves.
>
> >L: Yes. A crucial function, just as controls on mutations are
> crucial. When those controls break down, cancer.
>
>-M: Evolutionary system parallels. :-)
And just the surface of that. DP is to the individual as the nervous
system is to multicellular organisms that communicate only through
touch and diffuse chemical messaging.
> > > >L: People, for the most part, won't give much consideration to new
> > > ideas until they see that they are being accepted by groups of
> > > people, and especially people like them, rather than isolated nut cases.
>
> > >-M: See, they mass together like lemmings instead of letting reason be
> > >their guide. :-(
When you are a lemming, reason is not available as an option. And
when you are a human being and you don't have sufficient information,
nor the time for adequate consideration, true reason is also not
available. Instead, what people follow is intuition. Which can be
much more accurate than incomplete reasoning.
However, it can also be fooled, and particularly by people who study
precisely how to do that.
>-M: Oligarchy(rule by the few) is fine where it is not entrenched. But
>if its not entrenched, and the oligarchs can be replaced by the
>underlings, is it now democracy(rule by the many)?
Oligarchy, where it is fixed, is not true democracy. It is oligarchy
with, perhaps, democratic inputs.
> >L: I suppose that a statistical oligarchy might get around this
> (i.e, the oligarchs are chosen by random process and thus represent
> a cross-section of society), but this would still limit input in an
> unnecessary way.
>
>-M: 'random' - :-(
There are proposals, some decent, an example is DDJ by Warren Smith.
However, DP is far simpler and, I think, would be substantially more
"intelligent." This is because it has a far larger sensorium, it is
less likely to overlook obscure points.
> >L: I have no idea what defines a member as a lemming. It would be a
> > crucial question, not?
>
>-M: Most people are lemmings, so lemmings control direct majorities.
No, they *are* direct majorities. Question is, whom are they following?
In a DP system, they follow their proxies, whom they chose. Ideally,
they know these proxies personally, they have direct communication
with them, direct proxies are not dependent in any way on media.
> >L: In an FA, there is no body or agency with the authority to
> unconditionally define someone as an inferior member. However,
> caucuses or meetings may set their own rules.
>
>-M: No one is innately inferior (except those who are forbidden to
>vote), however they may just not be chosen as representives.
Nobody is forbidden to vote in an FA. Even frauds can vote. Of
course, people are free to compile lists of frauds and use these
lists in analysis.
(FAs that can afford it may have some form of member validation, but
it is really not essential.)
>-M: Lomax is elitist like me!
>See that Emmanuel, Eric and Karl!
Probably not like Mark.... but I don't fully understand Mark's views.
> > Large groups must find a way to
> > manage the flow of information, and this is what delegable proxy is
> > really about. Voting is a detail.
>
>-M: Why not just have the voting structures parallel the communication
>structure?
We do. The communications structure *is* the voting structure. Voting
is simply another kind of communication, reduced in complexity (under
Roberts Rules, it is generally reduced to Yes/No/Abstain in response
to a question).
> >L: The Town of Cummington, Massachusetts, population about 1000,
> would be better off with RD? (You'd be laughed at, proposing it.
> There are problems with Town Meeting, even at that size, but I
> think a proposal to drop Town Meeting for Cummington would fail by a landslide.
>
>-M: They are fond of *particapatory democracy* and would view
>conventional RD as interfering with this - I think so.
>I would give them a FA form of SD2-S where the top ranked would get
>positions in the front of the hall.
I'd simply give them a Free Association, not software based, and the
FA would have no legal standing. But, of course, if most members of
the town belonged to it, it would have negotiated most issues long in
advance of Town Meeting, with a broad back-and-forth, and Town
Meeting might get pretty boring.... but the members would decide who
was going to attend, just to make sure that there was a quorum. They
would already know if there was sufficient reason to expect conflict
at the meeting, and thus more attendance, which I think would be rare.
(At present it can sometimes be difficult to raise a quorum, there
can be a lot of phone calls trying to round up citizens. But when
there is some big issue, the hall can be full.)
>-M: I am critical only of direct votes on issues, and direct votes for
>political proxies who have power over others. With corporate proxies,
>people are making decisions about their *own* money instead of others'
>money - this increased accountability suddenly makes them much more
>intelligent.
"Direct votes on issues," as Mark is considering it, is aggregative
democracy, which is generally avoided. Unfortunately, the initiative
and referendum process is increasingly abused by special interests
who take full advantage of the best media manipulation that money can
buy, to influence voters to vote contrary to their own best interests.
Absolutely, direct voting, just like that, without plenty of
protection, is quite a bad idea. Direct voting, however, is itself a
protection against a government growing to far away from the people.
I just think there is a better way.
In an FA, power is retained by the members, which means that members,
if they are trying to determine political action, are debating how to
spend their own money and their own time. This is not different from
corporate proxies.
Sure, they can *say* that they are going to send money to a cause,
hoping to influence others to send money but not really intending to
send it themselves, but the results will show that this was the case.
A caucus can, indeed, establish a bank account where members vote for
a proposal by sending in the money to fund it. If the proposal
passes, that is, if it gains what is needed, the money is spent for
that purpose. Otherwise it is refunded -- or is held in trust to be
allocated by the member in the future.
(Indeed, a caucus might collect money from members, which members can
then allocate by their votes. But the FA itself would never do this.
-- except that it could provide the tools to allow people to do it.)
Something similar can be done with volunteer labor, it is just not as simple.
> >L: There is no policy, there is only the right of members do pretty much
> > whatever they please (within governing law, of course). [...]
>
>-M: This is just a *communication protocal*. Boring.
Watch.
I think you'll be eating our dust -- unless you join us. However,
you're free to proceed, and what you do might even be useful.
> >L: That's it! If they don't answer, it must mean that I'm right!
>
>-M: Its called 'burden of rejoinder', and those involved in an
>important issue should follow through with established processes of
>exchange - this is what leads to memetic optimization and subsiquent
>socio-cultural evolutionary advancement.
That's right. However, not everyone is so engaged and obligated to
everyone else. What I've seen is that some people argue in such a
complex way that people simply don't know how to answer. They sense
that something is wrong but they can't put their finger on it. Their
silence is not assent, nor is it defeat. It means that you have not
convinced them.
Hey, I experience this all the time....
> >L: Whatever I write about FA/DP is just my opinion.
>
>-M: OK, now does your opinion pass the test of *performative
>consistency*?
>How can someone advocate DD without getting a majority vote for such an
>opinion?
It takes no vote to advocate a position. Voting is a method of
determining results.
If a society is intrinsically non-coercive, that is, if people are
free to leave and have no investment that is lost if they walk, then
such a society can have any form of government or organization and it
is still a democracy of sorts. However, most such organizations have
found it simplest to allow all members the right to participate
directly in decisions, except when problems of scale arise.
What has been missed, in general, is that direct voting has always
been practical even in very large organizations, at least on
occasion. Obviously, there are problems when citizens only have mass
media as a source of information. The structural problem, the noise
problem, only applies to addressing the assembly, not to voting.
In a purely voluntary, non-coercive organization, I submit, members
are going to be quite happy having the *right* to vote, but a means
of avoiding the *necessity* of voting. Unlike non-DP organizations,
not voting under DP does not risk loss of control, ordinarily.
So most people won't vote. Only those who, correctly or otherwise,
believe that they have sufficient information to vote, will actually vote.
> >L: Where that opinion has come to enjoy some kind of consensus or broad
> > agreement, I may use "we," which simply means "me and those who
> > agree," but I have no authority[...]
>
>-M: Do you have authority to speak for yourself?
Yes.
>If not, then you don't have an authoritative opinion.
Not applicable.
>If you do, then this authority should be self-consistent, and you
>should advocate DD only under DD approved conditions.
An assertion, Non erat demonstrandum.
As I explained above, one is free to advocate regardless of any
majority view or vote. How, indeed, could it be prevented, except by
repressive coercion?
I think Mark is searching for something to be right about. He need
not. He's right about plenty of stuff.
>As for FA/DP, you seem to be just making it a communication protocal.
>What is needed are systems for *binding collective action*.
Those systems already exist. They are not what is missing. What is
missing is collective intelligence. Which, in case you haven't
noticed, is about communication.
It would seem that what Mark is seeking is some system that will
automate "binding collective action." Such systems would be, of
course, *extremely* dangerous. I don't advise it.
In fact, the best voting method for making collective decisions is
called Range Voting, qv. And, still, I'd advocate a ratification
vote, afterwards, anyway (Yes/No, shall the result of the election be
accepted?)
And deliberative process can generally come up with much better
results than any election method.
For a system for "binding collective action," try Robert's Rules.
It's going to be hard to beat.
illegale
If yes, how do you precisely find out who is lemming and who is not
lemming? Or is this distinctcion needed at all for SD-2 to work
properly?
BTW, I think you should use concept of aristocracy, not elitism, if I
understand you correctly.
ATB,
Gale
illegale
I registered to your site and now I wonder. What is exact service you
actually offer at that site?
If I understand you correctly, you are offering free networking with
preliminary DP testing.
Is that right? If no, can you actually explain it to me more precisely?
Nevertheless, if I get you right and if you are realy offering
netwoking service, can I ask you what you think about public networking
of current political clusters that are seen on todays net?
IMO, that is the missing chain for any internet cluster to become
politically relevant, motivating people to start exact political
projects based on such infrastructure.
Of course, if I missed the whole point, please do not bother answering
if you find it be off topic.
ATB,
Gale
Mark
>G: Mark. Is your father lemming because he voted for Bush?
-M: This question has been asked before, and yes, he is a lemming.
:-(
>G: If yes, how do you precisely find out who is lemming and who is not
lemming?
-M: Non-lemmingism is best determined by PageRank analysis of voting
structures under SD2 constraints. I have my personal opinions of what a
lemming is, but I am looking for non-lemmingism.
>G: Or is this distinctcion needed at all for SD-2 to work properly?
-M: There is no pre-determination of who is a lemming or not.
Such pre-determination would be arbitrary and would invite abuse.
>G: BTW, I think you should use concept of aristocracy,...
-M: Aristocracy(rule by the best) is etomologicly correct, but the
ruling families have corrupted this word to mean themselves
(convenient, eh?)
>G:...not elitism, if I understand you correctly. ATB, Gale
-M: It is elitism also, however this word has been abused, too.
illegale
Mark wrote:
> >G: Mark. Is your father lemming because he voted for Bush?
>
> -M: This question has been asked before, and yes, he is a lemming.
> :-(
Was he born as a lemming, or he became one? Is that process ireversible
or what?
> >G: If yes, how do you precisely find out who is lemming and who is not
> lemming?
>
> -M: Non-lemmingism is best determined by PageRank analysis of voting
> structures under SD2 constraints. I have my personal opinions of what a
> lemming is, but I am looking for non-lemmingism.
OK.
> >G: Or is this distinctcion needed at all for SD-2 to work properly?
>
> -M: There is no pre-determination of who is a lemming or not.
> Such pre-determination would be arbitrary and would invite abuse.
Nice.
> >G: BTW, I think you should use concept of aristocracy,...
>
> -M: Aristocracy(rule by the best) is etomologicly correct, but the
> ruling families have corrupted this word to mean themselves
> (convenient, eh?)
There is the problem about concept of elite as long as it standts for
rigid group of people, dissabling social balansing. At least, that is
what Ive noticed people thought when I used the same word in
explanations. As long as this word takes many misunderstaingins within,
I am not interested in promoting such, as long as I find it not be too
bright.
There are some other easily recognized concepts that can easily explain
the idea where people actually choose the most trustworthy people of
society to take care over serious matters. You might call it be
elitistic, yet those who are not fine with this very word wont have
anything to say against is, if basic equality standards are set.
And SD2 as I can notice is based on basic eqaulity. So, Mark. Maybe you
should look for further explanations that would penetrate a little bit
better. There is no point to test other peoples prejudies as long as
all of us are full of them and in the same time we can easily move on
with our work.
Or maybe you think that this very word is that much important that
there is no point to promote your concept in any other way?
ATB,
Gale
Jan Kok
>
> Hello Jan Kok.
>
> I registered to your site and now I wonder. What is exact service you
> actually offer at that site?
Saving the world :-)
Thank you for taking the first step toward helping with that!
(The _second_ step is to add your name at
http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org/tiki-index.php?page=Metaparty+proxy+list
and indicate who you would like as your proxy. Perhaps there is
someone else in the top-politics group or in your local group of
friends that you would trust to represent you, if you are too busy to
pay attention to what's going on at Metaparty, or its top-politics
forum. If so, get that person to register at Metaparty, and you can
name him or her as your proxy.)
> If I understand you correctly, you are offering free
"free" as in "freedom" AND "free beer"...
> networking
I.e. helping people communicate. Efficiently, not wasting everyone's
time with "noise". In a way that causes the best ideas to be spread
widely through the network of people.
Metaparty helps people communicate in two ways:
1. It provides several forums and a wiki. Nothing magic there, just
ways of communicating to a potentially large audience of people that
are interested in some topic, such as the Iraq war.
2. There is the proxy list. That list determines who casts votes for
whom, when "whom" doesn't vote directly. (Polls are a kind of
communication.) In addition, when there are so many people
participating in a forum that it becomes too noisy, the posting
privileges may be restricted to those proxies who have more than a
certain number of members in their constituency. Thus the proxy list
helps communication by reducing the number of people who can post
directly to a forum, thus cutting down noise.
Perhaps Metaparty ought to provide a nice, whizzy, easy-to-use polling
feature, but it doesn't, yet. If there are just a few dozen members,
we could do open-ballot voting by just recording or names and votes on
a wiki page.
> with preliminary DP testing.
We're testing the whole FA/DP concept. FA/DP is an organizational
technology, or an organizational model. It's an alternative to
traditional board-controlled organizations.
Abd and I haven't been very aggressive about trying to recruit people
into the Metaparty FA/DP. In fact there are only about six people who
have registered so far. That's not enough people to have anything
really interesting happen.
I'm now trying to get another FA/DP started, the Boston Tea Free
Association, whose purpose is to serve as an advisory group to the
Boston Tea Party (BTP). BTP is a new, libertarian party with about 290
members so far, though only about 30 seem to be actively working to
get the party going. Despite "Boston" in the name, it's really
intended to be a US-wide party.
Anyway, if you have some interest in providing suggestions to or
(hopefully constructive) criticism of the Boston Tea Party, please
join the btpnc-talk Yahoo group and then add yourself to the Proxy
Assignments table in the Database section.
> Is that right? If no, can you actually explain it to me more precisely?
I wasn't 100% sure what you meant, so I added some more explanation
above. I don't know if that was needed or helpful. Feel free to ask
more questions.
By the way, it may seem like I am describing Metaparty several
different ways: i.e. "Saving the world", "helping people communicate",
"trying out FA/DP". I don't think there is any conflict there - those
are just different views of the same organization and its web site.
In a similar way, if you asked, what is the purpose of Ford Motor
Company? there could be many answers: manufacture and sell cars, make
a profit for its shareholders, provide employment for its workers...
> Nevertheless, if I get you right and if you are realy offering
> netwoking service, can I ask you what you think about public networking
> of current political clusters that are seen on todays net?
Again, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean by "public networking"
and "political clusters". There are a _lot_ of "blogs" around, and
many allow members of the public to post essays on them. Some of those
blogs are associated with (on the same web site as) a polictical
action group, a political party, or a political candidate.
Metaparty is the same sort of thing as those blogs, in the sense that
it provides a place for members of the public to get together and
discuss stuff - mainly political stuff.
Metaparty is _different_ from those blogs in that it is an FA/DP,
therefore the organization itself has no political viewpoint (although
the members can have and express any viewpoint they like). This is
explained in more detail in the essay on the front page of
metaparty.beyondpolitics.org . There is a similar discussion about the
differences between an FA/DP and a traditional board-controlled
organization in the first post in the btpnc-talk Yahoo group.
> IMO, that is the missing chain for any internet cluster to become
> politically relevant, motivating people to start exact political
> projects based on such infrastructure.
I'm not sure exactly what "that" refers to in the preceeding sentence.
Also not sure what an "internet cluster" is - maybe just a group of
people that associate with each other on some blog or news group?
> Of course, if I missed the whole point, please do not bother answering
> if you find it be off topic.
Since you seem to be genuinely interested in understanding FA/DP, I'm
happy to try to explain it.
Cheers,
- Jan
> ATB,
> Gale
Mark
> > >G: Mark. Is your father lemming because he voted for Bush?
> > -M: This question has been asked before, and yes, he is a lemming.
> > :-(
>G: Was he born as a lemming, or he became one?
-M: I don't think of children as being *willfully contradictory*, so
I'd say that he became one. People learn to be lemmings by conforming
to other lemmings.
>G: Is that process ireversible or what?
-M: Yes, but it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
the lemmingized worldview that we are given.
> > >G: If yes, how do you precisely find out who is lemming and who is not
> > lemming?
> > -M: Non-lemmingism is best determined by PageRank analysis of voting
> > structures under SD2 constraints. I have my personal opinions of what a
> > lemming is, but I am looking for non-lemmingism.
> OK.
> > >G: Or is this distinctcion needed at all for SD-2 to work properly?
> > -M: There is no pre-determination of who is a lemming or not. Such pre-determination would be arbitrary and would invite abuse.
>G: Nice.
-M: :-)
> > >G: BTW, I think you should use concept of aristocracy,...
> > -M: Aristocracy(rule by the best) is etymologicly correct, but the ruling families have corrupted this word to mean themselves (convenient, eh?)
>G: There is the problem about concept of elite as long as it standts for rigid group of people, dissabling social balansing. At least, that is what Ive noticed people thought when I used the same word in explanations. As long as this word takes many misunderstaingins within, I am not interested in promoting such, as long as I find it not be too bright.
-M: Understood. This word is problematic. But if someone asks if SD2 is
elitist, I will tell the truth and say 'yes'.
>G: There are some other easily recognized concepts that can easily explain the idea where people actually choose the most trustworthy people of society to take care over serious matters. You might call it be elitistic, yet those who are not fine with this very word wont have anything to say against is, if basic equality standards are set.
-M: I have countered opposition by saying that competing systems are
elitist also.
Most reject this without explaination.
>G: And SD2 as I can notice is based on basic eqaulity.
-M: Yes, and I have called SD2 'democratic' from the start.
I even defined democracy.
>G: So, Mark. Maybe you should look for further explanations that would penetrate a little bit better.
-M: I have been at this a while. I may be doing my best.
However if you come up with better explainations, I will use them.
>G: There is no point to test other peoples prejudies as long as all of us are full of them and in the same time we can easily move on with our work. Or maybe you think that this very word is that much important that there is no point to promote your concept in any other way?
-M: The word always emerges. There is no way to hide from it.
Mark
> >of RD.
>L: There are no "overrides," technically, in the simple system I'm
> proposing. Rather, we must understand the uses to which votes are put.
> In an FA, votes don't move power. All FAs do is to deliberate and,
> possibly, to generate consensus. Polls in that context are only
> measures of consensus. In an FA/DP organization, proxy votes are
> presumed to be a kind of measure of what a full vote might look like,
> should the voting members be similarly informed as are the proxies voting.
-M: Still, why are there overrides with how the FA measures consensus?
Why is it 'proxy *OR* voter' instead of 'proxy or, proxy-and-voter'?
You aren't the only one who continuosly dodges this one.
>L: [...] A political action FA, for example, exists to organize political action *without having any institutional bias toward what that action actually will be." It organizes action by facilitating the organization of caucuses (which *can* have a bias or determined position, as well as membership restrictions) which can then act;
> however, members are not bound. If we want to anticipate, through a
> poll, how members will act, so that we can determine if further
> deliberation or negotiation is required or advisable before
> proceeding, I cannot imagine why we would prefer the opinion of a
> proxy to the opinion of a member who had decided to vote directly on
> the issue. The proxy may indeed be better informed, *but the actual
> power will be exercised by the member.* That is, the member will
> write a check to such and such an organization or will cast such and
> such a vote in a public election or will join a demonstration or
> whatever action is being proposed.
> Can members delegate the check-writing power to proxies? Sure they can.
>-M: This seems like an *umbrella* for conventionally organized organizations.
Is this boring, or am I missing something?
>L: It would seem that Mark is considering DP in a governmental context,
> or in a traditional organization which collects property and which
> makes decisions as to the disposition of that property. In such a
> context, there may be reasons, possibly, to disallow direct voting,
-M: The entire history of humanity is reason to disallow direct voting
only.
>L: but only consider the votes of qualified proxies. Which, of course,
> requires a definition of qualified; but a simple one might be that
> the proxy represents a certain minimum number of members.
-M: With SD2-S, a person is a proxy if they get a vote from only *one*
voter, to the entire voting population. Why should it be any other way?
>L: This raises a host of issues and problems, though, which I consider it unnecessary to address and solve at this time. FA/DP organizations, quite simply, don't have those problems. What *obviously* is necessary in an FA/DP organization of sufficient size is restriction on communication at a high level. If everyone can address a top-level meeting, the meeting will be impossibly jammed with traffic. However, each meeting can develop its own rules. Software may be developed that would implement rules automatically, but I prefer to see the rules develop deliberatively, and over time
in connection with actual experience, rather than based on purely
theoretical considerations by programmers, and even by theoreticians
such as myself.
-M: Theory vs experience is the dichotemy?
Maybe it is experience vs. experience-and-theory.
So maybe the most theoreticly advanced software is what should be
developed and tested.
>L: But voting is technically possible no matter what the size of the organization, and I see no reason to restrict it. Given that the right to vote is a given in a very small democratic organization, I would want to know the reason for prohibiting it in a
large one.
-M: You seem do be doing a *logical extention of principles* here.
I like your approach, but think that it is misapplied.
There is no 'right to vote' with small organizations, people simply use
the tool that seems to be the most appropriate.(If you think that there
is philosophical justification for democracy(direct or indirect),
please name the philosopher. (I am not disagreing with democracy, I
just am of the opinion that democracy is just my personal taste.))
>L: It is argued that "ordinary" members don't have the knowledge to properly vote, and certainly this will largely be true. But, in my view, it is up to each member to make that determination.
-M: They should make the determination who should get the direct vote -
this is RD.
This is why SD2-S has RD manditory and DD optional.
Again, why do you have RD only *optional* if you say: "..."ordinary"
members don't have the knowledge to properly vote, and certainly this
will largely be true."?
Shouldn't the voting input constraints be aligned with theory?
>L: [...] The core of DP culture, I expect, will be trust.
-M: The core of *ANY* democratic system, including SD2-S is trust.
>L: Choose a proxy you trust and trust your proxy. If there is an issue where you expect an exception, perhaps the proxy is a great person but isn't reliable when it comes to some particular issue, then pay attention to that issue and vote directly regarding it.
-M: As with SD2-S. The difference here is that I don't allow a DD vote
to override this trust relationship.
>L: As to the subject given this by Mark, "Binding collective action,"
> I'll note that, while I am interested in DP in general, and the right
> of direct vote is not intrinsic to DP, ...
-M: You mean 'the right of direct vote to override proxy vote is not
intrinsic to DP' correct? OK, but don't your 'prefered defaults' have
this override?
[...]
> >-M: That is an override. Computers don't change anything.
> That is, if the organization suggests that members donate $20 to X
> political cause, the members can "override" this and not contribute
> anything, or even contribute to an opposing cause.
> Yes, computers don't change anything.
-M: The override is in how the consensus is measured.
You have the direct vote/poll override of the proxy vote/poll.
Again, why?
> > >AL: The assumption is common that a system is either one or the
> > other. Delegable Proxy (DP), however, could be both.
> >-M: "Both" - OK, thank you.
> >But why would it be anything but *both*?
>L: Well, a DP system can prohibit direct voting except by qualified
> members, according to some qualification.
-M: Why are you now prohibiting DD?
(Are you talking about DP as an umbrella, or your prefered defaults?)
Shouldn't the voter be allowed the direct vote if they want?
>L: That's not DD, it is only RD, though it is an advance over traditional RD because of the free choice of proxies, as distinct from the election of proxies in a contest. DP, however, is, by definition, RD. A proxy is a representative.
-M: OK, so now DP has the *ability* to have the same input constraints
as SD2-S.
But what are you prefered defaults?(When positions are nailed down,
they are easier to work with.) And people had a hard time understanding
the umbrella system of SD2 until I made one with my prefered defaults,
SD2-Smartocracy.
[...]
> >-M: The main reason that I want a person with two or more reps is to
> >have these chains *fork around* any loops - this ensures that people's
> >voting power is conserved by the network as much as possible.
>L: I'm not trying to solve the general DP problem, there is, in my
> opinion, far too little experience to know what is and what is not
> necessary. I'm interested, mostly, in the likely consequences of a
> terminally simple DP structure. The structure with a single proxy,
> given that the number of clients is quite variable, is hard enough to
> visualize, being a fractal. With two reps ... forget about it. Next
> lifetime, maybe.
-M: There are graphing programs out there.
This one is opensource:
http://www.graphviz.org
and has been pathched to a Wiki-like application:
http://pimki.rubyforge.org/
also opensource.
The point being is that we are very close to *extremely advanced*
versions of DP with very transparent endorsement structures and source
code.
>L: If we were only talking about voting, fine. That's easy. There are
> still questions not so easy to resolve, such as whether or not one
> looks first at the secondary proxy of each unrepresented member, in a
> vote, or one looks first for the highest secondary proxy -- I won't
> bother defining that now --, but I'm sure they can be resolved.
-M: What is there to resolve? Social network analysis has been in
existence for decades - and new centrality algorithms such as PageRank
can handle these secondary proxies to an unlimited depth.
>L: But, to me, DP creates a bidirectional communications structure. The
> consequences of adding secondary reps would include a dilution of the
> communication responsibility. Is this good or bad? The answer is not
> immediately obvious to me.
-M: All democratic systems have a bidirectional structure, so you
aren't making a comparison. As for respsosability, in the multilayered
system there still is responsibility, but players could still jump
layers - information would still flow.
This would also be revealling of who are meeting their communication
responsabilities, and who isn't - I opt for the multilayered system.
> In an FA, the whole thing becomes much less important. It is easy
> enough for *most* members to be represented in a DP poll, even if
> there are a few gaps because everyone from a proxy loop failed to
> vote. This becomes increasingly unlikely with large loops. It is
> quite possible that whatever problem remains could be addressed with
> a few secondary proxies assigned at high levels. Essentially, each
> loop would advisedly act to ensure that a member of the loop always
> votes. (If there are voting restrictions, this becomes more complex,
> by the way).
-M: I suspect that you have no understanding of the PageRank algorithm.
Your points are complete *non-issues* with SD2-S.
> > >AL: The number I've used is 20. But we need actual practice to really
> > > know what will work. I don't necessarily agree with the numbers
> > > proposed, and in particular, specific delegates, as experts, would,
> > > I'd think, be expected to serve for many more people.
> >-M: A voter would vote for 20 people? I thought your system was single
> >proxy.
>L: No, this was misunderstood. The "number" is the average number of
> clients that each proxy has. Or the maximum number, or something like
> that. I do not advocate, at this time, maximums, but understand that,
> in a non-FA context, there could be reasons to limit the number of
> direct clients allowed per proxy. That protection isn't needed in FAs.
-M: Painful. I just let a centrality algorithm do all the work.
With SD2-S, proxies and clients would often be both, differentiated
only by rank.
> >-M: With my system the client determines the limits of the proxy by
> >voting for him/her or not.
>L: This is because you are designing a fixed software system.
-M: I an designing both a broad umbrella, and a very flexible program
with theoreticly justified defaults.
>L: I'm proposing independent analysis, which could include many factors, as
> desired by the analyst. It could use the general proxy list, it could
> use special proxy lists, it could, yes, use alternate proxy lists
> (which could be just another field in the general proxy list), but it
> could also use member demographics, for example. It depends on the purpose.
-M: If analysis is all you want, you should study social network
analysis (SNA).
A 'proxy' is the same as an 'affective' data input.
Here are some programs:
http://www.insna.org/INSNA/soft_inf.html
> > > >-M: LOL! The lemming metaphor isn't entirely fair to lemmings, but it
> > > >does communicate what I am trying to say.
>L: It seems to me that Mark is using the term "lemming" to refer to
> aggregative democracy. That is, the decision is generated as the
> average opinion of the members. This is distinct from deliberative
> democracy, in fact, which has the potential of generating decisions
> which are superior to what any member alone would determine.
-M: OK. Democracy:
1. direct
2. representitive
3. participatory
4. augmented
now:
5. deliberative
>L: And deliberative democracy is the only democracy that works, outside
> certain special applications. Even some of those work better when a
> deliberative element is added, though not without some hazard. The
> example I most have in mind is the market as a means of setting prices.
-M: I do have deliberation constraints built into SD2-S.
>L: The market, absent manipulation, is an aggregative method of
> determining prices. Lemmings. Definitely superior to the
> institutionalized opinion of any individual lemming, but not
> necessarily the best possible decision. Markets, for one thing, have
> trouble dealing with the need for long-term planning. They will often
> risk waiting too long in the presence of declining resources, leading
> to crashes, especially if the problem is seriously long-term. Most
> investors aren't looking beyond ten or twenty years; indeed, most are
> working for much shorter-term gain than that.
-M: OK. Good points here, but does it relate?
There are varying degrees of lemmingization, and I say that even a DD
with deliberation is still going to be lemmingized. Even a RD with one
layer of delegation is still to lemmingized.
> > >-M: Sounds like rank-based filtering to me. Rank that is determined
> >democraticly in a way that is not limited to initial (lemming) inputs.
>L: Yes, it is rank-based filtering, in fact, though rank is not necessarily formalized by a single criterion.
-M: If you had rank formalized by criteria, what would it be?
(I am trying to get you to nail something down). This can then be
placed within the context of your umbrella.
> >-M: Evolutionary system parallels. :-)
[...]
>L: And just the surface of that. DP is to the individual as the nervous
> system is to multicellular organisms that communicate only through
> touch and diffuse chemical messaging.
-M: Aren't all democratic systems?
> > > > >L: People, for the most part, won't give much consideration to new
> > > > ideas until they see that they are being accepted by groups of
> > > > people, and especially people like them, rather than isolated nut cases.
> >
> > > >-M: See, they mass together like lemmings instead of letting reason be
> > > >their guide. :-(
>L: When you are a lemming, reason is not available as an option. And
> when you are a human being and you don't have sufficient information,
> nor the time for adequate consideration, true reason is also not
> available. Instead, what people follow is intuition. Which can be
> much more accurate than incomplete reasoning.
-M: Even when intuition is better than incomplete reason for an
immediate individual decision, in an institutional context reason is
still superior:
Q: "You made that decision why? What were your assumptions?"
A: "No reason, it was just my intuition."
WTF good is this response? What can be worked with?
>L: However, it can also be fooled, and particularly by people who study
precisely how to do that.
-M: Which they do study at the Tavistock Institute - they study how to
mass manipulate entire populations.
> >-M: Oligarchy(rule by the few) is fine where it is not entrenched. But
> >if its not entrenched, and the oligarchs can be replaced by the
> >underlings, is it now democracy(rule by the many)?
> Oligarchy, where it is fixed, is not true democracy. It is oligarchy
> with, perhaps, democratic inputs.
-M: We have fixed oligarchy now, with a facade of democracy.
> > >L: I suppose that a statistical oligarchy might get around this
> > (i.e, the oligarchs are chosen by random process and thus represent
> > a cross-section of society), but this would still limit input in an
> > unnecessary way.
> >
> >-M: 'random' - :-(
>L: There are proposals, some decent, an example is DDJ by Warren Smith.
> However, DP is far simpler and, I think, would be substantially more
> "intelligent." This is because it has a far larger sensorium, it is
> less likely to overlook obscure points.
-M: No, more data isn't what is needed.
Is it making the worldviews that are built on the correct assumptions,
decisive.
> > >L: I have no idea what defines a member as a lemming. It would be a
> > > crucial question, not?
> >-M: Most people are lemmings, so lemmings control direct majorities.
> No, they *are* direct majorities. Question is, whom are they following?
-M: They still have the choice of whether to be controlled or not.
So they still are both control direct majorities and are direct
majorities.
> >-M: No one is innately inferior (except those who are forbidden to
> >vote), however they may just not be chosen as representives.
[...]
> >-M: Lomax is elitist like me!
> >See that Emmanuel, Eric and Karl!
>L: Probably not like Mark.... but I don't fully understand Mark's views.
-M: Do you want a benevolent elite to replace a corrupt elite?
If so, then you are an elitist like me.
>L[...]Town Meeting for Cummington would fail by a landslide.
> >-M: They are fond of *particapatory democracy* and would view
> >conventional RD as interfering with this - I think so.
> >I would give them a FA form of SD2-S where the top ranked would get
> >positions in the front of the hall.
>L: I'd simply give them a Free Association, not software based, and the
> FA would have no legal standing.
-M: Then the experts and lemmings may not be well differentiated as
they should be.
More ineffectiveness. :-(
> >-M: I am critical only of direct votes on issues, and direct votes for
> >political proxies who have power over others. With corporate proxies,
> >people are making decisions about their *own* money instead of others'
> >money - this increased accountability suddenly makes them much more
> >intelligent.
>L: "Direct votes on issues," as Mark is considering it, is aggregative
> democracy, which is generally avoided. Unfortunately, the initiative
> and referendum process is increasingly abused by special interests
> who take full advantage of the best media manipulation that money can
> buy, to influence voters to vote contrary to their own best interests.
> Absolutely, direct voting, just like that, without plenty of
> protection, is quite a bad idea. Direct voting, however, is itself a
> protection against a government growing to far away from the people.
> I just think there is a better way.
> In an FA, power is retained by the members,[...]
-M: No power. Its just a communication protocol. :-(
[...]
> >-M: This is just a *communication protocal*. Boring.
> Watch. I think you'll be eating our dust -- unless you join us. However,
> you're free to proceed, and what you do might even be useful.
-M: You are building a following with those who think, because of
psychological reasons, that ineffectiveness is a virtue.
"Come and join our FA love circle!"
I am not against love circles, infact my spiritual tradition has
something called a 'sangham' - a community of seekers, which I
participate with. But with the DP crowd, I see people trying to mix
their spiritual yernings with their political yernings.
With spirituality, people can talk endlessly into the night, and this
isn't a problem.
But with politics, *decisive action by trustworthy people* is what is
needed.
> > >L: That's it! If they don't answer, it must mean that I'm right!
> >-M: Its called 'burden of rejoinder', and those involved in an
> >important issue should follow through with established processes of
> >exchange - this is what leads to memetic optimization and subsiquent
> >socio-cultural evolutionary advancement.
>L: That's right. However, not everyone is so engaged and obligated to
> everyone else.
-M: Peers are obligated to engage in peer-review if the peer-review has
commenced.
>L: What I've seen is that some people argue in such a complex way that people simply don't know how to answer.
-M: I come accross web-spinners.
I simply point out the points that I don't understand.
>L: They sense that something is wrong but they can't put their finger on it.
-M: Then they should request further clarification.
>L:Their silence is not assent, nor is it defeat.
-M: It is their defeat, because they haven't followed the rules.
>L: It means that you have not convinced them.
-M: The goal is to win by the rule structures.
If not, people could simply *not lose* by closing their ears.
The unconvincable can not be convinced, so all that is left are the
rules.
>L: Hey, I experience this all the time....
-M: I know.
And your dodge-monkeys smell almost as bad as my dodge-monkeys.
> > >L: Whatever I write about FA/DP is just my opinion.
> >-M: OK, now does your opinion pass the test of *performative
> >consistency*? How can someone advocate DD without getting a majority vote for such an opinion?
>L: It takes no vote to advocate a position.
-M: OK, but it is still inconsistant.
>L: Voting is a method of determining results.
> If a society is intrinsically non-coercive,...
-M: WTF? What planet?
Society is intrinsically coersive.
If you don't think so, try asking the government for all of your taxes
back.
If they refuse, tell them that you wont pay any more.
>L: that is, if people are free to leave and have no investment that is lost if they walk, then such a society can have any form of government or organization and it
> is still a democracy of sorts. However, most such organizations have
> found it simplest to allow all members the right to participate
> directly in decisions, except when problems of scale arise.
> What has been missed, in general, is that direct voting has always
> been practical even in very large organizations, at least on
> occasion. Obviously, there are problems when citizens only have mass
> media as a source of information. The structural problem, the noise
> problem, only applies to addressing the assembly, not to voting.
> In a purely voluntary, non-coercive organization, I submit, members
> are going to be quite happy having the *right* to vote, but a means
> of avoiding the *necessity* of voting. Unlike non-DP organizations,
> not voting under DP does not risk loss of control, ordinarily.
> So most people won't vote. Only those who, correctly or otherwise,
> believe that they have sufficient information to vote, will actually vote.
-M: Lomax, what is all of this?
What is it supposed to DO?
How is this going to disempower the ruling families?
Is more talking going to suddenly now work?
> > >L: Where that opinion has come to enjoy some kind of consensus or broad
> > > agreement, I may use "we," which simply means "me and those who
> > > agree," but I have no authority[...]
> >If you do, then this authority should be self-consistent, and you
> >should advocate DD only under DD approved conditions.
>L: An assertion, Non erat demonstrandum. As I explained above, one is free to advocate regardless of any majority view or vote.
-M: 'free' - not the issue. The issue is 'logical consistency' - the
idea being is that illogic has not proven to serve humanity. This means
that one should advocate DD only under DD approved conditions.
>L: How, indeed, could it be prevented, except by repressive coercion?
> I think Mark is searching for something to be right about.
-M: Yes, I must be right. The other alternative, wrongness, has not
proven itself at serving humanity.
>L: He need not. He's right about plenty of stuff.
-M: I want myself and others to be right about *everything*.
> >As for FA/DP, you seem to be just making it a communication protocal.
> >What is needed are systems for *binding collective action*.
>L: Those systems already exist. They are not what is missing. What is
> missing is collective intelligence. Which, in case you haven't
> noticed, is about communication.
-M: Another dichotomy:
Collecive action vs. collective intelligence.
How about this:
collective action vs. collective intelligence enabled collective
action.
Notice, collective action isn't the variable, just like RD shouldn't be
the variable in DP inputs.
>L: It would seem that what Mark is seeking is some system that will
> automate "binding collective action." Such systems would be,...
-M: 'would be' - they already are, as with the Diebold voting machines
which gave the Bushmonkey extra votes his 2004 're-election'.
But it is dangerous not because it is automated, but because it is
automated *incorrectly*, such as not having backup paper ballots, and
having propriatary instead of open-source software.
>L:...of course, *extremely* dangerous. I don't advise it.
-M: It matters the security system involved.
>L: [...]And deliberative process can generally come up with much better results than any election method.[...]
-M: About the only election methods that have been tested are based on
the lemming algorithm(vote counting).
MG
I'm glad to see that you regard a fully DD decision to be the perfect
decision!
I'm from the swedish party www.Aktivdemokrati.se, maybe you have seen
my posting here about it (previously called myself Karl).
It would be nice if you had a look at our proposal of democracy system
called AD.
It is a DD system with optional RD (delegates), that can be instantly
taken back if there is an important issue where you wan't to take the
decisions self.
You can look in the international section on our forum or here:
http://top.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/AD
BR/
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Hello, mr Rodrigez!
>I'm glad to see that you regard a fully DD decision to be the perfect
>decision!
I don't. I've seen too many direct democratic decisions that were
seriously deluded. I'm sure I myself have voted against my own
interests more than once. Quite simply, I cannot be sufficiently informed.
>I'm from the swedish party www.Aktivdemokrati.se, maybe you have seen
>my posting here about it (previously called myself Karl).
>It would be nice if you had a look at our proposal of democracy system
>called AD.
>It is a DD system with optional RD (delegates), that can be instantly
>taken back if there is an important issue where you wan't to take the
>decisions self.
Any delegable proxy system that allows direct voting, and in which
voting process is visible, has this feature. All it takes is a direct
vote by the member (citizen, voter). This, in fact, is standard proxy
voting, true wherever proxies are allowed (which is just about
everywhere in business). If you vote, your vote counts. If you don't
vote, and your proxy votes, your proxy has your vote to cast in
addition to any others.
Our systems simply allow members to vote. Proxy votes may or may not
be added in analysis, according to the situation. For example, if a
group meeting in person vote on a motion to turn down the thermostat,
because it is too hot in the room, proxy votes would not be
allowed.... (Under Robert's Rules, that is called a "Question of
Privilege," and it is a Privileged Motion, taking precedence over
just about all other business.)
The AD system as described will not be adequate to address the noise
problem in large assemblies. It does not consider, as far as I have
seen (which may not at all be the whole proposal) how to regulate
debate and discussion, which are *crucial* in deliberative democracy.
Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to deal with this.
The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
constraints, but communication without control built into the system
is far less dangerous.
>You can look in the international section on our forum or here:
>http://top.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/AD
Take a look at http://beyondpolitics.org and http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki
BeyondPolitics is a nonpartisan FA/DP organization, though it is as
yet too small for the DP structure to be significant. In fact, it has
not formally been initiated except in one of the FAs that has been
formed, http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org (?), as well as in one of
the working projects, btpnc...@yahoogroups.com, which is
effectively, so far, a Free Association set up in parallel with a new
political party in the U.S., the Boston Tea Party, an offshoot of the
Libertarian Party (one of the top four parties in the U.S., I think.)
It is not necessary to get permission of the oligarchs to start Free
Associations in connection with any interest group. There is nothing
to stop the people from organizing outside the halls of power except
inertia and the belief that nothing can be done, it's impossible, or,
from a more paranoid position, "they" won't let us....
I see no sign that "they" are trying to stop us. I don't think that
"they" even realize the danger. Indeed, what I'm proposing is *not* a
danger to anyone. Unless it does succeed *and* someone seriously puts
themselves in front of the cautious but massive freight train that it
would become. Free Assocations, essentially, are opposed to nobody.
Their members, however, might be.... But anyone can join an FA,
including the oligarchs and special interests. Indeed, the whole
thing will work best if they do. Otherwise it can get messy.
Mark
>MG wrote:
> >Hello, mr Rodrigez!
> >I'm glad to see that you regard a fully DD decision to be the perfect
> >decision!
>L: I don't.
-M: Agreed, and Rodriguez told me that he has regretted using this
language, this has been attacked by others including myself.
>L: I've seen too many direct democratic decisions that were
> seriously deluded. I'm sure I myself have voted against my own
> interests more than once. Quite simply, I cannot be sufficiently informed.
-M: Righto.
> >I'm from the swedish party www.Aktivdemokrati.se, maybe you have seen
> >my posting here about it (previously called myself Karl).
> >It would be nice if you had a look at our proposal of democracy system
> >called AD. It is a DD system with optional RD (delegates), that can be instantly
> >taken back if there is an important issue where you wan't to take the
> >decisions self.
>L: Any delegable proxy system that allows direct voting, and in which
> voting process is visible, has this feature. All it takes is a direct
> vote by the member (citizen, voter). This, in fact, is standard proxy
> voting, true wherever proxies are allowed (which is just about
> everywhere in business). If you vote, your vote counts. If you don't
> vote, and your proxy votes, your proxy has your vote to cast in
> addition to any others.
-M: With SD2-S, proxies *must* have votes from each voter, while the
voter has the option for a direct vote *also*.
Can anyone explain why these aren't the best defaults possible?
Lomax, what are your prefered defaults?
[...]
>L: Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
> position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to deal with this.
> The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
> it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
> to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
> communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
> constraints, but communication without control built into the system
> is far less dangerous.
-M: Communication protocols are less dangerous, but shouldn't systems
for *binding collective action* be atleast *thought tested*?
I see people here wanting to impliment their systems at a govenment
wide scale, while you, Lomax, simply want a communication protocol. How
about going halfway, and advocationg a system for formal large
organizations?
>L: [...] "they" won't let us.... I see no sign that "they" are trying
to stop us.
-M: That would be too revealing.
>L: I don't think that "they" even realize the danger.
-M: They do lack imagination.
>L: Indeed, what I'm proposing is *not* a danger to anyone.
-M: As long as it is non-binding free-association, it is not a threat
to the positions of the power elite.
>L: Unless it does succeed *and* someone seriously puts
> themselves in front of the cautious but massive freight train that it
> would become. Free Assocations, essentially, are opposed to nobody.
> Their members, however, might be.... But anyone can join an FA,
> including the oligarchs and special interests. Indeed, the whole
> thing will work best if they do. Otherwise it can get messy.
-M: I don't see your 'picture'. Free association has already existed
since the dawn of humanity. If you were to nail this down to how
*specific systems* would evolve under the FA umbrella, we would have
more to work with.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>-M: With SD2-S, proxies *must* have votes from each voter, while the
>voter has the option for a direct vote *also*.
>
>Can anyone explain why these aren't the best defaults possible?
>
>Lomax, what are your prefered defaults?
Understand that we are looking at very simple implementations, not
seriously software-dependent, beyond what tools are routinely
provided, for example, with wikis and mailing lists (say, for the
latter, yahoogroups).
So the default is that members may vote and the vote record shows
what members voted and how.
Then there is a list (or there are lists, more than one) of proxy
assignments. The basic such list consists of one record per member.
Members add their own record when they assign a proxy. The basic
record fields are
Member Handle, Proxy Handle, Acceptance, Comment
Other fields, of course, may be added as needed. In the wiki
implementation, the above is just a text file, an ordinary wiki page,
perhaps with comma-delimited fields. The wiki page history shows who
edited the file if anyone is concerned about a phony member or proxy
assignment.
So, in such a simple system, if there is a poll, members who care to
vote, vote. Proxy analysis is done independently, off-line. It is not
difficult to expand a vote list to add proxy votes for members who
did not vote but who did assign a proxy who voted (or who have a
voting proxy through delegation).
The system does not need to analyze the structure.
However, obviously, a system can do all these things. It can make the
assignment of proxies simpler, it can make sure that the database is
in proper form, etc. It can analyze a proxy list and create a proxy
tree from it, and could, for example, notify members who are in loops
likely to result in loss of representation. (For example, there could
be a list of qualified participants in some forum, and the proxy tree
would be compared with this list and the members of nonrepresented
loops notified, so that, if they so wish, they may shift a proxy
assignment as needed to gain representation.)
So the default, to answer the question directly, is that members vote
directly, assuming that the forum in question allows direct voting by
the member. Proxy votes are added in analysis, to fill in votes for
members who have not voted.
>[...]
> >L: Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
> > position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to
> deal with this.
> > The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
> > it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
> > to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
> > communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
> > constraints, but communication without control built into the system
> > is far less dangerous.
>
>-M: Communication protocols are less dangerous, but shouldn't systems
>for *binding collective action* be atleast *thought tested*?
Sure. However, in doing so, we are to some extent building castles in
the air. We have no experience with delegable proxy systems for
binding action. We have no experience with *formal* delegable proxy
systems that are only for communication. (Informally, of course, DP
is routine. But when it is informal, communication is not reliable
and is effectively unavailable for most people most of the time,
except within their close circles.)
>I see people here wanting to impliment their systems at a govenment
>wide scale, while you, Lomax, simply want a communication protocol. How
>about going halfway, and advocationg a system for formal large
>organizations?
I consider DP, actually, a no-brainer. But it is going to be a *lot*
easier to get it implemented when there is experience with *small*
organizations and with relatively harmless applications. My theory is
that once people see how DP works, they will be much more supportive.
Right now, most people simply don't see the need, even if the need is
almost literally bonking them on the head.
> >L: [...] "they" won't let us.... I see no sign that "they" are trying
>to stop us.
>
>-M: That would be too revealing.
Right. Or "they" don't exist. That is, I'm sure there are
conspirators and cabals, but I'm also sure there is ... systemic
difficulty. I do not know the extent to which systemic difficulty is
the result of conspiracy and the extent to which it is simply the
default state of nature, i.e., that we are not organized outside more
ancient methods. And I think it will be impossible to tell unless and
until we try to set up the newer systems. Either there will be no
opposition, or opposition will appear only when there is some level
of success (which, in my opinion, would be too late to stop this), or
opposition will appear when the cabal notices and considers the time
ripe to crush it.
They aren't going to bother when it is just some airheads talking.
Which is one more reason why we just start with talk. We do *not*
start with a Rage Against the Machine movement, nor with Kill the
Oligarchs speeches. Indeed, what I see is that, historically,
movements that seek to destroy existing structures either fail or, if
they succeed, succeed in changing the faces and not the problem.
Self-serving bureaucrats or cadres replace the landlords, and the
people remain powerless. Except for the cadres, of course.
No, what I'm suggesting is *adding* something, not destroying
anything. I'm not even suggesting changes in law or legal political
structure. What I'm suggesting is, in fact, organizing the people
directly. Once the people are organized, so that they can communicate
coherently on a large scale, *then* it is possible to *consider*
shifts in legal structure.
This is essentially deliberative democracy. Talk, often a lot of
talk, precedes action. FA/DP organizations are structured such that
there is great value and benefit in finding consensus. Without some
kind of consensus, because FAs don't collect power, there is no
collective power. In traditional organizations, a majority, or a
majority of the oligarchs, moves the collected power of the
organization. There is a payoff for "winning." But in FAs, the payoff
is in finding broad agreement, for where broad agreement can be
found, action does not result in division of the organization and
waste of energy in opposition.
So my movement, my effort, is not against anyone. It is not against,
even, George W. Bush. *Personally*, that's another story. But my
personal political opinions are not relevant to FA/DP. It is possible
that at some point we will see active opposition. But we will not
struggle against it, as an organization. As individuals, however, if
someone tries to shut me up.... I tend to get a little resistant....
If someone tries to prevent me from communicating with others of like
mind, I'll fight that with whatever strength I can find, and I would
join with others to fight it. But this is only me and my friends
struggling against direct oppression.
I'm proposing FA/DP for China, and I expect that it could function
well there, without arousing the ire of the government. It would be
used, for example, to organize citizens to support official
government policy regarding environmental protection and
conservation. Sure, there would be those who would dislike this, but
those would actually be those who are unlawfully manipulating the
system for their own benefit, *contrary* to official policy.
Environmental groups in China have quite a bit of success, actually,
according to my reading. They simply help bring public attention to
violations of public policy. They can get into trouble with local
authorities, but then they have the support of the national authorities....
Of course, once people are communicating effectively, using DP, about
one thing, they will have the *ability* to communicate about
others.... but FA/DP organizations avoid controversy *as an
organization.* This does *not* prevent members from acting
independently of the organization, having found the connections and
relationships which make it possible, within the organization.
(The prototypical FA, Alcoholics Anonymous, rigorously avoids taking
any position of controversy, and some have thought that this would
mean that a political FA would be an oxymoron. But a political FA can
exist to facilitate discussion and voluntary "communication,
cooperation, and coordination." Strictly speaking, when it comes to
action, the action is not the action of the FA, and the FA is not
responsible for it. But it has made it possible. AA maintains strict
independence from all "outside organizations," and AA does not
collect property and power. But if, for example, AA members see a
need for an alcoholism treatement center, they quite effectively
collect resources; but they do it through an independent
organization, typically a nonprofit corporation. AA does not endorse
it. But AA members certainly tell each other about it!)
> >L: Indeed, what I'm proposing is *not* a danger to anyone.
>
>-M: As long as it is non-binding free-association, it is not a threat
>to the positions of the power elite.
At least it is not a direct threat. Some would say that it *is* a
threat, but for a member of the power elite to recognize this, he or
she would have to admit that their position is maintained through
oppression, rather than through natural superiority. Most don't think that way.
There have been times and places where the freedom of association
necessary for FAs to function was actively suppressed. Indeed, they
still exist, but most of the world is, in my opinion, safe for this
kind of thing at this time. That the FAs don't advocate revolution is
an important protection.
But, of course, they *are* a revolution. Just not one that seeks to
destroy, unless, of course, the members seek to destroy. I'd suggest
avoiding that, it typically comes to a bad end.
Besides, as they say, if you want to shoot the king, don't miss.
The students in Tienanmen Square, too many of them, wanted to shoot
the king. And they missed. They weren't even close.
My theory is that FA/DP organizations will have the institutional
intelligence to know when and when not to shoot. And mostly, from
what I've seen in history, they won't need to shoot at all. When the
people are ready for change, it can happen quite simply and without
violent disruption. It is premature change which is so dangerous.
> >L: Unless it does succeed *and* someone seriously puts
> > themselves in front of the cautious but massive freight train that it
> > would become. Free Assocations, essentially, are opposed to nobody.
> > Their members, however, might be.... But anyone can join an FA,
> > including the oligarchs and special interests. Indeed, the whole
> > thing will work best if they do. Otherwise it can get messy.
>
>-M: I don't see your 'picture'. Free association has already existed
>since the dawn of humanity. If you were to nail this down to how
>*specific systems* would evolve under the FA umbrella, we would have
>more to work with.
Yes, free association has existed. But it has not been scalable. DP
is the missing link; without it, larger societies, to compete, have
been forced to use oligarchical control systems, and, with these,
they out-competed the small, free tribes. But democracy is showing us
that it can out-compete central control, under the right conditions.
And the systems analysis that shows why is actually pretty obvious.
Distributed intelligence is far more powerful than what one person or
a small group can manage.
So the question boils down to how we facilitate distributed intelligence.
I have a vision of the evolution of the systems that can do this,
starting where we are today, and proceeding through governmental DP.
But it is a broad vision, and, as to details, I'm mostly focusing on
the simplest, readily available implementations. And this is quite hard enough.
The inertia is immense. But, as far as I can see, there is *no*
opposition, just inertia. So steady effort should be expected to
generate progress, and that is what I'm seeing. Quite a bit of
progress, actually, compared to where we were several years ago.
It is quite possible that someone will come up with a specific system
for a specific application that will succeed. I'm interested in all
such. But I'm not putting all my eggs in any one basket. I've only
got one life to dedicate to this, and my focus is on the overall
nature of the systems. I'm working on individual projects as they
come before me, but my basic project is to get people thinking about
the basic problems of democracy, the *structure*, and to lead them to
consider some of the ideas that we have found.
There is *nothing* stopping us but inertia and despair. What I did
not realize until the last few years was how deep that despair is, in
most people.
illegale
> >G: Was he born as a lemming, or he became one?
>
> -M: I don't think of children as being *willfully contradictory*, so
> I'd say that he became one. People learn to be lemmings by conforming
> to other lemmings.
>
> >G: Is that process ireversible or what?
>
> -M: Yes, but it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
> the lemmingized worldview that we are given.
Why do you think your father could benefit by sd2? What I can notice,
your father is fine with Bush. And how many lemmings are actually
running around in percentage? 10%, 30%, 90%?
Can you explain this a little bit better? Am I missing point, actually?
> > > >G: BTW, I think you should use concept of aristocracy,...
>
> > > -M: Aristocracy(rule by the best) is etymologicly correct, but the ruling families have corrupted this word to mean themselves (convenient, eh?)
>
> >G: There is the problem about concept of elite as long as it standts for rigid group of people, dissabling social balansing. At least, that is what Ive noticed people thought when I used the same word in explanations. As long as this word takes many misunderstaingins within, I am not interested in promoting such, as long as I find it not be too bright.
>
> -M: Understood. This word is problematic. But if someone asks if SD2 is
> elitist, I will tell the truth and say 'yes'.
:-) Though, you'll probably need short and aceptable explanation in
order to make affirmation of such "dangerous" thought.
> >G: And SD2 as I can notice is based on basic eqaulity.
>
> -M: Yes, and I have called SD2 'democratic' from the start.
> I even defined democracy.
I missed that post. Do you have a link to show me that?
> >G: So, Mark. Maybe you should look for further explanations that would penetrate a little bit better.
>
> -M: I have been at this a while. I may be doing my best.
> However if you come up with better explainations, I will use them.
Nice.
> >G: There is no point to test other peoples prejudies as long as all of us are full of them and in the same time we can easily move on with our work. Or maybe you think that this very word is that much important that there is no point to promote your concept in any other way?
>
> -M: The word always emerges. There is no way to hide from it.
Yet, no need to focus on it. It might be I am wrong as long as
everything is equal basic definition makes some people stop fighting as
long as they do not see the point of moving on in society that is not
so promosing for any bigger step in this very moment.
When you say you are equal in starting position, yet if you give your
best you will directly benefit, makes pretty strong motivation for
action.
ATB,
Gale
illegale
> On 8/27/06, illegale <geoer...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Jan Kok.
> >
> > I registered to your site and now I wonder. What is exact service you
> > actually offer at that site?
>
> Saving the world :-)
>
> Thank you for taking the first step toward helping with that!
=)
> (The _second_ step is to add your name at
> http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org/tiki-index.php?page=Metaparty+proxy+list
> and indicate who you would like as your proxy. Perhaps there is
> someone else in the top-politics group or in your local group of
> friends that you would trust to represent you, if you are too busy to
> pay attention to what's going on at Metaparty, or its top-politics
> forum. If so, get that person to register at Metaparty, and you can
> name him or her as your proxy.)
OK. You are offering public proxy service that has no exact consequence
in this very time, but trust in global vision. That is not good in the
world that seriously lacks in global enthusiasm that you need for such
step. That is what I see to be weak chain of the project.
Though, there is some thought that could make this process more
interesting by making it actually has consequence.
For an example, you choose information filters from your proxies. In
that way you get better info processing based on DPs actually. DP in
this very moment are editors. If there comes time for exact political
actions, these structures might get new dimensions feeded by exact and
touchy interests of participants.
Nevertheless, there is some discussion about old project (we did not
get money for it so we continued learning) called project forum.hr on
opendemocracy.org:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=82&threadID=41641&messageID=42090
if you eventually going to need some more info for better
understainding about filters and other political terminology I use.
> > If I understand you correctly, you are offering free
>
> "free" as in "freedom" AND "free beer"...
>
> > networking
>
> I.e. helping people communicate. Efficiently, not wasting everyone's
> time with "noise". In a way that causes the best ideas to be spread
> widely through the network of people.
Nice.
> Metaparty helps people communicate in two ways:
> 1. It provides several forums and a wiki. Nothing magic there, just
> ways of communicating to a potentially large audience of people that
> are interested in some topic, such as the Iraq war.
OK. That is the product we already have.
> 2. There is the proxy list. That list determines who casts votes for
> whom, when "whom" doesn't vote directly. (Polls are a kind of
> communication.) In addition, when there are so many people
> participating in a forum that it becomes too noisy, the posting
> privileges may be restricted to those proxies who have more than a
> certain number of members in their constituency. Thus the proxy list
> helps communication by reducing the number of people who can post
> directly to a forum, thus cutting down noise.
Hmh. Quality is hardly gained on the base of quantity beacuse such
process makes lack of information needed for optimisation process. In
other words, what is fine for me, might not be fine for you. By casting
votes through DP some of us will suffer. I am convinced that is not
needed. Actually, that is the point of free networks, with no pyramidal
hierarchy in its root. By casting votes you do that which is not good.
> Perhaps Metaparty ought to provide a nice, whizzy, easy-to-use polling
> feature, but it doesn't, yet. If there are just a few dozen members,
> we could do open-ballot voting by just recording or names and votes on
> a wiki page.
Group of 5 from this list have formal structure for decision making
process suiting for realisation of our political interests. Mark has
offered SD2 (based on PageRanking) that is relatively exact structure
for vote processing on the DP principle.
What I see why I personally was not interested in SD2 was the fact 5 of
us actually do not profit by it. If there where 5 000 members, DPs
could show us pretty fine quality and use I believe that could attract
others for sure.
But I do not believe we might attract others by using things that we
actually do not need. We might only show some faith in that way. But do
we share identical faith?
Magnus is running AD, Emanuel Leparlement, Eric NPSForum, Markus and I
Tiaktiv, Mark is running SD2. Are you willing to give up from Metaparty
and show some faith in any one of these? I am not sure in that. We all
think in pretty simmilar way fighting for our childs and we need to
make progress on that base.
> > with preliminary DP testing.
>
> We're testing the whole FA/DP concept. FA/DP is an organizational
> technology, or an organizational model. It's an alternative to
> traditional board-controlled organizations.
Abd has mentioned AA several times. Do you find that model be te one
you are talking about, or you have wider thought about exploring new
organisational paradigm, where you actually need pioneers?
> Abd and I haven't been very aggressive about trying to recruit people
> into the Metaparty FA/DP. In fact there are only about six people who
> have registered so far. That's not enough people to have anything
> really interesting happen.
We share pretty simmilar problems, indeed.
> I'm now trying to get another FA/DP started, the Boston Tea Free
> Association, whose purpose is to serve as an advisory group to the
> Boston Tea Party (BTP). BTP is a new, libertarian party with about 290
> members so far, though only about 30 seem to be actively working to
> get the party going. Despite "Boston" in the name, it's really
> intended to be a US-wide party.
Are leaders of BTP trustworthy people ready for fully transparent
political process? If not, I am not very sure you will make them
interested in this service as long as such communication channels make
leaders need to be much more carefull and much more serving oriented
which is actually not so popular thing due to regular politicians
motives.
> Anyway, if you have some interest in providing suggestions to or
> (hopefully constructive) criticism of the Boston Tea Party, please
> join the btpnc-talk Yahoo group and then add yourself to the Proxy
> Assignments table in the Database section.
Thank you for offer. I will gladly participate in constructive manner.
> > Is that right? If no, can you actually explain it to me more precisely?
>
> I wasn't 100% sure what you meant, so I added some more explanation
> above. I don't know if that was needed or helpful. Feel free to ask
> more questions.
>
> By the way, it may seem like I am describing Metaparty several
> different ways: i.e. "Saving the world", "helping people communicate",
> "trying out FA/DP". I don't think there is any conflict there - those
> are just different views of the same organization and its web site.
Indeed. Yet, clear focus is good thing for promotion of thought. When
you use many aproaches, observer might think you are not sure in what
you are talking and wanting actually.
> In a similar way, if you asked, what is the purpose of Ford Motor
> Company? there could be many answers: manufacture and sell cars, make
> a profit for its shareholders, provide employment for its workers...
>
> > Nevertheless, if I get you right and if you are realy offering
> > netwoking service, can I ask you what you think about public networking
> > of current political clusters that are seen on todays net?
>
> Again, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean by "public networking"
> and "political clusters".
Instead of using our sites and software solutions etc, that we become
metasite oriented. To find the ways that would connected existing
internet groups (for an example CICDD list connect to democratic
underground in order of helping people find their simmilar thinkers
organising global public network that might start using DPs in order to
function more efficiently.
> There are a _lot_ of "blogs" around, and
> many allow members of the public to post essays on them. Some of those
> blogs are associated with (on the same web site as) a polictical
> action group, a political party, or a political candidate.
Yes.
> Metaparty is the same sort of thing as those blogs, in the sense that
> it provides a place for members of the public to get together and
> discuss stuff - mainly political stuff.
>
> Metaparty is _different_ from those blogs in that it is an FA/DP,
> therefore the organization itself has no political viewpoint (although
> the members can have and express any viewpoint they like). This is
> explained in more detail in the essay on the front page of
> metaparty.beyondpolitics.org . There is a similar discussion about the
> differences between an FA/DP and a traditional board-controlled
> organization in the first post in the btpnc-talk Yahoo group.
Heh. seems to me that metaparty deserves metaaproach to fullfill its
consistency.
> > IMO, that is the missing chain for any internet cluster to become
> > politically relevant, motivating people to start exact political
> > projects based on such infrastructure.
>
> I'm not sure exactly what "that" refers to in the preceeding sentence.
> Also not sure what an "internet cluster" is - maybe just a group of
> people that associate with each other on some blog or news group?
To become politically relevant, you need to get power base which is
generally in public. Though, clusters I am talking about, or better to
say, forums, mailing lists, wikis and other interactive media do not
attract enough people to become politically relevant. By creating
metastructure, by networking of these forums, mailing lists etc, and
anabling better communication protocols, these parts could probably
gain political relevance which makes people understand why to follow
that political way we are promoting.
> > Of course, if I missed the whole point, please do not bother answering
> > if you find it be off topic.
>
> Since you seem to be genuinely interested in understanding FA/DP, I'm
> happy to try to explain it.
Thank you very much,
Gale
Mark
> >voter has the option for a direct vote *also*.
> >
> >Can anyone explain why these aren't the best defaults possible?
> >
> >Lomax, what are your prefered defaults?
>L: Understand that we are looking at very simple implementations, not
> seriously software-dependent, beyond what tools are routinely
> provided, for example, with wikis and mailing lists (say, for the
> latter, yahoogroups).
-M: 'Simple implimentation' - if anyting *revolutionary* was possible,
don't you think it would have been done decades ago?
>L: So the default is that members may vote and the vote record shows
> what members voted and how.
-M: So you have DD defaulting. This is supposed to save the world?
>L: Then there is a list (or there are lists, more than one) of proxy
> assignments. The basic such list consists of one record per member.
> Members add their own record when they assign a proxy. The basic
> record fields are Member Handle, Proxy Handle, Acceptance, Comment
> Other fields, of course, may be added as needed. In the wiki
> implementation,...
-M: 'wiki implimentation' - this is complex software - the world of
possibilities is open here!
>L:...the above is just a text file, an ordinary wiki page, perhaps with comma-delimited fields. The wiki page history shows who edited the file if anyone is concerned about a phony member or proxy assignment. So, in such a simple system,...
-M: Wikis are not simple. They can be *underutilized* in a way that
seems simple to the user, but they are not simple.
My proposal is to use a wiki-based system combined with a complex
centrality algorithm like PageRank to analyse the proxies. This would
be very simple on the user end.
>L:...if there is a poll, members who care to vote, vote. Proxy analysis is done independently, off-line.
-M: Why not have analysis *both* online and off-line?
PageRank analysis with transparency would allow for this.
(reminder: PageRank allows for 1.multiple proxies 2. delegatory loops
3. unlimited delegatory depth.)
>L: It is not difficult to expand a vote list to add proxy votes for members who
> did not vote but who did assign a proxy who voted (or who have a voting proxy through delegation). The system does not need to analyze the structure. However, obviously, a system can do all these things. It can make the assignment of proxies simpler, it can make sure that the database is in proper form, etc. It can analyze a proxy list and create a proxy tree from it, and could, for example, notify members who are in loops likely to result in loss of representation.
-M: 'Loops' - I already said that this isn't a problem with PageRank -
well?
(Your attack that this doesn't allow for independent analysis doesn't
work.)
>L:(For example, there could be a list of qualified participants in some forum, and the proxy tree
> would be compared with this list and the members of nonrepresented
> loops notified, so that, if they so wish, they may shift a proxy
> assignment as needed to gain representation.)
-M: There is no shifting of a proxy assignment bullshit with
SD2-Smartocracy.
People either give proxies or the program gives proxies for them.
I am failing to see any advantages of your system.
>L: So the default, to answer the question directly, is that members vote
> directly, assuming that the forum in question allows direct voting by
> the member. Proxy votes are added in analysis, to fill in votes for
> members who have not voted.
-M: With SD2-S, people who don't vote on an issue simply aren't counted
for that issue.
But their generalist trustees can serve as defaults for others.
> >[...]
> > >L: Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
> > > position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to
> > deal with this.
> > > The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
> > > it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
> > > to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
> > > communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
> > > constraints, but communication without control built into the system
> > > is far less dangerous.
> >-M: Communication protocols are less dangerous, but shouldn't systems
> >for *binding collective action* be atleast *thought tested*?
>L: Sure. However, in doing so, we are to some extent building castles in
> the air. We have no experience with delegable proxy systems for
> binding action. We have no experience with *formal* delegable proxy
> systems that are only for communication. (Informally, of course, DP
> is routine. But when it is informal, communication is not reliable
> and is effectively unavailable for most people most of the time,
> except within their close circles.)
-M: OK, so we need *testing* of formal DP systems for binding action.
Maybe you should rule out FA in favor of this.
> >I see people here wanting to impliment their systems at a govenment
> >wide scale, while you, Lomax, simply want a communication protocol. How
> >about going halfway, and advocationg a system for formal large
> >organizations?
>L: I consider DP, actually, a no-brainer. But it is going to be a *lot*
> easier to get it implemented when there is experience with *small*
> organizations and with relatively harmless applications. My theory is
> that once people see how DP works, they will be much more supportive.
> Right now, most people simply don't see the need, even if the need is
> almost literally bonking them on the head.
-M: They are lemmings who have had their imaginations, concerning
theory, destroyed.
> > >L: [...] "they" won't let us.... I see no sign that "they" are trying
> >to stop us.
> >-M: That would be too revealing.
>L: Right. Or "they" don't exist. That is, I'm sure there are
> conspirators and cabals,...
-M: Ever hear of the British Empire?
You should read Carroll Quigley's "Anglo-American Establishment".
>L: ...but I'm also sure there is ... systemic difficulty.
-M: Empires *always* have systemic difficulty, this is why they
*always* fall.
>L: I do not know the extent to which systemic difficulty is the result of conspiracy and the extent to which it is simply the default state of nature, i.e., that we are not organized outside more ancient methods.
-M: Empire is an ancient method, and republicanism is much more
advanced.
Empire is just entrenchment feeding on itself.
>L: And I think it will be impossible to tell unless and until we try to set up the newer systems. Either there will be no opposition, or opposition will appear only when there is some level
of success (which, in my opinion, would be too late to stop this),...
-M: They don't understand theory, so they simply look for success.
Yes, it would be far too late. :-)
>L:...or opposition will appear when the cabal notices and considers the time
> ripe to crush it. They aren't going to bother when it is just some airheads talking.
> Which is one more reason why we just start with talk.
-M: What is needed is open-source software that can be used by *all*
medium and large organizations.
>L: We do *not* start with a Rage Against the Machine movement, nor with Kill the Oligarchs speeches. Indeed, what I see is that, historically, movements that seek to destroy existing structures either fail or, if they succeed, succeed in changing the faces and not the problem.
-M: Those are lemming-populists, not republicans.
They suck. They are wussies.
>L: Self-serving bureaucrats or cadres replace the landlords, and the
> people remain powerless. Except for the cadres, of course.
> No, what I'm suggesting is *adding* something, not destroying
> anything.
-M: :-)
>L: I'm not even suggesting changes in law or legal political
> structure. What I'm suggesting is, in fact, organizing the people
> directly. Once the people are organized, so that they can communicate
> coherently on a large scale, *then* it is possible to *consider*
> shifts in legal structure.
-M: I'd like to see a political party organized with SD2-S, but I also
am not advocating legal changes. The party would render binding
institutional opinions, so it would not be a FA.
>L: This is essentially deliberative democracy. Talk, often a lot of
> talk, precedes action.
-M: Unnessicary if you have a crack team running the show.
There has already been 2500 yrs of talk.
[...]
> >-M: I don't see your 'picture'. Free association has already existed
> >since the dawn of humanity. If you were to nail this down to how
> >*specific systems* would evolve under the FA umbrella, we would have
> >more to work with.
>
> Yes, free association has existed. But it has not been scalable. DP
> is the missing link; without it, larger societies, to compete, have
> been forced to use oligarchical control systems, and, with these,
> they out-competed the small, free tribes. But democracy is showing us
> that it can out-compete central control,
-M: I always look for false dichomies in people thought:
Democratic vs central control?
Doesn't democracy generate central control?
Or did you mean 'non-democratic central control'?
>L: under the right conditions. And the systems analysis that shows why is actually pretty obvious. Distributed intelligence is far more powerful than what one person or a small group can manage. So the question boils down to how we facilitate distributed intelligence.
-M: OK.
>L: I have a vision of the evolution of the systems that can do this,
> starting where we are today, and proceeding through governmental DP.
> But it is a broad vision, and, as to details, I'm mostly focusing on
> the simplest, readily available implementations. And this is quite hard enough.
> The inertia is immense. But, as far as I can see, there is *no*
> opposition, just inertia.
-M: I am opposed to lemmingized, non-RD defaults.
I am also opposed to non-multiorder-delegation depths.
I support DP as long as it has the correct analysis and defaults.
>L: [...] It is quite possible that someone will come up with a specific system
> for a specific application that will succeed.
-M: For you to market DP, you need a system with your prefered
defaults.
People will ask "What does it do? How does it work?"
If you give a mushy response: "Whatever the system designers/users
want."
They will run away.(This has happened too you frequently, it just isn't
as noticable as them criticizing.)
>L: I'm interested in all such. But I'm not putting all my eggs in any one basket. I've only
> got one life to dedicate to this, and my focus is on the overall nature of the systems. I'm working on individual projects as they come before me, but my basic project is to get people thinking about the basic problems of democracy, the *structure*,...
-M: Democracy has two parts:
1. Input field - this has to be available to >50% for me to consider it
'democracy'
2. centrality algorithm - counting/in-degree is the most popular
method, but this limits the delegatory layers to 0-1 layers.
I like PageRank because of its possibilities, its security, and its
non-arbitrariness.
>L: and to lead them to consider some of the ideas that we have found.
> There is *nothing* stopping us but inertia and despair.
-M: The ignorance to more advanced methods may be limiting you.
You have yet to attack SD2-S.
>L: What I did not realize until the last few years was how deep that despair is, in
most people.
-M: Advanced methods can give hope.
Serge
Pretty new to this forum, tried to read most posts before saying
something so as not to have too much of a delay with the debate. In
light of what is on the group and the projects to which it ties, I have
2 main observations.
a) It seems all the ingredients of what consitutes a suitable
organization to allow a more direct form of democracy coupled to an
efficient deliberative space are pretty much agreed on, albeit with
different takes. These different approaches, when balanced with the
huge step forward that the agreed concept of TOP here is, really don't
seem that significant. I agree with Gale on the need for efforts to
come together one way or another to increase the chances for a viable
and implementable model to come out within a relatively short time of
this discussion.
b) People need to be interested in such a system. Imagining this will
be possible right away on a regional, let alone a national stage is
illusory - one issue among many being that since not everyone has
access to internet, switching to a type of government that requires the
use of such technology would be unconstitutional in most if not all
democratic countries as it violates the right to vote of citizens
(ironic considering the aim of a Transparent Open system). However, it
seems that this isn't completely impossible to implement in smaller
communities, which would constitute the proving ground of the
technology itself as well as a model for nearby communities to be
inspired by and eventually adopt. It is easy to see how a
representative constituency constituted of a majority of towns and
cities would shift towards using a TO system working in similar ways to
town-level systems, but on a larger scale and crucially having the
credibility of previous successful use to be implemented with
confidence at a more significant level. What I am trying to say here is
that the growth of such a new political/organizational paradigm can
only be organic and start at a small level, bar the adoption by a major
party (ie with actual chances of victory) of such a system.
Maybe all this has already been discussed at length, but I would be
curious to know what your thoughts are on how the systems discussed
here could be implemented.
Best regards,
Serge
echarp
I agree with you, implementing what we are discussing about on a
national level is, today, a fantasy. The one part where we could have
any importance is the local level, the groups of free individuals who
just decide to assemble and to do whatever they want to on a small
scale.
I'm speaking of sporting clubs, associations, neighborhood groups,
worker unions, student organisations, etc...
But to assemble all projects in one, would seem like an impossible step.
If only because some claim themselves as democrats yet only show
contempt and disdain (if not outright insults) for the demos. Then there
are some goals we could try to share and promote.
For example, what is democracy for you? Can it matter on small things
just as well as on the big ones?
There is one process we have almost agreed to use: whenever you want to
give your agreement or disagreement with what someone said, reply with +1
or -1 in the body of your message.
What are your personal interests in democracy, internet, and such
things?
Me, my orientation is one of a tool maker who wants to create a new
medium for group expression. Discussing is thus always good :)
echarp - http://leparlement.org/top-politics
illegale
> Bonjour Gale and everyone,
Hello Serge and welcome to top politics!
> Pretty new to this forum, tried to read most posts before saying
> something so as not to have too much of a delay with the debate. In
> light of what is on the group and the projects to which it ties, I have
> 2 main observations.
>
> a) It seems all the ingredients of what consitutes a suitable
> organization to allow a more direct form of democracy coupled to an
> efficient deliberative space are pretty much agreed on, albeit with
> different takes. These different approaches, when balanced with the
> huge step forward that the agreed concept of TOP here is, really don't
> seem that significant. I agree with Gale on the need for efforts to
> come together one way or another to increase the chances for a viable
> and implementable model to come out within a relatively short time of
> this discussion.
I am very glad we share opinion about current situation.
> b) People need to be interested in such a system. Imagining this will
> be possible right away on a regional, let alone a national stage is
> illusory
Actually, what I can notice is that we are starting new generation of
public persons/opinion makers/ on all levels. Simoultaneously at local
and global, wide public and narrow expert levels.
Though, there are probably some differences among political affirmation
on different
fields of politics. For an example, experts from most narrow fields are
already known in their localities for qualities of them. Though, these
experts if want to become widely acknoledged and respected in public
opinion making need media for connection to public.
On the other way, those who are into global politics have a little bit
more problematic process of acknowledging their fines as long as merits
are relatively harder to establish. So, if we are talking about new TOP
political system, maybe we should even start working on these fields
soon as possible in order to have grown ups in recent future.
- one issue among many being that since not everyone has
> access to internet, switching to a type of government that requires the
> use of such technology would be unconstitutional in most if not all
> democratic countries as it violates the right to vote of citizens
> (ironic considering the aim of a Transparent Open system).
Yes, indeeed. Though, there are current institutions such as political
parties that can work completely TOP even in this very moment. What I
believe is that would be pretty regular and most direct way of progress
towards thrue democracy that does not actually need concept of parties.
BTW, there is an old notice about digital divide. If old
revolutioanirsts where wating for all people become literate to give
chance of secret voting, that would be actually pretty nonsence. In
reality there is only question is something making progress towards our
ideals, or not. If yes, use it.
> However, it
> seems that this isn't completely impossible to implement in smaller
> communities, which would constitute the proving ground of the
> technology itself as well as a model for nearby communities to be
> inspired by and eventually adopt. It is easy to see how a
> representative constituency constituted of a majority of towns and
> cities would shift towards using a TO system working in similar ways to
> town-level systems, but on a larger scale and crucially having the
> credibility of previous successful use to be implemented with
> confidence at a more significant level.
There is my dear friend, a member of social democrats political party.
He tries to implement TOP in party, public forum excatly, yet the whole
structure as long as it is not based on public affirmation, but shallow
marketing is not willing to "wash dirty loundary" /and there is a
plenty of it/ in public which is actually TOP principe based on long
term benefit.
When we talk about local entities, such as towns and cities, in Croatia
there is a problem with exact people who would wish to work in that
way. There is too litle of people willing to share their knowledge
where in the same time holding informations of what is happeining makes
them benefit financially pretty high, or at least on a level of keeping
other people for balls, which is an option they are not willing to use
in this very moment. If there was some global structure or solidarity
or anything that would apreciate new aproach to politics by support,
these little people would much more easier beging workin new way. NGO
sector works in the same way and as long as they are dependent of
foundations that are product of non-TOP politics, they actually have
very big problem daring to move on. There might be only a few amateurs,
but the system need completely new structure.
In Croatia, Tiaktiv is trying to set this infrastructure for TOP
politicians, yet in whole Cro there is maybe 5 who a ready to accept it
right now which is not big number. If there was some bigger level
solidarity which is really easy to set thanks to basic OpenSorce
principle, there would be a great thing for promotion of these 5 who
could actually be fine example of how good this is, if it is of course
:-) Now we decided to move towards World arena, to use full benefit of
these basic principles enabling set of the actually global movement
that actually covers local and global politics.
> What I am trying to say here is
> that the growth of such a new political/organizational paradigm can
> only be organic and start at a small level, bar the adoption by a major
> party (ie with actual chances of victory) of such a system.
OK. I agree there is a small level process as long as this process is
realtively slow as it does not stands myth/illusion propaganda in its
maturing but higly oposite. Yet, this process of affirmation as I
noticed can grow simoultaneously on all levels. For concrete example,
this group TOP-politics is oriented actually to global level and I find
it be highly usefull.
> Maybe all this has already been discussed at length, but I would be
> curious to know what your thoughts are on how the systems discussed
> here could be implemented.
Thank you for being interested in thoughts that where, if iI remember
correctly, actually not being discussed till now.
ATB,
Gale
>
> Best regards,
>
> Serge
Serge
Thanks for the welcoming messages, it's a pleasure to be here.
Emmanuel, I see you're French too, so you'll understand how the current
state of French politics and the looming 2007 presidential election,
which already shows signs of being even more demagogic than the one
before, can make one really tired of the way government and politics
are being allowed to operate. My motivation is therefore that I don't
want to have to vote all my life for demagogic idiots, who may in
addition be corrupt. I am not a programmer though, so I can only help
as a potential user, able only to contribute through critical advice
coming from some general experience in the communication field, as well
as some ideas from readings on political theory, sociology, or
psychology/psychoanalysis.
Psychology can actually be very interesting to gain a better
prospective of what an effective system would need, in particular when
looking at issues of motivation, participation, willingness to commit
thought and time to something. It is a view defended by the humanistic
side of psychoanalysis that depression often comes from an overwhelming
feeling of powerlessness and failure to relate productively with the
world, this feeling itself coming from the failure to reconcile deep
human strivings such as belonging and truth (truth is meant here as an
optimum in which illusions and distortions of reality are as limited as
humanly possible), with the reality of day to day life in our
societies.
This diagnosis can be transposed in political motivation: the main
reason a lot of people have grown to ignore politics is that if they
feel trapped in a the paradox of trying to reconcile their concern for
politics (namely the public decisions affecting their life and
supposedly expressing their views/values) and their lack of avenues to
have any sort of impact. If they persist to feel concerned, they find
themselves in a psychologically untenable position, the outcomes of
which are either rationalization-evasion (these that Mark dismisses as
lemmings), or confrontation (which can take productive forms such as
this forum and TOP projects).
Turning the reasoning around, this means that by allowing constituents
to translate their concern into action, the paradox can be solved. One
can then actually invest oneself intellectually in an issue and be
constructive, without the disheartening feeling of having to headbutt a
wall down before the smallest thing can be achieved. Gale touches this
with the issue of shallowness in the open forum of social-democrat
party in Croatia (if I understood correctly), which comes back to
saying it lacks a purpose in which people may feel confident enough to
commit significant time and effort. The relationship between individual
commitment and effectiveness defines several imperatives for a TOP
system with a chance to successfully induce people to actively
participate:
- It should provide access to information (say it is used for town
government, then all documents available to councilors through local or
national databases should be made available through the system to all
constituents as well in order for decisions to have an optimal
grounding in reality)
- it should allow for effective deliberation (the mechanisms of which
seem to be the center of the discussion here, and which is indeed the
pivotal point of the whole system for it not be too vulnerable to
PR/propaganda/opinion manipulation)
- It should actually wield power and its decisions should be followed
by tangible effects. Issues of security arise at this point, but
avoiding this point for fear of the difficulties that come with it is
in my opinion condemning the overall system to failure.
@Gale / Emmanuel / anyone else here, have you already designed a system
that can be readily deployed and used? (Thinking of a turnkey type of
system here, that only requires installation and some minor adjustments
to be immediately effective)
@ Emmanuel: If assembling projects seems impossible to achieve, then
integrating the most interesting features of each within your own may
be a way of going around that, the idea here being to avoid missing
some valid practical points by having too focused an approach.
As far as definition, democracy is government by the people. That may
be seen as simplistic, but it does capture the essence of the system
without ambiguity. The means by which popular government can be
effective are limited by practical considerations, such as access to
information, and ability/time to process such information - both of
which can be alleviated in part through information technologies.
Democracy is in my opinion of course something that should apply as
well locally, as nationally and internationally (the EU being an
attempt at international democratic cooperation with a lot of things to
improve).
Best regards,
Serge
illegale
> Hi Emmanuel, hi Gale,
>
> Thanks for the welcoming messages, it's a pleasure to be here.
>
> Emmanuel, I see you're French too, so you'll understand how the current
> state of French politics and the looming 2007 presidential election,
> which already shows signs of being even more demagogic than the one
> before, can make one really tired of the way government and politics
> are being allowed to operate. My motivation is therefore that I don't
> want to have to vote all my life for demagogic idiots, who may in
> addition be corrupt. I am not a programmer though, so I can only help
> as a potential user, able only to contribute through critical advice
> coming from some general experience in the communication field, as well
> as some ideas from readings on political theory, sociology, or
> psychology/psychoanalysis.
Very nice :-)
Echarp is working on http://leparlement.org/ . If I understood him
correctly, his next big optimisation of the system are public filters
that any user can create and anyone can subscribe to. With this option,
the major need I can notice might be solved.
Tiaktiv at the another hand has two generation of software development
ideas.
First one idea is (it has another two features, yet we find this be
crucial one):
http://kovach.web.srk.fer.hr/tiaktiv/index.php?mode=projekt_forum&m=forum&jezik=en
Second one is actually definition of requirements for future system;
plus some charts in Croatian only I am affraid:
http://www.tiaktiv.hr/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=4&Itemid=41
In coversation to Echarp, his software fits our requirements, so there
is a chance this might work pretty fine.
> @ Emmanuel: If assembling projects seems impossible to achieve, then
> integrating the most interesting features of each within your own may
> be a way of going around that, the idea here being to avoid missing
> some valid practical points by having too focused an approach.
>
> As far as definition, democracy is government by the people. That may
> be seen as simplistic, but it does capture the essence of the system
> without ambiguity. The means by which popular government can be
> effective are limited by practical considerations, such as access to
> information, and ability/time to process such information - both of
> which can be alleviated in part through information technologies.
> Democracy is in my opinion of course something that should apply as
> well locally, as nationally and internationally (the EU being an
> attempt at international democratic cooperation with a lot of things to
> improve).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Serge
ATB,
Gale
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>-M: 'Simple implimentation' - if anyting *revolutionary* was possible,
>don't you think it would have been done decades ago?
One would think so, yes. However:
(1) Formal Free Associations exist. The first one that I know of that
institutionalized the basic principles was founded about sixty years
ago. That association was fantastically successful, but, by its
nature, it is utterly non-political, it does not concentrate power,
so there is nothing to fight over. (If it concentrated power, it
would have become, indeed, entangled in political controversy, this
is one of the hazards that took down prior efforts. Political
controversies divided people, when power is involved.)
It is common in Alcoholics Anonymous and similar organizations that
members, experiencing what functioning through what might be called a
libertarian consensus can do, wish that this could be extended
outside the realm of personal recovery. But they have not known how to do it.
(2) Proxy voting is old. It's a common law right. It is prohibited in
politics. The reasons have to do with history. It is not done because
it is not done. Again, nobody knows how to implement proxy voting in
politics. There are potential software solutions, but this is a very
new possibility. It did not exist, in practical sense, decades ago.
(3) Delegable Proxy is a *very* new idea, at least as far as any wide
discussion is concerned. DP makes politically-aware FAs possible. The
possibility is *new*.
(4) We know that FA works; that is, FAs work, with amazing success,
to generate a defacto consensus among their members.
(5) We know that proxy voting works. It is standard when control of
property is concerned, but it is not applied in politics, I'd say,
because of fears of populism. In other words, proxy voting increases
the power of the people, and the fear is that demogogues would
collect proxies and use the resulting power toward their own ends,
perceived as harmful by those who currently have a power surplus.
(6) Delegable Proxy has seen almost no practical application. Demoex
implemented DP with software, and the report I have was that DP did
work more or less as expected. However, the software was buggy and DP
was abanadoned. That a few members ended up with most of the proxies
was considered a defect by some (particularly those members). This is
not necessarily a defect in itself; rather, the proxy-client
relationship needs to mature. The Demoex implementation, let me
guess, did not require proxies to accept the proxy. I'd suggest that
if a proxy feels that he or she has too many clients, then he or she
can refuse to accept some of them, can simply say "I'm too busy, I
suggest you choose so-and-so, whom I trust."
The other problem with the Demoex experiment is that it was a power
structure, and it did (does?) not connect well with the existing
structure, which is a deliberative democracy that expects the
participants to be free to vote their conscience. Demoex arranged the
election of a member of the City Council who was pledged to vote as
directed by Demoex. I could have predicted the results. The other
members of the Council were frustrated, dealing with a robot.
(7) Therefore, as far as we know, FA/DP is untried. We cannot know
for certain that it would or would not work if it is untried.
> >L:...if there is a poll, members who care to vote, vote. Proxy
> analysis is done independently, off-line.
>
>-M: Why not have analysis *both* online and off-line?
Indeed. why not? But the system must allow off-line, independent
analysis. The data cannot be locked away for the system to be
invulnerable to corruption. Yes, by all means, let's have on-line analysis.
The other problem with online analysis is that the software is not
perceived as being available. That, of course, may change. I have not
had time to look at what may be available of the work of those
participating here.
DP is not a software problem. It can be implemented without
computers. Having said that, computers and software and the internet
could make things move much more quickly.
>-M: 'Loops' - I already said that this isn't a problem with PageRank -
>well?
>(Your attack that this doesn't allow for independent analysis doesn't
>work.)
It's not an attack. This is not personal. If the system allows for
independent analysis, fine. If it does not, then it's a problem from
my point of view.
>-M: There is no shifting of a proxy assignment bullshit with
>SD2-Smartocracy.
>People either give proxies or the program gives proxies for them.
If I am "given" a proxy, I have a potential relationship with that
person. Not an established and actual relationship.
>I am failing to see any advantages of your system.
Yes.
> >L: So the default, to answer the question directly, is that members vote
> > directly, assuming that the forum in question allows direct voting by
> > the member. Proxy votes are added in analysis, to fill in votes for
> > members who have not voted.
>
>-M: With SD2-S, people who don't vote on an issue simply aren't counted
>for that issue.
Well, duh.
>But their generalist trustees can serve as defaults for others.
"For others?" Is this clearly expressed? I don't find it easy to
reconcile this with the previous statement.
>-M: OK, so we need *testing* of formal DP systems for binding action.
>Maybe you should rule out FA in favor of this.
FA/DP systems do not bind action. However, they generate
recommendations, leaving the action distributed. If a system is shown
to generate recommendations recognized as optimal, for some time,
under increasingly difficult conditions, then the system can begin to
be trusted for the binding of action.
> > Right now, most people simply don't see the need, even if the need is
> > almost literally bonking them on the head.
>
>-M: They are lemmings who have had their imaginations, concerning
>theory, destroyed.
No, they are lemmings, functioning as lemmings have functioned for
eons. Quite well, under the conditions.
>-M: What is needed is open-source software that can be used by *all*
>medium and large organizations.
Yes. I don't say that it is "needed," but it could certainly make
matters easier. However, I'll note that FA/DP is about as easy as
could be imagined (it self-organizes, efficiently, and develops
structures as needed) *if* people would try it. Will they try it
because there is software with bells and whistles and twirly things? Maybe.
However, people are lemmings. Remember. How do you move lemmings?
Think like a lemming, Mark. As long as you hate the lemmings, you
won't be able to do it.
>-M: I'd like to see a political party organized with SD2-S, but I also
>am not advocating legal changes. The party would render binding
>institutional opinions, so it would not be a FA.
Ahem. What is a "binding institutional opinion"? Who is bound? Does
it cause the disbursement of significant funds? Where do the funds come from?
And what happens to my relationship with the organization when a
majority decide to spend money that I contributed for a cause that I detest?
> >L: This is essentially deliberative democracy. Talk, often a lot of
> > talk, precedes action.
>
>-M: Unnessicary if you have a crack team running the show.
>There has already been 2500 yrs of talk.
Not really. Not about deliberative democracy. There has, instead,
been more than 2500 years of trying to choose the "crack team" to run the show.
There has never been a mechanism in place for developing, in a large
society, an uncoerced consensus that is simultaneously fully
deliberative. We have diffuse methods, analogous to chemical
messaging. The human equivalent of lemming behavior, with a little
deliberative activity floating around at the top, not massively multiprocessed.
>-M: I always look for false dichomies in people thought:
>Democratic vs central control?
Rough categories. Yes, there is an opposition there. Modern
democracies generate central control systems, mostly, so the
democratic aspect is cyclical and very, very slow to move power. We
elect our kings, and restrain them with rule of law, but most kings
have learned to work the system, to accomplish what they wish without
breaking the law. Most of the time. They do slip up. In the U.S. we
created a balance of power, a kind of institutional triumvirate, but
it can happen that all three of these institutions end up with a more
or less unified controlling source.
Yes. Centralized control and democracy are not fully compatible. *If*
the centralized control is merely leadership, if the *people* can at
any time change the course of the society, if no member of the
"elite" continues to wield power against the wishes of those who
granted him or her that power, then we have the synthesis, we can
have centralization and democracy. Otherwise, the hysteresis can tear
the society apart. Or simply paralyze it.
>Doesn't democracy generate central control?
>Or did you mean 'non-democratic central control'?
Democracy *may* generate central coordination. You can call that
"control" if you like. It may need to be control, under some
circumstances. Generally, the belief that such control -- call it by
its true name, coercion -- is not necessary or is even wrong is
called libertarianism or anarchism; this is a political view, and, in
my view, it is unproven. However, I take as an ideal freedom from
coercion *when possible*. I have no fixed opinion on how far it is
possible to remove the bounds of coercion, but examples where
societies routinely coerce when there could be a better way do abound.
>-M: I am opposed to lemmingized, non-RD defaults.
You are opposed to the state of nature. Good luck. You might as well
be opposed to the tide coming in. non-RD is what human beings have
when structure is not imposed on them, nor have they developed
structure. Ab initio, what would we do?
What I'm suggesting is that we look at this problem, because we *can*
start anew. FAs, by tradition, start as if there is no imposed
structure. Members of FAs are not governed by the FA. They are free,
constrained only by independent constraints, not by the FA.
They are neurons. They process incoming signals and send outgoing
messages (including "orders" where there are activators such as
muscles or secretory organs) without "orders." They are lemmings,
responding to the activity of the neighbors to which they are
connected and to the chemical environment in which they live (which
includes chemical messages).
Now, human beings can be something else, individually. They can be
free thinkers (relatively), they can be distracted and only react,
and they can be coerced into action. I submit that collective human
action is more likely to be intelligent, to actually be optimized for
collective benefit, if the individuals are free to *think*.
Communication starts to resemble action under some circumstances and
must accordingly be limited, but *ordinarily* freedom of thought and
freedom of communication may coincide.
I am suggesting the general principles of FAs, combined with the
scalable noise filtering of DP, as being appropriate for social
structures that enhance consensus, that are fully deliberative, that
are open to new ideas without being therefore overwhelmed with noise.
When you add power structures to such an FA, you create the potential
for abuse, for special interests to find a way to manipulate the
system. (The biological analogy for these would be cancer, perhaps,
or perhaps we might think of viruses which can convert the machinery
of the cell to their own purposes, i.e., making copies of
themselves.... but I'm not sure this analogy is useful here.)
I recognize, unlike doctrinaire anarchists, that coercion may be
necessary. I'm not terribly interested in the argument, but briefly,
if a lion attacks my family, I'm going to coerce the lion, if I can,
the same is true for other humans. But if I have a choice, in either
case, I'll avoid coercion.
In other words, coercion is legitimate and appropriate if and only if
it is necessary.
Coercion is not ordinarily necessary for communication. And where the
communication process is sufficiently complete, I've seen, the need
for coercion is rare. It will still exist. The FA/DP solution, quite
simply, finesses the coercion problem. It leaves existing power
structures in place, but, in theory, allows them to be intelligently
managed. The FA rigorously abstains from actual control. However, it
*communicates*, not merely to talk for the sake of talking, which is
what happens all too often without DP, but for the very serious
purpose of discovering consensus. I recently saw an edit war on
Wikipedia, with an article that I've taken interest in and have
edited some fair amount. Wikipedia is great, but it has lousy
decision-making mechanisms. It depends on the idea that some kind of
consensus will arise, but a few nut cases can make an article
seriously unstable for an extended time. There are oligarchs who make
their own decisions, which, I've seen, have often been seriously
uninformed, being the application of policy outside a deliberative
consideration of exactly how the policy is being interpreted.
I think our entire concept of government would change if we could
experience FA/DP actually working.
So my project is to encourage the understanding of it, of the need
for it, and also the potential for it to work. This project is not in
conflict with other projects, and I support many different proposed
political reforms, such as reformed election methods to deal with the
glaringly obvious defects that allowed a U.S. President to be elected
by a substantial minority and then proceed to take the U.S. into a
war, likewise opposed by most citizens.
People are lemmings, yes. But we have neither true democracy nor
lemmingism. Lemmingism would not have sent U.S. troops into Iraq, not
without defective control structures that allowed a minority to drive the ship.
>I am also opposed to non-multiorder-delegation depths.
I'm opposed to using complex terminology where simpler suffices. If I
understand this usage, it would mean single-layer proxy, no
delegation. The systems I propose allow delegation, and there is no
structural limit. But analyists *could* decide to implement one.
>I support DP as long as it has the correct analysis and defaults.
If there is a proxy list, anyone can analyze it. Therefore the
"correct analysis and defaults" exist, that is, if anyone at all
knows how to do it and takes the trouble. I do presume that an
organization will set such, that is, defaults. I suspect that the
available tools, in a mature organization, will allow for very
complex analysis. For a power structure, you *must* have "correct
analysis and defaults," that is, these are crucial. In the FA
context, they are not so important, because they do not move power.
The only FA "decisions" that actually move power are those which lead
members to act. The members act individually, but quite possibly with
coordination, even tight coordination. But that coordination is never coerced.
> >L: [...] It is quite possible that someone will come up with a
> specific system
> > for a specific application that will succeed.
>
>-M: For you to market DP, you need a system with your prefered
>defaults.
>People will ask "What does it do? How does it work?"
Sure. Lemmings will ask that. Lemmings won't get it without
substantial explanation, and even substantial explanation, if it
involves reviewing and perhaps revising long-held impressions,
opinions, and prejudices, can leave them unable to understand the
implications. There are a few people to whom I've explained this who
have immediately grasped it, or at least the substance of it. It only
took a few words for these. And others, I could talk all day. They
have an internal dialog saying "No, that wouldn't work because...."
*But* they don't actually say this, they don't confront the issue,
they don't confront me. Instead that thought remains there,
preventing them from thinking proactively. "Hmmm. How *could* this
work? Is there a solution to this problem?" And because they never
confront it, they never come to the point of hearing what might
actually be an "of course" answer.
However, the FA/DP plan does not require more than a very few to *get
it*. Remember, people are lemmings. Get a few of them moving on one
direction, others will follow. So, how can we encourage a few people
to start moving in this direction?
I've been working on this problem for a few years now, I had the
basic FA/DP concepts in line at least five years ago (with FA
experience and the DP concept going back much farther than that). And
what I've seen is very substantial progress. Delegable Proxy is now
on the radar screen of the Election Methods people. It gets serious
discussion. There are now a few people putting in some serious
effort, mostly to discuss the concepts, but a little action beyond
that is taking place.
But right now, discussion *is* the plan. However, there is nothing
specific other than inertia stopping FA/DP organizations from forming
today. For thousands and thousands of specific purposes. Wikipedia
with an FA/DP organization advising the managers would be ... spectacular.
(The control structure for Wikipedia could be DP. But you do then
have the membership definition problem. Solvable in many different
ways, but still a problem. Creating the FA/DP organization would
ensure that the best thinking went into the design of the control structure.)
(But my observation is that existing organizations are *quite*
unwilling to consider FA/DP. The reason is quite obvious, so obvious,
in fact, that I'll leave it as an assertion without explaining why I
think so. It's been called, in other circles, the "Lomax effect,"
because I've described it and a brief term is needed.)
>If you give a mushy response: "Whatever the system designers/users
>want."
>They will run away.(This has happened too you frequently, it just isn't
>as noticable as them criticizing.)
But of course. I do notice, though. I'm engaged in the study of how
the world is responding to these proposals and discussions. As you
can imagine, I'm quite interested....
I assume that the behavior is functional, if frustrating. It is my
task to find a way around it.
And, of course, I receive very many suggestions. "Do this, do that."
But what is actually needed is for someone to say, "Oh, this is
needed, that is needed, I'll do it." I'm already doing what I can,
perhaps more than I should. I do have two businesses and two very
young children, each of them a handful and, yes, I only have two hands.
Of course, if FA/DP existed, it would be relatively easy to insert
new ideas into the stream. They get considered at a low level, by
people chosen from the low level. I'd be filtered by someone I chose,
who would in turn be filtered by someone he chose, etc. The top level
meeting, presumably, is heavily filtered, with privileged
participants. Those participants will lose their position, in an FA,
if they abuse it. They will not merely pass on everything to please
their clients. Rather, they will *discuss* issues with their clients,
and, if they do not pass them on or up, the clients will have an
explanation. And can go to another proxy if they think the first one
is missing the point.... there are countless entry points, but all of
them, before they can drive the top, are filtered.
The filters are people who, in a mature structure, have *rapport*
with their clients. This is what can't be created simply by assigning
proxies. We have suggested that systems might *suggest* proxies to
clients -- though this does create a kind of power center. That is,
it is a point which could be corrupted. Still, I do think the problem
is soluble, there would be a way to provide a default proxy for a
newcomer. Or more than one. Perhaps a list.... and, again, this is,
to my mind, a detail.
*If* you already have an organization with active members, then
theoretically, you'd have a body of people ready and perhaps willing
to serve as proxies. Many writers on this subject seem to assume that
there will be competition for the position of proxy. From my point of
view, being a proxy is work, and the pay is not likely to be good....
In an FA, at least.
And, consider this: if the organization does move power, and thus can
provide power to proxies, you *already* have institutionalized at
least a subtle form of corruption. One which, historically, has
inevitably led to deeper and more serious corruption.
What I ultimately see for society as a whole is a collection of FA/DP
organizations, covering thousands of special interests, perhaps
including at least one very large general-interest FA. Then there
would be governmental structures, business structures, etc., which
may be organized in many different ways. DP would be one of them.
Right now, shareholders in corporations could much more easily secure
their shareholder interests by forming an FA/DP organization of
shareholders. This would then coordinate member power and resources
to provide good information and reliable analysis regarding the
company position and management, and the DP structure would be used
to suggest actual corporate proxies to be named by the members. There
is no need for legal or structural change for the corporation, for a
majority of shareholders already has quite sufficient power. The
problem is that most shareholders don't have time to participate in
managing the corporation, they think that is what the Board is for.
But because they are too small to hire professionals for the job, the
Board and management, typically in bed with each other, end up
watching themselves, and we get Enron, etc. *Collectively* they are
far from too small. They, indeed, have all the marbles, but they are
asleep. FA/DP would allow them to *efficiently* communicate,
cooperate, and coordinate.
Okay, want an application? Design the software for the shareholders
of a corporation to create a shareholder consensus, independent of
the existing corporate structure. Make it extremely easy. And make it
incorruptible.
*Then*, later, perhaps much later, the Board of the corporation could
be a DP council. There are some legal problems, there might have to
be a standing DP Meeting of the shareholders, with authority to elect
and remove Board members, and then a small elected Board with legal
authority and responsibility.
Once again, this is *actually* the existing structure, almost.
Shareholders could make it so in a flash, the legal problems can be
solved. But first you've got to get some experience with this as an
advisory mechanism, I think. Start with control, they won't touch it.
>-M: Democracy has two parts:
>1. Input field - this has to be available to >50% for me to consider it
>'democracy'
Yes. Actually, if the input field is restricted, it is not full
democracy. *Control* can be majoritarian. My position generally is
that the majority retains the *right* of decision, but it is
hazardous to exercise that right on matters of importance, consensus
is *desirable* if attainable. And you won't know if it can be
attained, or the extent to which it can be attained, unless you value
it and seek it, which takes energy.
DP minimizes, we think, the energy.
>2. centrality algorithm - counting/in-degree is the most popular
>method, but this limits the delegatory layers to 0-1 layers.
I don't understand this. One needs, for control, a mechanism to
determine the decision threshhold. Noise control is a form of
control, specific to communication, it is the only major control in
place in an FA/DP organization, and it is decentralized. That is,
there is no centrally-imposed noise control; rather noise control is
distributed through the system. Wherever there is a meeting (and a
top level meeting is just another meeting, it may have started as the
original meeting in some organizations) that meeting determines its
own meeting rules.... again, of course, there can be defaults and
suggested rules, but the *authority* is distributed.
FA/DP, as we have proposed (and have begun to implement) is just a
proxy list. There is no limit to the number of layers created by
assuming that proxies are delegable. The crucial think is just that
assumption: proxies are delegable. One small step....
>I like PageRank because of its possibilities, its security, and its
>non-arbitrariness.
It would be nice to see an explanation of PageRank. I've only the
foggiest idea.
>-M: The ignorance to more advanced methods may be limiting you.
>You have yet to attack SD2-S.
Indeed. Not likely that I will, either.
> >L: What I did not realize until the last few years was how deep
> that despair is, in
>most people.
>
>-M: Advanced methods can give hope.
Not really, not when one realizes that "advanced methods" have
existed for centuries. See the objection that you raised above. Are
Condorcet methods implemented anywhere (if you are going to hold an
election, something which I generally consider an inferior idea,
compared to what is possible, then the Condorcet criterion is pretty
basic. And is not a part of any governmental election system,
anywhere, to my knowledge. And Condorcet was, what, 18th century?
Simply tossing the no-overvoting rule, a matter of deleting one
sentence in state election codes, would drastically reform elections,
allowing third parties a fair opportunity to collect votes without
functioning as spoilers, as happened with Bush in 2000, and, I might
note, happened with Adolf Hitler as well.
There are *many* no-brainers, ways in which existing political
systems could be reformed to salutary effect at little expense and
risk. But, ahem, the Lomax effect....
If a power system distributes power inequitably, and those who have
excess power will lose power if power is redistributed equitably,
those the people of excess power will generally resist change toward
equity, and those people, by the stated conditions, are in a
relatively strong position to effectively block change.
And I've seen this again and again, in business, in political
systems, and in non-profit organizations. It is not necessarily about
greed. Those who resist change toward equity may quite easily believe
that they know what is best. They might even be right. But it doesn't
matter if they are right or not; my observation is that they resist
change no matter what. Only a few see beyond their own power and
control, only a few are willing to recognize that their personal
wisdom is limited.
How many people are there who are happy to see their favorite
candidate in an election win, even if only by some quirk of the
system, rather than by a true majority, or, even better, by some kind
of consensus? We each believe that we know what is best....
The hope that is needed is that there is way around *them*, that is,
the oligarchs. That way is not, per se, advanced methods, though good
methods can certainly help. It is simply the realization that there
*is* a way, and, then, for people to realize that it is actually possible to
Lift a Finger, Change the World.
But, until we lay the foundation, most people will not lift a finger.
Literally.
What does it take to register on the BP web site? What is the cost?
I'll tell you. The cost is a risk that it won't work, that one will
be disappointed once again. The cost is a bit of reflection on the
concept, just enough to think that *maybe* it would work, even if the
possibility is small. The possibility may be small, but so is the investment.
Does it prevent anyone from pursuing other avenues? No.
What it does is to allow us to contact interested people if we,
collectively, so decide. As the trustee, owning the site, I'm quite
firm that we won't barrage people with email. We have yet to do a
general membership mailing (though it is about time, in my opinion).
Does joining signify agreement with our plans? No. Does it require
attention? No.
Certainly our approach may not be the one that succeeds. But if any
of you want to invest hundreds or thousands of hours in developing
political information systems, you are making a much deeper bet. I'd
say, in fact, a riskier one. Especially if you don't connect with
other parallel initiatives.
The first organizations to use DP and DP-like decision systems may
well be FA/DP organizations.... if not, what has it cost you to
become familiar with the concept and to place yourselves so that you
will know if the time is ripe for that....
but suit yourselves!
I'm interested in the work being done by participants here, and,
*when I have time*, I will investigate it further, even if nobody
bothers to write or to contact me with more detailed explanation. I
plan to review the archives of this group, and, again, I simply have
not had time....
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>b) People need to be interested in such a system. Imagining this will
>be possible right away on a regional, let alone a national stage is
>illusory - one issue among many being that since not everyone has
>access to internet, switching to a type of government that requires the
>use of such technology would be unconstitutional in most if not all
>democratic countries as it violates the right to vote of citizens
>(ironic considering the aim of a Transparent Open system). However, it
>seems that this isn't completely impossible to implement in smaller
>communities, which would constitute the proving ground of the
>technology itself as well as a model for nearby communities to be
>inspired by and eventually adopt.
This is exactly our thinking. While it is certainly to dream up and
to design utopian systems, the path from here to there is generally
impossibly steep. One might get lucky, but I wouldn't count on it!
However, thousands of organizations are being formed every day, or
would be formed if it were simpler than it is under current habits.
Any one of these could be a test bed.
A citizen association for a New England Town Meeting town, designed
to improve communication between citizens and town government, which
is already a direct democracy, but which suffers, even in a town of
1000 citizens, from the well-known problems of direct democracy, the
true problems, that appear before the bugaboo of populism, at a
smaller scale. This would be http://cummington.beyondpolitics.org
A parent association for a Waldorf school -- or indeed for the entire
Waldorf parent community. Who is most enthusiastic for this one? Not
parents: board members who realize that their school badly needs
better communication with parents. http://waldorf.beyondpolitics.org
A toe in the political waters with http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org.
There are other initiatives afoot. But none have gained any
organizational momentum. It takes more than a structure to make an
organization work. I could write more, to be sure, about exactly what
it takes, because I've been in positions in the past where, had these
ideas been more developed in my mind, we probably would have ended up
with DP. I was actually national Conference Chair in an FA and,
indeed, much of what I know about power structures (as they function
even in nonprofits) comes from that experience. DP is what was
missing. I'd have been in a position, then, to introduce it.
Again, I have a pretty good idea of what is needed now. And when I
have time, I'll do it. Or someone else will.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>As far as definition, democracy is government by the people. That may
>be seen as simplistic, but it does capture the essence of the system
>without ambiguity.
I'd define democracy as government by consent of the people. Because
it is probably impossible for government to enjoy the consent of
*all* the people, no democracy is complete. But we can consider that
a system is democratic to the degree that those subject to it consent to it.
Thus majoritarian systems are at risk of only being half-democratic,
unless they habitually seek broader consent before exercising
control... and, unfortunately, most existing systems aren't even
truly majoritarian, they effectively are controlled through
minorities with excess power.
It is not the system itself which is democratic, as such, but the
relationship between the system and the people. Does the system
govern the people or do the people govern the system?
In a Free Association context, the answer is very clear: the
association explicitly does not govern the members. FAs avoid
coercion, to the maximum extent possible. A government, as we
generally understand the concept, cannot be an FA. That I'm
advocating FA/DP (Free Association with Delegable Proxy) organization
does not mean -- at all -- that I'm advocating FA/DP *government*.
FA/DP sets up pure communications structures, the only control aspect
to them is information filtering, and the filtering is distributed in
such a way that it everywhere takes place with consent.... FA/DP
organizations are intrinsically democratic. But they are not governments.
Yet they could guide governments, or, more accurately perhaps, they
could advise people as to how to exercise their individual power in a
democracy. It is my view that this would generally be sufficient to
convert even seriously defective democracies into something much more
democratic.
echarp
> association explicitly does not govern the members. FAs avoid
> coercion, to the maximum extent possible. A government, as we
> generally understand the concept, cannot be an FA. That I'm
> advocating FA/DP (Free Association with Delegable Proxy) organization
> does not mean -- at all -- that I'm advocating FA/DP *government*.
> FA/DP sets up pure communications structures, the only control aspect
> to them is information filtering, and the filtering is distributed in
> such a way that it everywhere takes place with consent.... FA/DP
> organizations are intrinsically democratic. But they are not governments.
I agree with you on those points, our current democracies use coercion,
and lots of it. It's a shame.
An online democracy could use a filtering system where no idea is
suppressed, but where the most appreciated one will be able to rise to
the top. Let's use the power of internet!
echarp - http://leparlement.org
Mark
> > >G: Was he born as a lemming, or he became one?
> >
> > -M: I don't think of children as being *willfully contradictory*, so
> > I'd say that he became one. People learn to be lemmings by conforming
> > to other lemmings.
> >
> > >G: Is that process ireversible or what?
> >
> > -M: Yes, but it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
> > the lemmingized worldview that we are given.
>G: Why do you think your father could benefit by sd2?
-M: Better karma.
It would keep him from helping to elect British-agents like G.Bush.
>G: What I can notice, your father is fine with Bush. And how many lemmings are actually running around in percentage? 10%, 30%, 90%?
-M: +90%
>G: Can you explain this a little bit better? Am I missing point, actually?
-M: Have you seen the numerous contradictions that I have caught
Emmanuel with?
Emmanuel is actually rather intelligent, but he has emotional
attachment to his contradictions because they are foundational to his
worldview.
Where did these contradictions come from? Maybe a little from his
parents, but probably not his grandparents.
These contractions have been introduced into Western culture by the
Empire with the explict intent to make the people more ineffectual.
This explains the elite anti-elitism. How would opposition to the
ruling families occur if any leadership would already be elitist and
therefore already bad?
The same for having authority against authority.
Or for having competitive arguements against competitition.
This paralyzes people, and the oligarch's psychological institutes like
the Tavistock Institute know this.
And the oligarchs want people like Emmanuel to fight people like me,
those who bring him the truth.
[...]
> > -M: Understood. This word is problematic. But if someone asks if SD2 is
> > elitist, I will tell the truth and say 'yes'.
> :-) Though, you'll probably need short and aceptable explanation in
> order to make affirmation of such "dangerous" thought.
-M: OK.
> > >G: And SD2 as I can notice is based on basic eqaulity.
> >
> > -M: Yes, and I have called SD2 'democratic' from the start.
> > I even defined democracy.
>G: I missed that post. Do you have a link to show me that?
[...]
> > -M: The word always emerges. There is no way to hide from it.
>G: Yet, no need to focus on it.[...] When you say you are equal in starting position, yet if you give your best you will directly benefit, makes pretty strong motivation for action. ATB, Gale
-M: OK.
Serge
thanks for the links to the tiaktiv info. The way you plan to address
filtering of information through voluntary moderation and the rules
proposed seem quite reasonnable. As for the requirements for the
system, I had seen them in one of your previous posts, and there again
it seems fair. This being said, have you gone beyond setting the
requirements for the second generation of soft? Is there a place where
Emmanuel and yourself have discussed how his soft may serve your own
designs? (have tried to go through the stuff cut and pasted from IRC,
but I am afraid it's a bit unpalatable)
Also, @Gale and Emmanuel, is there any way I could help you practical
ways despite not having programming skills?
Best regards,
Serge
illegale
> Hey,
>
> thanks for the links to the tiaktiv info.
You are welcome.
The way you plan to address
> filtering of information through voluntary moderation and the rules
> proposed seem quite reasonnable. As for the requirements for the
> system, I had seen them in one of your previous posts, and there again
> it seems fair. This being said, have you gone beyond setting the
> requirements for the second generation of soft?
I hope Markus will come to top-politics pretty soon to answer you this
question, as long as that is his part of work. I am not programer, I
could say something that is actually not correct.
> Is there a place where
> Emmanuel and yourself have discussed how his soft may serve your own
> designs? (have tried to go through the stuff cut and pasted from IRC,
> but I am afraid it's a bit unpalatable)
We regularly discuss over this through IRC. If there is some agreement,
there is some weak, but existing tradition to put it to the xwiki. At
definition of requierements I have linked to you, I forgot that the
later version was actually based on concesus of Markus, Emmanuel and
me.
> Also, @Gale and Emmanuel, is there any way I could help you practical
> ways despite not having programming skills?
You can do what I do. Political /setting base for concensus decision
making/ and promotional work. You could even join 5 of us making 6 of
us group. The group is in this very moment sleepy, though it might
change pretty soon as long as we have fullfilled our batteries during
summer time.
ATB,
Gale
PS. Are you part of some organisation already to put it on xwiki pages?
> Best regards,
>
> Serge
Serge
I disagree with your affirmation that the systems have nothing to with
democracy, and that only the relationship of the people to the system
matter. "People governing the system" is somewhat one of the goals and
possiblity of TOP politics. As you note, people, governing the system,
if separate from it do need another system to organize themselves and
that very system needs to be democratic. The FA/DP model you advocate
as this other parallel system is itself a democratic system, which
would in a political context be aiming at making more democratic
existing government processes. But would it be efficient? If millions
demonstrating in the US and worldwide scorn don't change the policies
of a democratic country such as the US, how can you hope people can
alter the way their system works through simply building consensus
while continuing to operate by voting once every so often for reps they
can't really choose?
As you noted, current political structures are not even truly
majoritarian, which says a lot about the possible influence of the
majority. My point is that without a system that empowers people much
more directly (and I emphasize directly), change will remain elusive as
layers of separation in the power structure do allow governments to
stall change required by its constituents. As the process stalls,
people start to lose heart and the momentum necessary for change to
occur starts disolving (may the technique of sitting out protests by
governments, practiced many times over with success, be the proof of
this).
In short, this is why in my opinion teffective power does have to be at
as close a distance from the deliberative space where decisions are
made. This would allow for better and more direct control and
accountability, as well as for people to remain confident in their own
ability to influence things and therefore exert that influence.
Best regards,
Serge
echarp
> This explains the elite anti-elitism. How would opposition to the
> ruling families occur if any leadership would already be elitist and
> therefore already bad?
> The same for having authority against authority.
> Or for having competitive arguements against competitition.
> This paralyzes people, and the oligarch's psychological institutes like
> the Tavistock Institute know this.
>
> And the oligarchs want people like Emmanuel to fight people like me,
> those who bring him the truth.
Lol lol lol
Arrogant and stupid.
What is your background? How can you call yourself a philosopher,
logician, theoretician, while still sprouting such utter stupidities?
Elitist prick who view the rest of the world as lemmings he has to
direct for "their own good".
echarp
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>I agree with you on those points, our current democracies use coercion,
>and lots of it. It's a shame.
Yes. Much of it is unnecessary and counterproductive. But how much of
it *is* necessary? I don't know. Probably some, as I've written.
Coercion, however, should be a last resort, not routine. And it is
far too often routine.
The government here, like many, attempts to control driving speed by
setting up speed limits, posting signs, and ticketing and fining
people who drive faster than that. It's a punitive model. Does it
work? Well, it works to collect fines, mostly. Does it lower speeds?
Studies have shown that speed limit signs have little, if any, effect
on actual speeds travelled. To encourage people to slow down, other
measures are necessary. Unfortunately, those other measures are not
as cheap as a speed limit sign, and those other measures would not
result in a steady flow of income from fines.
On the surface, speed limits are about safety and the coercion is
necessary. Underneath, however, they are about the *appearance* of an
*attempt* to make driving safer, which satisfies a public which does
not know about those studies, and they are about vested interests
that benefit from the enforcement system.
So how *do* you increase safety? Well, there are already laws against
driving at an unsafe speed. It is just that this is harder to
prosecute. Speed limits, by law, are supposed to be set by a traffic
study, which measures the speed at which people actually travel. The
speed limit would generally be set, in the NTSA rules, at the next
increment of 5 miles per hour above the 85th percentile speed. Many,
if not most, speed limit signs are actually set far below that, and
are, in my opinion, technically unenforceable here. But most people
don't know that. Those few who do fight the tickets, and almost
invariably end up with no conviction, unless they truly *were*
speeding, i.e., driving unsafely. I've searched for case law on the
point. There is none. It appears that no case has made it to an
appeals court, where a published judgement that could become
precedent would be entered. I find that quite odd. Except that I've
contested three speeding tickets in my state. In one, a magistrate
found me "responsible," that's the term here, so I appealed to an
actual judge, where the rules of evidence apply, unlike the informal
hearing before a magistrate. The officer did not appear to testify,
so case dismissed. In the next, the ticket disappeared, case
dismissed. In the next, the officer representing the police
department before the magistrate did not show up, case dismissed.
No, to increase safety means designing roads that are safer. It means
putting in traffic control devices that actually work to slow people
down, instead of relying on punishment. It is as if society were
using the old pedagogical methods. Teach through punishment. A strong
parent *guides* the child to socialized behavior. If the child
misbehaves, such a parent assumes that there is more parenting to do,
that additional guidance is needed, and the parent takes
responsibility for providing it. Not punishment, though natural
consequences can be quite painful. Children understand them, and they
understand protective restraint.
If drivers knew the real situation with speeding tickets, the system
would collapse. It depends on people not contesting them. This kind
of situation would not be stable in an FA/DP world, for the people
would know. Entirely aside from their ability to effect legislative changes.
>An online democracy could use a filtering system where no idea is
>suppressed, but where the most appreciated one will be able to rise to
>the top. Let's use the power of internet!
That's right. But don't limit the thinking to the internet. The
internet is a tool that could function in these ways, but the concept
of DP filtering does not depend on the internet. It could be -- in
many cases it might better be -- face-to-face meetings.
DP filtering does not suppress ideas, per se; rather it provides
channels with maximized rapport for them to be considered, without
overwhelming any node with traffic. It really is just people talking
with people, but with a structure formalized so that something can
happen a little faster and more thoroughly than what already happens
without DP. I think that small shift could have vast implications.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>The FA/DP model you advocate
>as this other parallel system is itself a democratic system, which
>would in a political context be aiming at making more democratic
>existing government processes. But would it be efficient? If millions
>demonstrating in the US and worldwide scorn don't change the policies
>of a democratic country such as the US, how can you hope people can
>alter the way their system works through simply building consensus
>while continuing to operate by voting once every so often for reps they
>can't really choose?
Glad you asked. Going into the streets waving signs trying to
convince others to do something is a demonstration of powerlessness.
Usually. Going into the streets and tearing apart the system, which
happens from time to time, is worse. It changes things, to be sure,
but usually the outcome is not an improvement.
No, if those people who had demonstrated instead contributed the
money they lost by not working and that they spent for expenses to a
fund to be used to accomplish their goals, the U.S., I'd predict,
would not have gone into Iraq.
But to actually do this would require some kind of coordinating
structure. And people don't trust such structures, except in desperation.
The essential problem is the organization of the people. How can
*large* groups of people communicate, cooperate, and coordinate? We
know quite well how to do it with small groups, it is the problem of
scale that is generally recognized as the central problem of
democracy. And FA/DP is an answer, quite specifically. DP deals with
scale. FA deals with the path from here to there. FA does not start
with any institutionalized position beyond that of general agreement
among the members. And it does not freeze itself to that instant of
agreement. FA/DP is essentially a thinking mechanism, an
intelligence. In theory. We have not seen it in action. It is
intelligence which is connected to power, but not through
centralization, rather it is connected through the members. Even a
relatively small FA/DP organization devoted to political issues could
move elections, for the existing system is quite vulnerable to
manipulation by organized groups. Sure, opposition would appear. But
opposing FA/DP organizations actually expand the concept.
>As you noted, current political structures are not even truly
>majoritarian, which says a lot about the possible influence of the
>majority.
The majority has the power, if it is organized. However, the majority
is depending on government to be that organization, so it is
vulnerable to manipulation due to the defective mechanisms that we
know too well.
> My point is that without a system that empowers people much
>more directly (and I emphasize directly),
People in FA/DP organizations would be empowered to move, quickly and
immediately. The FA does not move. But an FA caucus -- basically any
group of members -- can do whatever they please.
>In short, this is why in my opinion teffective power does have to be at
>as close a distance from the deliberative space where decisions are
>made. This would allow for better and more direct control and
>accountability, as well as for people to remain confident in their own
>ability to influence things and therefore exert that influence.
I think you have not completely analyzed the problem. What you are
suggesting would not change the system, for it would attract
corruption. The centralization of power attracts corruption, for it
can operate by manipulating a relatively few nodes.
However, the FA/DP plan, overall, in my vision, does lead to control
mechanisms, but only after maturing, after understanding the limits
and problems in DP democracy. Making it FA at the start is a safety
mechanism to avoid the serious errors manifest in previous attempts
at revolution. The entire Ethiopian intelligentsia supported Mengistu
Haile Maryam's Marxist revolution against Haile Selassie. You think
that, by then, they would have know what it would lead to.
Centralized power corrupts those who control it or who have
privileged access to it. Until a way is found around that, it will
continue to be a problem. Yes, I think there are solutions. But it is
*very* dangerous. DP could be a disaster, implemented without the
proper culture in place, a culture which I expect would grow in the
FA environment.
Serge
Specific answers below, but it's a bit lengthy. I think our main
divergence is on how a system can actually effect change. In my opinion
it requires a critical mass of people participating actively, and this
is itself only possible if they have sufficient motivation/incentive,
ie if they remain convinced that their information and deliberation
efforts are worthwile, ie that they translate into effective action. I
think the points developped in more details are interesting, but it may
be better to try and see if we can address the issue of
participation/motivation first and take it from there.
> Going into the streets and tearing apart the system, which
> happens from time to time, is worse. It changes things, to be sure,
> but usually the outcome is not an improvement.
- The history of the US contradicts this affirmation, as it is a
country that has accessed to a democratic system, however imperfect,
through revolution, and a violent one for that matter. Not to mention
how slavery was abolished (civil war) or the civic rights movements (so
much for the powerlessness of demonstrations). This being said, what I
was trying to ask was how you can think that a purely consultative
structure can have any actual influence, in the light of the lack of
influence of even massive demonstrations of support/opposition for an
issue - which could themselves be seen in your model as the result of a
consensus to show such support/opposition stemming from an FA caucus.
> No, if those people who had demonstrated instead contributed the
> money they lost by not working and that they spent for expenses to a
> fund to be used to accomplish their goals, the U.S., I'd predict,
> would not have gone into Iraq.
- this is speculative, here again I disagree, but I don't think there
are enough elements for either of us to really prove conclusively our
point. An element supporting my disagreement with your analysis is that
a lot of pressure groups were set up, and did receive significant
donations, without making any significant change to the course of the
current administration's policies.
> Even a relatively small FA/DP organization devoted to political issues could
> move elections, for the existing system is quite vulnerable to
> manipulation by organized groups. Sure, opposition would appear. But
> opposing FA/DP organizations actually expand the concept.
- How can a politically active association moving elections, and
therefore with defined views and opinions, be an FA/DP as you define
it? Doesn't it contradict the ideological neutrality principle?
Also, caucuses as you define them seem to be paradoxal. You said a
caucus would be created if a consensus appears in the FA. Which raises
the question of why acting directly on this agreement is not desirable.
Your answer to this seems to be that a caucus guarantees that only
these that actually agree with the outcome of the deliberation invest
time/effort/money in the caucus. But this in turn means not everyone
agreed in the first place with the consensus, and these feeling
strongly against it are likely to create a minority caucus opposing the
first one, thereby making the whole process lose a lot of its
efficiency - not to mention the possibilty of the caucus being
countered by pre-existing lobbies on some issues, and therefore
diluting even further the impact of the agreement that had materialized
in the FA. And you find yourself facing the problem of convincing
people to keep devoting time and efforts to deliberations that turn out
to have little or no consequence.
> However, the FA/DP plan, overall, in my vision, does lead to control
> mechanisms, but only after maturing, after understanding the limits
> and problems in DP democracy. Making it FA at the start is a safety
> mechanism to avoid the serious errors manifest in previous attempts
> at revolution.
I think our divergence here is on the way to mature such a system, I
think of it as an organic growth from local implementation and gradual
progress, and in my understanding you see it more as something that
needs for people to get educated using it first without direct
consequences and then only change it to something which would carry
more influence. It could be argued that one learns better from an
experience with small but practical consequences than from
communicating and only considering consequences in an abstract way
(save for caucuses, in which case there is an actual power being
wielded, with more limited consequences, which goes back to the model
of familiarization with the process I would defend as most effective).
Furthermore, the major flaw of discussion without action resides in the
motivation of people. There are many pressures and demands on one's
time and energy, and in my opinion a structure that doesn't allow for
action to follow individual investment of time and effort will fail in
attracting enough people for it to have any kind of significance.
> I think you have not completely analyzed the problem. What you are
> suggesting would not change the system, for it would attract
> corruption. The centralization of power attracts corruption, for it
> can operate by manipulating a relatively few nodes.
What centralization of power are you referring to? In what I tried to
describe, a decentralized assembly would effectively be taking
decisions through a TOP system, and the power would therefore be as
decentralized as the assembly. An executive commitee (or several - but
not too many for fear of dilution of responsability/accountability)
would only have the role of executing these decisions and reporting
back. Transparency of information allows decentralized scrutiny by
delegates, deliberation moderators, and virtually any constituent and
therefore offers strong safeguards against any temptations by such
executive commitee(s) to act contrary to what has been decided, as any
such action could be very quickly identified and addressed.
long post... Best regards,
Serge
Markus Schatten
On Sunday 03 September 2006 19:19, Serge wrote:
> Bonjour Gale and everyone,
>
> Pretty new to this forum, tried to read most posts before saying
> something so as not to have too much of a delay with the debate. In
> light of what is on the group and the projects to which it ties, I have
> 2 main observations.
>
> a) It seems all the ingredients of what consitutes a suitable
> organization to allow a more direct form of democracy coupled to an
> efficient deliberative space are pretty much agreed on, albeit with
> different takes. These different approaches, when balanced with the
> huge step forward that the agreed concept of TOP here is, really don't
> seem that significant. I agree with Gale on the need for efforts to
> come together one way or another to increase the chances for a viable
> and implementable model to come out within a relatively short time of
> this discussion.
Well I'd like to test the different concepts discused here. An idea I advocate
is to create a system with all the possibilities implemented, and time and
use should cristalize the concept which is nearest to optimal.
Best regards
--
Markus Schatten, dipl. inf.
e-mail: markus....@foi.hr
http://www.tiaktiv.hr
Mark
> > This explains the elite anti-elitism. How would opposition to the
> > ruling families occur if any leadership would already be elitist and
> > therefore already bad?
> > The same for having authority against authority.
> > Or for having competitive arguements against competitition.
> > This paralyzes people, and the oligarch's psychological institutes like
> > the Tavistock Institute know this.
> >
> > And the oligarchs want people like Emmanuel to fight people like me,
> > those who bring him the truth.
>E: [...]What is your background?
-M: I know a lot about the British Empire and their methods.
I would recommend starting with Carroll Quigley's "Anglo-American
Establishment".
Here is another source:
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The True Story Behind the Fall of the House of Windsor , an EIR Special
Report. September, 1997, 218 pp, paperback.
Part I: Includes: The Coming Fall of the House of Windsor --
Reprint of report from October 28, 1994. Prince Phillip's Allgemeine
SS; Who's Who in Prince Phillip's Allgemeine SS ; Prince Philip's
Corporate SS; The '1001 Club' - A Nature Trust; The WWF - Race Science
and World Government; Prince Philip's Friends Ran Get LaRouche Plot;
... World Wide Fund for Nature Commits Genocide in Africa; The African
Parks were Created As A Cover For Destabilization; The Oligarchs Real
Game is Killing Animals and Killing People; ... The WWF Is Out to
Balkanize and Depopulate the Americas; ... Part 2: The Sun Never Sets
On The New British Empire. From Report May 24, 1996. Includes: The
Monarchy -- Powers and Roots; the 'Empire of the Mind' - Tavistock
Brainwashing; The Empire Restored; The Club of the Isles - Raw
Materials Cartels Lock up World Economy; The Anglo-Dutch Corporate
Empire. Part III: Britain's 'Invisible' Empire Unleashes the Dogs of
War. From Report of August 22, 1997. Includes: The Dogs of War - Her
Majesty's Irregular Forces. Africa -- Congo-Zaire: The Dissolution of
the Nation State; London Reaps A Harvest of Death; Australasia - Queen
Elizabeth Runs a Coup: The Case of Papua New Guinea; British Subversion
of the United States - Who Is Wagging Your Neighbor's Tongue? The
Militias and Pentacostalism; IberoAmerica - British Cartels Break Up
Brazil's CVRD, Target Continent's Raw Materials; Mining Laws Favor Raw
Materials Grab; The 'Parks for Peace' Ploy for Bloody Border Wars.
Epilogue: Can the House of Windsor Survive Diana's Death?
Correspondence with Princess Diana; The Crash: Unanswered Questions
Abound; Princess Diana's War With the Windsors - A Chronology; the
Accelerating Fall of the House of Windsor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-M: The article "the 'Empire of the Mind' - Tavistock Brainwashing" is
quite informative.
Here is a related link:
http://www.geocities.com/thomas_rooney2001/Dark.html
>E: How can you call yourself a philosopher, logician, theoretician, while still sprouting such utter stupidities?
-M: Because I am highly advanced, I can spout things that may seem to
be stupidities at first.
>E: [...]who view the rest of the world as lemmings...
-M: Most of the world are lemmings because the oligarch's methods have
been effective.
The lemming state isn't permanent, and can be overcome with the
proliferation of truth.
>E:...he has to direct for "their own good".
-M: Yes, I do wish to help.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Specific answers below, but it's a bit lengthy.
Thanks for responding.
>I think our main
>divergence is on how a system can actually effect change. In my opinion
>it requires a critical mass of people participating actively,
I'll make a qualified agreement to this. To make massive changes
requires a critical mass of people participating. "Active" means
connected. Because of how DP shifts communication and power, "active"
merely means that the member will respond to communication from the
organization coming through their proxy or directly. Delegable Proxy,
in theory, allows a very small number of people, quite possibly, to
coordinate the action of large numbers, without requiring
centralization of power.
This is actually revolutionary, if it works. It has never been done
before on a large scale. It has not even been attempted on more than
the smallest of scales, where it really is a fish bicycle.
The techniques involved, however, are known to work on a small scale.
The missing link to allow it to work large-scale is DP.
> and this
>is itself only possible if they have sufficient motivation/incentive,
>ie if they remain convinced that their information and deliberation
>efforts are worthwile, ie that they translate into effective action.
Yes. Indeed, one major goal of FA/DP is efficient filtering of
information, analysis, and recommendation for action. It is essential
that the relationships in the organization be generally be based on
trust. FA/DP makes this possible, I expect, in a very real way, so
that the large organization needed to effect massive change can
function as if it were a very smart small organization.
> I
>think the points developped in more details are interesting, but it may
>be better to try and see if we can address the issue of
>participation/motivation first and take it from there.
It is extremely difficult to get these kinds of organizations going,
I'd say, simply by pushing for it in the abstract. It is quite
difficult even when there is substantial interest in the subject of
the organization, and when there is even some substantial agreement
as to the desirability of FA/DP concepts. I've been there and I've
done that, and I *am* there and I *am* doing that.
However, organizations are being formed all the time. Sooner or
later, one will try it. It is far too appealing an idea. Many have
agreed with this, but, so far, none of them have been in the right
place at the right time. Except perhaps one, we'll see what comes of
that. This would be the attempt to create an FA/DP organization in
parallel to a new political party in the U.S. It perhaps helps that
this party is being formed by what might be called the doctrinaire
wing of the Libertarian Party. FA/DP theory dovetails perfectly with
libertarian theory (which, to the extent I know and understand it, is
based on the desirability of non-coercive government, though in
practice, and most popularly, this is an anti-tax movement).
The founders of this new party, the Boston Tea Party, do have some
understanding of the concepts, but it remains to be seen how this
will translate into actual structure. Which with an FA/DP
organization, simply means that significant numbers of people appoint
a proxy. We are encouraging *everyone* to appoint a proxy. It doesn't
cost anything and it does not commit resources! And if persons
actually appoint someone they, more or less, trust, they are
performing the critical function, concentrating trust.
> > Going into the streets and tearing apart the system, which
> > happens from time to time, is worse. It changes things, to be sure,
> > but usually the outcome is not an improvement.
>
>- The history of the US contradicts this affirmation, as it is a
>country that has accessed to a democratic system, however imperfect,
>through revolution, and a violent one for that matter.
It is unclear that the outcome of the U.S. revolution was an
improvement. It delayed, for example, the abolition of slavery. The
framers of the Constitution compromised on the issue and simply
attempted to avoid it. However, the system was sufficiently defective
that eventually this failure led to perhaps the bloodiest war in U.S.
history, by some measures, the U.S. Civil war, where half the
country, by force of arms, forced the other half to remain within the
Union, something which was far from clear as being constitutionally
permissible. Indeed, a strong argument could be made that it was an
unconstitutional action.
Lysander Spooner, who is worth reading, by the way, google him if you
are not familiar, was an abolitionist, strongly opposed to slavery.
But he also opposed the Civil War, unlike many other abolitionists,
because it was coercive. He'd have focused, I think, on measures that
did not involve collective violence.
The U.S. revolution was democratic within certain boundaries. If you
were a Tory, i.e., loyal to the Crown, you became an outcast and a
refugee, even if you abstained from violent action against the new
government. If you were are woman, or a slave, or held insufficient
property, your rights were strongly circumscribed. Was it an
improvement? Well, what would have happened if the revolution had not
taken place?
It is hard to say. One fairly clear outcome would probably have been
an earlier abolition of slavery. And had the revolution here actually
be thoroughly democratic, had advanced libertarian theory been
available, the U.S. model might have become one that the world could
have successfully imitated. Other countries that have tried to
imitate the U.S. system have often miserably failed. In my opinion,
even here, it is dangerously unstable, though there are also powerful
social forces that, hopefully, will continue to prevent the more
serious consequences from taking place. The world, though, is
experiencing the damage that can be done when a faction manages to
gain a functional majority within a party which represents roughly
half the population. One has the country being driven by
one-quarter.... When such power shifts go deep enough and are
sustained long enough, it starts to get even harder to reverse them;
for example, it becomes more possible for the electoral system to be
manipulated, both legally and illegally. It is perfectly legal for
Florida to outlaw voting by people convicted of a felon in any state,
and it is legal for the election authorities to hire a firm to
compare registration lists to lists of felons, which people are then
dumped from the election rolls without hearing or time for appeal,
and that this just happens to impact Democratic voters more than
Republican, well, tough. It's legal, unless an illegal motive can be
*proven*, which can be quite difficult. And even then, the damage has
been done and can't be undone, so the operatives simply move to
another technique.
> Not to mention
>how slavery was abolished (civil war)
You really ought to read the history in more detail, and you also
ought to consider the condition of the former slaves after the war.
They ended up in a situation legally superior but without actual
resources or improvements. Was it better? For some, yes. For others, no.
> or the civic rights movements (so
>much for the powerlessness of demonstrations).
I've never said that demonstrations were powerless. The kind of
demonstrations we saw, here, about the war, were "expressions of
powerlessness." They had no teeth that would impress Mr. Bush. He
already was not supported by that constituency, for the most part. He
lost little support or power by snubbing them.
The civil rights movement not only ran demonstrations, were ways in
which they made themselves visible to their own communities, but they
also organized boycotts. Boycotts were quite effective. Boycotts
represented collective power, exerted in a coordinated way. It is one
tool that FAs could use (or, again, more accurately, an FA caucus.)
One of the problems with some boycott movements I've seen is that
they were essentially chain letters. There was no mechanism for
*stopping* the boycott, no coherent structure. And therefore nobody
for the target of the boycott to negotiate with.
What is missing, I'll keep telling you, is FA/DP. There are reasons
for each half of this combination. Together, it's never been tried,
at least not to my knowledge. I'd love to be wrong about that!
> This being said, what I
>was trying to ask was how you can think that a purely consultative
>structure can have any actual influence, in the light of the lack of
>influence of even massive demonstrations of support/opposition for an
>issue - which could themselves be seen in your model as the result of a
>consensus to show such support/opposition stemming from an FA caucus.
Massive demonstrations demonstrated a diffuse public support for a
cause, with enough emotion behind it to get people out into the
streets. But they were up against cold calculation: the political
structure assessed them as being all talk, all waving of signs, but
no muscle. Essentially, even though they were spending an estimated
one billion dollars to demonstrate -- which is probably more than
enough to *buy* a U.S. election if one is presenting anything
reasonable at all, and a billion dollars can buy a lot of the best
political consulting -- they did not have any means to actually
assemble and coordinate similar resources.
They *had* the resources, but not the knowledge of how to use them.
It takes structure. I think we agree on that. The structures they did
have were a collection of competing organizations, each with its own
overall agenda.
And the next election proved the matter. While it is possible that
the 2004 election was stolen, as the 2000 one almost certainly was,
it is also clear that there was no massive shift against Bush, no
seriously organized and funded campaign, with the kind of money that
the demonstrators had available. Just dribs and drabs, here and
there. MoveOn.org demonstrated the power of distributed advice, they
had a major impact in the primaries, but they are an oligarchical
organization with a complex political agenda. This is *not* a
criticism of MoveOn.org, indeed, what they have done was
ground-breaking, but not enough, and, I predict, as they are
currently organized, it will never be enough, though it might
sometimes be enough to nudge elections. Not to generate major
structural changes.
> > No, if those people who had demonstrated instead contributed the
> > money they lost by not working and that they spent for expenses to a
> > fund to be used to accomplish their goals, the U.S., I'd predict,
> > would not have gone into Iraq.
>
>- this is speculative, here again I disagree, but I don't think there
>are enough elements for either of us to really prove conclusively our
>point.
I think that you might at least examine the argument. What part of it
would not have worked?
I can tell you the only weak link: people will not easily believe
that it could work, not based on a thorough understanding of the
proposal, but based on general cynicism and despair. At least so far
no critic has demonstrated both an understanding of the proposal and
a strong argument as to why it won't work. There is criticism aplenty
based on what I think is defective analogy with prior experience.
FA/DP, as a combination, is in some ways radically different from
anything that has been tried. The *pieces* are not new, but the combination is.
We know that the pieces work, but we have not proven that the
combination works. I can tell you, though, as an engineer, that this
is typical of new designs. We know that A and B produce C and D and E
produce F, and we have reason to expect that C and F together will
produce a desired outcome. If we put together A, B, D, and E, will we
get that outcome? Any engineer will say, "it might." Only if some
negative interaction can be expected between those source elements in
combination would we expect otherwise. So far, none has been
proposed; so it is a reasonable hypothesis, at this point, that FA/DP
will work as designed: it will function to generate consensus without
coercion, sufficient to move effective political action.
But any engineer will also tell you that you won't know until you
build a working prototype.
> An element supporting my disagreement with your analysis is that
>a lot of pressure groups were set up, and did receive significant
>donations, without making any significant change to the course of the
>current administration's policies.
The donations were not sufficient on the scale I'm talking about. I'm
talking about what could have been generated by that many people,
those who actively demonstrated, pooling their resources, the
resources that they dedicated to the demonstrations, into a political
action fund or coordinated activity. Nothing like that happened here.
We are talking about an estimated billion dollars, plus a great deal
of available volunteer labor.
I'm suggesting that such an organization could have sent a rep to the
President holding a check for a billion dollars, ready to donate that
check to a fund to defeat the President in the next election, if the
President did not wait for a national consensus (at least broad
agreement) before moving into Iraq. Would that fund have actually
supported a particular candidate? Probably, but the tactical
decisions would be coordinated through the FA/DP organization, which,
unlike a political party, has no turf to defend, no ballot position
to conserve, no federal campaign financing to worry about, no vested position.
Essentially, organization of this kind, on the necessary scale, has
never existed.
Have you read the story of Nasruddin pouring yoghurt into the lake? I
won't repeat it here, but the punch line is "But, just think, what if
it works?"
What I'm trying to encourage people to do is make a cost/benefit
analysis. What does it cost to support this concept, and what is the
potential benefit? I'd suggest that the cost is so small and the
benefit so large that the odds against it working would have to be
tremendous in order for it to be a bad bet.
FA/DP, inherently, allows each member to invest exactly as much as
they wish. The rock-bottom, minimum investment is registration in any
FA/DP organization; one step beyond that is participating
sufficiently, at least reading sufficiently, to identify a proxy.
Beyond that the member would, as it is possible, receive
communications from the proxy with suggestions for action. Beyond
that the member could more actively follow the traffic to understand
more deeply the issues. Beyond that the member could actually
participate in discussions. Beyond that the member could agree to
serve as a proxy. Each of these does involve more effort. But so far,
what I've seen is that it is extremely difficult to bring people to
the point where they take the very first step, the "lifting a finger"
that is the reference in our slogan:
"Lift a finger, save the world."
The lifting a finger is an investment of a very minimal amount of
trust in a concept that might drastically improve the way society
functions. Just enough trust to be willing to hear more if those
active determine that there is something worth communicating,
something cooking that needs some ingredients. Not enough trust is
necessary as is represented by, for example, sending a donation to a
political party.
> > Even a relatively small FA/DP organization devoted to political
> issues could
> > move elections, for the existing system is quite vulnerable to
> > manipulation by organized groups. Sure, opposition would appear. But
> > opposing FA/DP organizations actually expand the concept.
>
>- How can a politically active association moving elections, and
>therefore with defined views and opinions, be an FA/DP as you define
>it? Doesn't it contradict the ideological neutrality principle?
The contradiction is so obvious that I'd think that the writer,
suspecting that I'm not quite that stupid, have understood or am
saying something that is being missed. You know, hundreds of times
I've written about this, and I think this is the first time that
anyone has directly asked this most obvious question.
It is extremely difficult to find people willing to give sufficient
consideration to this that they will ask these questions.
Jan Kok read about FA/DP for many months before he finally decided to
ask some questions. Those questions can be found, with my answers, on
the wiki at http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki. They, with the answers I
gave, have become a series of documents titled with "FA/DP FAQ,"
linked from
http://www.beyondpolitics.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=BeyondPolitics
Okay, the question. The FA does not take controversial positions.
However, it *is* a Free Association, which among other things means
that the *members* are free to act, the organization does not prevent
them from doing that. A political FA has no structural bias (it may
have a *membership bias* for various reasons), but nothing prevents
an FA caucus from acting voluntarily and freely to form a "service
board or committee" in the AA language. That is, the FA is not a PAC.
But an FA caucus can form a PAC which it funds and which it
collectively controls.
The constituency of a proxy, plus the proxy, is what we call a
"natural caucus." In a way, it is a mini-FA with a superproxy, a
single proxy who represents the entire group. Further, such proxies,
and the caucuses that they represent, can decide to act in concert.
The FA structure makes all of this pretty simple, it can organize overnight.
>Also, caucuses as you define them seem to be paradoxal. You said a
>caucus would be created if a consensus appears in the FA.
No. A caucus exists whenever it decides that it exists. It exists
prior to consensus. The very term "caucus" implies some coherency in
some way among its members, and implies that it is *not* the overall
consensus of the organization. I'd urge rereading what I wrote, and
if I erred, I'd want to know about it, but since it was not quoted
here, I don't know if I wrote incorrectly so as to cause this
misunderstanding. The writer is correct to call what he thought he
read "paradoxical." Indeed, it did not make sense, as he understood it.
Caucuses in FAs are in some ways like today's political parties.
Indeed, they can have their own internal rules and membership
requirements. DP more or less covers this. A proxy is not required to
accept any particular client, a proxy might insist, just to pick an
example out of the air, that a client be a registered Democrat. The
FA would certainly not make that restriction for membership, but
caucuses can hold meetings that are not open to the general membership.
All this is really pretty obvious, actually. It is what free people
can do. The "Free" in "Free Association" includes the freedom *not*
to associate with any particular person or group. The overall DP
structure of an FA/DP organization allows such closed groups to
nevertheless maintain communication and potential cooperation with
others. All it takes for an outside organization, as I explained
before, to effectively "merge" with an FA/DP organization is for the
members of the outside organization to join the FA, and they may
appoint anyone they choose as a proxy. Or any collection of people to
represent them. It is *not* required that all those "outside members"
to actively participate, they can be represented by a single person,
or by many, if they cannot agree on a single person. Indeed, many
existing organizations, faced with an FA, might elect a
representative, using standard election process. But FA/DP concepts
are insidious. Those members who did not vote for the winner *could*
simply name their own proxies.
If members of an FA suspect, for example, that proxies from people
involved with an outside organization are being coerced, they may
discount or ignore poll opinions expressed from suspected proxies.
This is one reason why relying upon centralized analysis could be
defective. It is crucial that the essential data for poll analysis be
public, in a readily usable form. Centralized analysis, then, becomes
a service, not a requirement, and centralized analytical tools can be
developed with extensions and improved features as needed.
> Which raises
>the question of why acting directly on this agreement is not desirable.
I did explain that. Directly acting *may* be desirable. However,
acting prior to broad consensus is inordinately inefficient. It is
like an individual making investments before thinking through the
various options, before coming to a settled mind on it. Risky. You
might do it, for various reasons, but it is not an ideal way to
proceed. A lot of effort can be wasted, going down blind alleys that
could have been avoided with a little more consideration.
FA/DP leaves the decision of when to act with the actors. If a caucus
thinks it is ready, nothing stops it from going ahead. Of course, if
there is an opposing caucus, that caucus may decide to invest its
assets to counter the first initiative. As I pointed out, the math of
this favors seeking substantial consensus before acting. Only if that
is not possible, or if there is an emergency, would it be prudent to
do otherwise.
>Your answer to this seems to be that a caucus guarantees that only
>these that actually agree with the outcome of the deliberation invest
>time/effort/money in the caucus.
Right. And if two previously opposed caucuses can come to an
agreement (or if an agreement with sufficient support crosses caucus
lines to create a new virtual caucus of sufficient power), they can
produce results at lower cost. Substantially lower cost. With much
higher probability of success. To the extent that consensus can be
found, energy is not wasted fighting opposition. Opposition will
still exist in most cases, we can predict, but as it gets small, the
cost of overcoming it becomes negligible.
> But this in turn means not everyone
>agreed in the first place with the consensus, and these feeling
>strongly against it are likely to create a minority caucus opposing the
>first one, thereby making the whole process lose a lot of its
>efficiency - not to mention the possibilty of the caucus being
>countered by pre-existing lobbies on some issues, and therefore
>diluting even further the impact of the agreement that had materialized
>in the FA. And you find yourself facing the problem of convincing
>people to keep devoting time and efforts to deliberations that turn out
>to have little or no consequence.
Wait, wait, wait. First of all, the process was misunderstood. It
starts with caucuses, or caucuses form, formally or informally, with
opposing views. In a broad FA, the "pre-existing lobbies" are already
represented in the FA. If not, well, the FA is working as a generator
of PACs to leverage the voting public, as at present. But there is
nothing to prevent the FA from actively attempting to include
"pre-existing lobbies" in the consensus-seeking process. Those
lobbies, even if outside the FA, still have the same financial laws
applying to them (plus they may have legal restrictions that FAs
generally will not face, because of how FAs would fund political
action). The very existence of the FA, once it is of sufficient size,
will shift the way that the system functions, for it will naturally
be in the interest of the lobbies to join and participate in the FA.
They lose nothing by doing so, they only gain the opportunity to
influence outcomes by ensuring that their arguments are heard.
The point stands. If caucus A favors action A and caucus B favors
action not-A, and caucus A and B are of approximately equal strength
(which may not be only in number, the concept includes disposable
income, i.e., available funding), and one of them attempts to act,
the other is like to act contrary to this, and the net effect of
their effort is zero. How's that for cost-benefit ratio? Infinite!
This actually happens all the time in the current system....
If a course of action can be found or deliberation can discover
agreement such that there is a two-to-one balance in favor of one
caucus, say caucus A, then only one-half of what A spends will be
wasted. A vote of 2:1 is often considered a supermajority, a
landslide, but, in fact, it still wastes half the effort.
But if a broad consensus can be found, there can be almost no waste.
If the FA somehow managed to include all outside interests in the
deliberations, there might not be strong outside opposition.
But special interests will still attempt to oppose FA/DP consensus.
And they will learn quickly how expensive that could be. Broad FA/DP
organizations, with millions of members, would have resources that
would dwarf those available to most corporations and other major
players. If push came to shove, FA/DP organizations, without breaking
a sweat, could outspend nearly every other possible player. (Again,
it is not the FA/DP org itself which is spending, it is neutral; but
it functions in such a way as to *create* bodies that can act.)
That won't happen, of course, while they are small. But my opinion is
that small FA/DP organizations will be more effective than political
organizations that do not meet the FA/DP criteria. That is, they will
amplify the political intelligence of the members, generally acting
more wisely in the political arena, and they will be more efficient
in utilizing member resources. And existing political structures are
vulnerable to influence from fairly small special interests, why not
to influence from fairly small FA/DP organizations?
But that still requires substantial organizations. How to get there?
Well, I think the place to start is with very small FA/DP
organizations, such as in small towns. It only takes a couple of
people to get one going.
It is extraordinarily difficult to get three. That's where we are at.
Three people could change the world. I wonder if any of them are
reading this....
Once there are working demonstrations of the FA/DP concepts, assuming
that they work as I expect, it will become much easier to start such
organizations.
AA snowballed, exploded in membership, without advertising, with only
a little publicity, which it soon learned to consider a double-edged,
dangerous sword. How long would the FA/DP revolution take?
It could happen within a few months, under some contingencies. More
likely, we will see, I think, functional FA/DP organizations with
significant political influence within five or six years. There are
too many variables, too many unknowns, for me to make accurate
predictions, and I don't have enough data to extrapolate from. I'd
say that we roughly doubled in size over the last year. That's too
slow, at this point, but I expect that we will hit a growth spurt
within the next two years. From my point of view, the concepts are
getting quite a bit of traction, compared to, say, two or three years ago.
> > However, the FA/DP plan, overall, in my vision, does lead to control
> > mechanisms, but only after maturing, after understanding the limits
> > and problems in DP democracy. Making it FA at the start is a safety
> > mechanism to avoid the serious errors manifest in previous attempts
> > at revolution.
>
>I think our divergence here is on the way to mature such a system, I
>think of it as an organic growth from local implementation and gradual
>progress,
But, of course, that is pretty much what I expect as well.
> and in my understanding you see it more as something that
>needs for people to get educated using it first without direct
>consequences and then only change it to something which would carry
>more influence.
I see most of the theoretical work as having already been done. What
is needed is practical application, and practical application *will*
involve control. Decentralized control, FA/DP style, and we will see
the actual impact that this will have, say, on a small town. I expect
it to vastly improve communication between the town and its citizens.
Even one successful example will start the snowball rolling.
Demoex is the closest experiment so far, but they were not an FA,
they attempted to operate through control of a representative (an FA
would never do that), and they did not manage to integrate
communication with the whole town, they did not understand how to
function within the existing system (which creates a deliberative
Town Council with free members). Plus they abandoned DP because they
considered it a software feature, and the software happened to be
buggy. Demoex started as an attempt at electronic democracy, so it
was natural for it to depend on software....
All good lessons to learn. Certainly I've taken quite a bit from it.
I hope that they can.
> It could be argued that one learns better from an
>experience with small but practical consequences than from
>communicating and only considering consequences in an abstract way
>(save for caucuses, in which case there is an actual power being
>wielded, with more limited consequences, which goes back to the model
>of familiarization with the process I would defend as most effective).
I don't see any argument with this.
>Furthermore, the major flaw of discussion without action resides in the
>motivation of people.
"discussion without action" is not a description of what an FA/DP
organization would do. The organization is about communication, but
the communication is with actors. One of the problems with an overall
organization like the metaparty effort (metaparty.beyondpolitics.org)
is that it is not organized in connection with a constituency with
the possibility of coherent action. It is too broad. It's worth
trying, but it is going to be, in the near term, only about
discussion, until membership gets quite large.
But in many contexts, an FA/DP organization could have very serious
work to do with only a few members. When it only has a few, it has
little need for formal DP, but putting that in place at the beginning
certainly will not hurt and it prepares the organization to be able
to handle growth. A small town FA will need DP, in general, when it
starts to have a significant number of town citizens as members.
> There are many pressures and demands on one's
>time and energy, and in my opinion a structure that doesn't allow for
>action to follow individual investment of time and effort will fail in
>attracting enough people for it to have any kind of significance.
Definitely. So some of the possible initial successes may come with,
say, an FA/DP organization of shareholders in a corporation, or one
for users of a particular software. I've written a fair amount about
these possibilities in a number of forums. We'll see.
> > I think you have not completely analyzed the problem. What you are
> > suggesting would not change the system, for it would attract
> > corruption. The centralization of power attracts corruption, for it
> > can operate by manipulating a relatively few nodes.
>
>What centralization of power are you referring to? In what I tried to
>describe, a decentralized assembly would effectively be taking
>decisions through a TOP system, and the power would therefore be as
>decentralized as the assembly.
> An executive commitee (or several - but
>not too many for fear of dilution of responsability/accountability)
>would only have the role of executing these decisions and reporting
>back. Transparency of information allows decentralized scrutiny by
>delegates, deliberation moderators, and virtually any constituent and
>therefore offers strong safeguards against any temptations by such
>executive commitee(s) to act contrary to what has been decided, as any
>such action could be very quickly identified and addressed.
Okay, this is describing pretty much a traditional structure in some
ways. That is, there is an executive or executive body responsible to
an assembly, and serving at the pleasure of the assembly. That's a
parliamentary system. (Which I happen to think much better than the
Presidential system we have in the U.S., but that is another story).
This is pretty much what I expect the "service boards or committees
directly responsible to those they serve" to look like.
*However*, where does the funding come from? Am I going to
contribute, or continue to contribute my money, as dues or "taxes",
when they are spent for a cause which I detest, simply because I was
outvoted in the assembly? Whether or not the system as described is
vulnerable to corruption, as I asserted (I forget what I was
responding to specifically, and I've no time to look back), it will
be vulnerable to division. If it is a governmental body, does it
collect taxes through coercion?
(FA/DP does not solve this problem, but it does not *have* this
problem itself.)
Large nonprofits might seem to function democratically. After all,
the members can simply stop contributing if they don't like what the
elected officers are doing. However, there is more to the story than
that. Such institutions can become quite entrenched. Members may make
major investments in them, perhaps in time as well as in money. It is
hard to turn away from that, when you lose a critical vote. There is
a subtle form of coercion that is created, not nearly as problematic
as taxes, but still enough to harm the unity of the organization, and
its efficiency. As organizations age, there is often a drop-off in
volunteerism. Paid employees replace volunteers, budgets expand. And
then the collapse comes. And everyone wonders what happened, it was
such a great idea when it started. Been there, done that (I've served
on nonprofit boards, for example, on the board of the Free Clinic of
Tucson, back in the late 1970s.)
It lost its FA characteristics that sustained it when it was young.
Freedom is powerful.
Serge
Thanks for addressing in details each and every point. You've definitly
made some very valid points and I think I am starting to better
understand the model of FA/DP you describe, and crucially how this
could actually work.
I need to digest this a bit and think some more as to how this could be
implemented, but there's an example of organization in France (an air
safety watchdog) that immediately springs to mind and could very well
integrate an FA/DP in its structure thus allowing all the information
it collects about unsafe companies being used by discount tour
operators to be efficiently filtered down to the thousands who use them
and effectively take important and avoidable risks when flying without
being aware of it. In this context, an FA allowing for large amounts of
information to be filtered and assessed, coupled with DP making
possible focused boycotts, could have a huge impact on air safety. And
as you rightly note, the method is the message, thus the implications
could go far.I need to read the articles on your wiki and make sure I
can put the concept of FA/DP forward effectively and concisely, but I'd
very much like to have a talk with some of these guys and see how this
might be implemented. I might add systems such as Emmanuel's
leparlement may be effective platforms for this.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer in depth,
Serge
echarp
coercion, and punitions. I feel a libertarian at heart.
The internet is a place I thus favor, because it is the embodiment of a
pure information society, where physical violence is just not possible.
There remain interactions, emotions, informations, projects.
The only thing really lacking is sex ;)
Felicitations for the way you handled fines. I agree, it's dangerous
driving which is dangerous, not infringing stupid rules.
echarp - http://leparlement.org
Serge
Ok. So trying to take an actual issue, safety of flights, with
widespread interest (vital interest for that matter), but low traffic
and fairly specific topics not accessible to everyone, I'd like to see
whether a possible organization for effective action could be organized
in an FA/DP way.
The particular focus for this would be France, as a book was recently
published highlighting the way the captains on planes are increasingly
under pressure to fly unsafe aiplanes, and there is quite a lot of
displeasure with the way regulations are being ignored in the industry.
The book itself is built on the many testimonies of people working for
airlines or ground services and seeing irregularities in the way
maintenance and safety checks are being conducted. However they can get
fired (and are actually being fired) if they blow the whistle on
technical security issues. Therefore the following could be imagined:
A free association of people working in the industry, on which they can
relay teh incidents they witness and present evidence they have access
to without risking sanctions by their hierarchy for speaking out.
Regular people using airlines could sign on for security updates (one
could imagine something with a monthly update - and possibly security
alerts in the case of something really critical happening) by choosing
proxies among contributing industry members volunteering to keep
members of the public informed. In order to secure this, one could rely
on existing trade unions, giving them unique alphanumerical codes to
give out to their members, who could then use these in order to
authentify themselves on the system, which would allow the system to
have a degree of protection against manipulation/protection, while
allowing users to remain anonymous (as neither the online system nor
their trade union would be able to connect the person and their online
identifier).
As far as TOP goes, the system would be transparent, in that all
information, working methods, and documents would be available to
website visitors - while still protecting the identity of contributors.
It would be open in that documents, features, methods, and processes
would remain open to change.
It would be public in that members would be able to grade airlines on
their safety standards, and this information as well as the discussions
and pretty much everything on the system would be accessible to the
public. A tool could be created as to relay airline safety grading to
websites so as to create a very present and real commercial incentive
for airlines to respect safety regulations.
OK so this is probably a very rough approach with many things to be
improved, so what critics could be done of such an organization. Would
it satisfy the criteria of FA/DP? of TOP?
Regards,
Serge
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Thanks for addressing in details each and every point. You've definitly
>made some very valid points and I think I am starting to better
>understand the model of FA/DP you describe, and crucially how this
>could actually work.
My own thinking is that it *will* work, that the elements are all
known to work in isolation, and I have not been able to find a reason
why it is likely to fail, except for Murphy's law: if something can
go wrong, it will. I expect there to be all kinds of unanticipated
problems, but, so far, the ones I and others have been able to think
of have fairly simple solutions.
However, there is one huge obstacle that could be fatal: FA/DP,
obviously, will not work if people don't try it. And getting people
to try it is *quite* difficult.
Existing organizations already have, typically, a power structure in
place, and those involved in that structure tend to think that it is
just what it should be. Why complicate things by adding something new?
FA/DP does *not* require structural changes. It requires only a very
light, very simple, something in addition to what is already there.
It is obvious that most people are not going to jump to set this up,
in the short term. As Mark so delicately puts it, most people are
lemmings. I don't use that term perjoratively, at all. People
*should* be lemmings; indeed, I'm one too. That is, my behavior is
massively influenced by those around me. Yes, I'm also a free
thinker, and I put a lot of effort into it, but I don't do this with
every aspect of my life. Probably nobody does. I depend on my
neighbors, literally or figuratively, to filter out much of the
noise. If people around me start using some new technology, I become
much more likely to try it.
Again, in some areas of my life, I might be the ur-lemming, i.e., the
one to try something new. But not with most things. It is
*functional* behavior.
But it is also, of course, quite frustrating, when one has a new idea
that requires mass action to be meaningful.
Indeed, I invented DP to solve this problem. DP sets up a
communications hierarchy with each link being one of trust. I will
ultimately settle on a proxy who is somebody who is going to hear my
ideas, who will give them a fair hearing, and who, I expect, will be
bright enough to recognize a good idea. I've found that if people
give FA/DP a fair hearing, including the kind of challenges that were
raised here, they mostly end up with some appreciation of the
concept. It is just that it is not only extraordinarily difficult to
bring people to that point, but even that, of course, is not quite
enough. So far, only one other person has taken the next step.
I'm excepting people involved in independent efforts that may
dovetail with the FA/DP initiative; obviously, I may not even know
about these people; one desirable activity of BeyondPolitics.org
would be to coordinate such efforts. James Armytage-Green has been
working on describing DP as a governmental system, and he has clearly
been paying attention to much of what I've written, see
http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy.htm#nbvirtues
But Mr. Armytage-Green has not registered with BeyondPolitics.org, as
far as I can tell. It is beyond me why he has not, but perhaps nobody
has ever directly asked him to!
>I need to digest this a bit and think some more as to how this could be
>implemented, but there's an example of organization in France (an air
>safety watchdog) that immediately springs to mind and could very well
>integrate an FA/DP in its structure thus allowing all the information
>it collects about unsafe companies being used by discount tour
>operators to be efficiently filtered down to the thousands who use them
>and effectively take important and avoidable risks when flying without
>being aware of it. In this context, an FA allowing for large amounts of
>information to be filtered and assessed, coupled with DP making
>possible focused boycotts, could have a huge impact on air safety.
There are probably millions of applications. Note, however, the
deeper implications. If it is an FA, the companies that might be
affected by a boycott can and will join and participate. The FA
itself is not going to issue a condemnation of any company. (It is
possible that it might if the condemnation were deemed
non-controversial, but this would take a serious supermajority to be
an honest appraisal.) Ordinarily, then, a complaint about a company
is going to rise to a point where it is considered in a context that
*includes* representation from the company. The FA then is acting as
a mediator. FAs do not coerce. They communicate. But communication
itself does have a sharp edge. If a serious charge is made against a
company, and there is no response, the charge will stand as if it
were a fact. And FAs may report facts. Facts are not controversial.
The determination of fact should be a matter of consensus; that is,
there should be no serious opposition to a fact. For a company to
oppose an allegation, then, requires directly confronting the
evidence. Companies can, under present conditions, simply refuse to
confront evidence, for unless there is some agency compelling such a
confrontation, and especially if there is some truth to the charges,
it is in the interest of the company -- or at least of an
unenlightened company -- to ignore the charges. Of course, if a
company is acting in an unsafe manner, it is taking serious risks
itself. There is *not* really an opposition of interests here, it
merely looks that way. A neutral arbitrator, really, is going to
benefit all sides.
The FA/DP structure creates a kind of neutral arbitrator, allowing
the "sides" to negotiate an agreed-upon solution. It is unusual that
the deepest interests of parties to disputes diverge. From my
experience, the conflicts are on the surface. And I could go on about this.
But consider the fate of dictators in the absence of something like
FA/DP. They do not, typically, survive, under modern conditions.
Sometimes the revolution takes away their families, their
descendants, with them. They know, all too well, what will happen if
the people are given power. So they try to stave off that tide.
But FA/DP, theoretically, should create a synthetic intelligence.
Broad FA/DP organizations, the kind that would, in fact, give power
to the people, should do so in a way that could only be described as
wise. The structure, in my view, will create a higher intelligence,
something roughly equivalent in comparison to individual humans as
the individual human is to individual cells. There is, in Alcoholics
Anonymous, a diffuse kind of religious respect for the "group
conscience." Many members of AA are atheists or agnostics, but still
interpret the world "God" as it appears in AA publications as the
group conscience, and, indeed, the translation fits and works.
FA/DP does require some kind of freedom of association. Under a
serious tyranny, that might not be possible, except that FAs can form
over totally non-controversial topics. If such an FA becomes large
enough, and has a DP structure, the communications structure that is
created can be turned to any purpose that appears. An FA/DP
organization *could* quickly organize a revolution. But it won't.
Rather, that communications network would, I expect, slowly transform
the society. An example of a place that might be ripe for this would
be China. The government is nominally communist, but it has come to
recognize the value of allowing at least a certain level of economic
freedom. And it does allow citizen organizations to form; examples
have been cited in the media about environmental organizations. Those
organizations are not opposing the government; indeed, they are
working, with citizen participation, to *enforce* official government
policy, which is to conserve the environment. That many agencies of
government, local authorities, and others, are acting contrary to
this policy creates an opening for citizen organization, which can
quite correctly define itself as patriotic.
Tiananmen Square was an example of a premature attempt to change the
system through mass action. They had come to the point that the
citizens of Beijing were generally in support of them, and refused to
allow the Red Army to approach the Square. And high elements in the
government were engaged in negotiations with the demonstrators. They
had an astonishing opportunity. But they had no structure capable of
making rapid decisions, and there were firebrands intent on nothing
short of total humiliation of the existing government. The cooler
student leaders were unable to control the crowd. The government
concluded, I think, and I think correctly, that the students did not
have a coherent leadership and that therefore there was nobody to
negotiate with. So they brought in troops from areas that did not
speak the local language (for the local Red Army elements were
unwilling to attack what had heretofore been seen as their
constituency, the very segment of society that the Red Army was
formed to protect, the workers). And we know the results, the
demonstrations were literally crushed beneath the treads of heavy
equipment, with quite a few of the demonstrators.
FA principles are anarchism, if you look at them closely. They should
theoretically appeal to students. Combine that with a DP structure,
and you give the power of anarchism a network which can be used to
make social decisions, and quickly. If those students had known about
the FA/DP possibilities, and if they had used them, Tienanmen Square
would have been known as the turning point for China, the point at
which it became the most advanced democracy in the world. But, as we
know, it did not turn out that way.
Note something about my analysis: it does not condemn the Chinese
government. They were acting, in my view, within what they saw as
their responsibility. Clearly, I don't agree with the choices they
made, I think they could have acted better. But an FA/DP organization
of the students would have been, I expect, considerate of the
government, would not have considered it an enemy, but a partner for
change. Theoretically, they would all have been on the same side,
with only opposition in details.
I'm not a Marxist, but it would be interesting to look at the
implications of FA/DP being interpreted as the missing element, the
direct government by the people that was supposed to ensure when the
Party faded away.
Theoretically, the coming society would not be "communist," per se,
but a synthesis of communism and capitalism. I suspect that Marxists,
in general, did not apply Hegelian dialectics to Marxism itself. But,
as I said, I'm not a Marxist and certainly am not an expert on it.
> And
>as you rightly note, the method is the message, thus the implications
>could go far.I need to read the articles on your wiki and make sure I
>can put the concept of FA/DP forward effectively and concisely, but I'd
>very much like to have a talk with some of these guys and see how this
>might be implemented. I might add systems such as Emmanuel's
>leparlement may be effective platforms for this.
Note that the wiki material is only a small sample of what might be
there. If I have written anything else of value on the topic, any
reader is welcome to move the material there. Making a virtue of
necessity (I have little time to spare), I prefer to allow readers to
build the wiki, for, if people are not going to start to participate,
the wiki does not matter and the ideas are moot. So I only put effort
into the BP web site and the wiki when I have some extra time. Which
is not very often.
There are lots of possibilities. My work at the present time is
essentially to awaken people to the implications, to the
possibilities of FA/DP. Either idea alone has its place. As I've
mentioned, FA is known to work spectacularly well in appropriate
arenas. It is not really different from what people spontaneously do,
in the earliest stages of organizational formation. DP is untried,
for the most part, but standard proxy ought to be a no-brainer, it is
absent from politics because?
That is, if I have a property right, by common law, I may appoint
someone to exercise it for me. That person serves at my pleasure, I
can revoke the assignment at any time. I can directly exercise the
right, which cancels any pending action by the proxy. (But, with
property rights, I can't cancel an already-effective action of the
proxy. If the proxy sold my property, it is sold, even if I come
along and say, No, the proxy made a mistake. Only a showing of
conspiracy to defraud could undo the transaction....) Delegable Proxy
simply considers that what is delegated *includes* the right to
further assign the proxy.
Standard proxy breaks down as a method for upscaling democracy, when
the scale becomes such that a single level proxy still leaves too
large a gap at one end or the other. (i.e., either the proxy
represents too many clients for good communication, or there are so
many proxies that the assembly suffers from too many active members,
it becomes paralyzed. Usually the former is what happens in practice,
with share corporations, plus there is the conflict of interest
created when management recommends proxy choices to shareholders, and
far too many shareholders, not realizing the implications, simply
sign those proxy assignments conveniently provided to them by
management. Ultimately, solicitation of proxies by management, I'd
suggest, should be prohibited. It is better that shares not be voted
then that they be voted in a manner influenced by management. The
function of the shareholder meeting is to supervise the Board, and
the function of the Board is to oversee management.... this breaks
down if management can control the election of the board.)
>Thanks again for taking the time to answer in depth,
Thanks for taking the time to ask. Few have done this.
Mark
>L[...] As Mark so delicately puts it, most people are
> lemmings. I don't use that term perjoratively, at all. People
> *should* be lemmings; indeed, I'm one too.
-M: LOL!
>L: That is, my behavior is massively influenced by those around me.
-M: I think that this understanding makes someone less of a lemming.
>L: [...] Indeed, I invented DP to solve this problem. DP sets up a
> communications hierarchy with each link being one of trust. [...]
-M: Trust hierarchies. :-)
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
> >L[...] As Mark so delicately puts it, most people are
> > lemmings. I don't use that term perjoratively, at all. People
> > *should* be lemmings; indeed, I'm one too.
>
>-M: LOL!
>
> >L: That is, my behavior is massively influenced by those around me.
>
>-M: I think that this understanding makes someone less of a lemming.
Perhaps. Perhaps it means that as I'm hurtling off the cliff, I'll
know why. Certain kinds of understanding are overrated.
(I'll go with "knowledge is better than ignorance," I'm only saying
that knowledge alone can be quite insufficient, particularly if it is
incomplete. That is, I might recognize that I'm a lemming but not
know how to avoid the negative aspects of it.)
> >L: [...] Indeed, I invented DP to solve this problem. DP sets up a
> > communications hierarchy with each link being one of trust. [...]
>
>-M: Trust hierarchies. :-)
Yes. So when I have a "bright idea," i.e., I think it is a bright
idea, I have someone to discuss it with whom I know is connected. All
already have the first part of this, that is, I can discuss it, but I
don't have the second. Sooner or later what I write might connect
with someone who can either explain to me why I'll be better off just
devoting the rest of my life to my children and grandchildren
(collectively, twelve so far), or will be able to facilitate taking
this to the next level. In an FA/DP organization, this would merely
mean taking it to someone more centrally connected, thus increasing
drastically the probability of a connection with someone in a
position to take action.
For this to work, there must be rapport between me and my proxy. An
assigned proxy *might* work, but probably not well enough. Better
than nothing, though. So what I'm suggesting is that the proxy
relationship is established voluntarily on both sides. If a proxy
accepts too many clients, that direct connection is not going to work.
But a proxy is not obligated to communicate directly with delegated
clients. Just with those relative few from whom he or she has
accepted direct proxies.
This keeps the traffic through any given node in the network down....
How much traffic a proxy can handle would be, I'd expect, quite
individual; an institutional limit is likely to be inefficient,
unless it is set very high. In any case, restricting proxy
assignments would be contrary to the principles of Free Associations.
AA does not tell members serving as sponsors how many members they
can sponsor. But being a sponsor can be a lot of work. Phone calls in
the middle of the night, etc.
Now, I'm not going to call my proxy in the middle of the night. Unless.
Unless it is a Free Association of FBI agents and I just realized the
significance of this flight student from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
not being concerned about how to land that jumbo jet.
DP networks could be much faster response than standard top-down
bureaucracies, when a communication from the bottom happens to meet a
bottleneck in the form of a manager receiving reports who is on
vacation, bored, too busy chasing his secretary, or just plain
overwhelmed with paper.
It is not necessary to eliminate the top-down bureaucracy. That FA of
FBI agents could simply exist in parallel, functioning as the
collective and responsive intelligence of the agency employees. And,
the fact is, the FBI employees could form it without the permission
of the agency. There would be some issues with security clearances,
but those issues could be solved, I expect. (And if not, then there
would need to be work on the agency rules.... but it is not my
purpose here to exhaustively examine any particular possibility, only
to show a possible application, a thought-experiment, that could have
changed history, if it had existed before September 11, 2001.)
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Ok. So trying to take an actual issue, safety of flights, with
>widespread interest (vital interest for that matter), but low traffic
>and fairly specific topics not accessible to everyone, I'd like to see
>whether a possible organization for effective action could be organized
>in an FA/DP way.
FA/DP is not going to take a dead organization and make it alive. But
it might keep a live organization from dying. FA traditions are
common when groups start: everyone is equal, the organization depends
entirely on its members to fund any activity, there is no endowment
or built-up treasury, no staff (the vested interests of staff have
been, in my experience, one of the major problems with many
nonprofits; staff members frequently end up having relationships with
members of the board that prevent proper oversight, etc.)
DP makes no difference at the very beginning (unless an organization
explodes in membership); many won't see the need for it. But it is
useful even in very small organizations, I predict (from the problems
I've experienced in small organizations). DP should allow
organizations to retain members that would otherwise drift away. That
is, they still drift away, but a connection can be maintained with
very little effort on the part of the member, a connection that can
prove useful at some point in the future.
>[...] Therefore the following could be imagined:
>
>A free association of people working in the industry, on which they can
>relay teh incidents they witness and present evidence they have access
>to without risking sanctions by their hierarchy for speaking out.
Okay, this requires confidentiality. It can be done, rather easily,
though members should know that the veil of secrecy can be pierced if
a company is seriously offended. That is, a company can, under some
conditions, obtain a court order to discover the private registration
information that connects the member to an account on the system.
There may be ways around this, but they do create their own difficulties.
Meetings in programs similar to AA often start with some such
statement as "What is said here stays here, ordinarily. However, be
aware that some members may have a legal reporting responsibility, so
you may not wish to reveal, in a meeting, information which would
trigger such a difficulty; instead, discuss such things privately,
perhaps with your sponsor."
>As far as TOP goes, the system would be transparent, in that all
>information, working methods, and documents would be available to
>website visitors - while still protecting the identity of contributors.
It can be done, I think. But protecting the identity of contributors
can be quite tricky, if there is a reasonable possibility that an
employer could charge that some information was unlawfully revealed.
Or that it was false and defamatory.
DP could help with this; that is, information could pass privately
through the DP network, making tracing it back to an employee difficult.
>It would be public in that members would be able to grade airlines on
>their safety standards, and this information as well as the discussions
>and pretty much everything on the system would be accessible to the
>public. A tool could be created as to relay airline safety grading to
>websites so as to create a very present and real commercial incentive
>for airlines to respect safety regulations.
To work, the system -- i.e., really, the people running it -- must be
rigorously neutral. The org must be able to develop reliable
information, it must incorporate serious fact-checking. That is going
to be hard without money. I'd think of an FA/DP organization of
people involved in and interested in the travel industry -- including
travellers, of course -- that is connected, through the membership,
to what would resemble the best of today's media corporations.
Essentially, information professionals, people trained in
journalistic standards and free to serve the public interest
directly, because they have been hired by the public, not through
advertising (and thus through special interests) but by the support
of those who will benefit from reliable information.
Part of the FA/DP vision, indeed, would be that the public would hire
media. That is, the proxy network might generally recommend
supporting this or that media company. It might also form media
corporations directly, i.e., share corporations owned by the public,
similar to cooperatives.
I've seen plenty of cooperatives go under, by the way. Why? Well, one
common failure mode was the development of an employee vested
interest; another was the mixture of controversy with the primary
business of the co-op. For example, the promotion of this or that
political cause, as if it would be automatic for any good member to
support that cause....
>OK so this is probably a very rough approach with many things to be
>improved, so what critics could be done of such an organization. Would
>it satisfy the criteria of FA/DP? of TOP?
If the organization itself does not take controversial positions (it
should not be controversial to study a topic), it does not itself
attack or oppose any outside organization, it merely filters
information -- with full opportunity for anyone who might be affects
to contribute to the discussion and fact-checking -- then it could
stay within the FA traditions. However, the DP network forms what we
call "natural caucuses," and caucuses can do pretty much what they
please. So if most of the high-level proxies realize that a certain
company is risking the lives of its customers for short-term profit,
they can appropriately advise their clients. It would be, after all,
simply their job.
(Nordfors calls the proxy an "advisor," which does capture half of
the function; "proxy" names, really, the other half. What I have in
mind is bidirectional.)
illegale
Mark wrote:
> > > >G: Was he born as a lemming, or he became one?
> > >
> > > -M: I don't think of children as being *willfully contradictory*, so
> > > I'd say that he became one. People learn to be lemmings by conforming
> > > to other lemmings.
> > >
> > > >G: Is that process ireversible or what?
> > >
> > > -M: Yes, but it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
> > > the lemmingized worldview that we are given.
>
> >G: Why do you think your father could benefit by sd2?
>
> -M: Better karma.
> It would keep him from helping to elect British-agents like G.Bush.
Your father thinks Bush is a British-agent?
> >G: What I can notice, your father is fine with Bush. And how many lemmings are actually running around in percentage? 10%, 30%, 90%?
>
> -M: +90%
>
> >G: Can you explain this a little bit better? Am I missing point, actually?
>
> -M: Have you seen the numerous contradictions that I have caught
> Emmanuel with?
> Emmanuel is actually rather intelligent, but he has emotional
> attachment to his contradictions because they are foundational to his
> worldview.
>
> Where did these contradictions come from? Maybe a little from his
> parents, but probably not his grandparents.
lol
> This paralyzes people, and the oligarch's psychological institutes like
> the Tavistock Institute know this.
Tavistock Institute? What is that?
> >G: I missed that post. Do you have a link to show me that?
>
> -M:
> http://groups.google.com/group/top-politics/browse_frm/thread/1a08d28e6a1c50cc/8f8fed135d87e11c?lnk=gst&q=mark+democracy&rnum=45#8f8fed135d87e11c
Thank you very much.
ATB,
Gale
Mark
> > >L[...] As Mark so delicately puts it, most people are
> > > lemmings. I don't use that term perjoratively, at all. People
> > > *should* be lemmings; indeed, I'm one too.
> >
> >-M: LOL!
> >
> > >L: That is, my behavior is massively influenced by those around me.
> >
> >-M: I think that this understanding makes someone less of a lemming.
> >-M: Trust hierarchies. :-)
[...]
>L: DP networks could be much faster response than standard top-down
> bureaucracies, when a communication from the bottom happens to meet a
> bottleneck in the form of a manager receiving reports who is on
> vacation, bored, too busy chasing his secretary, or just plain
> overwhelmed with paper.
-M: You need multiple proxies.
PageRank can be used to calculate the vertical component of the
network, and Neman-Girvan can be used to calculate the horizontal
demarkations.
A network and coordination hierarchy can be generated in real time as
people clock in.
Your single proxy system would have bottlenecks that a multi-proxy
system wouldn't have.
Mark
> > > > >G: Was he born as a lemming, or he became one?
> > > > -M: I don't think of children as being *willfully contradictory*, so
> > > > I'd say that he became one. People learn to be lemmings by conforming
> > > > to other lemmings.
> > > > >G: Is that process ireversible or what?
> > > > -M: Yes, but it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
> > > > the lemmingized worldview that we are given.
> > >G: Why do you think your father could benefit by sd2?
> > -M: Better karma.
> > It would keep him from helping to elect British-agents like G.Bush.
>G: Your father thinks Bush is a British-agent?
-M: No, because he is currently a lemming, he can't see the truth.
[...]
> > -M:[...]contradictions because they are foundational to his
> > worldview. Where did these contradictions come from? Maybe a little from his
> > parents, but probably not his grandparents.
>G: lol
-M: There does seem to be a loss of philosophical coherency in culture,
and Deconstructivist-Postmodernism and Relativism bullshit is an
example.
It is outdated and pre-classical, this makes Emmauel 2500yrs out of
date.
And he is a sucker to his British Oligarchal enemies.
> > This paralyzes people, and the oligarch's psychological institutes like
> > the Tavistock Institute know this.
>G: Tavistock Institute? What is that?
-M: They study the manipulation of entire populations there:
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/warfare.htm
illegale
You already noticed that being lemming is irreversible process.
Do you still think that?
Or your father has too give up from his lemmingism if you want SD-2 to
start working properly?
And thatnks for link.
ATB,
Gale
Mark
>G: But Mark. You already noticed that being lemming is irreversible process. Do you still think that?
-M: I said "...it takes strength of will, and clarity of mind to escape
the lemmingized worldview that we are given."
Meaning that I think that lemmingism is reversable.
>G: [...] And thatnks for link.
-M: Conspiracy. :-)
illegale
going to give your father link to some site, where he can register and
be part of sd-2 structure? Or? Do you have some idea about this part?
Do you think this part is important? Give me some thoughts about it. I
feel as you havent actually look at that thing too much. Am I right?
ATB,
Gale
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>OK. You are offering public proxy service that has no exact consequence
>in this very time, but trust in global vision. That is not good in the
>world that seriously lacks in global enthusiasm that you need for such
>step. That is what I see to be weak chain of the project.
No, it is merely a small beginning of the project, and only a small
part of the project. BeyondPolitics.org is intended to facilitate the
discussion of FA/DP concepts and, if possible, to generate some level
of consensus regarding these concepts so that whatever actions take
place are more efficient; further, it is intended to provide some
level of support to new, small projects. Not serious support, just,
perhaps, a little free meeting space, so to speak, as well as some
cross-participation. FA/DP organizations are rigorously independent,
and even free space is a bit suspect. But we won't abuse our position
as gatekeeper for anyone who uses our space. If we don't want to host
it any more, perhaps I'm offended by the goals of an organization, I
would still, I expect, leave the subdomain active with a pointer to
where it had moved. I suppose it could be bad enough that I wouldn't
do that.... but not at all likely. For example, if somebody starts an
FA/DP organization for Republicans, I'd be happy even if I seriously
opposed much of what its members were trying to do.
I am *much* more interested in process than in content, at this point.
>For an example, you choose information filters from your proxies. In
>that way you get better info processing based on DPs actually. DP in
>this very moment are editors. If there comes time for exact political
>actions, these structures might get new dimensions feeded by exact and
>touchy interests of participants.
DP should form very flexible and robust structures. They are robust
*from the bottom*, not from the top. From the point of view of a
"leader," i.e., a high-level proxy, he could lose his rank very
quickly with one wrong move. If he cares about rank. I think that
FA/DP will encourage the rising to leadership of people who do not
particularly value being leaders, indeed, they are reluctant.
>Nevertheless, there is some discussion about old project (we did not
>get money for it so we continued learning) called project forum.hr on
>opendemocracy.org:
>
>http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=82&threadID=41641&messageID=42090
>
>if you eventually going to need some more info for better
>understainding about filters and other political terminology I use.
Here is how proxies work, even when an organization does not
recognize them. My current activities promoting FA/DP started with a
recommendation from someone that I join the Approval Voting mailing
list. (see Wikipedia if you don't know what AV is). So I started
reading the list and commenting, and when I saw connections and
relevance for the AV list of FA/DP concepts, I described them. This
seriously irritated the moderator of the list, who suggested that I
keep on topic. However, when other members of the list said that they
saw how what I'd written *was* relevant, he backed off. But, I think,
he never dropped his impression that I was generating a lot of noise
on the list. So the next time he thought I'd gone to far, he put me
on moderation, since, obviously, I was not properly censoring myself.
This time he didn't ask the list. Indeed, he didn't even tell me. And
he lost a whole series of posts. Essentially, he was an incompetent
moderator, but this is not particularly relevant. Then, ultimately,
he decided that it was too much trouble to read my posts -- they can
be long, after all -- so he banned me from the list. Again without
warning. We had actually been discussing the whole matter off-list,
it was quite a surprise to me. However, he did not unsubscribe me. I
still get the list. But if I try to post to it, the post is
automatically rejected by yahoogroups software. He does not even see it.
Okay, he's running the list the way he sees fit. That's his
privilege. Except, of course, that he is sitting on the major focus
for a political action coalition, loose as it is. There is an actual
organization, Citizens for Approval Voting, which has a traditional
board-controlled structure. No proxy voting allowed, which means that
even though the members have nominal control, practically the
structure is controlled by the founder, since the Annual Meeting is
held where the founder lives. (This is very common in membership
organizations; what is theoretically democratic is defeated by how it
is implemented.)
Now, I still have stuff to say about Approval Voting. That list lost
a great deal of activity when I was banned, it was almost dead for
quite a while. It still has only a few messages a month, at least
that is my impression. If I want to respond to the list, I simply
send the response to my proxy. I.e., Jan Kok, who has agreed that *if
he considers it appropriate*, he will forward it to the list. Since
he is an ordinary, unmoderated member, he can do that. He can
represent me to the meeting.
> > > If I understand you correctly, you are offering free
> >
> > "free" as in "freedom" AND "free beer"...
Free as in Free Speech and No Dues or Fees. There are costs, to be
sure, but they are small enough that they simply are not an issue.
They are either paid, on the spot, by someone who cares, or they are
paid from small collections, voluntary donations.
>Hmh. Quality is hardly gained on the base of quantity beacuse such
>process makes lack of information needed for optimisation process. In
>other words, what is fine for me, might not be fine for you. By casting
>votes through DP some of us will suffer. I am convinced that is not
>needed. Actually, that is the point of free networks, with no pyramidal
>hierarchy in its root. By casting votes you do that which is not good.
Voting in an FA/DP organization is only a polling device, an attempt
to conduct a poll which is more broadly representative than just the
sample of those who answer the question directly.
We think that proxies will do relatively well at this because they
were chosen as trustworthy. Which means that, where they are more
informed about a subject than their client, they have the opportunity
and the means to convince the client, personally.
>Are you willing to give up from Metaparty
>and show some faith in any one of these? I am not sure in that. We all
>think in pretty simmilar way fighting for our childs and we need to
>make progress on that base.
Metaparty is currently using TikiWiki because that's available.
Metaparty is *not* a software solution, it is an overall
organizational concept. Quite simply, FA/DP applied to politics.
If you think that any of these methods would be appropriate for
Metaparty, join Metaparty and suggest that it use one or more of
these tools. It is not for me to decide, personally. I'll follow, as
far as being the admin of the domain provider, the decision of the
members, almost certainly. If I *really* don't like that decision,
I'll stop providing the space, but I won't interfere in the operation
of the organization, for it can quite easily and cheaply get
equivalent space elsewhere, and I would leave domain forwarding in
place. Or if there is schism, I would leave a page in place that
points to the splinters in an NPOV manner.
> > We're testing the whole FA/DP concept. FA/DP is an organizational
> > technology, or an organizational model. It's an alternative to
> > traditional board-controlled organizations.
>
>Abd has mentioned AA several times. Do you find that model be te one
>you are talking about, or you have wider thought about exploring new
>organisational paradigm, where you actually need pioneers?
I don't know how much Jan knows about AA. I suspect that it is mostly
what I've written. He does know about another organization which I
think is in some ways similar, but I'd leave it up to him to reveal
that if he thinks it relevant. AA *is* the model par excellence of a
Free Association. Most of the organizational problems that FA/DP
organizations are designed to handle were anticipated by Bill Wilson
and solutions incorporated into the Traditions and Concepts of AA. DP
is the exception. It is a little ironic, because Wilson was a
stockbroker and actually founded AA when he was visiting, I think it
was Akron, Ohio, in order to act as a proxy. But what Wilson did was
so well done that proxy voting was not needed. I do think that DP
could slightly improve the way that AA functions on a national scale,
but it's not like it is seriously broken. As far as I know. I suspect
that some AA members have thought differently at times. Wilson
himself fought bitterly with the board at times. But the work he did
was strong enough to overcome that, it seems that most of the
problems were transient.
FA is actually what I expect to be powerful. The only problem is that
making FA works requires consensus process, which is extremely
difficult to scale. DP is a method of making deliberative democracy,
including consensus process, functional regardless of scale.
> > Abd and I haven't been very aggressive about trying to recruit people
> > into the Metaparty FA/DP. In fact there are only about six people who
> > have registered so far. That's not enough people to have anything
> > really interesting happen.
>
>We share pretty simmilar problems, indeed.
I see it as simply a reflection of the status quo. We are trying to
move the world, and the world is large. "The world" is the *psychic
space* in which these proposals are being made, which is extremely
conservative, it turns out. In order to move the world, we have to
see it as it is, which includes this. I sometimes use the analogy of
Archimede's lever. I think I've found the fulcrum and the lever, and
I'm pushing.
And it is moving. Just very slowly at first. Perhaps you would
understand the physics of it....
These discussion would not have been taking place when I started
Beyond Politics. The environment is shifting. When I started writing
in the Election Methods mailing list, a few members had heard of or
had thought of delegable proxy. It is now often considered, more or
less, the ideal election method, but most think it is impractical to
implement, that is, they think there is no way from here to there.
But a few of them, and Jan Kok was one, have looked deeper. We think
there is a way, and we are working on it.
>Are leaders of BTP trustworthy people ready for fully transparent
>political process?
Perhaps. That's Jan's call. He knows them.
> If not, I am not very sure you will make them
>interested in this service as long as such communication channels make
>leaders need to be much more carefull and much more serving oriented
>which is actually not so popular thing due to regular politicians
>motives.
Quite simply, we can't tell until we try.
> > There are a _lot_ of "blogs" around, and
> > many allow members of the public to post essays on them. Some of those
> > blogs are associated with (on the same web site as) a polictical
> > action group, a political party, or a political candidate.
>
>Yes.
Problem is, of course, the noise. Blogs can change things, can move
society, but only in some fairly diffuse ways. So far. Or they move
things based on cult-of-personality. A single charismatic blogger can
have quite an impact. And it can also be quite dangerous, perhaps.
> > Metaparty is the same sort of thing as those blogs, in the sense that
> > it provides a place for members of the public to get together and
> > discuss stuff - mainly political stuff.
> >
> > Metaparty is _different_ from those blogs in that it is an FA/DP,
> > therefore the organization itself has no political viewpoint (although
> > the members can have and express any viewpoint they like). This is
> > explained in more detail in the essay on the front page of
> > metaparty.beyondpolitics.org . There is a similar discussion about the
> > differences between an FA/DP and a traditional board-controlled
> > organization in the first post in the btpnc-talk Yahoo group.
>
>
>Heh. seems to me that metaparty deserves metaaproach to fullfill its
>consistency.
It is, indeed, a meta-approach to politics. It addresses politics by
abstracting itself from politics.
Metaparty, to repeat, is simply an FA/DP organization, explicitly,
with politics as its focus. Exactly where it goes, how it is hosted,
etc., are matters to be determined by Metaparty members. It may go
practically nowhere. It is simply a small effort, which might or
might not grow.
To know, look again in a year or two.
Mark
illegale wrote:
>G: So, how are you going to enable this anti-lemmingizm start?
-M: I am not an anti-lemmingizer.
I simply am designing a system that has reduced lemming outputs.
>G: Are you going to give your father link to some site, where he can register and
> be part of sd-2 structure?
-M: I don't know if he would use my system.
He does think that social network analysis and optimization is
interesting, but it may be too democratic for him to use in business.
And it may be too premature for use in politics.
>G: Or? Do you have some idea about this part? Do you think this part is important? Give me some thoughts about it. I feel as you havent actually look at that thing too much. Am I right?
-M: The focus of us system designers has been toward the improvement of
legislation. I have also been thinking about *administrative
hierarchies* which has big applications in business, especially if it
yields efficiency improvements - MONEY!
(If this money part works, there will be no stopping SD2-S based
systems.)
MG
swedish parliament 060917...
AD didn't make it..
My comments on:
"The AD system as described will not be adequate to address the noise
problem in large assemblies. It does not consider, as far as I have
seen (which may not at all be the whole proposal) how to regulate
debate and discussion, which are *crucial* in deliberative democracy.
Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to deal
with this. "
1.
Regulation of debate should be kept at a minimum. As long as there a
simple and just rules (about harrasment etc) followed in a forum,
everuthing should be allowed to be written there.
2.
A good way to filter out low quality messages in forums is to use and
filter on voted points for the author and/or the postings. Ofcourse
thee is need for enough categories helping users to find only issues fo
interest, leaving the rest to others or delegates/DP.
3.
When it comes to filtering the proposals themselves the AD-system
proposes the continous voting process, described under "More on
continuous voting" in this page:
http://wse75376.web16.talkactive.net/ads%20websida/Party%20program.html
Now, by filtering on the level of accumulated support, a user has not
to deal with very narrow or impupular proposals.
Only the proposals that will be approved or diapproved within the
coming weeks has to be reweived if the area of interest/category is
non-delegated.
By this way, proposals obviously written by lunatics and proposals not
interesting more than a few users never will see the daylight and will
never be approved/disapproved. This is the noise filtration you where
seeking for.
4.
The continuous voting system also means that there is not a given date
when a vote is over. All we know is that a popular or very impopular
proposal will be over in shorter time than a very narrow issue with few
voters.
An advatage of this is that votebuying will be practically impossible
since there is little chance for the buyer to control that he gets what
he pays for. (A voter can cryptedly change his vote as many times as he
likes)
"The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
constraints, but communication without control built into the system
is far less dangerous. "
1. It's manly intended to contol the AD-party or any small, midsize or
big organization ruled by its members.
So there is little risk in it when it comes to legislation etc.:
2. There is a well written and difficult to change constition in place
(writing for civil rights etc.that can't be proposed against)
3. the level of DD in the swedish parliament will only be implemeted in
the pace that is in line with the voters acceptance for the AD-system.
Hopefully, the support will grow for every election giving in finally a
powerful party inside the parliament that is truly citizen ruled
instead for todays elitistic parties mainly representing themselves.
>You can look in the international section on our forum or here:
>http://top.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/AD
"Take a look at http://beyondpolitics.org and
http://beyondpolitics.org/wiki "
-I will when I have more time!
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
At 06:31 PM 9/27/2006, MG wrote:
>My comments on:
>"The AD system as described will not be adequate to address the noise
>problem in large assemblies. It does not consider, as far as I have
>seen (which may not at all be the whole proposal) how to regulate
>debate and discussion, which are *crucial* in deliberative democracy.
>Control over discussion is how power elites currently maintain their
>position in nominal democracies. Delegable proxy is designed to deal
>with this. "
>
>1.
>Regulation of debate should be kept at a minimum. As long as there a
>simple and just rules (about harrasment etc) followed in a forum,
>everuthing should be allowed to be written there.
Only with special definitions of "there" and heavy filtering on what
is "there" does this make sense. I.e., if there is a *complete*
record of *all* submissions to a forum, but users have access to
tools which allow them to filter out much or even most of it, then
this could work. *However,* there is then no single record of what
was considered by a forum, which is a radical departure from standard
democratic process.
Consider this: when courts interpret laws, they sometimes refer to
the formal record of debate regarding the passage of the law. It can
show legislative intent, how the legislators intended the law to be
interpreted.
One cannot tell this by reference to the full record, because there
is no presumption that any particular post was read by even a
majority of legislators.
Rather, what is needed is the equivalent of a meeting transcript,
which shows material admitted to the deliberative process. Properly,
unqualified material may have been *submitted*, but it is not part of
the record unless it is either accepted in some way, entered into the
record by a qualified member, or the like.
Consider the mess that would exist if the record of debate on a bill
before Congress were to include every letter received by every member
of Congress..... Now, indeed, it could be useful to have such a
complete record. But it is not the transcript of a meeting....
>2.
>A good way to filter out low quality messages in forums is to use and
>filter on voted points for the author and/or the postings. Ofcourse
>thee is need for enough categories helping users to find only issues fo
>interest, leaving the rest to others or delegates/DP.
There is, linguistically, a "lost performative" here. *Who* filters
out "low quality messages"? In a DP system, generally, messages are
filtered by proxies. I assume that high-level meetings would *not* be
open to direct input by everyone, but only to "qualified members."
Qualification could consist of, for example, representing a certain
number of general members, but there could be other criteria, both
positive and negative.
>3.
>When it comes to filtering the proposals themselves the AD-system
>proposes the continous voting process, described under "More on
>continuous voting" in this page:
>
>http://wse75376.web16.talkactive.net/ads%20websida/Party%20program.html
>Now, by filtering on the level of accumulated support, a user has not
>to deal with very narrow or impupular proposals.
It gets complicated. What I see as essential is that a citizen can
look at the record of debate on a subject, and know what was, and
what was not, considered by those voting. (Because I favor direct
voting, this is not complete, for citizens may vote, if they are so
foolish, without having considered the record of debate; but it does
create a presumption that should be good for active participants,
i.e., active high-level proxies.)
>Only the proposals that will be approved or diapproved within the
>coming weeks has to be reweived if the area of interest/category is
>non-delegated.
>By this way, proposals obviously written by lunatics and proposals not
>interesting more than a few users never will see the daylight and will
>never be approved/disapproved. This is the noise filtration you where
>seeking for.
Perhaps. In a DP system the filtration is done by the proxies, who
decide what information and suggestions to enter at high levels.
Essentially, the problem of presenting a new idea for consideration
boils down to presenting it to *one* person. If that person accepts
it, the idea proceeds. Presumably, this is one's proxy; however, it
could be anyone.
Relegating this to an aggregative system is, in my view, dangerous.
Essentially, to get the attention of the group, one has to get the
attention of the group. It can be frustratingly difficult, indeed.
>4.
>The continuous voting system also means that there is not a given date
>when a vote is over. All we know is that a popular or very impopular
>proposal will be over in shorter time than a very narrow issue with few
>voters.
>An advatage of this is that votebuying will be practically impossible
>since there is little chance for the buyer to control that he gets what
>he pays for. (A voter can cryptedly change his vote as many times as he
>likes)
Vote buying is a problem that is not particularly worth worrying
about. Buying enough votes to make a difference in a system that
thoroughly deliberates would be so expensive that it might better be
called "compensation." I.e., if you will let us build our superstore,
we will pay every citizen $100. Should this be illegal?
I'd really like to see descriptions of actual situations where vote
buying was a problem, in the real world!
(*Bribery* is another story. Bribery takes place when a key player is
corrupted. The whole point of bribery is that it is *cheap*. It
becomes possible when there *are* key players, those who can make a
decision, there being few enough of them and the resources that they
control being great enough that a small investment for the
corporation, say, can produce great returns. If a contract for $10
billion is being let, a million dollars to each of the committee
members awarding it is peanuts. But if you have to go out and
literally buy citizen votes.... you can't give the citizens a million
dollars each!
>"The AD proposal is intended to actually control legislation. That is,
>it is proposed as what we call a power or control structure. I prefer
>to focus purely on communication *at this time,* for if we can
>communicate, we *can* control, within some very important
>constraints, but communication without control built into the system
>is far less dangerous. "
>
>1. It's manly intended to contol the AD-party or any small, midsize or
>big organization ruled by its members.
Which does not answer the problem. What I'm suggesting is that, at
this time, it is more important to develop systems that foster
collective intelligence, that advise their members (and others who
are interested) in such a way that the advice is quite properly
considered trustworthy. If you can accomplish this, *there is no need
for new control structures,* for properly advised people can directly
exercise power according to the advice. And they can use existing
structures to do it. They can vote, they can create formal
organizations, they can contribute funding.
>So there is little risk in it when it comes to legislation etc.:
This argument could be made about any form of organizational
structure for a political party. However, what if the party is
successful? If a party is a power structure, that is, if it collects
power and exercises it, say by majority vote, it leverages power.
Essentially, it inevitably, sooner or later, uses power contrary to
the wishes and even the interests of those who contributed the resources.
>2. There is a well written and difficult to change constition in place
>(writing for civil rights etc.that can't be proposed against)
>
>3. the level of DD in the swedish parliament will only be implemeted in
>the pace that is in line with the voters acceptance for the AD-system.
>Hopefully, the support will grow for every election giving in finally a
>powerful party inside the parliament that is truly citizen ruled
>instead for todays elitistic parties mainly representing themselves.
What I'm trying to foster is a *broad* non-party organization
*outside* of the halls of power. We keep trying to use governmental
institutions as a substitute for this. But if the people can decide
what they want, they can accomplish it. They don't need political
parties, and, in my view, such parties actually impede the process,
because they, by nature, crystallize agendas and platforms; when they
do this through collected power, rather than the dispersed,
decentralized power that I'm suggesting can be most effective and
safest, they are not only vulnerable to corruption, but they become
relatively rigid.
However, having said this, the path to power for the people would
indeed be through organizations that *use* direct democracy, but in
an efficient way (the problem of scale in democracy being basically
one of efficiency when an organization becomes large). DP is, of
course, the solution we propose for this.
There is an initiative using a domain donated by BeyondPolitics.org,
metaparty. Metaparty.beyondpolitics.org. This is intended as a
non-partisan party. It would not *ever* run candidates, but
candidates might pledge to respect its process.
Demoex, I presume you are aware, operates through what I'd call a
bound representative, a member of the city council pledged to vote
according to the votes of the demoex process. Which throws a monkey
wrench into the standard deliberative process of the city council,
which presumes that the members are free players, able to discuss,
debate, and vote according to their own opinions. And which opinions
are subject to change depending on the debate process. I do not
wonder that Demoex has been a bit unpopular with other members of the
city council.
And, of course, it is competing with them. Which is not the way to
go. Demoex should be *advising* them. All of them. It should be
informing the members of the council as to how their public sees
matters, and it should likewise be informing the public about how the
members of the council understand their duties.
From the wiki for AD,
http://wse75376.web16.talkactive.net/ads%20websida/Party%20program.html
>The "button pushers" in parliament will be forced to accept true
>democracy by written contracts with the party or risk beeing sued in
>a court of law. The aim of the party is to avoid corruption by
>looking for idealists who value democratic principals for this task .
Generally, and for quite good reasons, it would not be lawful for a
member of a legislative body to be bound to vote in any particular way.
And if you think you are going to avoid corruption by "looking for
idealists," you should become aware that the most serious and deep
corruption is found among those who present themselves as idealists.
Watch out for someone who is trying to do you a favor!
(I'm not really that cynical, but I've had the most trouble, in so
many situations, with those who thought they were doing "good" by
providing me or an organization this or that resource. What happens
when it becomes inconvenient for them, for whatever reason? I've
found it more reliable, often, to deal with, say, landlords who are
in it for the money: they are predictable, you can reason with them,
you know what they actually want. People who are "doing good," far
too often, think that the world owes them special consideration for
this reason. And, as to how people conduct themselves on the boards
of nonprofit organizations, let's say that I've seen more cutthroat
maneuvering in such environments than is normal in for-profit
business. After all, if it is for a good cause, it is justified....)
MG
>Regulation of debate should be kept at a minimum. As long as there a
>simple and just rules (about harrasment etc) followed in a forum,
>everuthing should be allowed to be written there.
Only with special definitions of "there" and heavy filtering on what
is "there" does this make sense. I.e., if there is a *complete*
record of *all* submissions to a forum, but users have access to
tools which allow them to filter out much or even most of it, then
this could work. *However,* there is then no single record of what
was considered by a forum, which is a radical departure from standard
democratic process.
Consider this: when courts interpret laws, they sometimes refer to
the formal record of debate regarding the passage of the law. It can
show legislative intent, how the legislators intended the law to be
interpreted.
One cannot tell this by reference to the full record, because there
is no presumption that any particular post was read by even a
majority of legislators.
-Sure! The only filter there should be is controlled by the users.
Only way of excluding a debater for further messaging is breaking of
the moderators rules.
>>2.
>A good way to filter out low quality messages in forums is to use and
>filter on voted points for the author and/or the postings. Ofcourse
>thee is need for enough categories helping users to find only issues fo
>interest, leaving the rest to others or delegates/DP.
There is, linguistically, a "lost performative" here. *Who* filters
out "low quality messages"? In a DP system, generally, messages are
filtered by proxies. I assume that high-level meetings would *not* be
open to direct input by everyone, but only to "qualified members."
Qualification could consist of, for example, representing a certain
number of general members, but there could be other criteria, both
positive and negative.
-The users in AD could filter out messages below a certain level of
voted points, no one else.
Filtering by proxies opens up for corruption. It is not according TOP.
>What I'm trying to foster is a *broad* non-party organization
*outside* of the halls of power. We keep trying to use governmental
institutions as a substitute for this. But if the people can decide
what they want, they can accomplish it. They don't need political
parties, and, in my view, such parties actually impede the process,
because they, by nature, crystallize agendas and platforms;
-That's a path we have rejected due to ineffectiveness.
Maybe you are right, maybe AD will be the quickest way to power.
AD does not crystallaze agendas or platforms, no particular politics
except TOP and DD is highlighted.
And it is very important to be tuly non-partisan, but we think it can
be maintained, especially as a contrast to the traditional parties.
>Demoex, I presume you are aware, operates through what I'd call a
bound representative, a member of the city council pledged to vote
according to the votes of the demoex process. Which throws a monkey
wrench into the standard deliberative process of the city council,
which presumes that the members are free players, able to discuss,
debate, and vote according to their own opinions. And which opinions
are subject to change depending on the debate process. I do not
wonder that Demoex has been a bit unpopular with other members of the
city council.
And, of course, it is competing with them. Which is not the way to
go. Demoex should be *advising* them. All of them. It should be
informing the members of the council as to how their public sees
matters, and it should likewise be informing the public about how the
members of the council understand their duties.
-I'm aware of Demoex.
One very important task for a bound representatíve is to transfer
information.
If this is not well made, the process of debate and deliberation
ofcourse will suffer and contradict the goals for such a DD-party.
I'm not sure if they have had such problem or if this is only rumorus
spread by Demoex competitors.
For AD:s behalf we are convinced that a very large portion of the work
for our bound reps. will be to dig upp all facts, bring them to the
members of AD, and return the result from AD-debate to whom it might
concern inside the parliament institution.
In Sweden there are several hundreds hired only for supporting the
parties with investigation and information, this shall AD use of
course, but in a totally open way according to TOP.
To advicing the traditional parties seems a little defensive, we are
talking about peoples powere here!
>Generally, and for quite good reasons, it would not be lawful for a
member of a legislative body to be bound to vote in any particular way.
-This is not our view, can you explain how it is unlawful? And what
good reasons?
Only if there is representative democracy as a base without the real
aim of direct control by the people.
In Sweden the very base rule in the constituiton says: "All power
origins from the people."
>And if you think you are going to avoid corruption by "looking for
idealists," you should become aware that the most serious and deep
corruption is found among those who present themselves as idealists.
Watch out for someone who is trying to do you a favor!
-We are aware of this, not trusting anybodyelse than our members.
Even a true idelist can turn into something very bad due to the system
error of representative democracy, it has happened many times.
I agree that true capitalistic reasons can be more predictable in fact.