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Ben Towne
Jan 5, 2012, 5:44:46 PM1/5/12
to opensou...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,
Here are my inputs:
1A: Electronic voting:
SSNs are not a sufficiently secure authentication mechanism, and I'd advise against using biometrics (e. g. fingerprints).
However, there may be another system that at least gets pretty close to the strength of in-person voter verification.� You could go to your local voting place and get some sort of token allowing you to vote in certain elections, or you could vote there.� Even glossing over the technical challenges of security, we need to not forget a few basic facts:
-Not everybody has access to technology.� We don't all have good computers and high-speed internet; restricting participation in decision-making activities to those who do is not really appropriate.� There is a digital divide and any decision-making system needs to acknowledge that.
Further, even among those who do have computers and Internet access, not all have Facebook accounts (and some have more than one).� Facebook is a private company that does not necessarily look out for the best interests of its users (e. g. any of their recent privacy fiascos), so it's understandable why someone might not want an account there, and we shouldn't force them to have one.� Facebook could be a place for voting about Facebook policy, but is probably not a great place to be actually setting political policy.
-The secret ballot is an important tradition that we should not give up.� Privacy is necessary for a secret ballot and a secret ballot is necessary for a functioning democracy.� It's what allows people's votes to be made independently of one another.� You can't directly buy votes that you can't verify, and if all your votes have to be made public, certain social norms might force you into voting one way or another for social purposes, not because you think that's the best option for the country/state/town as a whole.� For reference, check out Scott Page's "The Difference" or Jeff Howe's "Crowdsourcing" or other literature on how groups can make better decisions than individuals - the independence of individuals within the group is generally necessary for that result.
If the goal is to "make the decision," the two paragraphs above are relevant.� If the goal is to "inform the debate" and host good informed discussions where each person brings a piece of information or a particular perspective to the table, then (depending on topic) it could be a very good idea to use real names and be open about who's advocating for what, and we don't necessarily need to have complete or demographically balanced representation to get good information and collaboratively develop great solution proposals.
1B: Direct Democracy voting:
If you're going to do that, you definitely need the proxy system to let people delegate their votes to people they trust to do the job with greater expertise.� Not every person can or should be an expert on every topic that affects their lives.� Bureaucracy lets us divide up the work associated with governing to the people who can (theoretically) specialize in that and do it well.
On the second sub-point, there are some advantages to having legislators and other officials with longer terms, who don't have to be constantly proving themselves to the public. One benefit is that it lets them make some votes that could be politically unpopular especially in the short term, but best for the country in the long term. For example, if you're up for re-election, you could vote to give each of your constituents $100.� That would be politically popular.� But if it comes at the expense of building a huge long-term debt, it may not be the right thing to do.� Decision-makers need to be accountable to the futures of the people they represent, not just their present selves.� Longer terms provide a bit of security that allows them to do that.�
I'm not saying the current system is great; I'm just noting that there are certain important benefits of the current system that we shouldn't overlook.
I agree that the plurality voting method is not the right one if you want to allow more than two options in a vote, which we should.� Each alternative method has pros and cons and discussion of them should be moved to a separate thread, noting that some other countries have figured out more than the U. S. on this one.
2, 3, 6:
Rather than starting with a particular position on these topics, I think we should propose a good way to come together and figure out the issues and discuss solutions.� Item 4 touches on this reasonably well - calling less for particular solutions (e. g. "bring us as completely into the age of clean energy as possible within 10-20 years") or ways of doing it ("through the state, the market, decentralized voluntarism, or all three") and calling more to "bring people like these together to
map out..." the problem and solution, in open discussion.
"Obviously, there's nearly infinite room here for debate and discussion about these solutions, but we imagine a ... discourse" and it's that open, informed discourse we should focus on promoting (enabling? facilitating?).
5 (Open Source Monetary System):
Y'all may be interested in reading Dee Hock's "Birth of the Chaordic Age," discussing how VISA was born out of this view of money & how to exchange value, revolutionizing that industry.� Keep your eyes on Dwolla, an Iowa-based startup that's attempting to do it again.� Learn from the community behind Bitcoin, which seems to be a reasonably close fit to the "open source" alternative currency described here.
Don't forget that having a common, fluid, stable, currency has a LOT of benefits when it comes to commerce, exchange, free and open interactions, allowing people to learn from each other, communicate and transact easily, etc.
As far as "allowing" any form of currency, the parties to a transaction can mutually agree on pretty much any form of currency they wish.� In many cities, you'll find businesses that accept currencies other than the local public currency (e. g. USD, for American cities) in exchange for goods & services.� USD being the common denominator just makes life easier.
We also still need to have a system for allocating scarce resources...we may be going towards "post-scarcity" on certain resources but toward increased scarcity on others.� Economics is all about systems for allocating scarce resources.
As before, the comment that "there is nearly infinite room for new ideas and debate here, including questioning the essential premise" seems spot on.� Let's focus on building the process by which we can do that effectively, at scale.
7: We need new business models for goods that have high initial cost to produce but zero marginal cost to reproduce, including ways to incentivize quality.� However, I'm not convinced that "only people with strong experience and a solid grasp can propose sustainable solutions for ALL sides." Such people are needed, but even non-experts might have useful inputs to the process (e. g. information & ideas).�
�
8: Requiring a 75% yes vote among registered members to do anything is a death sentence for the group, unless you plan to keep it quite small, relatively homogeneous, and even temporally limited.� What are you going to do about people who abstain or simply aren't around for the vote and/or discussion?� What about people who support the goals and want to be part of this but not be core members?� We don't all and we don't always have the time to type out long messages like this one or read lots of back-and-forth on a particular thread or set of threads.� Requiring a pay wall, let alone a minimum constant activity level, is a high entry barrier.� It will "keep out all but the most motivated griefers," but probably leave the "party" as an organization more resembling a high school extracurricular group than a national movement.� It'll be a fringe group of outsiders, not a beacon of hope for those who see a need for the current system to change but who don't know how to do it.� My last paper and TEDx talk described "low entry barriers" as a key to success in online deliberation systems, and I specifically had this group in mind as an example of what does & will happen when the entry barriers are set too high.�
If the goal is to build a core group of people who can work together to develop the technology and platform around which everybody else can gather to discuss the issues and make more informed decisions, a smaller group with a lot of technically-minded people would be reasonable.� In that case, we could look at simply adopting the best practices of projects in existing open source ecosystems, such as the rules governing Apache projects (this is just one example).� In that case, we would also discard most points of the platform to focus on principles about technologies and processes for collaborative problem-solving.
Finally, keep an eye on Americans Elect.� Their goals and approach seem to align with the aims of many people in this group, but they've done much better at building bigger.� Their technology and approach still has a long way to go, and unless there are some radical changes I don't think they'll achieve their stated political goal - but what I hope they will do is draw attention to these issues, this approach, this way of doing politics more openly, and plant the conceptual seed that a viable alternative could exist.� They'll also produce an experience that we should learn from, and tracking it as it's happening seems to be a reasonably good way of going about that.� I've registered as a delegate and played around with the site, and I look forward to watching that story unfold in the next several months.� See some of you there!
-WBT
Here are my inputs:
1A: Electronic voting:
SSNs are not a sufficiently secure authentication mechanism, and I'd advise against using biometrics (e. g. fingerprints).
However, there may be another system that at least gets pretty close to the strength of in-person voter verification.� You could go to your local voting place and get some sort of token allowing you to vote in certain elections, or you could vote there.� Even glossing over the technical challenges of security, we need to not forget a few basic facts:
-Not everybody has access to technology.� We don't all have good computers and high-speed internet; restricting participation in decision-making activities to those who do is not really appropriate.� There is a digital divide and any decision-making system needs to acknowledge that.
Further, even among those who do have computers and Internet access, not all have Facebook accounts (and some have more than one).� Facebook is a private company that does not necessarily look out for the best interests of its users (e. g. any of their recent privacy fiascos), so it's understandable why someone might not want an account there, and we shouldn't force them to have one.� Facebook could be a place for voting about Facebook policy, but is probably not a great place to be actually setting political policy.
-The secret ballot is an important tradition that we should not give up.� Privacy is necessary for a secret ballot and a secret ballot is necessary for a functioning democracy.� It's what allows people's votes to be made independently of one another.� You can't directly buy votes that you can't verify, and if all your votes have to be made public, certain social norms might force you into voting one way or another for social purposes, not because you think that's the best option for the country/state/town as a whole.� For reference, check out Scott Page's "The Difference" or Jeff Howe's "Crowdsourcing" or other literature on how groups can make better decisions than individuals - the independence of individuals within the group is generally necessary for that result.
If the goal is to "make the decision," the two paragraphs above are relevant.� If the goal is to "inform the debate" and host good informed discussions where each person brings a piece of information or a particular perspective to the table, then (depending on topic) it could be a very good idea to use real names and be open about who's advocating for what, and we don't necessarily need to have complete or demographically balanced representation to get good information and collaboratively develop great solution proposals.
1B: Direct Democracy voting:
If you're going to do that, you definitely need the proxy system to let people delegate their votes to people they trust to do the job with greater expertise.� Not every person can or should be an expert on every topic that affects their lives.� Bureaucracy lets us divide up the work associated with governing to the people who can (theoretically) specialize in that and do it well.
On the second sub-point, there are some advantages to having legislators and other officials with longer terms, who don't have to be constantly proving themselves to the public. One benefit is that it lets them make some votes that could be politically unpopular especially in the short term, but best for the country in the long term. For example, if you're up for re-election, you could vote to give each of your constituents $100.� That would be politically popular.� But if it comes at the expense of building a huge long-term debt, it may not be the right thing to do.� Decision-makers need to be accountable to the futures of the people they represent, not just their present selves.� Longer terms provide a bit of security that allows them to do that.�
I'm not saying the current system is great; I'm just noting that there are certain important benefits of the current system that we shouldn't overlook.
I agree that the plurality voting method is not the right one if you want to allow more than two options in a vote, which we should.� Each alternative method has pros and cons and discussion of them should be moved to a separate thread, noting that some other countries have figured out more than the U. S. on this one.
2, 3, 6:
Rather than starting with a particular position on these topics, I think we should propose a good way to come together and figure out the issues and discuss solutions.� Item 4 touches on this reasonably well - calling less for particular solutions (e. g. "bring us as completely into the age of clean energy as possible within 10-20 years") or ways of doing it ("through the state, the market, decentralized voluntarism, or all three") and calling more to "bring people like these together to
map out..." the problem and solution, in open discussion.
"Obviously, there's nearly infinite room here for debate and discussion about these solutions, but we imagine a ... discourse" and it's that open, informed discourse we should focus on promoting (enabling? facilitating?).
5 (Open Source Monetary System):
Y'all may be interested in reading Dee Hock's "Birth of the Chaordic Age," discussing how VISA was born out of this view of money & how to exchange value, revolutionizing that industry.� Keep your eyes on Dwolla, an Iowa-based startup that's attempting to do it again.� Learn from the community behind Bitcoin, which seems to be a reasonably close fit to the "open source" alternative currency described here.
Don't forget that having a common, fluid, stable, currency has a LOT of benefits when it comes to commerce, exchange, free and open interactions, allowing people to learn from each other, communicate and transact easily, etc.
As far as "allowing" any form of currency, the parties to a transaction can mutually agree on pretty much any form of currency they wish.� In many cities, you'll find businesses that accept currencies other than the local public currency (e. g. USD, for American cities) in exchange for goods & services.� USD being the common denominator just makes life easier.
We also still need to have a system for allocating scarce resources...we may be going towards "post-scarcity" on certain resources but toward increased scarcity on others.� Economics is all about systems for allocating scarce resources.
As before, the comment that "there is nearly infinite room for new ideas and debate here, including questioning the essential premise" seems spot on.� Let's focus on building the process by which we can do that effectively, at scale.
7: We need new business models for goods that have high initial cost to produce but zero marginal cost to reproduce, including ways to incentivize quality.� However, I'm not convinced that "only people with strong experience and a solid grasp can propose sustainable solutions for ALL sides." Such people are needed, but even non-experts might have useful inputs to the process (e. g. information & ideas).�
�
8: Requiring a 75% yes vote among registered members to do anything is a death sentence for the group, unless you plan to keep it quite small, relatively homogeneous, and even temporally limited.� What are you going to do about people who abstain or simply aren't around for the vote and/or discussion?� What about people who support the goals and want to be part of this but not be core members?� We don't all and we don't always have the time to type out long messages like this one or read lots of back-and-forth on a particular thread or set of threads.� Requiring a pay wall, let alone a minimum constant activity level, is a high entry barrier.� It will "keep out all but the most motivated griefers," but probably leave the "party" as an organization more resembling a high school extracurricular group than a national movement.� It'll be a fringe group of outsiders, not a beacon of hope for those who see a need for the current system to change but who don't know how to do it.� My last paper and TEDx talk described "low entry barriers" as a key to success in online deliberation systems, and I specifically had this group in mind as an example of what does & will happen when the entry barriers are set too high.�
If the goal is to build a core group of people who can work together to develop the technology and platform around which everybody else can gather to discuss the issues and make more informed decisions, a smaller group with a lot of technically-minded people would be reasonable.� In that case, we could look at simply adopting the best practices of projects in existing open source ecosystems, such as the rules governing Apache projects (this is just one example).� In that case, we would also discard most points of the platform to focus on principles about technologies and processes for collaborative problem-solving.
Finally, keep an eye on Americans Elect.� Their goals and approach seem to align with the aims of many people in this group, but they've done much better at building bigger.� Their technology and approach still has a long way to go, and unless there are some radical changes I don't think they'll achieve their stated political goal - but what I hope they will do is draw attention to these issues, this approach, this way of doing politics more openly, and plant the conceptual seed that a viable alternative could exist.� They'll also produce an experience that we should learn from, and tracking it as it's happening seems to be a reasonably good way of going about that.� I've registered as a delegate and played around with the site, and I look forward to watching that story unfold in the next several months.� See some of you there!
-WBT
Michael Finko
Jan 6, 2012, 5:24:39 AM1/6/12
to opensourceparty
I went though your email thoroughly, Ben, was preparing points of
agreement and disagreement, only when I got to the end, the part about
A.E., I said, 'uh-oh'. I remembered how Trevor was pushing an
alignment with this group on F.B. Now I hear it again.
It's pretty clear that Americans Elect is a 'tentacle' of the
Republican party (the list of contributors to A.E. reads like a list
of Fortune 500 Company directors, i.e. the 1%, including 'former'
Director of National Intelligence and 'former' FBI Director - as
everyone knows, there's no such thing as a 'former' FBI/CIA/MI-5/KBG/
Mafia/etc. - so really it's just another spoiler party like the T.P.)
So, when I read you 'recommending' A.E. I did a 'double-take' put two
and two together and realized that if that is the direction of this
group than it also is nothing more than another tentacle of the
political machine, R or D, it doesn't matter they are one in the same.
I'm interested in changing the rules of the game entirely, completely
'out of the box thinking' approach, rather then incremental changes
within a system that is clearly not working as intended and largely
controlled. That's what the name International Open Source Party
implies.
br,
Michael
On Jan 6, 12:44 am, Ben Towne <w...@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here are my inputs:
>
> 1A: Electronic voting:
> SSNs are not a sufficiently secure authentication mechanism, and I'd
> advise against using biometrics (e. g. fingerprints).
> However, there may be another system that at least gets pretty close to
> the strength of in-person voter verification. You could go to your
> necessary for a functioning democracy. It's what allows people's votes
> to be made independently of one another. You can't directly buy votes
> topic that affects their lives. Bureaucracy lets us divide up the work
> people they represent, not just their present selves. Longer terms
> Dwolla, an Iowa-based startup that's attempting to do it again. Learn
> be part of this but not be core members? We don't all and we don't
> <http://bit.ly/TEDx-LAF-WBT> described "low entry barriers" as a key to
>
> -WBT
agreement and disagreement, only when I got to the end, the part about
A.E., I said, 'uh-oh'. I remembered how Trevor was pushing an
alignment with this group on F.B. Now I hear it again.
It's pretty clear that Americans Elect is a 'tentacle' of the
Republican party (the list of contributors to A.E. reads like a list
of Fortune 500 Company directors, i.e. the 1%, including 'former'
Director of National Intelligence and 'former' FBI Director - as
everyone knows, there's no such thing as a 'former' FBI/CIA/MI-5/KBG/
Mafia/etc. - so really it's just another spoiler party like the T.P.)
So, when I read you 'recommending' A.E. I did a 'double-take' put two
and two together and realized that if that is the direction of this
group than it also is nothing more than another tentacle of the
political machine, R or D, it doesn't matter they are one in the same.
I'm interested in changing the rules of the game entirely, completely
'out of the box thinking' approach, rather then incremental changes
within a system that is clearly not working as intended and largely
controlled. That's what the name International Open Source Party
implies.
br,
Michael
On Jan 6, 12:44 am, Ben Towne <w...@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here are my inputs:
>
> 1A: Electronic voting:
> SSNs are not a sufficiently secure authentication mechanism, and I'd
> advise against using biometrics (e. g. fingerprints).
> However, there may be another system that at least gets pretty close to
> local voting place and get some sort of token allowing you to vote in
> certain elections, or you could vote there. Even glossing over the
> technical challenges of security, we need to not forget a few basic facts:
>
> -Not everybody has access to technology. We don't all have good
>
> computers and high-speed internet; restricting participation in
> decision-making activities to those who do is not really appropriate.
> decision-making activities to those who do is not really appropriate.
> There is a digital divide and any decision-making system needs to
> acknowledge that.
> Further, even among those who do have computers and Internet access, not
> all have Facebook accounts (and some have more than one). Facebook is a
> acknowledge that.
> Further, even among those who do have computers and Internet access, not
> private company that does not necessarily look out for the best
> interests of its users (e. g. any of their recent privacy fiascos), so
> it's understandable why someone might not want an account there, and we
> shouldn't force them to have one. Facebook could be a place for voting
> interests of its users (e. g. any of their recent privacy fiascos), so
> it's understandable why someone might not want an account there, and we
> about Facebook policy, but is probably not a great place to be actually
> setting political policy.
>
> -The secret ballot is an important tradition that we should not give
> up. Privacy is necessary for a secret ballot and a secret ballot is
> setting political policy.
>
> -The secret ballot is an important tradition that we should not give
> necessary for a functioning democracy. It's what allows people's votes
> to be made independently of one another. You can't directly buy votes
> that you can't verify, and if all your votes have to be made public,
> certain social norms might force you into voting one way or another for
> social purposes, not because you think that's the best option for the
> country/state/town as a whole. For reference, check out Scott Page's
> certain social norms might force you into voting one way or another for
> social purposes, not because you think that's the best option for the
> "The Difference" or Jeff Howe's "Crowdsourcing" or other literature on
> how groups can make better decisions than individuals - the independence
> of individuals within the group is generally necessary for that result.
>
> If the goal is to "make the decision," the two paragraphs above are
> relevant. If the goal is to "inform the debate" and host good informed
> how groups can make better decisions than individuals - the independence
> of individuals within the group is generally necessary for that result.
>
> If the goal is to "make the decision," the two paragraphs above are
> discussions where each person brings a piece of information or a
> particular perspective to the table, then (depending on topic) it could
> be a very good idea to use real names and be open about who's advocating
> for what, and we don't necessarily need to have complete or
> demographically balanced representation to get good information and
> collaboratively develop great solution proposals.
>
> 1B: Direct Democracy voting:
> If you're going to do that, you definitely need the proxy system to let
> people delegate their votes to people they trust to do the job with
> greater expertise. Not every person can or should be an expert on every
> particular perspective to the table, then (depending on topic) it could
> be a very good idea to use real names and be open about who's advocating
> for what, and we don't necessarily need to have complete or
> demographically balanced representation to get good information and
> collaboratively develop great solution proposals.
>
> 1B: Direct Democracy voting:
> If you're going to do that, you definitely need the proxy system to let
> people delegate their votes to people they trust to do the job with
> topic that affects their lives. Bureaucracy lets us divide up the work
> associated with governing to the people who can (theoretically)
> specialize in that and do it well.
>
> On the second sub-point, there are some advantages to having legislators
> and other officials with longer terms, who don't have to be constantly
> proving themselves to the public. One benefit is that it lets them make
> some votes that could be politically unpopular especially in the short
> term, but best for the country in the long term. For example, if you're
> up for re-election, you could vote to give each of your constituents
> $100. That would be politically popular. But if it comes at the
> specialize in that and do it well.
>
> On the second sub-point, there are some advantages to having legislators
> and other officials with longer terms, who don't have to be constantly
> proving themselves to the public. One benefit is that it lets them make
> some votes that could be politically unpopular especially in the short
> term, but best for the country in the long term. For example, if you're
> up for re-election, you could vote to give each of your constituents
> expense of building a huge long-term debt, it may not be the right thing
> to do. Decision-makers need to be accountable to the futures of the
> people they represent, not just their present selves. Longer terms
> provide a bit of security that allows them to do that.
>
>
> I'm not saying the current system is great; I'm just noting that there
> are certain important benefits of the current system that we shouldn't
> overlook.
>
> I agree that the plurality voting method is not the right one if you
> want to allow more than two options in a vote, which we should. Each
> are certain important benefits of the current system that we shouldn't
> overlook.
>
> I agree that the plurality voting method is not the right one if you
> alternative method has pros and cons and discussion of them should be
> moved to a separate thread, noting that some other countries have
> figured out more than the U. S. on this one.
>
> 2, 3, 6:
> Rather than starting with a particular position on these topics, I think
> we should propose a good way to come together and figure out the issues
> and discuss solutions. Item 4 touches on this reasonably well - calling
> moved to a separate thread, noting that some other countries have
> figured out more than the U. S. on this one.
>
> 2, 3, 6:
> Rather than starting with a particular position on these topics, I think
> we should propose a good way to come together and figure out the issues
> less for particular solutions (e. g. "bring us as completely into the
> age of clean energy as possible within 10-20 years") or ways of doing it
> ("through the state, the market, decentralized voluntarism, or all
> three") and calling more to "bring people like these together to
> map out..." the problem and solution, in open discussion.
> "Obviously, there's nearly infinite room here for debate and discussion
> about these solutions, but we imagine a ... discourse" and it's that
> open, informed discourse we should focus on promoting (enabling?
> facilitating?).
>
> 5 (Open Source Monetary System):
> Y'all may be interested in reading Dee Hock's "Birth of the Chaordic
> Age," discussing how VISA was born out of this view of money & how to
> exchange value, revolutionizing that industry. Keep your eyes on
> age of clean energy as possible within 10-20 years") or ways of doing it
> ("through the state, the market, decentralized voluntarism, or all
> three") and calling more to "bring people like these together to
> map out..." the problem and solution, in open discussion.
> "Obviously, there's nearly infinite room here for debate and discussion
> about these solutions, but we imagine a ... discourse" and it's that
> open, informed discourse we should focus on promoting (enabling?
> facilitating?).
>
> 5 (Open Source Monetary System):
> Y'all may be interested in reading Dee Hock's "Birth of the Chaordic
> Age," discussing how VISA was born out of this view of money & how to
> Dwolla, an Iowa-based startup that's attempting to do it again. Learn
> from the community behind Bitcoin, which seems to be a reasonably close
> fit to the "open source" alternative currency described here.
> Don't forget that having a common, fluid, stable, currency has a LOT of
> benefits when it comes to commerce, exchange, free and open
> interactions, allowing people to learn from each other, communicate and
> transact easily, etc.
> As far as "allowing" any form of currency, the parties to a transaction
> can mutually agree on pretty much any form of currency they wish. In
> fit to the "open source" alternative currency described here.
> Don't forget that having a common, fluid, stable, currency has a LOT of
> benefits when it comes to commerce, exchange, free and open
> interactions, allowing people to learn from each other, communicate and
> transact easily, etc.
> As far as "allowing" any form of currency, the parties to a transaction
> many cities, you'll find businesses that accept currencies other than
> the local public currency (e. g. USD, for American cities) in exchange
> for goods & services. USD being the common denominator just makes life
> the local public currency (e. g. USD, for American cities) in exchange
> easier.
> We also still need to have a system for allocating scarce resources...we
> may be going towards "post-scarcity" on certain resources but toward
> increased scarcity on others. Economics is all about systems for
> We also still need to have a system for allocating scarce resources...we
> may be going towards "post-scarcity" on certain resources but toward
> allocating scarce resources.
> As before, the comment that "there is nearly infinite room for new ideas
> and debate here, including questioning the essential premise" seems spot
> on. Let's focus on building the process by which we can do that
> As before, the comment that "there is nearly infinite room for new ideas
> and debate here, including questioning the essential premise" seems spot
> effectively, at scale.
>
> 7: We need new business models for goods that have high initial cost to
> produce but zero marginal cost to reproduce, including ways to
> incentivize quality. However, I'm not convinced that "only people with
>
> 7: We need new business models for goods that have high initial cost to
> produce but zero marginal cost to reproduce, including ways to
> strong experience and a solid grasp can propose sustainable solutions
> for ALL sides." Such people are needed, but even non-experts might have
> useful inputs to the process (e. g. information & ideas).
>
> for ALL sides." Such people are needed, but even non-experts might have
> useful inputs to the process (e. g. information & ideas).
>
> 8: Requiring a 75% yes vote among registered members to do anything is a
> death sentence for the group, unless you plan to keep it quite small,
> relatively homogeneous, and even temporally limited. What are you going
> death sentence for the group, unless you plan to keep it quite small,
> to do about people who abstain or simply aren't around for the vote
> and/or discussion? What about people who support the goals and want to
> be part of this but not be core members? We don't all and we don't
> always have the time to type out long messages like this one or read
> lots of back-and-forth on a particular thread or set of threads.
> lots of back-and-forth on a particular thread or set of threads.
> Requiring a pay wall, let alone a minimum constant activity level, is a
> high entry barrier. It will "keep out all but the most motivated
> griefers," but probably leave the "party" as an organization more
> resembling a high school extracurricular group than a national
> movement. It'll be a fringe group of outsiders, not a beacon of hope
> resembling a high school extracurricular group than a national
> for those who see a need for the current system to change but who don't
> know how to do it. My last paper and TEDx talk
> <http://bit.ly/TEDx-LAF-WBT> described "low entry barriers" as a key to
> success in online deliberation systems, and I specifically had this
> group in mind as an example of what does & will happen when the entry
> barriers are set too high.
> group in mind as an example of what does & will happen when the entry
> barriers are set too high.
> If the goal is to build a core group of people who can work together to
> develop the technology and platform around which everybody else can
> gather to discuss the issues and make more informed decisions, a smaller
> group with a lot of technically-minded people would be reasonable. In
> develop the technology and platform around which everybody else can
> gather to discuss the issues and make more informed decisions, a smaller
> that case, we could look at simply adopting the best practices of
> projects in existing open source ecosystems, such as the rules governing
> Apache projects (this is just one example). In that case, we would also
> projects in existing open source ecosystems, such as the rules governing
> discard most points of the platform to focus on principles about
> technologies and processes for collaborative problem-solving.
>
> Finally, keep an eye on Americans Elect. Their goals and approach seem
> technologies and processes for collaborative problem-solving.
>
> to align with the aims of many people in this group, but they've done
> much better at building bigger. Their technology and approach still has
> a long way to go, and unless there are some radical changes I don't
> think they'll achieve their stated political goal - but what I hope they
> will do is draw attention to these issues, this approach, this way of
> doing politics more openly, and plant the conceptual seed that a viable
> alternative could exist. They'll also produce an experience that we
> think they'll achieve their stated political goal - but what I hope they
> will do is draw attention to these issues, this approach, this way of
> doing politics more openly, and plant the conceptual seed that a viable
> should learn from, and tracking it as it's happening seems to be a
> reasonably good way of going about that. I've registered as a delegate
> and played around with the site, and I look forward to watching that
> story unfold in the next several months. See some of you there!
>
> -WBT
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