Not direct democracy, not the rule of the people

[Michael Allan]

Hi Fred,

> * This entire discussion, including the example I gave, is a
> digression and a distraction.  It does nothing to improve public
> participation in government.

We should look directly at the problem that concerns you.  It had to
do with manipulation of the voters.  Your Practical Democracy (PD) is
almost impervious to manipulation.  In a sense, it is close to the way
the Athenians chose their officers.  Cascade voting is also impervious
to manipulation (I think), but for different reasons.  It's difficult
to explain my reasons, though, without a specific example of an
attempted manipulation - and there are too many of those to list.
Here's a rough list (not definitive or complete) of general
categories:

  a) Individual vote buying (vote for me, and I'll give you $20)

  b) Mass media misinformation campaigns (general vote buying)

  c) Individual social coercion (vote for me, or I'll beat you up)

  d) Group social coercion, such as fear of being ostracized by fellow
     union members, or punished by management at work

  e) Systematic barriers, such as impenetrable nomination procedures
     that lead to a paucity of choices; or referenda with loaded
     questions

     others?
 
> re: "I should point out, however, that the method is explicitly
>      designed to facilitate consensus."
> 
> The phrase, "the method is explicitly designed to facilitate
> consensus", while undoubtedly true, should be qualified by pointing
> out it is not a consensus of the electorate.  It is only a consensus
> of the participants.  The participants, by definition, must be
> computer users.  That makes the system elitist, even if the elite's
> intellectual capacity only extends to "if u cn rd ths".

Yes.  But in industrialized societies like ours, the term 'elite'
would be an exaggeration, since most of the people who actually turn
out at the general polls are plugged into the Internet.  The situation
may be different in non-industrial societies, or in small communities
with big problems, such as some Indian/Inuit communities in Canada.
 
> You and I exchange ideas reasonably well in English text, but we are
> atypical.  I am not yet comfortable envisioning a political system
> based on written communication on the internet.

I agree with Rohan's judgement that technical barriers to
participation will fall.  Technical people will knock them down.
Social barriers will also fall, I suppose, when people choose to
tackle them.  They'll get the tools first, and then we'll see what
they do with them.

The literary basis of communication applies only to normative
decisions (legislative etc.), and it restricts only those who are
actually drafting their own variations of a text.  (There is no formal
restriction to text, but in practice we expect most norms to be
written.)  Literary barriers do not apply however to electoral
decisions, nor to normative voting at the most common level of
participation.  Verbal inter-communication among peers will suffice
(and may be best) for anyone who is not actually drafting the text.

I suspect that it already suffices for many of the legislators who sit
in our assemblies.  I wonder how many of them read each bill, or even
its summary?  They know what's in it without reading it, because they
get reports from trusted sources.  I think ordinary voters will also
have trusted sources.

> Now, having cited most of my disagreements with your message, let me
> proceed to the much more important matter of why I think your efforts
> are important:
> 
> Votorola is the only practical method I've seen of giving any part of
> the public a way to influence government.  It is a process that
> doesn't need further debate ... it needs seeding. It needs an issue
> that inspires participation in a community.  It is independent of
> community size, or even community type.  That is, it will work as well
> in Little League as it will in Town Hall.  It is available for use,
> and it needs to be used.

I have to speed up the demo server.  That shouldn't take too long.
Then yes, people could use it on a restricted basis; but no, it's not
actually useable yet.  Brave users can jump in, but they'll run into
problems.  They could report them to the list and we'd fix them.  But
right now we're mostly focused on opening up the architecture.  It's
not yet obvious, but Votorola is designed to interface with other Web
sites, e-dem tools and communication facilities.  We're thinking we
need to show a little of the extended architecture, so that the voters
(and other projects) can get a better sense of the possiblities.

Anyone with different development priorities is free to act on them,
of course.

> I may carp that Votorola will not reach 'all' the people, but in terms
> of giving public a way to influence its environment, it's 'way ahead
> of whatever's in second place.

We're thinking there'll be many tools and many methods - kind of an
"open ecosystem" (credit Mark Murphy) - and people will choose the
best combinations themselves.  I hope PD has a place there.  I like
the fact that we can implement PD (and maybe Pivato's method too) with
Votorola.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/