Communicative System

[Michael Allan]

I guess there are currently 3 aspects of the technology to complete.
Each is roughly near to completion already.  A good push (four or five
man-months of work) would put it over the top.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  Aspect to complete   Why complete it?
  -------------------  -----------------------------------------------
  Theory               To open discussions with theoretical social
                       scientists, philosophers and other theorists.
                       To learn why we're developing this technology,
                       what purposes it may serve.

  Technical document-  To open discussions with engineers and other
  ation                technicians.  To expand the effort of design,
                       implementation and deployment.

  Design and imp-      To open discussions with users and empirical
  lementation          social scientists.  To refine the design,
                       expand the deployment, and start delivering on
                       the purposes of the technology.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------

Which to work on first?  Two patterns seem to jump out:

  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  Pattern                 What does this mean?
  ----------------------  --------------------------------------------
  Opening of discussions  We should work wherever a viable discussion
  is central to the rat-  is easiest to effect, or already effected.
  ionale of development.  We should go where the going's good.

  The purpose of the      Before going too far in developing the
  technology is unknown.  tools, we ought to learn what purposes they
                          could serve.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------

Mario, you imply that we might not be able to understand the purposes
till we proceed further in developing the technology.  I agree that we
can't just plan it, then do it as planned.  Development is a cyclic
process - design, build, redesign and rebuild - and things rarely work
out as planned.  On the other hand, I think the development is further
along than most people are aware.  We have running code for consensus
making.  We understand more-or-less how it works, and why.  So it's
probably possible to complete the theory (roughly of course) before
doing more practical work.

Because voting is involved, it's natural to assume that consensus
making will be exhausted in the service of political ends.  But
consensus making is more fundamental than that (so I've been reading)
and capable of calling the purposes of politics itself into question.
>From that perspective, political institutions would be exposed as mere
tools to be swept up and employed to consensus ends.  What ends could
those be?  If people were free to choose, what are the possibilities?

Respect for democracy might disincline us to attempt an answer.
However, whole new categories of purpose are at issue here.  People
don't usually face questions of this scope.  So a forward-looking
theory seems indispensible.

Still, I don't want to work on stuff that closes off discussion.  Even
if it's just for a few months.  So I'm not sure what to do.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/


Its me Mario wrote:
> Alex, Michael, Abd,
> 
> Thanks for all of those clarifications and sorry I haven't responded
> sooner.
> 
> I have no background in political theory and as such I don't think there's
> much point in continuing this kind of theoretical discussion. You guys seem
> to have thought this through quite comprehensively and your time would
> probably be better spent putting these thoughts into practice rather than
> discussing them with me.
> 
> What I will say is that in Votorola you're trying to build something
> fundamentally new - even if the ideas behind it are not new themselves new,
> formalising them in a piece of software and unleashing this on the internet
> is something that has never been done. I'd be wary of putting to much stock
> in theory for a venture like this, there are a lot of unknowns which you
> won't have any solid inkling about until the system is live and being used.
> 
> I would concentrate on getting a basic but usable version of the software up
> and running at an early stage (but I may be biased because I want to study
> this kind of system in use). I think there's a lot to be said for developing
> communications systems in concert with a group of users, and it might be
> easier to get people interested initially if the system's workings are very
> straightforward and easily understood.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.