Helping the Pirate Party to vanish

[Michael Allan]

Hi Alex,

> You said the tooling will enable citizens to put proposals into
> parliament, right?  I think, thats exactly what the pirate party
> does, it's a hack into the current government [structure].

Exactly, that's why the party is no longer needed and will vanish.
All that's needed is the tooling in the hands of the citizens.  Once
they have that, then any party can floor their bills in the assembly.
Not only will the party be without a purpose, and subsequently vanish,
but the entire party system with it.

Where parties are not required by the constitution (Anglo-America),
they are likely to vanish completely.  Elsewhere (continental Europe),
they will remain in form, but their content will become purely
technical.  So German and Italian citizens (e.g.) will not choose a
party (political platform), but instead a toolset (technical
platform).  Parties will offer different toolsets, but the same list
of candidates as chosen by the citizens.  Election results will be the
same no matter how people vote on election day: the citizens' list
will always win.

Pirates won't be able to count on gaining seats in the Bundestag in
their own name, and this is going to upset many in the party.

> > > That's the sole purpose of the pirate party, to vanish! :-)
> >
> > If you folks want, you can help the party to honour that word.
> 
> It will obey, because currently there are 30.000 pirates and they
> are all rebels with a cause.

You predict that AG Meinungsfindungstool can commit to complete user
freedom (1) without being stopped by internal party resistance.  I'm
less certain.  I know that if you do move toward (1), then the party
will immediately start falling apart as such.  Citizens will start
taking its place, and it'll be a painful transition for the party.

Let's see what Marc says.

Mike


Alexander Praetorius said:
> On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 4:33 AM, Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:
> 
> > Marc and Alex,
> >
> > Marc said:
> > > B) Why do you do not want to merge Outcast and CDS?
> >
> > Thank you, I do.  We just have to finish clarifying how the merged
> > platform is going to obtain its users.  Again, either we (1) eliminate
> > network effects and enable the users to range freely across all
> > platforms, including competitors; or (2) rely on network effects to
> > force all users onto the single, merged platform.
> >
> > > I am still towards (1) and I don't see any reason not to be. But I
> > > guess we have some basic misunderstanding here.
> > >
> > > So let's condense the goal:
> > >
> > > a) Let the users freely choose their favorite tooling,
> > > b) while the whole discourse is covered and
> > > c) without any loss of data.
> > >
> > > What is the point now?
> >
> > I agree with (a), but why restrict the user's choice to (b) and (c)?
> > Suppose user U needs a toolset that covers only part of the discourse,
> > or part of the data.  Why not give U the same freedom as others to
> > choose according to personal need, or preference?  Who would have the
> > authority to say, "No, that choice is not permitted".
> >
> > > A) One of the main paradigms of the Pirate Party is: "If we have
> > > reached our goals, then there is no need for the Pirate Party
> > > anymore!"  Therefore, no - there will be not much resistance on the
> > > way towards (1), because the Pirate Party is more like a movement
> > > than a party. And if not, I will quit my membership.
> >
> > I think it's just human nature and unavoidable for any organization.
> > People have interests - advantages, sunk expenses, hopes - and will
> > fight to protect them.
> 
> 
> [alex]
> I do not believe it's "human nature" and i do not believe such a thing
> exists.
> In the end, it's all habitual. But i guess your right, it's common behavior
> and because many
> party members will put a lot of effort in it, it's likely that their
> "internal operating system" will
> cause said behavior, thus the party might continue.
> You said the tooling will enable citizens to put proposals into parliament,
> right?
> I think, thats exactly what the pirate party does, it's a hack into the
> current government strucutre.
> The current structure does not allow a plattform to directly inject
> proposals.
> But it allows a party to do so if there is enough support for that party.
> Now, it's totally possible to mold the partys internal rules and structure
> in such a way,
> that is sole purpose is to inject proposals made by the plattform into the
> parliament, where it might own a majority of seats.
> The internal rules of the party have to make sure, that only the toolset
> used by all the citizens can change the partys internal rules.
> .... so in the end, all the party is, is a legal hack.
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> 
> > All organizations are resistant to change.
> >
> 
> [alex]
> At it's core, a party is not an organization, but a legal framework and
> could be used to hack other legal frameworks.
> As soon as you involve people into that framework and give them roles, it
> might become an organization and that what the pirate party is,
> but you could mold that in any way you like, so that in the end, its more
> of a constantly changing open kind of "organization" or just a legal
> framework used as a hack into the existing government legal framework in
> order to enable citizens to govern themselves :-D
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> > After much arm twisting, an influential Pirate might agree to (1) in
> > principle, only to turn around and refuse to act in practice.  That
> > kind of thing is likely to happen repeatedly.
> 
> 
> [alex]
> Only the "chairmen" and "chairwomen" and other representatives might do so,
> but how many can there possibly be?
> A handful? Maybe a dozen? Maybe eben up to 100 or a bit more... ...but
> thats it.
> How many pirate do exist in germany, let alone supporters who are not
> members of the party? ...currently 30.0000
> There is already internal decentralized grass roots structure and the
> representatives have nowhere near enough power to take that away.
> In the end, they have to bend to the will of the the mass of grassroot
> pirates, and if they dont? WHO CARES?!? :-)
> The tooling allows communication, and the toolset will become even better,
> so the 30.000+ pirates could choose "over night" to found a new party and
> leave the current representatives alone. They will never have that power in
> the age of the internet.
> This kind of government is over and will be soon subject to history books.
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> > Although the party
> > would begin to feel the strain as soon as you seriously commited to
> > (1), I'm afraid one of the first pieces to come breaking off would be
> > you, Marc.  Could you work on the technology from outside the party?
> >
> > One thing in your favour is that political parties can't last much
> > longer anyway.  The party that first allows people to move freely from
> > party to party (platform to platform) will rip open the party system
> > "like a can of tuna", to use Beppe Grillo's phrase.
> 
> 
> [alex]
> Beppe Grillo is a funny guy ;-)
> Really no matter what, the internet, or at least the web was created for
> the purpose of grassroots democracy in order to overcome problems of
> hierarchy that ultimately manifest in the "spirit of money". What's the
> name of the first web browser? it was called "mosaic" :-) and there is a
> reason it was called mosaic.
> And there is a reason why mosaic was followed by something called netscape
> and there is a reason why ultimately thereafter came mozilla firefox,
> because the beast that is humanity awakend through means of the internet
> grew stronger.
> It's all written in the "Book of Mozilla" :-P
> There is no way party's could ever stop it, because the establishment
> already totally depends on the net and could not function without it.
> The net was created and they got into it and now they are stuck with it.
> 
> If you run on firefox, just type "about:mozilla"
> otherwise... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> > This rogue party
> > wants everyone to participate, so it just allows them to participate
> > regardless of membership.  That destroys it as a political party, of
> > course, but delights the majority of people who don't like political
> > parties anyway.
> 
> 
> [alex]
> It's already the case.
> The parties program is written by working groups that are open to anyone.
> In fact you already participate in one, the "AG Meinungsfindungstool".
> If you want to decide about a proposal, just put you name on the wiki of
> the working group, that will make you a member and you could vote.
> Everyone could join any mainliglist and participate instantly, there are no
> back door rooms.
> Sure, it's not perfect yet, but compared to other parties, you wont find
> anything that will even come close to this.
> No the next thing that WILL HAPPEN is the permanent general assembly of the
> members. It will be virtual and will enable the party to adapt faster.
> Next thing will be a tool that will allow grass roots to inject proposals
> directly into the party program and as soon as pirates get into parliament,
> those will be injected into the law making process, and so on...
> We are humanity evolving, resistance is futile :P
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> 
> > Now they have a chance to express that dislike by
> > giving the rogue party's candidate list (their candidate list) a
> > majority in the Bundestag, or Italian Parliament, or whatnot.
> >
> > Alex said:
> > > That's the sole purpose of the pirate party, to vanish! :-)
> >
> > If you folks want, you can help the party to honour that word.
> >
> 
> [alex]
> It will obey, because currently there are 30.000 pirates and they are all
> rebels with a cause.
> No matter how many "representatives" will eventually fight the changes to
> come, they are minority and they can never defeat the net, because the net
> is humanity and more specific, the net around the pirate party is 30.000
> rebels with a cause that will never let that happen, because the only ones
> who will profit from that will be the minority of representatives.
> [/alex]
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> > marc said:
> > > Hi Michael,
> > >
> > > Now I am confused!
> > >
> > > A) One of the main paradigms of the Pirate Party is: "If we have reached
> > our
> > > goals, then there is no need for the Pirate Party anymore!"
> > > Therefore, no - there will be not much resistance on the way towards (1),
> > > because the Pirate Party is more like a movement than a party. And if
> > not, I
> > > will quit my membership.
> > >
> > > B) Why do you do not want to merge Outcast and CDS?
> > >
> > >
> > > I am still towards (1) and I don't see any reason not to be. But I guess
> > we
> > > have some basic misunderstanding here.
> > >
> > > So let's condense the goal:
> > >
> > > a) Let the users freely choose their favorite tooling,
> > > b) while the whole discourse is covered and
> > > c) without any loss of data.
> > >
> > >
> > > What is the point now?
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > > marc
> > _______________________________________________
> > Votorola mailing list
> > Votorola at zelea.com
> > http://mail.zelea.com/mailman/listinfo/votorola
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
> ***********************************************
> Alexander Praetorius
> Rappstraße 13
> D - 60318 Frankfurt am Main
> Germany
> *[skype] *alexander.praetorius
> *[mail] *citizen at serapath.de <alexander.praetorius at serapath.de>
> *[web] *http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:Serapath
> ***********************************************