Abe's new idea: Wikilaws

[ApostateAbe]

They have done a fine job of an encyclopedia, in my opinion.

 

[Uwe]

I'm on record elsewhere as a proponent of any motivation toward massively collaborative government...true democracy. The web brings us the ability and wherewithal to discuss laws and budgets, what it lacks, as has been noted, are checks and balances. I'd suggest that the first thing needed is a method of verifying that any wikilaws contributor is a unique individual, and preferably tie that to biometrics or physical addresses.

Since most US citizens will likely prefer not to actively participate, it would be a reasonable step for them to register as low-participation and at the same time designate proxies. "Uncle Billy always makes sense when we chat about politics, he's much more engaged than me. He'll be my proxy holder for all things related to military spending, until or unless I choose to reclaim my vote or re-assign the proxy." As Uncle Billy's popularity gains and fades, so would his political influence. If he begins making unreasonable choices, it's a simple matter of appealing to his constituents to reconsider their support. Nobody gets appointed permanently for anything and the laws are under constant review.

I wonder if the laws would be simpler or more stable than the historical swings right and left, or less so. I wonder how well compromises would be achieved. I wonder if it could begin in a local government and spread like a virus.

 

[ronburgundy]

They have done a fine job of an encyclopedia, in my opinion.

Average citizens are not responsible for 99% of Wikipedia. Wikipedia puts pressure to actually have citations, which generally means that academics and experts are doing all the research and writing peer reviewed published articles and books, and then others are just summarizing/plagiarizing them.
Wikipedia polices and checks entries, so their is a top-down authority. Finally, Wikipedia is about issue of fact in which their are objectively correct or incorrect answers, and empirical evidence that is relevant. This is what allows them to apply standards to weeding out bad info. Political policies are not issues of fact, but rather questions of inherently subjective and emotional preference. All laws are and must be ultimately rooted in emotional and subjective values. They are essentially moral prescriptions for what we prefer should be done based up what our subjective (even if collective) preferred goals and outcomes are.

This means there can be no objectively "wrong" policy. At worst their can be wrong factual claims used as part of the justification for those policies. That means no clear standards on which to police the dumb ideas, and active vetting, policing, and relying mostly upon certified experts (the "elites") is why Wikipedia is as valid as it is, despite the myth that it represents an unregulated emergent property of true bottom-up "democratic" non-hierarchical system.

 

[ApostateAbe]

They have done a fine job of an encyclopedia, in my opinion.

Average citizens are not responsible for 99% of Wikipedia. Wikipedia puts pressure to actually have citations, which generally means that academics and experts are doing all the research and writing peer reviewed published articles and books, and then others are just summarizing/plagiarizing them.
Wikipedia polices and checks entries, so their is a top-down authority. Finally, Wikipedia is about issue of fact in which their are objectively correct or incorrect answers, and empirical evidence that is relevant. This is what allows them to apply standards to weeding out bad info. Political policies are not issues of fact, but rather questions of inherently subjective and emotional preference. All laws are and must be ultimately rooted in emotional and subjective values. They are essentially moral prescriptions for what we prefer should be done based up what our subjective (even if collective) preferred goals and outcomes are.

This means there can be no objectively "wrong" policy. At worst their can be wrong factual claims used as part of the justification for those policies. That means no clear standards on which to police the dumb ideas, and active vetting, policing, and relying mostly upon certified experts (the "elites") is why Wikipedia is as valid as it is, despite the myth that it represents an unregulated emergent property of true bottom-up "democratic" non-hierarchical system.

Great points. It may be better if Wikilaws is modeled after Wikipedia as it truly exists, not after the myth that any idiot idea of any idiot becomes the text.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They have done a fine job of an encyclopedia, in my opinion.

No. Their encyclopedia is pretty good on non-controversial matters but it's got serious problems when it comes to disputed matters. Their top editors can enforce their biases on articles.

A simple demonstration of this: Years ago I added a link to an article about the Israel/Palestine situation. Only a link, I didn't change a single letter of the displayed text. It's a link the left would prefer people didn't follow--and it was reverted.

I can't imagine a legitimate reason to remove an accurate link from a Wikipedia article. This is the web, the more links the better.

 

[ronburgundy]

Average citizens are not responsible for 99% of Wikipedia. Wikipedia puts pressure to actually have citations, which generally means that academics and experts are doing all the research and writing peer reviewed published articles and books, and then others are just summarizing/plagiarizing them.
Wikipedia polices and checks entries, so their is a top-down authority. Finally, Wikipedia is about issue of fact in which their are objectively correct or incorrect answers, and empirical evidence that is relevant. This is what allows them to apply standards to weeding out bad info. Political policies are not issues of fact, but rather questions of inherently subjective and emotional preference. All laws are and must be ultimately rooted in emotional and subjective values. They are essentially moral prescriptions for what we prefer should be done based up what our subjective (even if collective) preferred goals and outcomes are.

This means there can be no objectively "wrong" policy. At worst their can be wrong factual claims used as part of the justification for those policies. That means no clear standards on which to police the dumb ideas, and active vetting, policing, and relying mostly upon certified experts (the "elites") is why Wikipedia is as valid as it is, despite the myth that it represents an unregulated emergent property of true bottom-up "democratic" non-hierarchical system.

Great points. It may be better if Wikilaws is modeled after Wikipedia as it truly exists, not after the myth that any idiot idea of any idiot becomes the text.

Except the inherent is/ought distinction between questions of fact (what Wikipedia deals with) versus questions of preference/morality/policy (what Wikilaws would deal with) means that most of the objective rational criteria on which Wikipedia is structured simply does not apply to proposed laws. This is just like the rational criteria used in peer reviews of science articles couldn't really be applied to ethical debates, except in very limited way.
For example, if people want to propose laws that would harm gays, there is no evidence or science one can link to support or refute that goal. It is just a purely subjective desire. It becomes impossible to edit other people's proposals on grounds that this or that point is not relevant. What is relevant is purely subjective when it comes to policies, because emotion is inherent to values and values dictate policy. Editors would have no reasonable basis to claim this or that point has no emotional relationship to the issue for anyone. Granted, I do think it would actually be an interesting social experiment to see such a site unfold.
I just am highly skeptical it would wind up being a reliable source for either good ideas or coherent laws that reasonable and good people should support. I predict it would be closer to Conservopedia than Wikipedia, since conservopedia basically takes questions of fact and answers them via a lens of emotion and political policy agendas.