Digital governance: Rule by concensus

[LordKiran]

Imagine if every district or township in America had a digital townhall accessible only by the constituents living there that makes vote notifications involving communal decisions directly to your phone as well as providing a digital forum where constituents can debate topics before the votes. There's still a town council but their purpose is strictly to maintain the digital infrastructure as well as plan votes by date, to be eventually replaced entirely by a sufficiently advanced AI program capable of planning, maintaining and moderating the super-forum free of all bias and partiality.

Now imagine these same principles applied to the national scale.

Ai and automation are slowly but inevitably replacing obsolete human labor anywhere and everywhere, so why should governance be any different?

 

[untermensche]

It's a great idea but it requires a population raised and educated to do it.

Now most of education is learning to follow capricious orders. Learning to be a lowly peon in a hierarchy with no say, not a thinking individual.

 

[fast]

You sure you want to live with the consequences?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A truly horrible idea.

1) You don't really mean consensus. Consensus of a large group = deadlock, nothing gets done. You're talking about direct democracy.

2) Our system very deliberately has inertia built in. This does not. The law is going to whipsaw all over the place.

3) Look at what happens when amateurs try to make law. Specifically, initiative petitions. They're usually crap even if well intended.

4) It's impossible for the average person to have the training needed to decide on what should be law. Too many things are simply too esoteric. (The legislators often don't have, either, but at least they have the time to and staff to learn something of what they're dealing with.)

5) In practice this would turn into following the most charismatic. Charisma != intelligence.

6) Minor point--the system would soon fail. You need IT people to keep it working and we are generally not charismatic. When we ask for upgrades, backups and redundancy it's not going to be adequately funded.

 

[James Brown]

I've seen too many episodes of Parks & Recreation to be warm to the notion.

 

[LordKiran]

A truly horrible idea.

1) You don't really mean consensus. Consensus of a large group = deadlock, nothing gets done. You're talking about direct democracy.

2) Our system very deliberately has inertia built in. This does not. The law is going to whipsaw all over the place.

3) Look at what happens when amateurs try to make law. Specifically, initiative petitions. They're usually crap even if well intended.

4) It's impossible for the average person to have the training needed to decide on what should be law. Too many things are simply too esoteric. (The legislators often don't have, either, but at least they have the time to and staff to learn something of what they're dealing with.)

5) In practice this would turn into following the most charismatic. Charisma != intelligence.

6) Minor point--the system would soon fail. You need IT people to keep it working and we are generally not charismatic. When we ask for upgrades, backups and redundancy it's not going to be adequately funded.

1. Maybe not absolute concensus but yes I do. The idea here is that the easier you make it for people to communicate substantively and exchange information the easier consensus becomes to reach. The biggest barriers here are cultural and social. For these ideas to work requires a population that holds values along materialist lines, a population that values intellectual institutions, can discern good data from bad and has some basic understanding of reading statistics.

2. The removal of inertia can be a good thing, it means bad policies can be rectified faster and makes society as a whole more flexible and reactive to change.

3. Are those laws drafted by individuals or collectively? Are they often changed moment-to-moment with the intake of new perspectives and information as would be possible with the above method?

4. This is what makes mass involvement so important. A multitude of perspectives alongside a system that makes reaching relative consensus easier would be a good thing in my book.

5. So our current election process? Not exactly a big difference in that regard, but then you wouldn't need elected officials making all the decisions.

6. This is clearly future focused, I doubt we'd ever see something like this in our lifetimes if at all, so who's to say where tech would be if/when this becomes more feasible?

 

[TV and credit cards]

You seem to be proposing more of the problem as the solution: further banding together scared, ill-informed people and somehow good decisions will come of it. Time was all they had was their televisions to scream at. This kept them largely disjointed. Now these ill-informed emotional train wrecks can communicate in real time with one another, and you think improving upon the rural infrastructure is a good idea. And when this pool of ill-informed people ultimately make bad decisions for their communities, do you think they will see where they went wrong? Of course they won't. Because it's not just that they are generally less educated than their urban counterparts, it's also that they are less traveled. Their opinions are inbred to the communities they have spent their entire lives. (I don't think we give this statement the credence it deserves.)
People need to be governed, either from within or from without. Our problem is not the biases of thought, the corruption of the mind. It is that we have not insulted our governing officials from corruption. I do not believe we are incapable of governing our society. I also do not believe we should be ruled by averaging out the opinion of the masses. Our problem is we are not enabling and encouraging the best among us to govern.

 

[LordKiran]

You seem to be proposing more of the problem as the solution: further banding together scared, ill-informed people and somehow good decisions will come of it. Time was all they had was their televisions to scream at. This kept them largely disjointed. Now these ill-informed emotional train wrecks can communicate in real time with one another, and you think improving upon the rural infrastructure is a good idea. And when this pool of ill-informed people ultimately make bad decisions for their communities, do you think they will see where they went wrong? Of course they won't. Because it's not just that they are generally less educated than their urban counterparts, it's also that they are less traveled. Their opinions are inbred to the communities they have spent their entire lives. (I don't think we give this statement the credence it deserves.)
People need to be governed, either from within or from without. Our problem is not the biases of thought, the corruption of the mind. It is that we have not insulted our governing officials from corruption. I do not believe we are incapable of governing our society. I also do not believe we should be ruled by averaging out the opinion of the masses. Our problem is we are not enabling and encouraging the best among us to govern.

Thats fine, let them try out their ideas in their local communities, let them fail. Let them learn from their mistakes when they do fail. When the voter is directly responsible for the policy of their town, who will be left to blame when they fuck everything up?

 

[untermensche]

It is politicians with ulterior motives and conflicts of interest that fuck things up.

 

[Harry Bosch]

It's a great idea but it requires a population raised and educated to do it.

Now most of education is learning to follow capricious orders. Learning to be a lowly peon in a hierarchy with no say, not a thinking individual.

You'd be surprised to know that we don't have the strict hierarchy that you claim. In fact, many many companies are following bottom up design, empowering employees, vertical decision making, and etc. Companies more and more want employees to have an ownership share in the company, want them to be empowered, want them to be able to make quick and informed decision making.

The problem that you don't see is that not everyone has the knowledge to make the informed decisions equally. I'm an expert in finance (and somewhat dangerous when it comes to marketing.) But I'm completely clueless when it comes to engineering. In companies where I am a partial owner, I'm the decision maker in finance (with input from the partners). The assistant controller with 3 months of experience in finance does not have the same authority that I have. But in engineering, I stay the hell out. This is why version of how a company should exist (a collective with equal decisions making by the members of the collective) doesn't work. In a pure collective, decision making is too slow, too cumbersome. And those who lack experience don't always make the correct decision.

Just my take...

 

[untermensche]

Employees possibly might be given some decision making power. But the fact that they are given the power proves there is really a greater power and that power in actuality can override any decision made by workers.

The hierarchy is absolute in most corporations. As absolute a dictatorship as has ever existed.

As immoral an arrangement as has ever existed.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Employees possibly might be given some decision making power. But the fact that they are given the power proves there is really a greater power and that power in actuality can override any decision made by workers.

The hierarchy is absolute in most corporations. As absolute a dictatorship as has ever existed.

As immoral an arrangement as has ever existed.

Dude, you missed my point completely! Let me try again, if you and I were in a two person collective that was writing a book on the Spanish revolution. You've probably read thirty books on the subject and thought about it for years. I've read one book on it. Do you think that in a collective, that it would be great if we had an equal share in the direction of the book?

 

[LordKiran]

Employees possibly might be given some decision making power. But the fact that they are given the power proves there is really a greater power and that power in actuality can override any decision made by workers.

The hierarchy is absolute in most corporations. As absolute a dictatorship as has ever existed.

As immoral an arrangement as has ever existed.

Dude, you missed my point completely! Let me try again, if you and I were in a two person collective that was writing a book on the Spanish revolution. You've probably read thirty books on the subject and thought about it for years. I've read one book on it. Do you think that in a collective, that it would be great if we had an equal share in the direction of the book?

But is this as much of a problem when people are living more interconnected lives everyday where information is readily available? Think where we'll be 100 years from now? Who's to say we won't develop brain augmentations by then that expand human memory and recollection abilities?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Dude, you missed my point completely! Let me try again, if you and I were in a two person collective that was writing a book on the Spanish revolution. You've probably read thirty books on the subject and thought about it for years. I've read one book on it. Do you think that in a collective, that it would be great if we had an equal share in the direction of the book?

But is this as much of a problem when people are living more interconnected lives everyday where information is readily available? Think where we'll be 100 years from now? Who's to say we won't develop brain augmentations by then that expand human memory and recollection abilities?

Maybe. Part of it is that I don't want to know about engineering. It doesn't interest me. I don't like it. I have no experience in it. And I trust my partner.

I've also realized over time that there is a difference between decisions made by a majority owner vs decisions made as an employee or manager. I've held both positions. I've been an owner. I'm currently an employee. And I'm a minority owner in corporations (mostly mutual funds). For each, I made different kinds of decisions. As an owner, I'm making decisions more based on the long run. When I'm an owner I'm thinking about the following: maximizing company value, how to exit the company, how to retain key personel, where to locate, how to minimize taxes, and etc. As an employee, I'm making decisions about how to hit my goals, who I need to partner with, what vacation days can I schedule, and etc. As a manager, I'm thinking about which people in my team are the most valuable that I need to give raises to, how do I hit my team goals, and etc. As a passive owner, my decision making is which company is paying me the highest dividend, do I agree with the company socially, and etc.

All of the above decision matrixes are needed for a healthy company to succeed.

 

[LordKiran]

But is this as much of a problem when people are living more interconnected lives everyday where information is readily available? Think where we'll be 100 years from now? Who's to say we won't develop brain augmentations by then that expand human memory and recollection abilities?

Maybe. Part of it is that I don't want to know about engineering. It doesn't interest me. I don't like it. I have no experience in it. And I trust my partner.

I've also realized over time that there is a difference between decisions made by a majority owner vs decisions made as an employee or manager. I've held both positions. I've been an owner. I'm currently an employee. And I'm a minority owner in corporations (mostly mutual funds). For each, I made different kinds of decisions. As an owner, I'm making decisions more based on the long run. When I'm an owner I'm thinking about the following: maximizing company value, how to exit the company, how to retain key personel, where to locate, how to minimize taxes, and etc. As an employee, I'm making decisions about how to hit my goals, who I need to partner with, what vacation days can I schedule, and etc. As a manager, I'm thinking about which people in my team are the most valuable that I need to give raises to, how do I hit my team goals, and etc. As a passive owner, my decision making is which company is paying me the highest dividend, do I agree with the company socially, and etc.

All of the above decision matrixes are needed for a healthy company to succeed.

But what makes them mutually exclusive with each other? You're perfectly capable of making all of the decisions you just listed, yes? Why would that be any different with regards to governance?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Maybe. Part of it is that I don't want to know about engineering. It doesn't interest me. I don't like it. I have no experience in it. And I trust my partner.

I've also realized over time that there is a difference between decisions made by a majority owner vs decisions made as an employee or manager. I've held both positions. I've been an owner. I'm currently an employee. And I'm a minority owner in corporations (mostly mutual funds). For each, I made different kinds of decisions. As an owner, I'm making decisions more based on the long run. When I'm an owner I'm thinking about the following: maximizing company value, how to exit the company, how to retain key personel, where to locate, how to minimize taxes, and etc. As an employee, I'm making decisions about how to hit my goals, who I need to partner with, what vacation days can I schedule, and etc. As a manager, I'm thinking about which people in my team are the most valuable that I need to give raises to, how do I hit my team goals, and etc. As a passive owner, my decision making is which company is paying me the highest dividend, do I agree with the company socially, and etc.

All of the above decision matrixes are needed for a healthy company to succeed.

But what makes them mutually exclusive with each other? You're perfectly capable of making all of the decisions you just listed, yes? Why would that be any different with regards to governance?

They are mutually exclusive because they are all full time 40 hour a week or more jobs. I'm not perfectly capable of making all those decisions listed. Part of it is that I'm at a stage in my life where I don't want to work more than 40 hours a week.

 

[LordKiran]

But what makes them mutually exclusive with each other? You're perfectly capable of making all of the decisions you just listed, yes? Why would that be any different with regards to governance?

They are mutually exclusive because they are all full time 40 hour a week or more jobs. I'm not perfectly capable of making all those decisions listed. Part of it is that I'm at a stage in my life where I don't want to work more than 40 hours a week.

But we're not talking about a 40 hour job. We're talking about governance.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A truly horrible idea.

1) You don't really mean consensus. Consensus of a large group = deadlock, nothing gets done. You're talking about direct democracy.

2) Our system very deliberately has inertia built in. This does not. The law is going to whipsaw all over the place.

3) Look at what happens when amateurs try to make law. Specifically, initiative petitions. They're usually crap even if well intended.

4) It's impossible for the average person to have the training needed to decide on what should be law. Too many things are simply too esoteric. (The legislators often don't have, either, but at least they have the time to and staff to learn something of what they're dealing with.)

5) In practice this would turn into following the most charismatic. Charisma != intelligence.

6) Minor point--the system would soon fail. You need IT people to keep it working and we are generally not charismatic. When we ask for upgrades, backups and redundancy it's not going to be adequately funded.

1. Maybe not absolute concensus but yes I do. The idea here is that the easier you make it for people to communicate substantively and exchange information the easier consensus becomes to reach. The biggest barriers here are cultural and social. For these ideas to work requires a population that holds values along materialist lines, a population that values intellectual institutions, can discern good data from bad and has some basic understanding of reading statistics.

Large groups will always have holdouts. They simply won't reach consensus.

2. The removal of inertia can be a good thing, it means bad policies can be rectified faster and makes society as a whole more flexible and reactive to change.

It makes it easier to remove bad things but it also makes it easier to do bad things. A lack of inertia is what results in abominations like the Patriot act.

3. Are those laws drafted by individuals or collectively? Are they often changed moment-to-moment with the intake of new perspectives and information as would be possible with the above method?

You think they weren't originally designed by a group??

4. This is what makes mass involvement so important. A multitude of perspectives alongside a system that makes reaching relative consensus easier would be a good thing in my book.

I suggest reading You-Tube comments for seeing what the average input would be like.

5. So our current election process? Not exactly a big difference in that regard, but then you wouldn't need elected officials making all the decisions.

While charisma is certainly a factor in our system the inertia makes performance important also. When you remove the inertia you shift things greatly towards charisma.

6. This is clearly future focused, I doubt we'd ever see something like this in our lifetimes if at all, so who's to say where tech would be if/when this becomes more feasible?

Not a rebuttal at all. It's still going to be underfunded and fail. Us IT people have enough trouble getting adequate funding out of management. Getting it out of the people at large would be hopeless.

 

[Harry Bosch]

They are mutually exclusive because they are all full time 40 hour a week or more jobs. I'm not perfectly capable of making all those decisions listed. Part of it is that I'm at a stage in my life where I don't want to work more than 40 hours a week.

But we're not talking about a 40 hour job. We're talking about governance.

Well, could you be more specific? In my experience, for the majority of owners, making decisions at an ownership level is a full time job (depending on the size and complexity of the company.)

 

[LordKiran]

But we're not talking about a 40 hour job. We're talking about governance.

Well, could you be more specific? In my experience, for the majority of owners, making decisions at an ownership level is a full time job (depending on the size and complexity of the company.)

Well what else are people going to do with their time once automation replaces a large enough segment of the population? Sit around and drink themselves to death?