Re: [apsa_itp] a quiet revolution in democracy

[Michael Allan <mike@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 06:25:42AM -0400, David Bray wrote:
> GDSS started at the the University of Arizona, with the goals of: 
> 
> - enabling all participants to work simultaneously (human parallel
> processing); 
> - providing an equal opportunity for participation; 
> - discouraging behavior that can negatively impact meeting productivity; 
> - enabling larger group meetings which can effectively bring more
> information, knowledge, and skills to bear on the task; 
> - permitting the group to choose from a spectrum of structured or
> unstructured techniques and methods to perform the task; 
> - offering access to external information; and 
> - supporting the development of an organizational memory from meeting to
> meeting. 
> 
> ... and while this does not include all the features of your e-democracy,
> there are sufficient similarities that all you to extend your examination
> of 'will this work?' from theoretical conjectures to empirical evidence --
> that then might indicate yea or nay. If there's one thing that IS has
> learned over-and-over, it's the human side of the equation that's much
> more problematic than technology. People will always find work-arounds and
> loopholes in an IS artifact if it's to their advantage. For some features
> of your proposal, pre-existing research into GDSS (and later work on CSCW)
> provide come concrete examples to test your conjectures; perhaps this
> helps? 

Hi David,

I agree, your list of GDSS goals parallels those of the proposed
legislative system (in fact, parallels those of a traditional
legislative system too).  But I did not intend to draw a comparison
between GDSS and community law-making; or to suggest that one was
better.  I am unfamiliar with GDSS.  I mentioned GDSS in connection
with cascade voting, only because that's my theoretical challenge at
the moment, and I'm looking for examples of it elsewhere. (It's not
GDSS that will rise or fall on that, but my conjectures about open
democracy.)

Agree too, it's the human side that matters, and past studies may shed
light.  My knowledge of the literature for the political/social domain
is very slim. I only started reading in the subject this month.
 
> Two other thoughts: on security, while I'd like to believe that security's
> getting better all the time, the events in Estonia
> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6665145.stm ) seem to indicate
> that it's actually the black hats that are progressing faster than the
> preventive measures. And while you might think it odd that people might
> use bots or trojans to abuse such an e-democracy, ...

Oh no, I do not think it odd. Apologies. The thing that struck me as
odd/amusing in that article you cited was the alleged involvement of
CIA, and the U.S. Democratic Party:
> >> ... one last thought on wikis-like activities: Wikipedia 'shows biased
> >> page edits' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6947532.stm

>                                              ...  I doubt many in the
> early 1990's could have foreseen the problems of spam and phishing that we
> now confront; a significant portion of Wikipedia features user-created bot
> programs -- both good and bad. ...

I see. Although recombinant text is apparently immune to bots (unlike
a Wiki) that misses your point. Your point is, there will be unforseen
security challenges.  And I admit that, although I feel confident that
the designs for the community legislature and the open voting system
will prove securable, all I'm working from at this point are paper
napkin sketches.  So security remains to be addressed in detail.

>                                Lastly, I'm still not sure you'd have an
> adequate representation of the entire nation participating (what of the
> digital divide?); what are the representative demographics of Wikipedia or
> Digg.com? 

That's an interesting question. Does anybody know the answer?
Regarding participation in community law-making, I will try to answer
to Steffen (who says this revolution is *very* quiet) in another post.

-- 
Michael Allan

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