Re: Fwd: [apsa_itp] community law-making, a system based on recombinant text

[Michael Allan <mike@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Peter, I agree with your advice. And so I was thinking: the
best test-bed for a vote cascade is an electoral system (not a
legislature).  It gets interesting, because if the cascade fails
(somehow) -- no problem -- we can just substitute a different voting
scheme and continue testing with that.  An electoral system isn't
over-sensitive to voting schemes (unlike the legislature, which must
funnel up to a single draft bill).  So it makes sense to deploy a
full-blown system and test it in real elections, as a kind of public
wish-poll.

If it blows up, it probably can't hurt anybody. We'll attach big
warning stickers so nobody takes it too seriously.  But I'm hoping it
will be taken seriously enough, in some circles, to attract R&D
resources. Then it would be easier to tackle the bigger problem of
legislation. It's worth a try, anyway.

And thanks to everyone for replying so generously to my posts in the
last few days (too many of them!).
-- Michael

On Sat, Aug 18, 2007 at 12:25:42PM -0500, Peter Muhlberger wrote:
> Hi Michael:  Lots of interesting points in your long reply.  I'll just
> focus on a couple key things here (see below, etc.).  Much of the
> success of the system you are suggesting seems to depend on the
> delegate cascade.  Other parts depend on the feasibility of citizens
> writing their own laws.  I think there are a lot more degrees of
> freedom for idealistic schemes like this to work than many of my
> social science colleagues, though I would caution that they may not
> work without many transitional steps designed to cultivate and develop
> people so they could function adequately in a system that demands a
> far greater community identity and involvement than does the current
> system.  We also need to develop preliminary data that these systems,
> such as the delegate cascade, can work in practice.  I'd encourage
> experimentation in real but favorable circumstances--try running some
> institution or small community of relatively capable people with these
> systems and collect a lot of data on its function and also *for whom*
> the system works or does not work and why.  My research focuses on
> heavily on measuring the latter.
> 
> My national dialog on political values idea would be a kind of
> intermediate step toward a more engaged system:  if you can get people
> to appreciate and understand alternative ideologies or to become
> critical of their own, you'd have taken a major and necessary step
> toward making it possible for people to collaborate in an engaged
> political system.  Currently, there's intense political polarization
> and too many people who so little understand alternative views that
> they believe people holding these views must be stupid, crazy, or
> evil.  When we start making attributions like that, it becomes rather
> difficult to collaborate with others to make progress on public
> policy.  I would certainly like to try putting some such political
> values dialog into practice, if only on a small scale.  Just waiting
> to find some funding opportunity!
> 
> Cheers, Peter

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