I believe that it makes sense for all affected people to decide, for
example, that it would be desirable to have food production be less
centralized. Given that goal, multiple alternatives at various levels could be
examined from a technical / engineering perspective, and the resulting possible
approaches presented back to the people with a clear analysis of the pros and
cons and the issues involved. IBIS-like structures work for some of this, but a
significant part is the sort of discussion that says that the following N
elements of the proposed solutions have been discovered and considered
important, what are the relative importances? Once discussion has provided at
least a partial ordering, the various approaches, and maybe some new ones can
be examined based on those relative importances. This is what we claim we
should do when designing systems for use by a specific audience, and I see no
reason why a similar approach won’t work with larger groups if we can provide honest
information.
Part of what happens today is that most proposals are already polarized
by the time we hear that there is even a discussion. We are then presented with
a single “solution” in terms of some proposed legislation. The advocates say it
is a great idea and that opponents are short sighted, stupid, rude, etc. The opponents
say it is a terrible idea and that advocates are short sighted, stupid, rude,
etc.
The use of various argumentation structures is being pursued, and there
is some real possibility for ways of presenting the elements of even complex
problems in such a way that they can be grasped by people who are not experts
in the specific area of the problem. If these are enhanced to support the sort
of partial ordering of concerns that allow for describing how various sorts of
trade-offs should be treated, I think it should be possible to allow huge
numbers of people to participate in the discussions in a meaningful way.
Discussion needs to be transformed into the argumentation presentation
periodically since it does appear to be difficult to do this at the time of
entry. One of the meta-questions that needs to be addressed continually in such
a system is “does the transformation into the argumentation system capture
accurately all of the points made in the original discussion.
Some of the tools that Stafford Beer has proposed (http://www.staffordbeer.com/papers/Origins%20Team%20Syntegrity.pdf
) provides ways for “working groups” to address issues with all points of view
getting expressed, and to avoid polarization.
By using the input form all stakeholders to determine what factors are
important and what sorts of outcomes are desired, it may then be possible to
design the systems that will provide features that are maximally satisfying.
Every such discussion needs to have a “none of the above” selection.
In “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” one of Heinlein’s characters tosses
out several ideas for the structuring of a new government. Among the ideas that
sound interesting are:
- Have 2 legislative bodies. One can pass laws, but only
with a 2/3 majority. The second can repeal laws with only a 1/3 minority.
The logic is that any legislation that cannot win the approval of 2/3 of
those involved is likely not very good, and any legislation that is
actively opposed by as little as 1/3 of those involved is also likely not
very good.
- Have some representatives be able to be elected by
getting 10,000 people to approve him/her and the representative would
represent those 10,000 people.
One thing is clear to me – the most local solution that works deserves a
high degree of consideration. I can’t say that this is necessarily the best,
but the closer any system is to meeting the needs of all involved, the better
it is, and that is easier to do when the number involved is smaller rather than
larger. The more people are affected, the more likely it is that there will
have to be “special cases” to account for the more local issues that arise.
Clearly, more people would participate if the barriers were not so high.
Along with the technology of information systems, we need to understand and
find ways to deals with such things as polarization of discussion. Whenever we
can succeed at getting all parties on the same side in pursuit of improvements
to the existing scene, we stand a chance of reaching solutions that do the best
possible job of meeting the needs of the people. Once the people take sides
against each other instead of against the problem, it gets very difficult to
make any progress towards a solution.
Thanks,
Garold (Gary) L. Johnson
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
[mailto:owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org]On
Behalf Of John Turnbull
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002
3:24 AM
To: ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
Subject: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re:
Corporate Morality
I didn't mean to suggest that group
participation in brain surgery or engineering is a good idea - of course it's
not. But I've been back to your original posting, and in the section in which
you make this comment you appear to be talking about problem solving in
general, society-wide terms, not specifics. If I've got my wires crossed
here, I apologise.
I agree that very few people can presently be bothered to participate in
anything at all, least of all politics. Why? Because the political process is
not something that people believe they have much (if any) influence over, or
because they are happy with the status quo, or (and this one always baffles me)
because they don't think that politics has any relevance to their lives. A more
general explanation would be that western society has become increasingly
atomised, with the result that we have lost sight of how interdependent we
really are.
The path to real democracy is to become a learning society, one in which we
strive to acknowledge and understand this interdependence. This is a massive
task, and goes much further than simply making a few alterations to the current
system of representative (pseudo-) democracy. You hit the nail on the head when
you say that "we get to vote on which of a set of unworkable proposals we
want to implement" - why shouldn't "we" be involved in the
design of those proposals from the outset? I don't mean that random
people should be dragged off the street to draft a thousand-page piece of
legislation, but there are processes, such as citizens' juries (to give just
one example), that could be used to ensure that those affected by policy (ie
all of us) have a hand in designing it. With the desire and the expertise, it
can be done: masses of people are already making decisions about how public
money is spent across Brazil through the process of the Participative Budget -
and the leader of the party that implemented this looks set to be the next
president.
Regards,
John
World Wide Democracy Network
Garold (Gary) L. Johnson wrote:
From: John Turnbull
> At the risk of joining this thread too
late, I feel I have to take issue with Gary when he says,
>> The
idea, for example, that a million non-thinking people can arrive at better
solutions than a few
>> very
intelligent, thinking people who study the issues seriously is simply silly.
> Who are these 'non-thinking' people, Gary? This is exactly the kind of attitude that has prevented real democracy from emerging, that has
> kept millions of people from playing a meaningful role in the conduct of their own societies' affairs.
If you really believe that a mass of people can make any sort of decision, I suggest that you actually try it. I accept that all people need to be able to “play
a meaningful role in the conduct of their own affairs,” but I do not think that extends to obtaining opinions on matters which do require specific expertise.
If you read all the post (a chore I admit) you will see that I believe that group participation is good for determining “how we would like things to be,” or “give a
set of workable options and their consequences, which do we prefer (or non, so look for more option.” If you think this is elitist, consider having the people in the
hospital waiting rooms vote on how to perform your brain surgery and then make the surgeon conform to the “will of the majority”.
> Somebody asked in an earlier posting
> "what is wrong with democracy?" The answer is that we don't have any - all we have is pseudo-democracy, which has evolved for the
> purpose that is implicit in Gary's thinking: to exclude the masses and let those who 'know best' make the decisions.
There is *no* such purpose implicit in *my* thinking. You are correct that we have problems with the way our democracy
is organized. A major problem that we have is that we get to vote on which of a set of unworkable proposals we want to
implement. Having lawyers attempt to design systems of any sort with a purpose to get re-elected is not a good way to get
workable systems.
I keep hearing about becoming an informed citizen – has anybody tried lately? When a typical piece of legislation runs to
several thousand pages, much of which makes modifications to other multi-thousand page documents, and which is written to
obfuscate in the first place, becoming informed is a hopeless task. In my youth I believed that this was the problem with
government – that the information load was overwhelming – so that better information systems (knowledge systems, if you
will) were a part of the solution. I now know that the problems are *not* simply a matter of information overload.
> If we are to have
> anything approaching a just society, ALL of the people affected by decisions MUST be have the opportunity to be involved in the
> decision making process. Democracy must be a learning process, with all of us learning from each other, not simply the 'non-thinking'
> people being lectured at by those who 'know' what's good for them.
I agree. How many people in any volunteer organization actually participate? About 20% - 30% if the figures that keep cropping up are correct. What leads you to believe
that this percentage will be different if we extend it to millions? We should make it possible for all of the people affected by decisions to have the opportunity to be
involved in the decisions.
The idea of “simply the 'non-thinking' people being lectured at by those who 'know' what's good for them” is yours, not mine.
I will continue to insist that we should leave it to those affected to decide whether to invest the resources in a bridge, a mine, a satellite, but I do not accept that this
means that this same group should *design* that bridge, mine, or satellite. I have seen what happens when that job is tackled by an “elite” of college-trained
engineers numbering in the hundreds of thousands – not a pretty site. Trying to accomplish this by letting everyone who wants to vote on the engineering required
would never result in a project that works –it almost doesn’t now. The affected people *should* get more input than they do as to *whether* these projects are
undertaken.
As a final point, we have a very select group of people on this forum, with a relatively narrow set of goals (relative to the total set possible) and even with this
“elite” and several years of time, we have not yet been able to agree even on what it is we are trying to accomplish, much less how to go about doing it. There is
good work being done by a few individuals, but the democratic process hasn’t been having a lot of success at developing a system that works.
Thanks,
Garold
(Gary) L. Johnson