[liberationtech] [cfabrigade] Tauberer (GovTrack): So you want to reform democracy

[Jeff Fitzmyers]

I don’t want to reform it, centralized gov does not scale. I want to offer something that does scale. 

One reason I participate is to save others’ their time. I give away all the "secrets”.

"If there was an idea that could ‘fix’ democracy, it would have been thought-up already.” “Democracy” is not broken. Like any other complex adaptive system, society starts with a few initial conditions that iterate to produce all the “complexity". It’s standard science: nothing is controversial about this. 

For example, “poverty” in society is not a problem, it’s the result of a 3 to 4 initial conditions. People who try to manage the manifestation of poverty can do so within a pretty small scope, but it takes a lot of resources to stem the tide, and as soon as those resources stop flowing, things generally revert. Like in weeks. Sandy Springs, Georgia got pretty close on the spectrum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8qFvo2qJOU

Communication modes:
Mature and effective within a proper context: 
· 1 to 1 (email, face to face talking) 
· 1 to many (books, radio, tv)

Not mature, not enough context yet to be effective: 
· Any individual to any individual (~peer 2 peer)

Mature and terrible: 
· Many to one (voting, no structure) 
· Middle layers (mid management, rigid structure)

Even with transparency, accountability, etc., “Many to one” simply does not scale. Voting can work well enough on a small scale.

The solution has been known and obvious for many years to anyone who has looked at how ecologies work. "[Some] assume we can improve on designs we don’t truly understand, even when nature has taken centuries, or even millennia, to perfect what clearly works." — Nassim Taleb 

Ok, fine, mimic nature, but how? That’s what I spent 15 years doing ;-) What is a reference point that nature was copied correctly into a practical organization system? Ideally, all the stuff at the “complex” manifestation level are self regulating and self adapting, without exceptions. The system runs itself. For example, plant roots all talk with each other and share and trade resources. The are no “moderators” banning trolls.

One of those initial conditions: grouping (fractals). Grouping, which includes relationships, is what creates context, which engenders meaning, which creates value. Once everything has a value, and everything CAN be valued, as long as the value has common units, decisions become obvious. There is nothing to debate (other than personal preference).

Another initial condition is “add value first”. Can’t have a transaction if people don’t reveal what they want, and what they have to offer.

The other initial condition is “private property” (aka “local control”). This is a fractal. In biology it’s the semi permeable membrane of a cell, then tissue, then organ, then body, then group, than clan, then society. In psychology it’s called personal “boundaries”, then groups, etc. In relationships, sex is invite only, otherwise it’s called rape. If a cell has its guts stolen, it gets sick and can die. Theft is an initial condition of poverty, and of miss valuing people. 

It took me a long time to understand some of the following miss perceptions.

“Narrow your focus”. It should be "narrow your focus within a context". "Fixing poverty" requires changing a very focused few initial conditions, but within a very large scope. In this case the scope would include the manifestations of taxation, and laws. That’s a pretty big scope! If private property replaces theft (more or less), agreements will replace laws, and taxes will shrink. It’s not a surprise that keeping residents' money local was one of Sandy Springs first steps, and helped reduced their costs 50%! 

An app to identify potholes is great, but it has a very narrow scope. The magic doesn’t happen until things get very integrated, which requires a large scope.

Nature is great at arbitrating miss-valued things. That’s why life is found everywhere, why heat flows to cold, water flows down, etc. No committees, no focus groups, it’s autonomous and automatic, no exceptions. Those are the real “laws”. As Cyd Harrell said, “A typical city website today is ABOUT the city, but the site should BE the city, doing the people’s business online.” What would the world be like if it was automatically profitable to arbitrate (correctly value) WHO, what, where, when and why, the currently miss valued, simply as we go about our daily lives? 

> On Dec 11, 2015, at 8:43 AM, Steven Clift <clift at e-democracy.org> wrote:
> 
> Provactive:
> https://medium.com/@joshuatauberer/so-you-want-to-reform-democracy-7f3b1ef10597#.p6dwiivzw
> 
> ...
> 
> These were recent emails. So you’re not the first to email me with an idea to:
> 
> Convince people that politics is interesting — because it really is.
> Hold Congress accountable by measuring what the public wants.
> Build a social network for politics/civics.
> Have Americans draft legislation or comment on or vote directly on
> legislation in Congress.
> 
> And it’s great that you have your idea. I am thrilled you want to make
> our government better by rolling up your sleeves and doing something.
> 
> But your approach is all wrong.
> 
> You probably emailed me because you saw I’ve been working on this
> problem for a while. It’s true. Almost 15 years! So I know a few
> things.
> 
> ...
> https://medium.com/@joshuatauberer/so-you-want-to-reform-democracy-7f3b1ef10597#.p6dwiivzw
> 
> Should generate an interesting discussion here:
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup/permalink/1708206689410920/
> 
> Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
>   clift at e-democracy.org  -  +1 612 234 7072
>   @democracy  -  http://linkedin.com/in/netclift
>   http://1radionews.com - My radio app