[liberationtech] Would you like to put the list under permanent moderation?

[Doug Schuler]

I thought I'd add my thoughts to the discussion on democracies. I find
myself mostly cleaving to the what Czech author Karel Capek called the
"radical center" and to the idea that "another world is possible" (World
Social Forum). I also tend to agree with Churchill that democracy is the
worst form of government except for all the others.

I also believe that rights are not the only consideration. I'd like to
believe, with many many Americans that rights (and "freedom") are the only
thing to consider, but I just can't swallow that. It seems like that's a
dead end. Like or it not, responsibility is a key ingredient and allowing
everybody else make all the decisions is a big mistake.

I have two articles (sadly behind ACM paywalls) that I think David (and
hopefully others) might find relevant. The first, "e-democracy won't save
democracy. democracy will save democracy", is a counterpoint to an article
promoting "e-democracy" in a general way. The second , "Can Technology
Support Democracy?" will be published in the new journal on Digital
Government soon-ish. Let me know if anybody reading this post would like to
see either or both of these articles. I'm dubious of the various strains of
solutionism that seem to still exist.

Democracy is not binary, where it exists or it doesn't. It exists to some
degree, more or less, all over the place and this, obviously, can change.
Many countries in the world are heading towards autocracy. Trump is
obviously an existence proof in the U.S. Democracies depend on citizen
engagement and as that deteriorates so goes the democracy.

I'm not persuaded by references to Athenian democracy as the last "real
democracy" because even then women and slaves could not vote. Additionally
of course the scale was TINY in numbers and in complexity. We won't be
seeing scales like that until the earth has cooled a bit after worldwar
III.

Government is never perfect but I'm not seeing evidence that we can do
without it. The places where no formal (or "legitimate") government exists
are generally failed states with militias and warlords doing the
"governance."

I agree with Charles that Scandinavia and a few other places demonstrate
the best attempts so far at successful democracies. Their size or relative
homogeneity may be factors but I don't think that's all there is to it.

I would also counsel against "solutions" that make statements like "all we
have to do..." In my opinion, the libertarian argument falls into this
category. If some prescription sounds too simple, I believe that they
probably are too simple. But aspects of these arguments might be fine in
some hybrid government (like what we have in the US).

I am not in any way trying to wave away the problems. In the U.S. we have
lots of troubles with lobbying and corporate control of media. And we have
lots of people who seem to believe just about anything if it's rightwing or
"anti liberal". (Our congress person was just called an an "ayatollah
sympathizer" for questioning Trump's recent assassination.)

To me it all comes down to civic intelligence  — the ability of people to
attend to their shared affairs equitably and effectively. Civic
intelligence is often at odds with capitalism which has a whole different
"purpose." And it's propped up with various articles of faith that suggest
the "free market" will necessarily address all our problems and/or if
doesn't, well, that's too bad, because we refuse (or can't) monkey with
regulating "it."

Finally because responsibility is so important, the people on this list, I
believe, have an especially crucial role to play as technology is planned
or rolled out. This means building "good technology" but also resisting
"bad technology" — and there are scads of opportunities in both realms.
Sadly we are vastly vastly outgunned by $BigTech (and their minions in
BigGov).


-- 
Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org
Twitter: @doug_schuler

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