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Our german Pirate Party is struggling with this as well. They desire to be a democratic party, where the officials just do as voted. Technology [0] is used to m
by qznc 13y ago
Our german Pirate Party is struggling with this as well. They desire to be a democratic party, where the officials just do as voted. Technology [0] is used to make this feasible. Nevertheless it hardly works out in practice and leads to lot of discussions and a high churn rate.
[0] https://github.com/liqd/adhocracy/ https://github.com/liqd/adhocracy/ note the meaning of the name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy
- nazgulnarsil 13y agopeople who don't really understand democracy (in terms of the implicit power structure) trying to institute it never ends well.
- drawkbox 13y ago“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” ― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoYou cannot nudge a rock uphill
- wavefunction 13y agoWhat's the point of nudging a rock uphill, I guess I would ask. Down at the bottom or at the crest, it's still a rock.
- 6d0debc071 13y agoSure, but it's a lot more effective to roll it onto someone's head from the top of the hill than from the bottom.
- wavefunction 13y agoheh, I guess you could leave the rock where it arrived by natural physical forces.
- jasonwatkinspdx 13y agoSure you can. Pretty sure I could do it with most any part of my body. Instead of being a metaphor repetition device try saying what you think straightforwardly. It goes more interesting places.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoActually it tends not to go to such interesting places. "Nudge" refers to a concept in mainstream political science that minor behavioural-economics inspired changes can have a more powerful affect than draconian laws. The Bernays quote is a sort of tin-foil hat extension of that idea, that someone somewhere is so all powerful they can influence the masses to do what they the person wants. Total crap. if the slope of economic self interest is downhill, all the nudging and the clever manipulation of people's perception will not get the rock of humanity to move up the hill. Idiots like Bernays who think the crowd cannot be left to itself because it might hurt itself with scissors, think that small PR related nudges can guide great decisions. Which is probably true if all you are doing is selling washing powder, or have selective confirmation bias.
- 13y ago
- tomsthumb 13y agoThis guy was brilliant. And something of a twat. I blame him for all of the jerks in advertising nowadays. Check out 'The Century of the Self' for a thought provoking documentary.
- _mulder_ 13y agoI second that.. infact all of the Adam Curtis documentaries are worth a peek
- nileshtrivedi 13y agoHas anyone tried Smartocracy in real life? http://www.servicespace.org/blog/view.php?id=1882 http://www.servicespace.org/blog/view.php?id=1882
- jsilence 13y agoWondering how people react over time when they receive more and more trust and as such become more powerful. Does abuse of power come with the power itself? One way to mitigate this would be to dampen the Karma. For example by using a logarithmic scale. effective-karma = log(karma+1)
- walshemj 13y agoAs Burke says "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
- obviouslygreen 13y agoEven if you do subscribe to that point of view, modern politicians neither pay attention to their constituents' opinions nor exercise judgment for the good of the same. The reality-relevant betrayal is the application of the representative's judgment for the good of himself or his sponsors; that people are attempting to replace this but going about it in a way that might not be ideal might be an overreaction, but I'd argue at least it's a mistake they can learn from rather than a total abandonment of principle.
- walshemj 13y agoOh I agree most politicians do not follow Burke - but when I have been in the potion of being a democratic representative I took it very seriously.
- im_dario 13y agoHere in Catalonia, some pirates are developing a model based on adhocracy and liquid democracy, accountable and transparent. We call it "liquid organizations": http://thinkship.cc/en/introduction-to-liquid-organizations/ http://thinkship.cc/en/introduction-to-liquid-organizations/ Check it out. We should team up ;) More info at http://lyd.dario.im/ http://lyd.dario.im/
- sentenza 13y agoAs a pirate, I never understood how the majority of us could think that this is a good system. People that become active in politics do so because they want to do what in their opinion is right. With the current system of the German Pirate Party, the further you advance, the more you have to suppress your own opinion. This system would work a lot better if there was a pool of monk-like disciples that are trained to be party functionaries without own opinions. Since that probably won't happen, we should IMO accept that personalities play a role in politics.