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I have mocked-up a system for policy creation. The project is open; please contribute your thoughts. People say "it has flaws" but never explain the flaws, nor

I have mocked-up a system for policy creation. The project is open; please contribute your thoughts. People say "it has flaws" but never explain the flaws, nor how to address them. https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/ https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/ Would greatly appreciate constructive criticism. The system serves to educate everyone (openly and transparently) on implications of existing and upcoming policies. If the idea intrigues you, check out what other people are doing along the same lines: https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20Links https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20... Rather than getting to the point where citizens have to "mobilize against" the current government, we should be seeking to self-govern in such a way that mobilization is not necessary.

Buttons840 13y ago
I like the ideas you present. Does this site exist? If not, what existing sites do you think are closest to your vision?
- thangalin 13y ago
  The site I have mocked-up does not exist. I want to work on it, but it does not pay, and I need to eat. :-) I am working on a side-project (yes, a start-up) that will provide the income I need to work full-time on the World Politics idea. The closest idea is probably: https://canada.yrpri.org/ https://canada.yrpri.org/ It has a number of issues, though.
  - Buttons840 13y ago
    I've had similar ideas, mainly focused on holding legislators and their contributors accountable. It should be really easy to see how legislators voted, and also to see which companies contributed most to those on either side of the vote. Also, I would include a "I approve/disapprove of this legislation" button. This way, the site could tell something like "You current Senator voted for the bills you support 15% of the time." In which case, you vote for someone else.
GhotiFish 13y ago
I agree with your strategy. The internet is an unprecedented communication mechanism, for the first time in history we have the tools for mass self representation in an organized way. A new kind of society.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
l33tbro 13y ago
I agree with what you say about self-governing. By mobilizing, I simply meant forming something more cohesive than clicktivist petitions which most often go nowhere. Your wiki addresses this perfectly. I think you should continue pursuing and refining. The concept is fantastic.
- thangalin 13y ago
  That was one of my frustrations -- tens of thousands of clicktivists sending the same form letter to politicians is pointless. Especially when those same tens of thousands are not fully educated on the benefits and drawbacks about the policies they ardently clicktivise.
fantnn 13y ago
Opinions vs. Facts The community should be encouraged to favour facts over opinions. Er, this is one of the largest problems facing Democracy since it was invented millenia ago. Look at the current American government shutdown, and the way Republicans have managed to frame the debate using empty rhetoric, when in reality both the debt ceiling and government spending are currently not an issue http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-wall-street-journal-bang-query-bang-query-is-this-some-strange-berkeley-acid-trip-i-am-on-weblogging.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-...
- thangalin 13y ago
  Thank you for raising that issue; please see how the "debate page" and "supporting page" address your concern: https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Debate%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Debate%20P... https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting... Constructive criticism is truly appreciated.
- interstitial 13y ago
  You'd be surprised that ignorant deadmen once consider the same issues and felt an adversarial system was the best solution at the time. Today with the aid of the internet we know better. We should simple censure and imprison dissent and not bother with it at all.
BrianEatWorld 13y ago
Part of the reason why some people may say your system has flaws but never address is them is that they may not be able to be addressed. Your system looks like it strives to be purely democratic, but pure democracies have inherent flaws such as being open to tyranny by the majority or irrational voter behavior. It is clear that some of your solutions try to mitigate these issues, but there are tradeoffs. For example, the reputation bonus for education could be seen as biasing the system against certain classes of people. For a better framing of the voter irrationality problem (which is a misnomer because its actually rational irrationality,) I would recommend looking into the debate between Bryan Caplan and Donald Wittman. I imagine if you can mitigate the issues of both sides in your system, you'd really be on to something.
- thangalin 13y ago
  http://vimeo.com/22531716 http://vimeo.com/22531716 ? The reputation bonuses are just that: bonuses. If you contribute in a positive fashion, your reputation would increase as well. Yet all ideas (including those from anyone receiving a "bonus" boost) must still pass the moderation phase. Or perhaps bonuses are a bad idea altogether. I thought that someone who graduated from environmental studies would be able to propose environmental policies sooner than someone who has not. Maybe that isn't good. Thank you for the pointer!
  - BrianEatWorld 13y ago
    Thats the correct debate, although you are probably better off just reading their books and deciding for yourself. I think that particular debate session got hung up on a lot of minutiae. As for the direction of your project, I think as opposed to solving all the problems at once, you may want to construct things piecemeal, while laying out the factual pros and cons of each political "module". For example, using Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, there is no way to create a perfect voting mechanism, so any voting mechanism you put in place will be a traeoff. At one extreme, is unanimous consent, this guarantees everyone is signing off and thus reasonably happy. However, unanimous consent creates a new problem of the holdout position. To balance, voting systems like majority rules limit the holdout problem, but also introduce consent issues like swings in opinion from mob rule and the tyranny of the majority. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could create an elected dictator that could decide. This would be a trustee style system and while it would limit the above issues, it would introduce principal agent problems. By building these individual modules, you could allow your system to be adapted to many situations and allow for the actors themselves to police the less desirable behaviors (IE they know to watch out for holdouts before the process begins), which would be listed in the cons. A similar decision process could apply to the bonus systems (should education enter into it?), systems for evaluating relevant info in the debate section (types of source material, reputation voting) and so on. In sum, allow the users to determine how they want to decide and mediate each decision before they enter into the process. A module setup may also help you make more progress on your own and get contributions.
nomailing 13y ago
Do you know about liquid Feedback, which is used by the pirate Party? Or liquid democracy in general? I think they might be very interesting for you if you haven't heard of them yet.
- thangalin 13y ago
  https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20Links https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20... Please see the "Technology" section. If you know of any other related technology, please add it to the wiki.
gregw134 13y ago
I love the idea, but I don't think people should be allowed to have unlimited up or down votes. That would encourage whimsical opinions, and would make the site reflect the opinions of the most active and opinionated users instead of the average person. I think there needs to be a way to limit the voice of each user so each person has the same amount of influence. One idea I like is to give each user 100 points to distribute among topics. Once the user has assigned a certain number of points for or against a position, they could then distribute those points amongst the comments that best represent their position. So if a user votes 20 points for gun control, gun control would get 20 points, and the user would have to choose which comments best support their position--5 points to this comment, 7 points for this comment, etc. I think this would solve two problems: it would encourage thoughtful opinions to rise to the top, and it would give voice to the minority of voters that care passionately about a topic that the majority disagrees with or doesn't care about.
- thangalin 13y ago
  I like this, especially because it means votes become more valuable. Consider, too, that the system is self-referential. You could use the system to debate the relative merits of vote and comment limits, for example.
  - gregw134 13y ago
    I agree that there might be some issues with comment limits--you don't want to limit discussion too much. On a different topic, why do you think this system should be anonymous? You can't limit votes unless you can authenticate someone's identity, and the best way to prove that users are real is to show who each user is.
    - thangalin 13y ago
      Corruption is only possible when you know who to bribe. By making the system completely anonymous, bribery becomes extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Further, all ideas should receive equal consideration. Attaching names allows for group-think and bribery. (Imagine if Neil deGrasse Tyson posted a policy, or Neil Patrick Harris, or Neil Young.) Ideas must stand on their own merit, not on the reputation or wealth of the person who conceived the idea.
Debugreality 13y ago
I created a kind of micro discussion/decision making system that didn't generate much interest from people I talked to and perhaps shares a flaw with this concept. Basically if you look at what people use text for online it usually isn't anything serious, even these discussions don't have all that much gravity and HN is probably the most serious site I've seen. Text also has less emotion and involvement attached and I think a lot of people won't connect with a text based system like this or won't feel comfortable contributing. An idea for a way to feed peoples passions would be some kind of automatically generated video conference setup to split people into random think tank groups based on availability for each policy they indicate they want to be part of. Then perhaps one person, presumable someone that indicates they feel comfortable writing could contribute on behalf of their group to the text based policy page.
- thangalin 13y ago
  Initially, I was thinking the system would be more useful not for the general public, but for politicians. It could be used at federal, provincial, and municipal levels, for example. I agree with you that text is too impersonal. The support page aims to address that somewhat by allowing video content: https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting... I like the idea of video conferencing. That's a rather forward-looking application. You could use speech-to-text systems for automatic dictation. An issue with video conferencing is scheduling people for simultaneous discussion.
- bshanks 13y ago
  You may be interested in http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/current.html http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/current.html http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/ http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/ . I'm not too familiar with it and i don't think it automatically splits people into groups but it was created with Fishkin's Deliberative Polling in mind.
- bshanks 13y ago
  Could you provide a link to your system? I'm curious.
trippy_biscuits 13y ago
I like the idea of self-government and I'd like to extend the concept a bit further. We should be seeking to self-govern in such a way that the government is not necessary.
bshanks 13y ago
You may or may not also be interested in some of the projects discussed at: http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ and in some of the projects linked from: * http://www.communitywiki.org/ArgumentMap http://www.communitywiki.org/ArgumentMap * http://www.communitywiki.org/en/MappingArguments http://www.communitywiki.org/en/MappingArguments * http://www.communitywiki.org/en/DebateTool http://www.communitywiki.org/en/DebateTool * .. and other related pages at that wiki

Buttons840 13y ago

I like the ideas you present. Does this site exist? If not, what existing sites do you think are closest to your vision?

thangalin 13y ago
The site I have mocked-up does not exist. I want to work on it, but it does not pay, and I need to eat. :-) I am working on a side-project (yes, a start-up) that will provide the income I need to work full-time on the World Politics idea. The closest idea is probably: https://canada.yrpri.org/ https://canada.yrpri.org/ It has a number of issues, though.
- Buttons840 13y ago
  I've had similar ideas, mainly focused on holding legislators and their contributors accountable. It should be really easy to see how legislators voted, and also to see which companies contributed most to those on either side of the vote. Also, I would include a "I approve/disapprove of this legislation" button. This way, the site could tell something like "You current Senator voted for the bills you support 15% of the time." In which case, you vote for someone else.

GhotiFish 13y ago

I agree with your strategy. The internet is an unprecedented communication mechanism, for the first time in history we have the tools for mass self representation in an organized way. A new kind of society.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

l33tbro 13y ago

I agree with what you say about self-governing. By mobilizing, I simply meant forming something more cohesive than clicktivist petitions which most often go nowhere. Your wiki addresses this perfectly. I think you should continue pursuing and refining. The concept is fantastic.

thangalin 13y ago
That was one of my frustrations -- tens of thousands of clicktivists sending the same form letter to politicians is pointless. Especially when those same tens of thousands are not fully educated on the benefits and drawbacks about the policies they ardently clicktivise.

fantnn 13y ago

Opinions vs. Facts The community should be encouraged to favour facts over opinions. Er, this is one of the largest problems facing Democracy since it was invented millenia ago. Look at the current American government shutdown, and the way Republicans have managed to frame the debate using empty rhetoric, when in reality both the debt ceiling and government spending are currently not an issue http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-wall-street-journal-bang-query-bang-query-is-this-some-strange-berkeley-acid-trip-i-am-on-weblogging.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-...

thangalin 13y ago
Thank you for raising that issue; please see how the "debate page" and "supporting page" address your concern: https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Debate%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Debate%20P... https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting... Constructive criticism is truly appreciated.
interstitial 13y ago
You'd be surprised that ignorant deadmen once consider the same issues and felt an adversarial system was the best solution at the time. Today with the aid of the internet we know better. We should simple censure and imprison dissent and not bother with it at all.

BrianEatWorld 13y ago

Part of the reason why some people may say your system has flaws but never address is them is that they may not be able to be addressed. Your system looks like it strives to be purely democratic, but pure democracies have inherent flaws such as being open to tyranny by the majority or irrational voter behavior. It is clear that some of your solutions try to mitigate these issues, but there are tradeoffs. For example, the reputation bonus for education could be seen as biasing the system against certain classes of people. For a better framing of the voter irrationality problem (which is a misnomer because its actually rational irrationality,) I would recommend looking into the debate between Bryan Caplan and Donald Wittman. I imagine if you can mitigate the issues of both sides in your system, you'd really be on to something.

thangalin 13y ago
http://vimeo.com/22531716 http://vimeo.com/22531716 ? The reputation bonuses are just that: bonuses. If you contribute in a positive fashion, your reputation would increase as well. Yet all ideas (including those from anyone receiving a "bonus" boost) must still pass the moderation phase. Or perhaps bonuses are a bad idea altogether. I thought that someone who graduated from environmental studies would be able to propose environmental policies sooner than someone who has not. Maybe that isn't good. Thank you for the pointer!
- BrianEatWorld 13y ago
  Thats the correct debate, although you are probably better off just reading their books and deciding for yourself. I think that particular debate session got hung up on a lot of minutiae. As for the direction of your project, I think as opposed to solving all the problems at once, you may want to construct things piecemeal, while laying out the factual pros and cons of each political "module". For example, using Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, there is no way to create a perfect voting mechanism, so any voting mechanism you put in place will be a traeoff. At one extreme, is unanimous consent, this guarantees everyone is signing off and thus reasonably happy. However, unanimous consent creates a new problem of the holdout position. To balance, voting systems like majority rules limit the holdout problem, but also introduce consent issues like swings in opinion from mob rule and the tyranny of the majority. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could create an elected dictator that could decide. This would be a trustee style system and while it would limit the above issues, it would introduce principal agent problems. By building these individual modules, you could allow your system to be adapted to many situations and allow for the actors themselves to police the less desirable behaviors (IE they know to watch out for holdouts before the process begins), which would be listed in the cons. A similar decision process could apply to the bonus systems (should education enter into it?), systems for evaluating relevant info in the debate section (types of source material, reputation voting) and so on. In sum, allow the users to determine how they want to decide and mediate each decision before they enter into the process. A module setup may also help you make more progress on your own and get contributions.

nomailing 13y ago

Do you know about liquid Feedback, which is used by the pirate Party? Or liquid democracy in general? I think they might be very interesting for you if you haven't heard of them yet.

thangalin 13y ago
https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20Links https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20... Please see the "Technology" section. If you know of any other related technology, please add it to the wiki.

gregw134 13y ago

I love the idea, but I don't think people should be allowed to have unlimited up or down votes. That would encourage whimsical opinions, and would make the site reflect the opinions of the most active and opinionated users instead of the average person. I think there needs to be a way to limit the voice of each user so each person has the same amount of influence. One idea I like is to give each user 100 points to distribute among topics. Once the user has assigned a certain number of points for or against a position, they could then distribute those points amongst the comments that best represent their position. So if a user votes 20 points for gun control, gun control would get 20 points, and the user would have to choose which comments best support their position--5 points to this comment, 7 points for this comment, etc. I think this would solve two problems: it would encourage thoughtful opinions to rise to the top, and it would give voice to the minority of voters that care passionately about a topic that the majority disagrees with or doesn't care about.

thangalin 13y ago
I like this, especially because it means votes become more valuable. Consider, too, that the system is self-referential. You could use the system to debate the relative merits of vote and comment limits, for example.
- gregw134 13y ago
  I agree that there might be some issues with comment limits--you don't want to limit discussion too much. On a different topic, why do you think this system should be anonymous? You can't limit votes unless you can authenticate someone's identity, and the best way to prove that users are real is to show who each user is.
  - thangalin 13y ago
    Corruption is only possible when you know who to bribe. By making the system completely anonymous, bribery becomes extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Further, all ideas should receive equal consideration. Attaching names allows for group-think and bribery. (Imagine if Neil deGrasse Tyson posted a policy, or Neil Patrick Harris, or Neil Young.) Ideas must stand on their own merit, not on the reputation or wealth of the person who conceived the idea.

Debugreality 13y ago

I created a kind of micro discussion/decision making system that didn't generate much interest from people I talked to and perhaps shares a flaw with this concept. Basically if you look at what people use text for online it usually isn't anything serious, even these discussions don't have all that much gravity and HN is probably the most serious site I've seen. Text also has less emotion and involvement attached and I think a lot of people won't connect with a text based system like this or won't feel comfortable contributing. An idea for a way to feed peoples passions would be some kind of automatically generated video conference setup to split people into random think tank groups based on availability for each policy they indicate they want to be part of. Then perhaps one person, presumable someone that indicates they feel comfortable writing could contribute on behalf of their group to the text based policy page.

thangalin 13y ago
Initially, I was thinking the system would be more useful not for the general public, but for politicians. It could be used at federal, provincial, and municipal levels, for example. I agree with you that text is too impersonal. The support page aims to address that somewhat by allowing video content: https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting%20Page https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting... I like the idea of video conferencing. That's a rather forward-looking application. You could use speech-to-text systems for automatic dictation. An issue with video conferencing is scheduling people for simultaneous discussion.
bshanks 13y ago
You may be interested in http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/current.html http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/current.html http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/ http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/ . I'm not too familiar with it and i don't think it automatically splits people into groups but it was created with Fishkin's Deliberative Polling in mind.
bshanks 13y ago
Could you provide a link to your system? I'm curious.

trippy_biscuits 13y ago

I like the idea of self-government and I'd like to extend the concept a bit further. We should be seeking to self-govern in such a way that the government is not necessary.

bshanks 13y ago

You may or may not also be interested in some of the projects discussed at: http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ and in some of the projects linked from: * http://www.communitywiki.org/ArgumentMap http://www.communitywiki.org/ArgumentMap * http://www.communitywiki.org/en/MappingArguments http://www.communitywiki.org/en/MappingArguments * http://www.communitywiki.org/en/DebateTool http://www.communitywiki.org/en/DebateTool * .. and other related pages at that wiki