9 ms·

DemocracyOS

166 points by sinak 12y ago

stevecode 12y ago
FYI OS means Operating System not Voting System.
- santisiri 12y ago
  means both things :)
  - stevecode 12y ago
    how so? o.O
benwilber0 12y ago
this trend toward naming your pseudo-company "somethingOS" is getting really annoying.
- mikermcneil 12y ago
  that's true-- for these guys it actually makes sense though based on what they're doing IMO
  - andars 12y ago
    Maybe I'm just missing it, but why? I associate OS only with operating systems, and these guys don't seem to be making an OS.
    - santisiri 12y ago
      Open Source / Open Society / work too.
- ytzvan 12y ago
  "pseudo-company" only if that means be a YC Backed non-profit organization.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
striking 12y ago
What about the monitoring and modification of online communities by the GCHQ? This doesn't even look resistant to that. Also, what about traditional ballot stuffing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking anyone? I could only trust this if there were attached a mathematical proof of its usability. Otherwise, I kind of doubt it's worth anyone's time.
- piamancini 12y ago
  We are working to validate democracyOS votes with the blockchain. Happy to listen to any other suggestions
  - tebou 12y ago
    Please check out: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-counts-ensuring-integrity-in-large-scale-electronic-voting/ https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-count... This is a paper describing an end-to-end verifiable self-enforcing electronic voting system called DRE-i (Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity). In my opinion this is a superior solution to any other electronic voting system developed to date.
    - piamancini 12y ago
      Thank you!
joneil 12y ago
I think this is great - it's an attempted solution to an important, difficult problem, and they've got a number of interesting angles. In particular I think the branching of proposals, and hopefully being able to diff / blame, could be as important, or more important, than trusted voting. I look forward to seeing more of the implementation. Congrats on the launch, and thanks for working on a difficult problem that we all need to see solved.
- piamancini 12y ago
  Thank you! Totally agree with the branching aspect and yesterday we were playing with some ideas to order debate in pros&cons. Also, we are looking for funding to form a blockchain team, to validate democracyos votes in bc. All ideas are super welcome! pia@democracyos.org
jtmurphy 12y ago
Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?
- frozenport 12y ago
  The remedy is to require more than a majority threshold for decisions to be made. For example, a decision could require 80% agreement before it becomes law. In the USA we handle these issues with a representation by region (states) rather than by population. Solutions feel more like post-processing, then data gathering.
  - wyager 12y ago
    That doesn't defend against tyranny of the majority; it just requires a larger majority. In the USA we defend against tyranny of the majority with the constitution. The constitution places strict limits on what the majority can do to the minority through governmental force.
    - jtmurphy 12y ago
      I agree with wyager. A political system should be a strong constitution that defines the rights of individuals. Something like DemocracyOS should be used to engage the population into ensuring that political actions are in fact constitutional and just.
      - rbf_ 12y ago
        I think what we really need is ConstitutionalRepublicOS which would be a bit more complicated. But by defining strong constitutional invariants with regard to individual rights perhaps we could pre-strikedown unconstitutional laws before they are enacted. That would require a more precise legal language that let's you run some kind of static analysis against against the laws however.
broodbucket 12y ago
As with others, I am really struggling to see why this has "OS" in the name. It's not an operating system. I'm guessing it stands for "open source", which isn't really an acronym people use in favour of OSS/FOSS (probably because OS already has a very well established meaning). Can someone share some insight on the naming decision?
- r0naa 12y ago
  Well, I think that it's a relevant analogy to what an operating system does. Like an OS a system of government (like Democracy) manages a collection of physical elements (institutions) and serves as an interface between those and the end-users (citizens.)
  - lugg 12y ago
    That's a metaphor, and its confusing if not mildly infuriating.
    - r0naa 12y ago
      A metaphor is a type of analogy, just so you know. Also, could you elaborate on what is so infuriating?
      - frozenport 12y ago
        #1 An OS does different things, you might want DemocracyUI #2 Its a technical term out of place that redefines what an OS does, as a member of the technical community feel a sense of ownership for a term that I routinely use. Its infuriating when you mess with something that is mine.
        santisiri 12y ago
        The kind of hardware we deal with it's called Congress. There's where the party we've built comes into place.
      - 12y ago
pekk 12y ago
If people scrape together a few votes and do not get their wishes rammed through, they will complain exactly like they complained about the White House petition site - because it was not a direct way of getting in legislation to (say) legalize marijuana. I don't see how DemocracyOS can solve that problem.
santisiri 12y ago
Hi guys, I'm one of the founders. Glad to answer all your questions.
- santisiri 12y ago
  You can always follow me on Twitter: @santisiri And of course, @DemocracyOS
  - alecco 12y ago
    How self promotional of you.
    - santisiri 12y ago
      it's not easy being an entrepreneur and building a network of likeminded people from around the world :)
      - alecco 12y ago
        It can't be that hard if that is most of your time. But maybe you are burning older contacts even faster than my limited sample. YC: ask his previous investors and employees what they think, independently and in private.
        santisiri 12y ago
        please do, more than willing! i still hang out with a lot of the people that worked with me during 12 years, and all my investors are very happy (they actually keep supporting us as a nonprofit, can you believe it?). I'm really proud about this. It's the main force behind the fact that we are able to be here. And also, I have no idea of who you are.. so don't pretend you know stuff you really do not. Ahh.. haters. Gotta love'em.
- na85 12y ago
  Why did you choose to implement Yet Another Blockchain Solution? Assuming 3-letter agencies haven't already broken it, they will sooner or later, and now all your users will be susceptible to having their votes manipulated at the whim of US intelligence.
yourad_io 12y ago
This is amazing. I have dreamt of a system like this and armchair-proposed it to friends countless times. I am always faced with derision in such conversations[1] - but I believe that a secure implementation of such an idea could be the future of democracy. Or rather, its past. Ancient Greek democracy wasn't perfect (slavery; not everyone was citizen) but it was much better than our current system of professional politicians and uber-powerful political parties and lobbies. The small, first struggle will be to implement it as securely as possible - for this you'll likely need to distribute specific hardware[2]. The second and largest struggle would be to actually change constitutions and take power away from the organizations that have hoarded it for decades[3]. There is a lot of scepticism in these comments. My infosec and analytical side is obviously going to go into full-attack mode when there is something solid to take apart - BUT for the time being I'd like to say a huge "bravo" to both this team and YC for backing them. I hope you change the world. [1] how would it work; why would people care to get involved; execution/implementation issues; fraud; ... [2] something between RSA tokens and dedicated mobile voting machines [3] probably centuries
- santisiri 12y ago
  We are asking for funding so we can develop a blockchain-compatibility module for our app here: https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/elections/entries/blockchain-support-for-open-source-platform-democracyos https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/elections/entries/bl... The work on security is very challenging but this MUST be a large open source effort. Check our code here: github.com/democracyos/app
- gvilarino 12y ago
  Thanks for your insights! Totally agree; finding out what democratic interaction should look like and how it should work for societies in the current hyper-connected paradigm is -at best- something that will take a lot of time. There is, undoubtedly, a technological challenge to address, but moreover I think the greatest challenge is the cultural one. We're risen to think communites (countries, towns, organisations, etc.) should be managed in one of so many fashions, but we're willing to ask ourselves time and again what other possible ways there are for doing this, and implement on that. We may not nail it soon, but we'll definitely try as long as we can.
santisiri 12y ago
Guys, if you want to play with a secret version of DemocracyOS (the SaaS implementation), help us here: http://hub.democracyos.com http://hub.democracyos.com
alecco 12y ago
Very questionable people behind it (close second hand). All hype and self promotion. Zero experience. Shunned often in most online forums in Argentina, save TedX. I really don't get how YC decided to back this project.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
freddier 12y ago
I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings. Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of. The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it only donations?
- piamancini 12y ago
  Hi! We are trying to get enough philanthropic seed funding to find a sustainable model. Maybe OS SAS, or github's: free as long as it's open. For the moment it's all grants.
- santisiri 12y ago
  We believe that you cannot put a price tag on the right to participate. So the nonprofit is a fundamental first step in our mission. We want to figure a self-sustainable model, donations can only get you that far. The task ahead of us is a big one: we want to build governance for the internet society.
gghootch 12y ago
Love the direction this is going. Dreamt about such a system in the past as well. Looking forward to a mobile first experience which enables me to weigh-in on (local) issues in real-time.
- piamancini 12y ago
  hi! some pilot live implementations with council-members in the US: marfarrell.democracyos.org (SF) benkallos.democracyos.org (NYC). Would love to know your thoughts. pia@democracyos.org
  - gvilarino 12y ago
    typo :) it's markfarrell.democracyos.org
gus_massa 12y ago
When this is successful, I don't understand how you will combat the capture of the platform form the traditional parties. A traditional party can ask their supporters to vote for them in the elections, and then ask them to vote for the same laws in this platform. They don't ever need to discuss, or they can discuss and discuss and vote for the official party decision nevertheless. So the party gets double votes, unless the other parties also try to abuse the system. (If everybody abuse the system, the biggest party get double votes.) In the comments sections of the newspapers is very usual to see very politized users and real or alleged accusations of astroturfing, shills, suckpupets, meatpupets, 50-cents-army, choriplaneros, ...
- gvilarino 12y ago
  Super-valid concern. The truth is that very-politically-involved people aren't that big a percentage of the overall population (at least from the numbers I've seen - usually around 10%). So we're trying to find ways of making it easy for that other 90% to engage in civic participation. If we get to nail that, then even any 'arranged' participation would not account for a significant part of the votes for a given issue. Also, from our experience with DemocracyOS, users actually participate in stuff they actually care about, and not equally on every sort of issue. So it's interesting to see how larger userbases would unfold with apps like DemocracyOS or similar.
dataker 12y ago
As a Brazilian, I find this initiative to be extremely important. However, I've recently seen 'democratic' videos urging for a military dictatorship. Millions of Facebook users shared the message and ~1M people protested last sunday, while trying to kick out our president. So I wonder if, contradictorily, some might exploit DemocracyOS to install anti-democratic regimes. Is there a way to ensure such thing won't happen? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ
- santisiri 12y ago
  Check the implementation of DemocracyOS done here: http://euvoto.org http://euvoto.org
- piamancini 12y ago
  It's crazy what's happening in Brazil these days, as a close neighbour(Argentinean) it pains me to see such upheaval. To your point, we could set up a protocol that the SaaS version of DemocracyOS can only be used inside the limits of a constitution, but we have no control over the Open Source version. It's like twitter it's a platform for expressing oneself and it's content moderation is v. limited. It's all our responsibility to make the best possible use of the tools we create.
  - dataker 12y ago
    Spot on. I still believe the beauty of the project is that it's open-sourced, so our community of developers would be able to make wiser choices for the country. Infinitely better than corrupted politicians.
    - piamancini 12y ago
      For sure! Being Open Source it's fundamental to the spirit and vision of DemocracyOS.
- PauloManrique 12y ago
  So, let's all ignore all the crimes she made. Great idea.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
The idea of "open source governance" is hardly new. I'd imagine such a system in the form of a web app would be swamped with irrelevant queries. Assuming an idealistic direct democracy where citizens draft new laws or modify existing ones, the feedback loop of constantly changing legal information to its application would be overwhelming. On the flip side, too much unaddressed issues and slow or wasteful processes would create apathy. Personally I always thought the most attractive model for such an endeavor is to store laws in a markup format, and go through the old school route of mailing lists and patches. You'd be making use of highly tested infrastructure and actually require for participants to put a little effort in learning.
- santisiri 12y ago
  I agree, we did a lot of research on a decent markup formar for law making (LML!). There are some efforts out there like (search for Akomantoso) But the real challenge is getting TRACTION on a technology like this. It's not just the protocol (which I think it should be based on the Blockchain).. but also the product that makes citizens engaged with political participation.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Well, this has the fun distinction of actually being functioning code in active use. I'm pretty happy to see some "open source governance" that isn't just talk. I'm only aware of one another project that has crossed that line.
  - kpatrick 12y ago
    I'm actually pitching a similar idea to a major corporation. Here is a reading list if you are interested in the subject. There have been (at least) four conferences on the subject of online deliberation. https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELiberate http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELibe... http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Chapter_26._Schuler.pdf http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch... http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1342861&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D1342861 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=134286... http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf Prakken, Henry. 1998. Formalizing robert’s rules of order: An experiment in automating mediation of group decision making. Tech. Rep. REP-FIT-1998-12, GMD.
jonnybgood 12y ago
So, this platform allows policy to be decided by a "technorati"[1] class? Are there individuals with low-income, little to no internet access, don't know what a blockchain or open source is, have hectic work schedules with the addition of raising a family participating on your platform? From what I can tell this platform is giving more power to those who already have some sense of power. This platform does not alleviate the problem of those in society who do not have any power or say in political processes. It may even be argued this platform may contribute to the problem. [1] Those who have the privilege, time, and monetary means of internet access, acquiring/have knowledge of internet technologies, and being a participant.
- santisiri 12y ago
  The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people. We come from Argentina, a latinamerican country and we are very aware of the social challenges we face. But it's not just a technological solution, we ALSO created a Political party that does a lot of offline activism helping society understand the power they have using digital technology. The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires, it was an incredible first election for a small party and that led to DemocracyOS being implemented officially by the Congress. Thanks to that, a lot of bills got attention. For example: Nureses now have better working conditions thanks to the action taken on DemocracyOS for the Congress of Buenos Aires. Read more about it here: http://democracyos.org/about-us http://democracyos.org/about-us
  - seppo0010 12y ago
    > The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people. > The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires How do you justify that most of the votes came from wealthy neighborhoods of the city? https://twitter.com/seppo0010/status/578031940651118593 https://twitter.com/seppo0010/status/578031940651118593
    - santisiri 12y ago
mmelody 12y ago
At first glance I find it very similar to the idea of Liquid Democracy of the Pirate Parties. Is there any significant difference? Days ago at HN, I heard that such systems failed greatly due to endless quarrels and external mistrust.
alizhd 12y ago
I wish people in Pakistan used this. it would really help that country.
- santisiri 12y ago
  try starting a democracy here: http://hub.democracyos.com http://hub.democracyos.com
codyh1 12y ago
How will this assist with those not readily capable of engaging with technology? Or perhaps I'm not fully understanding all of it.
moe 12y ago
This looks like Liquid Feedback[1] done right. Liquid Feedback was a "liquid democracy" platform developed by the german pirate party. Both the software and the party are now largely dissolved; ironically killed by their over-zealous interpretation of democracy, which resulted in a lack of direction and rabid dilettantism. [1] http://liquidfeedback.org http://liquidfeedback.org
- santisiri 12y ago
  Yep, you got it. We actually started contacting them, but they were already doing private consulting + all the source code of LF is in german, impossible to understand. And the UX, well, it wasn't very usable. But it was a great initiative that we researched 3 years ago when we began.
vannevar 12y ago
I've seen a few of these now over the years, and I've come to believe a successful implementation should combine argument mapping, consensus building, and a trust network. Just framing an issue and having a comments section isn't enough; that form is ubiquitous across the Internet yet hasn't proven a viable way on its own to actually make decisions.
- piamancini 12y ago
  I agree, we have a long roadmap ahead and all your points should be in it. If you wish to contribute, by all means github.com/democracyos. It's an open source project.
sharp11 12y ago
This is very inspiring stuff and very exciting that YC is backing it! A key thing that Pia said in her TED talk: technology is only a tool here, cultural change and reinvention is necessary. I haven't had a chance to play with DemocracyOS yet, but the focus does somewhat seem to be on "direct democracy" (as opposed to "representative"), and as others have pointed out, that's fraught with problems. But I hope and believe this is just a first, experimental step. And I hope that next steps will be informed by the rich tradition of experimentation in "participatory, deliberative democracy". This includes things like citizen assemblies, citizen juries, participatory budgeting, wisdom councils, etc. What these approaches have in common is a blending of citizen participation with informed deliberation, often including a random sampling (of citizens). As two superb examples of this, I would point to the Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia, Canada, 2004) and the Dialogue with the City (Perth, Australia, 2003). Some really useful books: Tao of Democracy (Tom Atlee), Deliberative Democracy Handbook (Gastil & Levine), Deliberative Democracy in America (Ethan Leib).
- piamancini 12y ago
  We met Tom Atlee lately, he is fantastic. His insights on how to move forward, the importance of diversity in the process, where super sharp. I would add to the list, When People Speak by Fishkin and check Marina Gorbis' book on The Nature of the Future, specially the chapter on the future of government. Her proposal of a new large, agora of randomly chosen citizens is super interesting and challenging.
  - sharp11 12y ago
    Glad to hear you met Tom! He's our secret national treasure. It's awesome to hear that you are already plugged in to this area of thinking. Thanks for the Gorbis reference, sounds similar to Ethan Leib's proposal for a fourth branch of federal gov't.
fiatjaf 12y ago
Votes? Really?
- santisiri 12y ago
  More than willing to figure out the ways of doing consensus. Yet any enforcement on the need to consent some perceive it as a dangerous dictatorial pattern.
lucio 12y ago
There's some information, you need to know. In Argentina, people has no representation. You don't vote for a "district representative" as in the USA. Here people vote on a "party-list" called here "lista sabana" (http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr/665_imagen_unica.jpg http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr...) The "lista sabana" is a large list of party-candidates (in 6pt font) headed by the "leader" or "caudillo" name (in 62pt font). If the "caudillo" has a 40% approval rate, the first 40% of people on the 6pt-font list WILL enter the congress, so the firsts spots on the lists are literally SOLD beforehand, based on the "leader" popularity index. The spots can also be exchanged for "popular support" with labor union leaders (to herd people into political rallies). So, here the "congressman" have no direct relation to the voters, they've only a direct dependency on the "leader". They do as they're told or else they will not be included in the list on the next elections. There is no such thing as "constituents" in this system. That's a reason why DemocracyOS and the "Net Party" are viable here. When representation is completely broken, direct-democracy sounds good. Here's a quote from a document on Paraguayan system (the same system): "But what if the elected representatives of the legislature were not voted in directly by the people? Would that discredit the authority of the legislative branch? The actual voting method in Paraguayan politics for a legislator to enter government is to lobby for their name to enter a “lista sabana,” a list of names on a sheet that represents the party candidates. The people then vote for that party list, rather than for the individual. Party leaders can then decide which positions to give to the party faithful. In this way the political class can make deals, play at back room politics to add their name to the list, exchange favors with voters and backers, and conduct business behind closed doors. The Congress can then vote to apportion more funds from the Treasury to fund their election campaigns, increase their salaries and benefits, and buy their votes with political largesse. The system reinforces the worst excesses of political cronyism, including links to crony capitalism. Ultimately it erodes the social trust between the governed and the governors and creates inefficiencies in a country’s economics. Attempts have been made to remove, or “unblock,” the “lista sabana” by allowing voters to choose individual candidates to the legislature, but so far these attempts have failed."
mudil 12y ago
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. -- Oscar Wilde
jordanpg 12y ago
I like the sentiment very much and I think the demo platform looks like a solid foundation. Not crazy, like others, about the "OS". That said, I think that, as far as revolutionizing elections/politics in any important sense, something far more drastic than this will be required. Finding new ways to debate hot political questions of the day, as a function of what is coming out of the news (any news outlet), is missing the point. There is a lack of disengagement with politics, and moreover, it is absolutely justified. The manner in which most of the discussions are conducted are nonsensical. There is an abject lack of nuance and thoughtfulness. Discussions are necessarily vague and always conducted with superlative certainty. Here is a fact: there is not enough information on this page[1] to form a reasoned opinion about the Bank on Student Loan Fairness Act. There probably isn't enough information on 20 pages. Yet that is the script. Learn about a complex issue in 60 seconds, and then decide where you come down on it. It's patent nonsense. If there is to be a revolution, it will need to deal with the reality that there is a facade between the machinations of governments and corporations and the people, and that facade is the news. The news is our window into vast, vast complexity and the basis for making choices that supposedly affect our local quality of life all the way up to the direction of history. So long as the important decisions are organized in this top-down hierarchy of power, a website isn't going to change much. No, the most promising ideas about upending hierarchies try to actually redistribute the power from the top. Imagine a politician running for office in the context of some website like this, who, through some formal, public process, granted certain levels of access to online advocates, in the event of a win. For example, someone able to marshal something in the order of 10 votes would be promised one lunch in the first 2 years. The details are less important than the inversion of power hierarchies that new technologies enable. Until that can be practically harnessed, approaching electoral matters along conventional axes is unlikely to get much traction. [1]http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f
- santisiri 12y ago
  Very insightful, there's no doubt we have a lot of work to do.
jpetersonmn 12y ago
Maybe I'm slow, but I've seen this a couple times now and went to the website, read the "about" section and I still don't understand what this is or what problem it's solving. I think OS in the name lead me to immediately assume it was another operating system. So considering I thought it was a new operating system, the more I read the more underwhelmed I am. Good luck on the project, but IMO you've not named it appropriately nor described how it uniquely solves any problem. Sorry if that sounds harsh, just giving honest feedback.
gaigepr 12y ago
"We support real browsers and IE10+" -- https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support I chuckled.
seppo0010 12y ago
The technical quality of the project has been so far debatable[1][2]. The Partido de la Red results seem to reveal a problem that is obvious at first sight: the underrepresentation of those who need representation the most[3]. I have doubts about whether direct democracy is a good idea, at all[4]. Summarizing, dividing the burden of decision making is inefficient for the population at large, and it does not guarantee better results. People behind this project admit that this does not fully solve the problem it is attempting to solve[5]. Even if I could ignore the previous statement (which of course I can't), I wonder if the advantages of moving from an indirect democracy to a direct democracy are enough to even try to solve the problems. I think the cost of switching is high, and I cannot see any benefit. In USA the main problem with democracy is the lack of interest of population in government elections. Does micromanaging decisions make this problem better or worse? The question is valid. It could be better if the feeling is that no matter who wins nobody will represent the voter; it could be worse if people do not care about the decisions that have to be make. There are other possible options, of course, but I don't really know if this solves problems or makes it worse. I wonder how selection bias would affect decision making. People will mostly vote on subjects they feel passionate about, and ignore the others. Which will probably lead to what programmers know as bikeshedding[6]. Now I would like to highlight the positive of thinking about this problems and attempting a solution. Also following up Congress's debates and actions is something that should happen more often, for example Congressional Dish[7] attempts to do so. [1] (Spanish) https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que-te-garantiza-fraude-d412f1a6992c https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que... [2] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536 [4] (Spanish) https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-directa/ https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-direc... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Trivialit... [7] http://www.congressionaldish.com/ http://www.congressionaldish.com/
- santisiri 12y ago
  It's not "direct democracy". It's just democracy. If you trace back the term used by the Greeks, they called both the technology and the concept agora. Etymologically, agora means "speaking in public", "thinking with others" and in many verses it's used as antonym of war. Democracy is always a work in progress. Otherwise it would be a totalitarian concept. So what we are trying to understand is simply democracy but for the digital age. Using computers and networks, and the power of software. Open source, collaborative free software.
kang 12y ago
Bitcoin is the real democracy of the internet era.

DemocracyOS

166 points by sinak 12y ago

stevecode 12y ago

FYI OS means Operating System not Voting System.

santisiri 12y ago
means both things :)
- stevecode 12y ago
  how so? o.O

benwilber0 12y ago

this trend toward naming your pseudo-company "somethingOS" is getting really annoying.

mikermcneil 12y ago
that's true-- for these guys it actually makes sense though based on what they're doing IMO
- andars 12y ago
  Maybe I'm just missing it, but why? I associate OS only with operating systems, and these guys don't seem to be making an OS.
  - santisiri 12y ago
    Open Source / Open Society / work too.
ytzvan 12y ago
"pseudo-company" only if that means be a YC Backed non-profit organization.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

striking 12y ago

What about the monitoring and modification of online communities by the GCHQ? This doesn't even look resistant to that. Also, what about traditional ballot stuffing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking anyone? I could only trust this if there were attached a mathematical proof of its usability. Otherwise, I kind of doubt it's worth anyone's time.

piamancini 12y ago
We are working to validate democracyOS votes with the blockchain. Happy to listen to any other suggestions
- tebou 12y ago
  Please check out: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-counts-ensuring-integrity-in-large-scale-electronic-voting/ https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-count... This is a paper describing an end-to-end verifiable self-enforcing electronic voting system called DRE-i (Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity). In my opinion this is a superior solution to any other electronic voting system developed to date.
  - piamancini 12y ago
    Thank you!

joneil 12y ago

I think this is great - it's an attempted solution to an important, difficult problem, and they've got a number of interesting angles. In particular I think the branching of proposals, and hopefully being able to diff / blame, could be as important, or more important, than trusted voting. I look forward to seeing more of the implementation. Congrats on the launch, and thanks for working on a difficult problem that we all need to see solved.

piamancini 12y ago
Thank you! Totally agree with the branching aspect and yesterday we were playing with some ideas to order debate in pros&cons. Also, we are looking for funding to form a blockchain team, to validate democracyos votes in bc. All ideas are super welcome! pia@democracyos.org

jtmurphy 12y ago

Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

frozenport 12y ago
The remedy is to require more than a majority threshold for decisions to be made. For example, a decision could require 80% agreement before it becomes law. In the USA we handle these issues with a representation by region (states) rather than by population. Solutions feel more like post-processing, then data gathering.
- wyager 12y ago
  That doesn't defend against tyranny of the majority; it just requires a larger majority. In the USA we defend against tyranny of the majority with the constitution. The constitution places strict limits on what the majority can do to the minority through governmental force.
  - jtmurphy 12y ago
    I agree with wyager. A political system should be a strong constitution that defines the rights of individuals. Something like DemocracyOS should be used to engage the population into ensuring that political actions are in fact constitutional and just.
    - rbf_ 12y ago
      I think what we really need is ConstitutionalRepublicOS which would be a bit more complicated. But by defining strong constitutional invariants with regard to individual rights perhaps we could pre-strikedown unconstitutional laws before they are enacted. That would require a more precise legal language that let's you run some kind of static analysis against against the laws however.

broodbucket 12y ago

As with others, I am really struggling to see why this has "OS" in the name. It's not an operating system. I'm guessing it stands for "open source", which isn't really an acronym people use in favour of OSS/FOSS (probably because OS already has a very well established meaning). Can someone share some insight on the naming decision?

r0naa 12y ago
Well, I think that it's a relevant analogy to what an operating system does. Like an OS a system of government (like Democracy) manages a collection of physical elements (institutions) and serves as an interface between those and the end-users (citizens.)
- lugg 12y ago
  That's a metaphor, and its confusing if not mildly infuriating.
  - r0naa 12y ago
    A metaphor is a type of analogy, just so you know. Also, could you elaborate on what is so infuriating?
    - frozenport 12y ago
      #1 An OS does different things, you might want DemocracyUI #2 Its a technical term out of place that redefines what an OS does, as a member of the technical community feel a sense of ownership for a term that I routinely use. Its infuriating when you mess with something that is mine.
      - santisiri 12y ago
        The kind of hardware we deal with it's called Congress. There's where the party we've built comes into place.
    - 12y ago

pekk 12y ago

If people scrape together a few votes and do not get their wishes rammed through, they will complain exactly like they complained about the White House petition site - because it was not a direct way of getting in legislation to (say) legalize marijuana. I don't see how DemocracyOS can solve that problem.

santisiri 12y ago

Hi guys, I'm one of the founders. Glad to answer all your questions.

santisiri 12y ago
You can always follow me on Twitter: @santisiri And of course, @DemocracyOS
- alecco 12y ago
  How self promotional of you.
  - santisiri 12y ago
    it's not easy being an entrepreneur and building a network of likeminded people from around the world :)
    - alecco 12y ago
      It can't be that hard if that is most of your time. But maybe you are burning older contacts even faster than my limited sample. YC: ask his previous investors and employees what they think, independently and in private.
      - santisiri 12y ago
        please do, more than willing! i still hang out with a lot of the people that worked with me during 12 years, and all my investors are very happy (they actually keep supporting us as a nonprofit, can you believe it?). I'm really proud about this. It's the main force behind the fact that we are able to be here. And also, I have no idea of who you are.. so don't pretend you know stuff you really do not. Ahh.. haters. Gotta love'em.
na85 12y ago
Why did you choose to implement Yet Another Blockchain Solution? Assuming 3-letter agencies haven't already broken it, they will sooner or later, and now all your users will be susceptible to having their votes manipulated at the whim of US intelligence.

yourad_io 12y ago

This is amazing. I have dreamt of a system like this and armchair-proposed it to friends countless times. I am always faced with derision in such conversations[1] - but I believe that a secure implementation of such an idea could be the future of democracy. Or rather, its past. Ancient Greek democracy wasn't perfect (slavery; not everyone was citizen) but it was much better than our current system of professional politicians and uber-powerful political parties and lobbies. The small, first struggle will be to implement it as securely as possible - for this you'll likely need to distribute specific hardware[2]. The second and largest struggle would be to actually change constitutions and take power away from the organizations that have hoarded it for decades[3]. There is a lot of scepticism in these comments. My infosec and analytical side is obviously going to go into full-attack mode when there is something solid to take apart - BUT for the time being I'd like to say a huge "bravo" to both this team and YC for backing them. I hope you change the world. [1] how would it work; why would people care to get involved; execution/implementation issues; fraud; ... [2] something between RSA tokens and dedicated mobile voting machines [3] probably centuries

santisiri 12y ago
We are asking for funding so we can develop a blockchain-compatibility module for our app here: https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/elections/entries/blockchain-support-for-open-source-platform-democracyos https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/elections/entries/bl... The work on security is very challenging but this MUST be a large open source effort. Check our code here: github.com/democracyos/app
gvilarino 12y ago
Thanks for your insights! Totally agree; finding out what democratic interaction should look like and how it should work for societies in the current hyper-connected paradigm is -at best- something that will take a lot of time. There is, undoubtedly, a technological challenge to address, but moreover I think the greatest challenge is the cultural one. We're risen to think communites (countries, towns, organisations, etc.) should be managed in one of so many fashions, but we're willing to ask ourselves time and again what other possible ways there are for doing this, and implement on that. We may not nail it soon, but we'll definitely try as long as we can.

santisiri 12y ago

Guys, if you want to play with a secret version of DemocracyOS (the SaaS implementation), help us here: http://hub.democracyos.com http://hub.democracyos.com

alecco 12y ago

Very questionable people behind it (close second hand). All hype and self promotion. Zero experience. Shunned often in most online forums in Argentina, save TedX. I really don't get how YC decided to back this project.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

freddier 12y ago

I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings. Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of. The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it only donations?

piamancini 12y ago
Hi! We are trying to get enough philanthropic seed funding to find a sustainable model. Maybe OS SAS, or github's: free as long as it's open. For the moment it's all grants.
santisiri 12y ago
We believe that you cannot put a price tag on the right to participate. So the nonprofit is a fundamental first step in our mission. We want to figure a self-sustainable model, donations can only get you that far. The task ahead of us is a big one: we want to build governance for the internet society.

gghootch 12y ago

Love the direction this is going. Dreamt about such a system in the past as well. Looking forward to a mobile first experience which enables me to weigh-in on (local) issues in real-time.

piamancini 12y ago
hi! some pilot live implementations with council-members in the US: marfarrell.democracyos.org (SF) benkallos.democracyos.org (NYC). Would love to know your thoughts. pia@democracyos.org
- gvilarino 12y ago
  typo :) it's markfarrell.democracyos.org

gus_massa 12y ago

When this is successful, I don't understand how you will combat the capture of the platform form the traditional parties. A traditional party can ask their supporters to vote for them in the elections, and then ask them to vote for the same laws in this platform. They don't ever need to discuss, or they can discuss and discuss and vote for the official party decision nevertheless. So the party gets double votes, unless the other parties also try to abuse the system. (If everybody abuse the system, the biggest party get double votes.) In the comments sections of the newspapers is very usual to see very politized users and real or alleged accusations of astroturfing, shills, suckpupets, meatpupets, 50-cents-army, choriplaneros, ...

gvilarino 12y ago
Super-valid concern. The truth is that very-politically-involved people aren't that big a percentage of the overall population (at least from the numbers I've seen - usually around 10%). So we're trying to find ways of making it easy for that other 90% to engage in civic participation. If we get to nail that, then even any 'arranged' participation would not account for a significant part of the votes for a given issue. Also, from our experience with DemocracyOS, users actually participate in stuff they actually care about, and not equally on every sort of issue. So it's interesting to see how larger userbases would unfold with apps like DemocracyOS or similar.

dataker 12y ago

As a Brazilian, I find this initiative to be extremely important. However, I've recently seen 'democratic' videos urging for a military dictatorship. Millions of Facebook users shared the message and ~1M people protested last sunday, while trying to kick out our president. So I wonder if, contradictorily, some might exploit DemocracyOS to install anti-democratic regimes. Is there a way to ensure such thing won't happen? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ

santisiri 12y ago
Check the implementation of DemocracyOS done here: http://euvoto.org http://euvoto.org
piamancini 12y ago
It's crazy what's happening in Brazil these days, as a close neighbour(Argentinean) it pains me to see such upheaval. To your point, we could set up a protocol that the SaaS version of DemocracyOS can only be used inside the limits of a constitution, but we have no control over the Open Source version. It's like twitter it's a platform for expressing oneself and it's content moderation is v. limited. It's all our responsibility to make the best possible use of the tools we create.
- dataker 12y ago
  Spot on. I still believe the beauty of the project is that it's open-sourced, so our community of developers would be able to make wiser choices for the country. Infinitely better than corrupted politicians.
  - piamancini 12y ago
    For sure! Being Open Source it's fundamental to the spirit and vision of DemocracyOS.
PauloManrique 12y ago
So, let's all ignore all the crimes she made. Great idea.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

The idea of "open source governance" is hardly new. I'd imagine such a system in the form of a web app would be swamped with irrelevant queries. Assuming an idealistic direct democracy where citizens draft new laws or modify existing ones, the feedback loop of constantly changing legal information to its application would be overwhelming. On the flip side, too much unaddressed issues and slow or wasteful processes would create apathy. Personally I always thought the most attractive model for such an endeavor is to store laws in a markup format, and go through the old school route of mailing lists and patches. You'd be making use of highly tested infrastructure and actually require for participants to put a little effort in learning.

santisiri 12y ago
I agree, we did a lot of research on a decent markup formar for law making (LML!). There are some efforts out there like (search for Akomantoso) But the real challenge is getting TRACTION on a technology like this. It's not just the protocol (which I think it should be based on the Blockchain).. but also the product that makes citizens engaged with political participation.
saraid216 12y ago
Well, this has the fun distinction of actually being functioning code in active use. I'm pretty happy to see some "open source governance" that isn't just talk. I'm only aware of one another project that has crossed that line.
- kpatrick 12y ago
  I'm actually pitching a similar idea to a major corporation. Here is a reading list if you are interested in the subject. There have been (at least) four conferences on the subject of online deliberation. https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELiberate http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELibe... http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Chapter_26._Schuler.pdf http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch... http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1342861&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D1342861 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=134286... http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf Prakken, Henry. 1998. Formalizing robert’s rules of order: An experiment in automating mediation of group decision making. Tech. Rep. REP-FIT-1998-12, GMD.

jonnybgood 12y ago

So, this platform allows policy to be decided by a "technorati"[1] class? Are there individuals with low-income, little to no internet access, don't know what a blockchain or open source is, have hectic work schedules with the addition of raising a family participating on your platform? From what I can tell this platform is giving more power to those who already have some sense of power. This platform does not alleviate the problem of those in society who do not have any power or say in political processes. It may even be argued this platform may contribute to the problem. [1] Those who have the privilege, time, and monetary means of internet access, acquiring/have knowledge of internet technologies, and being a participant.

santisiri 12y ago
The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people. We come from Argentina, a latinamerican country and we are very aware of the social challenges we face. But it's not just a technological solution, we ALSO created a Political party that does a lot of offline activism helping society understand the power they have using digital technology. The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires, it was an incredible first election for a small party and that led to DemocracyOS being implemented officially by the Congress. Thanks to that, a lot of bills got attention. For example: Nureses now have better working conditions thanks to the action taken on DemocracyOS for the Congress of Buenos Aires. Read more about it here: http://democracyos.org/about-us http://democracyos.org/about-us
- seppo0010 12y ago
  > The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people. > The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires How do you justify that most of the votes came from wealthy neighborhoods of the city? https://twitter.com/seppo0010/status/578031940651118593 https://twitter.com/seppo0010/status/578031940651118593
  - santisiri 12y ago

mmelody 12y ago

At first glance I find it very similar to the idea of Liquid Democracy of the Pirate Parties. Is there any significant difference? Days ago at HN, I heard that such systems failed greatly due to endless quarrels and external mistrust.

alizhd 12y ago

I wish people in Pakistan used this. it would really help that country.

santisiri 12y ago
try starting a democracy here: http://hub.democracyos.com http://hub.democracyos.com

codyh1 12y ago

How will this assist with those not readily capable of engaging with technology? Or perhaps I'm not fully understanding all of it.

moe 12y ago

This looks like Liquid Feedback[1] done right. Liquid Feedback was a "liquid democracy" platform developed by the german pirate party. Both the software and the party are now largely dissolved; ironically killed by their over-zealous interpretation of democracy, which resulted in a lack of direction and rabid dilettantism. [1] http://liquidfeedback.org http://liquidfeedback.org

santisiri 12y ago
Yep, you got it. We actually started contacting them, but they were already doing private consulting + all the source code of LF is in german, impossible to understand. And the UX, well, it wasn't very usable. But it was a great initiative that we researched 3 years ago when we began.

vannevar 12y ago

I've seen a few of these now over the years, and I've come to believe a successful implementation should combine argument mapping, consensus building, and a trust network. Just framing an issue and having a comments section isn't enough; that form is ubiquitous across the Internet yet hasn't proven a viable way on its own to actually make decisions.

piamancini 12y ago
I agree, we have a long roadmap ahead and all your points should be in it. If you wish to contribute, by all means github.com/democracyos. It's an open source project.

sharp11 12y ago

This is very inspiring stuff and very exciting that YC is backing it! A key thing that Pia said in her TED talk: technology is only a tool here, cultural change and reinvention is necessary. I haven't had a chance to play with DemocracyOS yet, but the focus does somewhat seem to be on "direct democracy" (as opposed to "representative"), and as others have pointed out, that's fraught with problems. But I hope and believe this is just a first, experimental step. And I hope that next steps will be informed by the rich tradition of experimentation in "participatory, deliberative democracy". This includes things like citizen assemblies, citizen juries, participatory budgeting, wisdom councils, etc. What these approaches have in common is a blending of citizen participation with informed deliberation, often including a random sampling (of citizens). As two superb examples of this, I would point to the Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia, Canada, 2004) and the Dialogue with the City (Perth, Australia, 2003). Some really useful books: Tao of Democracy (Tom Atlee), Deliberative Democracy Handbook (Gastil & Levine), Deliberative Democracy in America (Ethan Leib).

piamancini 12y ago
We met Tom Atlee lately, he is fantastic. His insights on how to move forward, the importance of diversity in the process, where super sharp. I would add to the list, When People Speak by Fishkin and check Marina Gorbis' book on The Nature of the Future, specially the chapter on the future of government. Her proposal of a new large, agora of randomly chosen citizens is super interesting and challenging.
- sharp11 12y ago
  Glad to hear you met Tom! He's our secret national treasure. It's awesome to hear that you are already plugged in to this area of thinking. Thanks for the Gorbis reference, sounds similar to Ethan Leib's proposal for a fourth branch of federal gov't.

fiatjaf 12y ago

Votes? Really?

santisiri 12y ago
More than willing to figure out the ways of doing consensus. Yet any enforcement on the need to consent some perceive it as a dangerous dictatorial pattern.

lucio 12y ago

There's some information, you need to know. In Argentina, people has no representation. You don't vote for a "district representative" as in the USA. Here people vote on a "party-list" called here "lista sabana" (http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr/665_imagen_unica.jpg http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr...) The "lista sabana" is a large list of party-candidates (in 6pt font) headed by the "leader" or "caudillo" name (in 62pt font). If the "caudillo" has a 40% approval rate, the first 40% of people on the 6pt-font list WILL enter the congress, so the firsts spots on the lists are literally SOLD beforehand, based on the "leader" popularity index. The spots can also be exchanged for "popular support" with labor union leaders (to herd people into political rallies). So, here the "congressman" have no direct relation to the voters, they've only a direct dependency on the "leader". They do as they're told or else they will not be included in the list on the next elections. There is no such thing as "constituents" in this system. That's a reason why DemocracyOS and the "Net Party" are viable here. When representation is completely broken, direct-democracy sounds good. Here's a quote from a document on Paraguayan system (the same system): "But what if the elected representatives of the legislature were not voted in directly by the people? Would that discredit the authority of the legislative branch? The actual voting method in Paraguayan politics for a legislator to enter government is to lobby for their name to enter a “lista sabana,” a list of names on a sheet that represents the party candidates. The people then vote for that party list, rather than for the individual. Party leaders can then decide which positions to give to the party faithful. In this way the political class can make deals, play at back room politics to add their name to the list, exchange favors with voters and backers, and conduct business behind closed doors. The Congress can then vote to apportion more funds from the Treasury to fund their election campaigns, increase their salaries and benefits, and buy their votes with political largesse. The system reinforces the worst excesses of political cronyism, including links to crony capitalism. Ultimately it erodes the social trust between the governed and the governors and creates inefficiencies in a country’s economics. Attempts have been made to remove, or “unblock,” the “lista sabana” by allowing voters to choose individual candidates to the legislature, but so far these attempts have failed."

mudil 12y ago

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. -- Oscar Wilde

jordanpg 12y ago

I like the sentiment very much and I think the demo platform looks like a solid foundation. Not crazy, like others, about the "OS". That said, I think that, as far as revolutionizing elections/politics in any important sense, something far more drastic than this will be required. Finding new ways to debate hot political questions of the day, as a function of what is coming out of the news (any news outlet), is missing the point. There is a lack of disengagement with politics, and moreover, it is absolutely justified. The manner in which most of the discussions are conducted are nonsensical. There is an abject lack of nuance and thoughtfulness. Discussions are necessarily vague and always conducted with superlative certainty. Here is a fact: there is not enough information on this page[1] to form a reasoned opinion about the Bank on Student Loan Fairness Act. There probably isn't enough information on 20 pages. Yet that is the script. Learn about a complex issue in 60 seconds, and then decide where you come down on it. It's patent nonsense. If there is to be a revolution, it will need to deal with the reality that there is a facade between the machinations of governments and corporations and the people, and that facade is the news. The news is our window into vast, vast complexity and the basis for making choices that supposedly affect our local quality of life all the way up to the direction of history. So long as the important decisions are organized in this top-down hierarchy of power, a website isn't going to change much. No, the most promising ideas about upending hierarchies try to actually redistribute the power from the top. Imagine a politician running for office in the context of some website like this, who, through some formal, public process, granted certain levels of access to online advocates, in the event of a win. For example, someone able to marshal something in the order of 10 votes would be promised one lunch in the first 2 years. The details are less important than the inversion of power hierarchies that new technologies enable. Until that can be practically harnessed, approaching electoral matters along conventional axes is unlikely to get much traction. [1]http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f

santisiri 12y ago
Very insightful, there's no doubt we have a lot of work to do.

jpetersonmn 12y ago

Maybe I'm slow, but I've seen this a couple times now and went to the website, read the "about" section and I still don't understand what this is or what problem it's solving. I think OS in the name lead me to immediately assume it was another operating system. So considering I thought it was a new operating system, the more I read the more underwhelmed I am. Good luck on the project, but IMO you've not named it appropriately nor described how it uniquely solves any problem. Sorry if that sounds harsh, just giving honest feedback.

gaigepr 12y ago

"We support real browsers and IE10+" -- https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support I chuckled.

seppo0010 12y ago

The technical quality of the project has been so far debatable[1][2]. The Partido de la Red results seem to reveal a problem that is obvious at first sight: the underrepresentation of those who need representation the most[3]. I have doubts about whether direct democracy is a good idea, at all[4]. Summarizing, dividing the burden of decision making is inefficient for the population at large, and it does not guarantee better results. People behind this project admit that this does not fully solve the problem it is attempting to solve[5]. Even if I could ignore the previous statement (which of course I can't), I wonder if the advantages of moving from an indirect democracy to a direct democracy are enough to even try to solve the problems. I think the cost of switching is high, and I cannot see any benefit. In USA the main problem with democracy is the lack of interest of population in government elections. Does micromanaging decisions make this problem better or worse? The question is valid. It could be better if the feeling is that no matter who wins nobody will represent the voter; it could be worse if people do not care about the decisions that have to be make. There are other possible options, of course, but I don't really know if this solves problems or makes it worse. I wonder how selection bias would affect decision making. People will mostly vote on subjects they feel passionate about, and ignore the others. Which will probably lead to what programmers know as bikeshedding[6]. Now I would like to highlight the positive of thinking about this problems and attempting a solution. Also following up Congress's debates and actions is something that should happen more often, for example Congressional Dish[7] attempts to do so. [1] (Spanish) https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que-te-garantiza-fraude-d412f1a6992c https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que... [2] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536 [4] (Spanish) https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-directa/ https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-direc... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Trivialit... [7] http://www.congressionaldish.com/ http://www.congressionaldish.com/

santisiri 12y ago
It's not "direct democracy". It's just democracy. If you trace back the term used by the Greeks, they called both the technology and the concept agora. Etymologically, agora means "speaking in public", "thinking with others" and in many verses it's used as antonym of war. Democracy is always a work in progress. Otherwise it would be a totalitarian concept. So what we are trying to understand is simply democracy but for the digital age. Using computers and networks, and the power of software. Open source, collaborative free software.

kang 12y ago

Bitcoin is the real democracy of the internet era.