One of the very concerning trends over the last few years and especially the last 6 months is the extreme polarization and division into seemingly separate realities
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
Carl Sagan, 1995
Awesome. I am think recently that maybe the problem is more cultural than a economic one. You know, we have constructed our values and system of believes for a long time and now, for about 20 years, everything is changing and is affecting everyone at the same time. Changes that were made in the period of a generation now is made in the period of 5 years, and this trend seems to only get faster and faster. Globalization showed that this changes will only work if they are inclusive, people won't integrate to it without incentive and help. And, if we really wanna change democracy, we should learn from these mistakes. Just throw a new system won't solve anything, this idea that people will see its value right the way is too risk. I believe that it will only work if we introduce into peoples lives not as cultural change, but as a mechanism that allows them to express their cultural identify and political views. The point that I am trying to make is that this technology should be inclusive, being part of the daily life and routine of everyone. Well, I am just worried that if start the movement as a political party people will see it as one competing ideology, when its not.
I was talking with Santiago Siri a few days ago, who started Democracy.Earth and has been working on this stuff for years
Including running candidates for office pledged to a similar system in Buenos Aires
And he was saying that getting people to formally join a new political party is a serious uphill battle
Do you have specific ideas for what "a mechanism that allows them to express their cultural identity" might look like?
Well, I am doing research on how to introduce LD into people's everyday experince on social networks. And, analyzing how people behave on social media, seems that most people are very comfortable sharing their beliefs, cultural identity. Even people that don't like to be vocal about it are willing to participate on polls and such. I belive that the first step to building this mechanism is to give the power to local groups and organizations to structure its power dynamics on a platform that all members fell confortable using. Most people have a intuitive understanding on how power works and how it flows, but they usually don't have quantitative ways of measuring it. Once they start to be part of a system that its familiar and provides this information to them, well, its just a matter of time before it gets into political parties. You see, even conservatives would like to use it, to run their clubs and universities. Disrupting politics without being political.
A suggestion was proposed in a conversation last night: The liquid_vote app can grade existing politians for how well they align with the network, e.g. identifying the bills where they vote against the majority of their constituents on the network.
Now the suggestion was to do the grade on a curve: among all of the city’s elected officials, what percentile does each reps’ alignment score come in at.
For example, if there are five grades in a particular university course, A, B, C, D, and F, where A is reserved for the top 20% of students, B for the next 30%, C for the next 30%-40%, and D or F for the remaining 10%-20%, then scores in the percentile interval from 0% to 20% will receive a grade of D or F, scores from 21% to 50% will receive a grade of C, scores from 51% to 80% receive a grade of B, and scores from 81% to 100% will achieve a grade of A.
And unlike current politics, this structurally discards the 50% - 50% binary that the US is stuck in.
Right now the story is “The other ’team’ is the bad guys… vote us into office or else! Praise us at all times, and definitely never criticize us, or else you’re helping the enemy”.
Even if a politician really does have the best of intentions, they're incentivized to further divide us, giving them more power.
It’s a vicious cycle we’re stuck in.
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Finnaly I was able to get some free time to start coding the Face Democracy, please, if anyone wants to help feel free to message me. I am really excited to turn this idea into something tangible and a prototype would be the first step. David, thanks for the help in maturing the idea.
Can we trust him?
Yeah I saw the Zuckerberg post and had mixed feelings. It's great that he's talking about taking a more active involvement, god knows he has more resources and reach than almost anyone... but like maybe you're alluding to, he's certainly had his share of controversies.
Pretty awesome that they've been able to facilitate 1000 open-source contributions, while still building a reliable, open-source, and free product for so many years
and still able to employ over 100 talented people: https://about.gitlab.com/team/
Very interesting talk
Hi-
I'm a research assistant for the Democracy Defense Fund, working on sourcing startups and nonprofits for small grants. Do any of you know of funding-constrained projects working to push liquid democracy in the US? I think we're stuck with grantmaking to American entities at the moment, but good projects abroad are worth mentioning too.
Thanks
I'm a research assistant for the Democracy Defense Fund, working on sourcing startups and nonprofits for small grants. Do any of you know of funding-constrained projects working to push liquid democracy in the US? I think we're stuck with grantmaking to American entities at the moment, but good projects abroad are worth mentioning too.
Thanks
Yes, I have lots of details for you, will follow up 1-on-1
FYI channel— new blog post: "How to move past a two-party system" https://blog.liquid.vote/2017/03/06/how-to-move-past-two-parties/
Still a lot more polish work necessary before going for a wide release, but if your interested in trying out this first functional version, I’d love to get it into your hands and hear any suggestions or criticisms that come up for you :smile:
You can sign up to download the private beta here: https://beta.liquid.vote
New reddit forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/liquidvote/ — A good place to ask questions, or start discussions.
We were going to also talk about using it in cooperatives. https://www.facebook.com/groups/579940655425355/permalink/1331047853647961/?comment_id=1335850946500985&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D