It's about time. That do remind me of Philip K. Dick's novel where the President is replaced by a computer program, tho!
Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
WTF? Maybe the interviewer only hires tall people, or the people on your street don't like your race, or you are turned down for a bank loan because you're a woman. There are lots of stupid prejudices in the world, but people don't go around hiding who they are all the time. It's just not worth it.
You really don't want to let go of this idiocy, do you ? The examples I gave are ways in which the democratic process can be subverted. It's more than just whether you are black or gay. It's the very basis by which a citizen can freely exercise their choice. If that choice can be interfered with then the whole principle of one person - one vote goes out the window. If I know my vote will impact my personal future - t…
The examples I gave are ways in which the democratic process can be subverted.
OK, I finally see what your point is. I just disagree with it.
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK. So suppose your voting preferences are available online. Your boss happens to be a friend of the candidate, or a member of a political party. You are told to vote a certain way or lose your job. You are turned down for a bank loan because your bank manager doesn't like liberals. You are refused an apartment because the people on your street don't like conservatives. You fail at an interview because the interviewe…
WTF? Maybe the interviewer only hires tall people, or the people on your street don't like your race, or you are turned down for a bank loan because you're a woman. There are lots of stupid prejudices in the world, but people don't go around hiding who they are all the time. It's just not worth it.
>people don't go around hiding who they are all the time
What a strange and naive life you must lead if you truly believe this.
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#44The founders didn't design things they way they did because they traveled by horse (and I highly doubt it took a week from Monticello to Philadelphia), they designed things so that only the most capable citizens would be elected to leadership. They say this explicitly in the Federalist Papers (ok, maybe that bit was Hamilton, but still). They rejected direct democracy: by framing the nation as a "republic", with the…
Why not take a hybrid approach: leave the current power structure but replace the House of Representatives with this? That way you still have a check on the masses vis-a-vis the Senate (and the President).
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#45The founders didn't design things they way they did because they traveled by horse (and I highly doubt it took a week from Monticello to Philadelphia), they designed things so that only the most capable citizens would be elected to leadership. They say this explicitly in the Federalist Papers (ok, maybe that bit was Hamilton, but still). They rejected direct democracy: by framing the nation as a "republic", with the…
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Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#46The founders didn't design things they way they did because they traveled by horse (and I highly doubt it took a week from Monticello to Philadelphia), they designed things so that only the most capable citizens would be elected to leadership. They say this explicitly in the Federalist Papers (ok, maybe that bit was Hamilton, but still). They rejected direct democracy: by framing the nation as a "republic", with the…
"It was a long journey in those days from Monticello to Philadelphia, where the Congress was held. Part of the road ran through the wilderness, and it took more than a week to get there."
http://all-biographies.com/presidents/thomas_jefferson.htm
Footnote at the bottom of the page: Source: "The Lives of the Presidents and How They Reached the White House" by Charles Morris, LL.D., 1903. (We didn't check the book though)
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#47I have recently created something related, targeted to the Swedish political scene. The basic idea is similar but the concepts I use are quite different. If I may say so myself, my take on it is less sophisticated but more elegant.
Google Translate does an OK job with the site (although the Swedish word "Kontakt" should not be translated as "Plug"):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=...
(The site currently runs on a minimal Heroku setup, so it will go down quickly if this catches some attention here on HN. Nevertheless, enjoy it while it lasts.)
Also, the project is open source, although the main public repo is currently in bad shape and not quite up to date:
https://github.com/digitaldemokrati
If there is some interest in this, I could do a write-up in English and post it here as a separate submission. Anyone interested?
PS. After lurking and posting from throwaway accounts since 2007, this is my first HN post in my own name!
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voting is an inherently public, civic act. It's not a personal matter. Your vote has a direct effect on lots of other people. Why shouldn't you be accountable for that?
The problem is that, as others have mentioned, from openness results social pressure, and social pressure can severely affect your decisions. On the other hand, openness of course leads to transparency, and transparency prevents corruption and lobbying (to a considerable degree, at least). Interestingly though, this is also due to social pressure. My vision would be a system that combines techniques such as the ones…
>transparency prevents corruption and lobbying
This isn't really true. I'm interning at the Sunlight Foundation this Summer, and some of our free tools are used by lobbyists with less money to spend than some larger interests here in D.C.
Transparency can actually lead to more, but more varied, lobbying.
The really remarkable thing about transparency is just how much corruption is completely knowable and out in the open, yet totally ignored.
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#49I can't seem to find the option that allows me to delegate. If that's implemented, I haven't been able to test it. With that in mind, I wonder about how the delegation would work in practice. It sounds like a good idea, but the devil's in the details. For example, if I delegate my vote to someone else on a whole class of issues, but I want to cast my vote on a specific issue in that class, would that work? Also, it w…
According to the last paragraph on the linked page, vote delegation isn't implemented yet, but that seems to be top of their to-do list now.
Re: Hyperarchy: Democracy for the Digital Era
#50TLDR: Vote delegation. Not quite implemented yet, but in progress.
TSDG (Too Short, Don't Grok): "Even as simple as Hyperarchy makes voting, no one has time to share their opinion on every question. So Hyperarchy recasts representative democracy as networked democracy. Instead of electing a Senator you've never met to represent you on everything, you elect individuals you trust personally to represent you on specific issues. I can give my girlfriend power to vote on my behalf for questions about health and nutrition, while delegating to my coworker for questions concerning programming languages or digital privacy. So when my girlfriend votes about health or my coworker votes on technology, they vote for me as well.
But the real power is when influence flows through multiple connections in the social network. Suppose I delegate to my girlfriend on questions about nutrition, but she in turn delegates her vote to an expert like Michael Pollan. Then he inherits not only her vote, but mine as well. This transitive nature of delegation allows power to flow to individuals with expertise. By gaining the trust of a few influential people, Michael Pollan can emerge as a super-representative, voting on behalf of a huge number of followers. But you can change your delegation at any time, so Pollan would keep that power only as long as he deserved it."