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.
DemocracyOS
71–80 of 160 posts
Re: DemocracyOS
#72As 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 happ…
So, let's all ignore all the crimes she made. Great idea.
Re: DemocracyOS
#73Love 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.
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
typo :)
it's markfarrell.democracyos.org
Re: DemocracyOS
#74So, 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 allevi…
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 a…
"Its candidates are committed to always vote in Congress according to what citizens vote online."
You've built a system that requires privilege. And you're giving power only to those who have that privilege.
You didn't address the fact there are those who do not have that privilege. Helping people understand the power of digital technology is meaningless if there are those who do not even have the digital technology.
Are you going to buy them the digital technology? Are you going to pay for their internet access? How are you going to provide equal privilege?
EDIT: Who is your demographic?
Re: DemocracyOS
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If you think about how much carnage has been caused by the fact that we can in fact pass unconstitutional laws and then it takes decades of work to strike them down due to the bottleneck we have in our court system (supreme court). Would be much better to not pass the obviously unconstitutional laws and let the courts handle complicated exceptions that were not caught.
America is an extremely bad example of how a democracy should work. Its main claim to fame is that it's old, not that it's exemplary.
Re: DemocracyOS
#76I wish people in Pakistan used this. it would really help that country.
Re: DemocracyOS
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
maybe we could think about a two-tier system were we delegate only decisions that should be taken our of the hands of majority and to the citizens the huge number of decisions that we can make that affect our every-day lives. I think the only way for citizens to be responsible for the decisions we make is by start making them. We've outsourced decision-making for a far too long time.
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Re: DemocracyOS
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
"Its candidates are committed to always vote in Congress according to what citizens vote online." You've built a system that requires privilege. And you're giving power only to those who have that privilege. You didn't address the fact there are those who do not have that privilege. Helping people understand the power of digital technology is meaningless if there are those who do not even have the digital technology.…
The only source that can provide equal access without using market forces, is the State. For the State to have such political will, it must have a political party that embraces the view on why internet access means access to education and knowledge. And that's one of the core aspects of our political party.
Privilege? Think about a system that has 500 decision makers for a population of 300 million. That certainly requires TONS of more privilege than the idea we are proposing here where citizens can have a direct input NOT once every 2 years, but every week if they want to.
Take your time.
Re: DemocracyOS
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, why not just choose "Democracy"?
I actually know who owns democracy.com but still, democracy reminisces a 2000 year old system.. we need to update that.
In the spirit of the US Military. "Improved Democracy" Or "Updated Democracy". If you're not familiar with this...search US Army IOTV to get an idea.
Re: DemocracyOS
#80The 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 wo…
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.