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Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

pol.is

111–120 of 168 posts

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#112
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry the term of art is really soulbound identity right now, I use POS but it's less common. Definitions vary but I say a useful system must allow people to endorse statements with evidence they are a) alive b) not able to be represented by more than one identity (id is linked to your entire soul, not a persona or facet of your being) c) a kind of socially recognized person (human in the expected case) and then laye…

Do you believe you are capable of doing that yourself?

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Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry the term of art is really soulbound identity right now, I use POS but it's less common. Definitions vary but I say a useful system must allow people to endorse statements with evidence they are a) alive b) not able to be represented by more than one identity (id is linked to your entire soul, not a persona or facet of your being) c) a kind of socially recognized person (human in the expected case) and then laye…

How would this work considering that the soul is an entirely fictional concept?

“Empirically unprovable” and “fictional” are not synonymous.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, this was a finding when they ran the Polis experiments in Taiwan: when you map the arguments of the different sides, there are actually large areas of agreement. In other words, the median person who disagrees with you is a "potential common ground" guy, not a "planet Zargon" guy.

What I don't understand about Polis though is who is creating these less biased polls full of unbiased positions that people can vote on? It takes a lot of intelligence and wisdom to even formulate a question that isn't tainted by layers and layers of political innuendo. You can't just put something like "Do you believe in the rights of the unborn child?" into a system like this and expect quality outcomes. I guess t…

Many (most?) issues don't fit on a single dimension. Using your example, people hold positions that include "Absolutely!", "Yes, but also the rights of the mother.", "Yes, but I won't impose my beliefs on others.", "No, but I don't think people who feel otherwise should be forced to pay for abortions through taxes.", and many others.

In addition to the problem with biased questions you note, there are often built in assumptions that make yes or no responses impossible.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#115
post #69
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am more interested in seeing, hopefully, in the future is the ability to cast citizens' votes directly on any matter, act, bill, etc., and get rid of the representatives in parliament/congress/etc. It is more transparent that way, and end lobbying with all the corruption it has. No more traditional voting for a "person" anymore and relying on trust; rather, you trust no one and vote directly. We have the prope…

Regardless of ignorance, people don't vote even every year or two, because it's inconvenient, they're busy, and they become cynical after months of negative campaigning on both sides. We need "assigned voting" where you can assign your vote to another person, who then can assign their votes to another person, etc, creating a chain of voting hierarchy such that a few people control large numbers of aggregate votes, an…

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Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#116
Thirty years ago I was enthusiastic about what we now call liquid democracy. Elders, to whom I spoke that lived through WWII, saw dynamic+direct democracy as extremely dangerous. I now share their opinion.

To have a healthy world, we need to start with democratic engagement on every block, of every district in every city, in all counties of every province, in all nations across every continent of our shared planet. Critically, it must be completely human mediated, even if it is daily effort for most people everywhere. This is how we must spend our "great AI productivity boost".

I am responding to nested comments; this is not meant to diminish the importance of the linked effort.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#117
post #55

More at https://compdemocracy.org/ and source code at https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis .

What I am more interested in seeing, hopefully, in the future is the ability to cast citizens' votes directly on any matter, act, bill, etc., and get rid of the representatives in parliament/congress/etc. It is more transparent that way, and end lobbying with all the corruption it has. No more traditional voting for a "person" anymore and relying on trust; rather, you trust no one and vote directly. We have the prope…

> and get rid of the representatives

>and end lobbying with all the corruption it has.

You never get rid of these people, you just move who they are.

Now Mr Beast and whoever is slipping him cash is your political representative because of the power of their parasocial relationships.

>"because a lot of people are ignorant!" then you put effort into educating them.

This won't work, not because people are ignorant, but because of entropy.

As a human you can only learn so much so fast and you don't have time to learn everything that a government knows or does. You're going to remain ignorant on most complicated things because that's the default state of the universe. People with money/power still have more time and effort available to push the vote their way, and they will target the education first (much like right now).

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#118
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a local ballot box. Host a platform like this at city hall, county building, capitol building, schools. Only a human can access a terminal. Have humans monitor ingress/egress. A more generalized solution that solves the specific problem inherent to all these digital ones.

If it requires me to leave the house, that increase in friction will mean I will vote maybe on 1/100th what I would otherwise vote on. I suspect pretty much everyone is the same

This is true of methods that don't require you to leave the house as well. Internet forums of all types are dominated by frequent users (by definition). People who are doing other things (working, raising families, living with disabilities that make participation difficult) are under-represented. Most of us just want someone with culturally normal values and competency to take care business. Many democratic systems do not select for people with culturally normal values and competency, unfortunately.

Re: Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation

#119
While I'd hesitate to call the people behind the project out for fraud, they certainly are great at obtaining funding while delivering negative value and then presenting these experiences in a positive light. The linked site promotes their use in Germany's "aufstehen party" which wasn't actually a party but whatever if it sounds better and as I was intimately involved with that experience (being brought in to consult on recovery) it was a disaster that ended that NGO before it really begun. The Pol.is platform was supposed to be the central decision making interface of that distributed movement supported by figures from different leftwing, social democrat and ecological parties, it wasn't just that they failed to scale but they were completely unwilling to deploy on our infra or even open source critical components while maintaining publicly that their system was completely open source. The question of whether to replace it (remember its use was the key innovation of this movement) and if so with what ended up not only splitting the NGO but making one sub-group create a new party that is "neither left nor right wing" and voting with the right-wing AfD in (state) parliaments helping them secure anti-migration majorities.
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