How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

Geek Satire writes "Politics breeds cynicism; politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected, then break their promises to everyone. Mass mailings and faxings overwhelm their staffs, and who knows if you can tell your representatives what you really think? Experienced techie and political consultant Silona Bonewald (creator of the Transparent Federal Budget) believes that simple software solutions can fix these problems and more. O'Reilly News recently discussed with her how social software can improve democracy and leadership."

Comments

I wish

[$RANDOMLUSER]

If we could use all this technology to make a real direct democracy, we could get rid of this two-party representative democracy. Imagine, government of the people, in real time.

Re:I wish

[MindlessAutomata]

Lynchmob justice?

Re:I wish

[Aerynvala]

But then we'd need to have a BuSab and I just don't see that happening in reality.

Re:I wish

[azgard]

Actually, the practical experience with direct democracy (for example from Switzerland) says the exact opposite.

People are _very_ conservative and don't like the change, even if it's for better.

It's funny that you are talking about media influence, but at the same time parroting the power elite's propaganda about why the direct democracy cannot work.

Re:I wish

[kdemetter]

You underestimate how easy people can be influenced by the media.

This direct democracy would only work if everyone was very politically involved , which is just not the case.

Also , pure direct democracy , if everyone would really from their own opninion , would slow everything done , because there is always someone who disagrees with it , resulting in endless discussions and debates , and no real solutions.

As a goverment type , i think a good idea to try might be technocracy : decisions are made according to what the best solution the problem is , based on scientifical approach and simulation models , that can veryfied by everyone.

Sure , this isn't completely flawless either , i'm sure , but it may solve some of todays problems ( for instance , by solving the problem of global warming rather than endlessly debating it )

Re:I wish

[azgard]

I am not underestimating anything, I am referring to empirical experience with direct democracies. It's you who are making things up.

I recommend this book as a source of information. It answers all your misconceptions.

About technocracy - it would not be good at all. In the real world, the main issue is power. If you would give power to small elite, it would quickly degenerate. In my country, communist party tried to run a country based on such a system (planned economy and society), and it spectacularly failed.

Direct democracy could solve global warming quite easily. For example, Switzerland was always a leader in ecology-oriented legislation.

Re:I wish

[Richard W.M. Jones]

As a goverment type , i think a good idea to try might be technocracy : decisions are made according to what the best solution the problem is , based on scientifical approach and simulation models , that can veryfied by everyone.

Good luck getting the religious know-nothings to agree to that.

Rich.

Re:I wish

[Oligonicella]

Good luck getting the techno know it alls to agree with any model.

Re:I wish

[ReedYoung]

Also , pure direct democracy , if everyone would really from their own opninion , would slow everything done , because

... which we have already decided is so overwhelmingly a Good Thing that it is the reason we have three separate branches of government, as well as a bipartate legislature. A system of checks and balances is not a flaw, it's a feature, and one that is wise to retain regardless of the details of how the responsibilities of governance are divided up. We want enough time and enough inertia, meaning tendency to resist change, that we can realistically identify the results of the changes we make so as to repeal the stupid changes. The same technologies that allow more direct, more truly democratic participation in government also allow more rapid feedback in the process of distinguishing the desired effects of our changes from undesirable side effects. We'll all keep an eye on it of course, but your basic assumption of inherent inefficiency is disproven.

there is always someone who disagrees with it , resulting in endless discussions and debates , and no real solutions.

That is in fact a greater problem with government by an elected few than a direct democracy, and I can prove it to you right now on one page, using your own example!

You underestimate how easy people can be influenced by the media.

No, azgard is correct, and underestimated nothing. You have underestimated the propensity of people to ignore their job descriptions to collect easy money. It is not true that all politicians are crooks, but it is certainly true that some people are crooked, and likely that some can fool enough of the people enough of the time to be elected. The question, therefore, is whether a republic of elected representatives or a direct democracy is more susceptible to corruption from the interests of the populace. When we represent ourselves, our tendencies to corruption cancel one another out to a degree not possible with a representative few, or class, or elite. It is the republic model itself which is the problem, the very source of institutionalized corruption.

Sure , this isn't completely flawless either , i'm sure , but it may solve some of todays problems ( for instance , by solving the problem of global warming rather than endlessly debating it )

In fact, in a direct democracy, doing "more to address global warming" would pass with a veto-proof majority: 68%. Furthermore, we would do so despite the (false) impression that significant doubt exists among competent, reputable scientists. "Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government should do more to address global warming, according to the poll; however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global warming." Although study and refinement of the models continue, legitimate debates are on the periphery, not the basics, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar or a moron. It's a fact beyond dispute that carbon dioxide tends to retain heat by not radiating photons in the infrared range. Arrhenius discovered that in the 1800's! Another fact beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased since the beginning of the Industrial, and in proportion to the industrial combustion of hydrocarbons. Thus we know, not guess, that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting increase in thermal energy are the direct result of combustion of petroleum and other hydrocarbons. Ergo, it is a fact, not an hypothesis or theory, that use of gasoline and other hydrocarbons for vehicle fuel and to generate electricity for power grids are causing the measured observables increased mean atmospheric temperature; increased mean ocean temperature; increased severity and frequency of tropical storms; increased polar melting and de

Re:I wish

[secondhand_Buddah]

In fact, in a direct democracy, doing "more to address global warming" would pass with a veto-proof majority: 68% [time.com].

The answer to this is of course, that in a direct democracy, we would have more influence (votes) in the areas of our specialization. I would have a much greater say in IT, especially software, than would say for instance a doctor. This would enable the focused expertise of the general populace to be utilized in making informed decisions.
This is obviously a very simplified example. There would need to be layers of voting and decision makers. These layers would ideally be based upon levels of experience in the world. With this approach we could get back to a situation where the wise are making the important decisions
The democracy of old was conceived to work in much smaller groups of people. where participation was possible. Today, voting once every 4 years for some individual to represent you, is an insult to the spirit of democracy. We have been fooled into thinking that we live in democracies, when in fact we no longer do in the spirit of the concept

Having said that I do believe that technology can re-enliven democracy in its truest sense. With networks and uniquely identifiable devices we can openly and continuously vote on issues that effect our every day lives.
For example, in the case of open document standards: do you think for one moment that we would not have decided 10 years ago that all public records would have to be stored in an open format? Instead we have this public circus that we continually discuss on Slashdot, while microsoft bribes its standards into existence while we stand around and watch helplessly (for the most part). This is one simple example, but extrapolate this by 10 000 times and you can begin to get a feeling for the scope of the magnitude of the problem facing us today. More importantly there are those who would seek to stop true democracy from happening, and they are the ones who would be willing to sacrifice (your) freedom for personal gain. these people are the real enemy, and they are amoung us

Anything which threatened the current system

[elrous0]

...would immediately be crushed by Congress in an act of self-preservation.

Re:Anything which threatened the current system

[azgard]

I believe that it's a lot more subtle than that.

There are certain issues that can make people really angry, and could be in principle used to pass more democratic laws. However, what happens in such cases is that the current powers will much rather compromise on the specific problem than to allow more democracy (which could cause them more problems in the long run). So it's not impossible to fight for, but democracy itself needs more awareness among people not to be satisfied with such compromises.

Nice to see someone thinking along these lines...

[azgard]

..as I have been thinking about such system too.

I wanted to map laws that are passed in Czech parliament to simple statements (such as "increases taxes", "limits freedom of speech") and then anybody could create their own profile and test this profile against all the laws that have been passed, and this would be connected to parliament voting data to select which party he should vote for. And all the data would be publicly available (except for the personal profiles, of course), so anyone could reproduce the result.

Also, I have been thinking about social networking. It would be cool if we could get past the reputation systems that just have a reputation as a single number, and we could also measure reputation depending on how the reputation is connected among people; so it would be impossible for an isolated group of people (connected to single entity) gain high reputation by giving high reputation to each other.

I like what these people are doing, and I applaud them for trying to make the system more democratic.

Re:How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

[Lachlan Hunt]

Also, people don't seem to realize there are hardly any real democracies in the world, only republics.

Either you must be using some strange definition for the word republic that I'm not familiar with, or you're excluding countries which certainly are not republics, like the UK, Australia and other countries in the monarchy, and many other countries around the world which are not republics.

Re:Improve the Republic .. not the democracy

[azgard]

I don't understand your objection about direct democracy. If you don't think voters are rational or worse as leaders, why have democracy at all? I think people who don't want direct democracy actually don't want democracy at all, they just either don't say it in open or don't realize there is a logical inconsistency in their statements.

By the way - I am from Europe and believe that the reason why USA was so much advanced is really the fact they had very advanced democracy (in some cases direct) on national and local level. If you had direct democracy on federal level, maybe you wouldn't have any problems you have now with war and debt.

About your constitution - your founders may have been wrong. They were just people, anyway (they also didn't consider women and other races equal to white males). And at the time, there were no practical results with direct democracy. But they are now, and show very good results (increased happiness, better budget management, higher voter turnout, etc.).

Software can't fix human nature

[Colin Smith]

You simply have to understand that the more power you give politicians, the more corrupt they will become.
 

We can, but...

[impaledsunset]

Sure, I see many ways you can use software means to improve democracy. Hell, I also see many ways to do this by using social-only means, using the currently established online communities... I can even develop a perfectâ software solution that fixes all known problems with democracy... And let's us do what you mention.

There is one simple problem, all of these might work in theory, but in practice the systems that would keep all of these running would be set up by people and will be run by people. And the people who will take the decisions about them will be the ones in the government, or exactly the part of the current system that requires improvements. It is not of much use to try and prove the axioms of a system within the system itself, likewise you can't rely on the system to provide you the means to fix its mistakes...

Let's say someone designed and wrote the perfect software that fixes all of the world's problems (which is absolutely doable in theory), it won't work. Enough mistakes will be made during the implementation that would render it absolutely useless. Enough mistakes will be made on purpose to make it work against its purposes and have a negative effect in the end. And only Slashdot would notice! You would be more successful if you tried to give that someone the full executive power...

Saw that new site that this new president launched? It's a great example of something you can do to improve the democracy, and it seems to be done correctly. Do I need to tell you that it won't work that way at all?

To improve democracy we should put more effort in what we've already been doing. Expressing our freedom of speech, or launching campaigns, participating in everything that can lead to improvement. And that lately happens online, through software, "social" software, if you like. It doesn't seem to work great, but it's all we can do.

I wish this lady good luck with her ideas, though. It doesn't matter how much you think something won't work, it might be worth trying. I don't know what exactly she wants to do, I tried to RTFA, but couldn't, too much text and nothing of substance in the first few paragraphs, and lots of occurrences of words like "twitter", "social" and "web 2.0", which only confuse me, so I don't know whether she's doing something worth, but it's good that's she's trying to do something about it. Maybe we all should, in case she's doing it wrong. :)

Should a statesman lead or follow?

[Mandrel]

The article has a definition of statesman I like:

It's also an important function of government to be a statesman and that's one of the things I think that's lacking in modern government these days is very rarely do you ever see a politician actually being a statesman anymore, being the middle ground that several different groups come to when they're diverging on topics to find a middle ground. One of the things I've been working on is tools to help enable that.

Often strong leadership is identified with a politician forcing through what they think is best, despite opposition. However in a democracy I see the role leadership as arguing strongly for you believe in, but then letting the people have the final say.

I'm actually in favour of having each (lower-house) representative run regular referenda within their electorates to determine their vote in the legislature. In each referendum the representative is given one proxy vote for each constituent who didn't cast a ballot, preventing control by a vocal minority.

To allow constituents to debate and be informed about issues, without the information overload talked about in the article, a system like my Make the Case site could be used to build and preserve a closely-argued community memory on important topics.

Re:Nice to see someone thinking along these lines.

[Yetihehe]

Also, I have been thinking about social networking. It would be cool if we could get past the reputation systems that just have a reputation as a single number, and we could also measure reputation depending on how the reputation is connected among people; so it would be impossible for an isolated group of people (connected to single entity) gain high reputation by giving high reputation to each other.

I think Meta Government is good answer. It's not too advanced yet, but worth mentioning.

Re:Improve, not fix

[TheRaven64]

In a direct democracy either every person needs to devote a lot of time to understanding every issue related to proposed laws, or a lot of uninformed people get to enforce their opinions. The entire point of representative democracy is that most people have better things to do with their time than study all of the issues behind every piece of legislation, so we pick people with a similar world-view to ourselves to do it for us. If you want an idea of how direct democracy would work, go for a ride in a taxi and listen to all of the uninformed opinions the driver has, then remember that his vote on every law would have the same weight as yours.

Ways to get involved in civic-technology projects

[taubz]

There is a growing but now well-established community of techies focusing on this at the federal level, especially for the U.S. Congress. There are open-source projects like my GovTrack.us http://www.govtrack.us/getinvolved.xpd and oGosh!: Open Government Open Source Hacking http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/OGosh and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=45606565313.

There's no end to what techies can do to work on improving civic life. I really encourage you to check out any of those links to get involved.

I'd rather be without democracy...

[jopsen]

Direct democracy would be unimplementable as most people wouldn't want to vote on most issues... And even fewer people would know how to vote in their own interest...

Personally I'm not having a hard time seeing that indirect democracy is not perfect either. But on the other hand it's probably the only thing that really works.
As it make people think their vote matters and that they rule... When in reality it's probably almost completely random who gets elected... and the ones that does get elected feels a great responsibility and wont screw things up...
That said I think my vote matters in my country, and I do like our democracy even thought there's things I strongly disagree with (I'm European too, Denmark).

IMO, in perfect world people would only vote on ethics and ideology, not concrete issues... The concrete issues are what's destroying democracy...

Re:Improve, not fix

[azgard]

In practice, this is not a problem for several reasons:

1. If you are not interested in the issue, you just don't vote - it's as simple as that.

2. If you are interested, you are going to get the information. And there are simple solutions to this problem too - for example, in Switzerland, every voter receives a summary which contains details and debate points about the legislation they are voting about.

3. If someone is completely ignorant, then he votes randomly, and effect of such people in voting will cancel out.

4. If someone is manipulated (so he votes against his interests but not randomly, as in point 3), then there exists a manipulator. This manipulator thus can be exposed, and, moreover, to manipulate large amount of individual people, albeit stupid, requires more resources than to manipulate individual politicians. So even in this case, direct democracy is superior.

Re:Improve, not fix

[TheRaven64]

A lot of people are interested but not informed. Consider nuclear power. The vast majority of interested people get their information from Greenpeace, and other similarly-biased sources. People have strong opinions on a wide variety of topics that are not based on a rational assessment of the issues.

Re:Improve the Republic .. not the democracy

[gbutler69]

If we had direct democracy, Iraq would now be a giant sheet of glass!

Re:Improve the Republic .. not the democracy

[azgard]

It's actually amazing how many Americans don't understand the roots of their foreign policy. If you would have direct democracy, Osama bin Laden would never plan 9/11 - he wouldn't know who the Americans are.

Also, people believed connection between 9/11 and Iraq because George Bush lied and emphasized it. And you are going to blame common people, rather than him, for that.

So instead of doing something with the leaders that give people incorrect information, you argue that people who were deceived by incorrect information are the danger. This "sleight of mind" is getting really old and boring.

Re:only you can make a difference

[gadabyte]

douchebag: i don't believe in private property.
me: ok, give me your shoes.
douchebag: no, they're mine!

(i actually had this conversation irl)

Political harrassment pander

[lennier]

"politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected"

Can we PLEASE stop using the content-free scare word "pander". When 'they' do it, it's 'pandering'; but when 'we' do it, it's 'remaining true to our core values and not selling out'.

The real word is "represent". That's what a representative does, you know?

Shock, horror: there are groups of people *who hold different political views to you!* Oh noes! And they have *political representatives*! Noooo! Pandering! Obviously their representative is completely devoid of a moral compass and is only cynically using those people with their silly beliefs. They can't actually *hold* those beliefs, surely.

Actually, no. That's not how it works. People have concerns; they elect representatives who share those concerns, and speak to them. When that happens, that's democracy *working*.

If you don't like a certain group of people's polical views, by all means attack those *views*, but don't attack their elected representatives for correctly and honestly representing the differing views of their constituency.

Re:How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

[neverutterwhen]

I didn't say that. I just don't think the Magna Carta had the effect you think it did. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 on the other hand was about when power shifted from the Crown to Parliament, legally anyway. Obviously the Civil War etc had huge practical effects before that. What Magna Carta did was to introduce the concept of the rule of law; it did not arrogate the powers of the monarch to the barons/representatives or whatever it is you're trying to say. I see your point, but you can't keep repeating the phrase 'Magna Carta', especially as we got rid of it just now.