Slashdot Mirror
Could Crowd-Sourced Direct Democracy Work?
maccallr writes "The Occupy movement is getting everyone talking about how to fix the world's economic (and social, environmental, ...) problems. It is even trialling new forms of 'open' democracy. Trouble is, it's easy to criticize the physical occupiers for being unrepresentative of the general population — and much of their debating time is spent on practical rather than policy issues. Well-meaning but naive occupiers could be susceptible to exploitation by the political establishment and vested interests. In the UK, virtual occupiers are using Google Moderator to propose and debate policy in the comfort of their homes (where, presumably, it is easier to find out stuff you didn't know). Could something like this be done on a massive scale (national or global) to reach consensus on what needs to be done? How do you maximize participation by 'normal folk' on complex issues? What level of participation could be considered quorate? How do you deal with block votes? What can we learn from electronic petitions and Iceland's crowd-sourced constitution? Is the 'Occupy' branding appropriate? What other pitfalls are there? Or are existing models of democracy and dictatorship fit for purpose?"
One issue I see with a global version of something like this is all of the people in the world who haven't even heard of the Internet.
I stopped reading after you started regurgitating the B.S. propaganda campaign sound bytes that attempt to portray a lack of uniting theme.
The truth is, there are thousands of reasons people have been inspired to unite, and those thousands of reasons, they agree, all fall under the main targets of the OWS movement. You can say that one person protesting on behalf of the cost of education is not in agreement with another person protesting corporate influence over politics... And yet they are united to protest. And yet, just like the asshats on TV pretend, you too, cannot see the UNIFYING THEME. The umbrella under which all of the OWS protesters can place their points..... These points were made very clear even in the earliest days of the movement.
The ONLY reason you don't know what the unifying theme is, the reasons millions of protesters agree upon, including 36% of the US population who support the main themes, is that you haven't really tried to find out.
What you're doing/saying right now is that 36% of the US population is in support of a cause that has no purpose. That's a ridiculous claim. And while the facts have been there since the earliest days of the movement, and anyone with a peanut-sized brain can deduce the commonalities of the individual reasons, you still don't get it.
Quit spewing misinformation that you 'learned' from whatever propaganda sources you feed from.
I dare you to look it up. Beg me to spoonfeed and I will, but I dare you to take the 2 minutes to look it up.