Hello, fellow freedom lovers…
I admire the goals of WDDM. When we speak of rebirth, I am inclined to examine the reasons that WDDM does not ring with the distinctive tone of truth which emanates from philosophers such as JS Mill or Socrates. I believe it is the focus on a single aspect of the system which is broken, rather than the system as a holistic device for the realization of our common hopes and dreams. A truly revolutionary step forward must fix many issues that confound our desires to form a productive social structure. Legislation is only one piece of the puzzle.
Lata says, …the approach is still essentially rooted in traditional methodology.
It's the way we learned about politics in Universities, books and seminars that keeps us going back…
I couldn’t agree more.
I started out as a computer programmer for voting systems, and it turned me into a philosopher of sorts, out of necessity. I’ve been examining systems of rules and voting for a decade now. The products I have worked on, MS Project and MS SharePoint are designed to help teams of people get things done in a plethora of different settings. This always involves the creation of rules and participants following those rules. I have done a lot of work in both the philosophy of social systems and the pragmatic side of making processes and procedures to implement the various approaches I have learned. This is all… “just my job”.
But, screw all that. I’m just a dude. Everything I outline here can be found in a good text on behavioral economics… even reading freakanomics a few times or anything on game theory will end up repeating what I am about to say in many ways, or at least clarifying and exonerating the underlying principles.
First… rules are always imperfect
There is a more fundamental fallacy underneath the flaws in legislative power and procedure. This is the nature of rules themselves.
No matter how you draw up a law or rule, you must always consider it imperfect. A dead end is always hit by those who focus primarily on the crafting of “good” law. It matters little how a law is passed or maintained if there is no safety mechanism for the imperfections that infect every rule. A focus on healthy democracy must also contain a focus on judgment, or it is lame by construction.
The three functions of government
The legislative function? Fix it with abolition of representation or modifications to that paradigm… randomized representation or direct democracy. WDDM is strong in this area… many great ideas have been floated in this regard.
The executive function? Mend this beast with transparency and an examination of the flaws in hierarchical structures in general. A peer model is needed in the executive just as much as in the legislative function. Again, I have seen much good on the part of WDDM in this area.
The judicial function? Here is the tricky part, which receives far too little attention. A complete overhaul of the judicial process must be undertaken to transform it into a form that is philosophically and pragmatically consistent with direct democracy. A peer model here is crucial. Tremendous power rests in the judge (and district attorneys)… a single point of failure, who can allow or disallow testimony, instruct or even lie to a jury with impunity, limit the time or evidence, excuse jurors at a whim… and like any single point of failure, a judge can be bribed or worse… coerced. We copied the British system, and it is broken. District attorneys can choose what crimes to prosecute, make plea deals, etcetera… Does WDDM have a solution for this?
The judicial and legislative powers must BOTH rest in the hands of the people for a direct democracy to function smoothly. We can hire the executive and pay them to do our bidding, but we must not seek to appoint judges and men to select who to prosecute, lest we lose control of our sacred democracy through another weakness, which is currently less visible in its deficiencies ONLY because the deficiencies in the legislative and executive functions are so enormous.
You can ruin a society by coercing any branch, not just the legislative.
The triplet system.
If a system can be gamed, it will be gamed. A triplet system can and will be gamed if it becomes advantageous to do so.
Simple majorities
No system that enacts coercive rules by a simple majority is ethical. Majoritarian systems are a prerequisite for effective political parties to gain control over a system. Majoritarianism divides every pool that implements it into factions… even in Switzerland and Ancient Greece… the two systems closest to a direct democracy. 66%, 75%, 80% or 90% should be the levels at which any compulsion is justified by a free people. 50% is a conquerors democracy, even if it is a direct democracy.
PO vs CAO voting.
“Pick one” voting can and will be gamed. “Choose ALL Acceptable Options” voting is much harder to subvert. Both the triplet system and PO votes can be manipulated by introducing strategic choices that either help select the winner you choose, or to deselect the an undesirable choice.
Randomized and all-inclusive voting
These are the only systems that have proven to be resistant to gaming over the long term. Either a simple, “everyone gets one vote” system or a system of COMPLETELY randomized representation, for very short terms (3 months to a year). Both have been tried in many settings, business, social and political. They are not perfect, but they are harder to manipulate. For a randomized sample, the pool of participants must be large enough to make the cost of subverting the pool greater than the gain from pool subversion. In politics, this can mean a very large pool, but not unmanageably so, especially with technology.
3rd party identification
Truly reliable voting must incorporate a third party identity system. No single source system of authorization and identification is sufficiently secure to prevent digital subversion of the voting system itself. Votes must be anonymous and at the same time, verifiable. Only third party identification systems can provide both. This is openId, liveAuth… and similar technologies. Third party identity providers must carry an insured indemnity against error, and it must be absurdly expensive… $10k per vote, etcetera. This type of software can be bullet proof, but if there is no penalty when it is not… it won’t be. Software quality is a product of correct incentives… not skilled programmers, except indirectly. For this reason, voting software must be open source. This is ensured by the cost of insurance. No re-insurer would issue insurance on a code base that had any secrets, whatsoever. The cost would be prohibitive.
High trust positions
Anyone holding a public high trust position must allow us to invade their privacy. This can be done in a way that does not allow public access to private issues, but a delegate of the public must always and aggressively be in a position to snoop. Like Jefferson said, “Let no more be said about having trust in men…”
Etcetera, etcetera…
Blah, blah, blah. These are just a few of the many things that must be addressed to fix government, but they are some of the most important.
With much affection,
Your humble servant,
Joe
From: Lata Gouveia [latalondon(at)yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 5:45 PM
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Subject: Re: [WDDM] RE: Thoughts on WDDM rebirth!
Thank you George,
Always a pleasure hearing from you.
It's a long road but someone has to travel it.
I still maintain that we have the tools but the approach is still essentially rooted in traditional methodology.
It's the way we learned about politics in Universities, books and seminars that keeps us going back to certain representative concepts that we cannot imagine living without.
If you think of individual political power as money, everything becomes simpler. Imagine a world where nobody can have more than a million bucks and nobody can have less than 100,000. Now, what do people do with regards to money? They work for it, they take responsibility for achieving their material goals. Turn money into individual political power so that people also have to work for it. Based on participation records and basic knowledge, people are rewarded with individual political power (weighted voting). The motivational factor alone would change the world's population into a more mature, more responsible mass of people. Ambition and greed (the magical energy of material markets) would make sure of that. The fallacy of representative democracy would then naturally become an outdated and barbaric concept. We have the tools, we just need the software programmers.
Good night
Lata Gouveia
From: Δικηγορικό Γραφείο Γ. Λ. Κόκκα & Συνεργατών <geoko(at)otenet.gr>
To: Jiri Polak <jiri.polak(at)swipnet.se>; Lee Gottlieb <com1mon(at)yahoo.com>; Miraslav Kolar <wddm(at)mkolar.org>
Cc: wddm-list(at)yahoogroups.com; wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Sent: Thu, 14 October, 2010 23:09:34
Subject: [WDDM] RE: Thoughts on WDDM rebirth!
I waited for the answer of Mirek and I wonder why he has not answered yet ( or maybe he answered only to you Lee?). In any way we continue to exist thanks to his excellent efforts to make www.world-wide-democracy.net
happen, after our 4th WDDM Conference in Prague (2005). I I hope all is ok Mirek with you!
I also agree with Lee’s remarks and I hope that we will actually make a progress in Prague, as Jiri says!
In the meantime I propose Lee Gottlieb ( having been impressed by his two books , that he offered me this summer in Las Vegas) to be nominated as Coordinator of a contemporary WDDM Coordinating Committee, consisting of the recipients of this post and every other interested volunteerly , (including Ted Becker and Senator Mike Gravel ) trying to implement a bottom up structure in our Organisation, TEN YEARS AFTER OUR ESTABLISHMENT IN Greece that failed to celebrate this jubilaeum otherwise than our participation in the Global Forum of Direct Democracy in San Fransisco! ( By the way have a look at my speech there about Constitutions of Direct democracy that can be watched in our site : www.dimopolis.gr )
Let’s wait for the interest and ideas of everybody in the wdddm list, as I take the Initiative to make this dialogue known to everybody!
Best regards
George L. Kokkas
N.G.O Forum for Citizens’ Democracy
Ippokratous str. 42 – GR-10680 Athens
Greece
Tel.: +30 2103648300 - Fax: +30 2103610882
e-mail : geoko(at)otenet.gr
web: www.dimopolis.gr
From: Jiri Polak [jiri.polak(at)swipnet.se]
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 8:08 PM
To: Lee Gottlieb; Miraslav Kolar
Cc: George Kokkas
Subject: Re: Thoughts
Lee,
I agree with your proposals. In practice, solutions to the problems engendered by current systemss are awfully difficult to implement, even if unassailable in theory. I hope that we can take a step in the right direction in the Conference planned for 2011. This conference has a better chance to succeed than the previous ones because of the participation of Prof.Becker and the fact that it is meant to be organized by the University of Prague. This will give it a dignity we have not achieved until now. Needless to say I hope for your participation. We plan June which gives us plenty of time to prepare papers and concrete proposals. And we want to invite Lula da Silva... Unlikely he would come? Certainly, but we can try nevertheless. Miracles can happen
Sincerely, Jiri
----- Original Message -----
From: Lee Gottlieb
To: Miraslav Kolar
Cc: Jiri Polak ; George Kokkas
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 3:46 PM
Subject: Thoughts
Mirek,
I'm sending this to you, personally. Whether or not
you place it in a public area is up to you.
As I've been away for a bit, I've had to read
all of the messages to WDDM that I've missed.
It seems to me that WDDM has made but a little progress
since I was last active in the organization.
I'm not surprised, however, as the one important lesson
that I have learned in my own attempts to promote Direct
Democracy here in the U.S. is that although many people
recognize a problem in the way we humans organize our
governments, there are too damn many proposed solutions.
Sadly, few originators of a potential solution have been
willing to compromise with any other originator. I,
unfortunately, have been one of these stubborn people.
WDDM was born with great hopes of becoming a major force
in the creation of Earth democracies. I see no reason why
these hopes should die on the vine.
I recommend the WDDm Board of Directors study and consider
each and every possible suggestion ever offered as a solution
to the problems created by utilization of hierarchical
government. They should select the proposal most Board members
believe has the greatest potential for success in creating a
working DD, open the discussion on this particular proposal
to the general membership, and then advocate this DD system
to all people seeking a comparatively fair and peaceable system
of government. In this way, and only in this way, can WDDM
becomes a leader in the DD movement
----------
I've proposed a a solution to the American problem some of whose
benefits are described in the books "The Democracy That Never Was"
and "The Malfunctioning Animal." It's a fictional DD called
"America"that I would like both the Board of Directors of WDDM and
the general membership to consider as a possibility for a DD
prototype. But I am now prepared to compromise, if compromise
produces logically positive results.
The most serious objections (three) ever received about this
particular solution are:
First objection - that civic participation of every citizen in
fictional America is conceived as a duty and not a right, an
obligation and not a privilege. This also means voting every time
such a vote is relevant to an individual's life whether neighborhood,
city, regional, or national vote. Not voting because of laziness or
other priorities will deprive an American citizen one or more of
the automatic benefits bestowed upon participating citizens. This
slight social pressure guarantees that American citizens pay more
attention to the election process than do most U.S. citizens.
Second objection - is that some individuals believe the unbiased
and unplanned short term selection of participants in government
by a general lottery system is wrong as participants should be the
most talented and skilled in the needs of government. The problem
with this suggestion is that if adopted, it will eventually lead
to an oligarchy of talent, as opposed to an oligarchy of wealth
--with the eventual and identical abuse of the majority by the
minority.
Third objection - is that a government of the majority will abuse
minority rights. This viewpoint is based upon the behavior of French
commoners during the short, violent reign of the common majority
during the French Revolution. This has been repeatedly expressed by
members of the U.S. minority elite based upon the fear that once a
majority of commoners should gain control of government it will do
to the minority wealthy what minorities of wealthy citizens have been
doing to the majority of common citizen--everywhere and at all times--
for thousands of years.
Maybe so? But who among us is qualified to say that revenge of the
majority would be unjust and shouldn't be allowed to happen?
However, a properly structured Direct Democracy, such as fictional
America would make revengeful behavior unlikely.
My objection to all three of the above objections is that inclusion of
any in a political system would create just another hierarchical,
top-to-bottom social structure. Imitating--and refining--my lead,
however, would create a true, bottom-to-top democracy, a self government
in which all citizens participate in a fair, unbiased, unprejudiced
political system for the first time ever; a system designed to give all
citizens a proper education; a system designed to spotlight lies and
false propaganda that would corrupt the intellectual and physical behavior
of citizens; a system designed to help all citizens develop to the higher
level--as all humans were born to develop.
Sincerely,
Lee Gottlieb
P.S. I'm sending copies of this proposal to George Kokkis and Jiri Polak ,
as I also want their thoughts on the matter.
----------------------------------
THE FUTURE SHALL BE WHATEVER
CURRENT GENERATIONS WILL IT TO BE!
American Institute of Direct Democracy
http://www.americaninstituteofdd.com