I just had a brainwave about how to address low voter turnout in local body elections in Aotearoa. Could the solution be liquid democracy?
One reason people don't vote in local elections is that we don't really know who the candidates are. But most of us know at least one person who shares our values, and is really engaged in council politics. What if there was a simple, formally recognised way to delegate our vote to them?
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When I read articles like these - https://archive.is/gW2Wj - about the #Dutch #tax system and how our government fails to improve on it year after year, I think it might make sense to restart work on #LiquidFeedback alike open-source software systems. The purpose of that would be to preserve knowledge and automate discussions on topics that have been discussed to death before. Like Wikipedia, but subjectively instead of objectively.
The cynic in me says that any system purposed to prevent fail will fail.
The optimist in me says that any non-existing system purposed to automate will curse us into eternal repetition of manual mistakes, and that any baby step away from that is an improvement.
Every time that the Pirate Party is in the news - their Dutch wing chose a new leader - I have to think back about their greatest achievement in 2013, #LiquidFeedback (LQFB), a tool for digital democracy.
Because LQFB could be manipulated with sock puppet accounts (like Wikipedia and social media), it never made it mainstream. Alternative decision systems were created in the last ten years, such as #loomio. But I don't see any big systems or organizations using those either.
As long as we do not digitalize discussions and decisions how policies work, why they work like that and on which hard conditions they can be optimized, we are doomed to repeat discussions on social media why fundamental governmental ideas are actually good, e.g. to pay taxes at all, or why rich people should pay more than poor people. I'd love to stop troll noise, without censoring or disabling valid criticism.
https://tweakers.net/nieuws/212626/partijvoorzitter-mark-van-treuren-wordt-nieuwe-lijsttrekker-van-de-piratenpartij.html
https://digitaldemocracy.world/
https://github.com/lokehagberg
https://www.loomio.com/
https://help.loomio.com/en/user_manual/getting_started/index.html
Partijvoorzitter Mark van Treuren wordt de nieuwe lijsttrekker van de Piratenpartij. Hij volgt daarmee Matthijs Pontier en Ancilla van der Leest op, die tijdens vorige verkiezingen lijsttrekkers waren. De ict-georiënteerde partij doet deze verkiezingen mee als een lijst met De Groenen.
@strypey
> #LiquidFeedback
There was a surprisingly effective twist on this approach in a local election manifesto recently, and the candidates had mild traction in pockets on polling day.
https://www.prajaakeeya.org/UPP%20SOP%20English.pdf
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> a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy
Sounds good to me. We could eliminate an expensive layer of besuited spokesmodels and PR spindoctors, who provide no real value to anyone but themselves. Instead, public servants could carry out whatever policies get a supermajority in a weekly of monthly batch of digital referenda.
#LiquidFeedback anyone?
1 Aktie = 1 Stimme in Aktiengesellschaften ist offensichtlich suboptimal, siehe #BlackRock.
1 Stimme pro Person, unabhängig vom Betrag des eingezahlte Kapitals (K), bei vielen #Genossenschaften, erscheint mir aber auch anfällig für Störung z.B. von Leuten mit viel Tagesfreizeit.
Kennt jemand Organisationen, die log(K) oder so machen? Z.B. um Zeit- & Geld-Einsatz zu balancieren. Oder gleich #LiquidFeedback?
@richdecibels Great Interview - thanks! <3
You mention that there was/is no alternative software systems for decision making except #loomio. As I remember it, #adhocracy and #LiquidFeedback tried to tackle similar challenges. Do you have an opinion on #LiquidDemocracy?
Strypey
stonehead
Lorenz Schirmer
Life is Tetris
gittaca
Hex
Informa Pirata
Sebastian