Quote: lakefinger 1) The voters must be informed and make the correct decisions. There’s no point in giving them more influence if they can’t do these things correctly.
PARTICIPANTS to a new web based consensus system would have to be informed or click the I am informed button and bear the legal consequences, hyperlinks will support multiple sources to supporting issue on the matter.
Quote: 2) The social media you mentioned are commercial actors, putting governance into the hands seems exceptionally unwise. I would assume you’re familiar with this, but it can be worth mentioning that champions of democracy complain of the concentration of democracy into commercial hands. Social media, being used for data mining and espionage, etc., do not demonstrate any ability to maintain anonymity and integrity, which are both cornerstones of governmental democracy.
THE TOOL is ready to be made, not yet established but your point is fair, this tool should be designed well so that, even if it is rented from some commercial benefactors, best practice would dictate that it implements a reliable and living process to eliminate conflict of interest
Quote: 3) Countries with consensus-based democracies, e.g. Sweden and Norway, have critical problems with their political systems and public life as a result. Consensus is not purely negative, but in certain cases where the political system leans more in this direction, the consensus itself severely inhibits governmental change, criticism, freedom of speech and other democratic rights and processes. Consensus does not guarantee harmony and it can in fact lead to sharper conflicts and greater resentment and ideological stratification.
we are not talking about the existing method of consensus here, we are talking about creating a new way of getting reliable consensus that is automatically free of conflict of interest and which supports informed decision makingQuote: 4) Consensus can be readily manipulated before, during and after it is reached. Consensus can be manufactured and not reflect any actual consensus of the voters.
that does not make it evilQuote: 5) There are many cognitive biases that complicate consensus and the community’s perception of itself. These affect voting methods and mechanisms. We have, for instance, the false-consensus effect whereby voters may misconstrue the dispositions of other voters. This has been demonstrated to tie into progressives thinking that there is much less consensus among themselves and conservatives thinking there is far more consensus among themselves, etc. This in turn skews the perception of the voting self, the voting population and the issues being voted on.
even crazy people should be allowed to have rights and opinions.Quote: 6) People are manipulated by commercial interests, psy-ops, etc., and more readily manipulated the less expertise they have in a subject. Today’s government systems and the issues they face are extremely complicated. By crudely granting the voting majority more influence over their governance you are opening up for increased demagoguery, despotism and unjustified decision-making.
yes this is a real human problemQuote: 7) Consensus is, as said above, subject to manipulation but it also susceptible to over-governance and repetition as well as imprecision by means of concealing indecision and fundamental differences. Consensus has also been documented to lead to lack of clarity in policymaking.
good planning or software architecture and lawmaking itself are by nature iterative, this is good not badQuote: 8) In a consensus-based system the minority(ies) is(are), in effect, eliminated or blurred out.
A GOOD CONSENSUS SYSTEM REVIEWS ALL OPINIONS - i.e. it is not BINARY - modern tech lets us deal with more than just yes or noQuote: 9) Countries with consensus-based (rather than e.g. negotiation-based or majoritarian) political systems tend to hover in the socially conservative range of the political scale.
repeat of #3 Norway and Sweden or what do you really mean?Quote: 10) We don’t have a sufficiently complicated mechanism for dealing with consensus. Consensus itself means many things in different contexts and it must be delineated before further discussion. What kind of consensus do you need? What are the costs of consensus? How can it be maintained? To what extent do we maintain it? At what point does the need for consensus outweigh the efficiency of the system, policymaking, political coordination, etc. How do you ensure the validity of the consensus from its postulate among the voters to its implementation among government employees? How does consensus ensure that the voting population has been correctly informed, makes the correct decisions, votes in accordance with its own understanding and interests?
right, I was saying that google and facebook are in a good position to create a good platform for effective consensus which you have helped to clarify as needing protections from conflict of interest and support for minority ideas, non- binary outcomes, and legal architectural lifecycle process so that law can be refined effectively.
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