I was dreaming the other day and my mind concocted this brilliant plan on how to reform democracy. Actually the catalyst for my plan was a statement I read on WikiWorld. If you have an opinion vote, if you don't have an opinion don't vote. Now this made perfect sense to me and became the mantra or guiding light for my plan to revolutionize the democratic process.

The problem is we all can't possibly have an opinion on every issue of every election year. Even if we spent 5 -10 hours a week researching every issue on the table and every candidate, we would still likely not get to the bottom of all the ramifications of our voting decisions. Most of us who do take a moment to drive to the voting booths or fill out a mail in ballot will vote according to that gut feeling. Someday a half mad mathematician will attempt to model all the dynamics that govern such voting practices and will predict election results. I suspect the major factor for such calculations will be the way a candidates name sounds when it is mentally pronounced in ones head. Now I would rather entrust the future of my country or county into the hands of ten people who have taken a moment to do some research than a million gut feeling, knee jerk ballot punchers.

So now I propose a radically new, revolutionary approach to the way we do government. It starts with a website. First we have everyone register on a website, providing Demographic information. Each person would then identify key issues that they care about or have an opinion on. That person would then become an expert on that particular issue and be tasked with researching it and developing summary positional type statements. A team would form around each issue that would dialogue and debate two or more positions. Areas of common ground would be identified and key areas where there are dissenting views would also be clearly identified and articulated. Also, to help facilitate the process, every participant would be subject to a rating system by the rest of the group. This essentially adds weight or credibility to a person who is recognized as a clear voice with a level head.

Teams could also develop a set of question around a particular issue that could be used to interview candidates. A tool could be developed that would allow a large group of people to collectively add follow-up questions and real time online debate.

Each team would then post a summary page highlighting the major issues at stake and its final recommendation. The rest of the participants would then rely on these summary pages to shape their opinions on the areas in which they are not experts. The results could also be published to the general public in order to add weight to the final results.

Now just consider what would happen if we could get even 51% of the voting public engaged in this kind of exercise. The whole nature of an election would revolve around informed questions on the issues that matter most to the general public.

Oh wait its all been done before. It's called a republic.

LOL==== Nice one, DavidSiegel. Of course, people vote how they feel. Studies of the 92 Presidential Election, Bush vs Clinton, revealed that 20% of all women that voted for Clinton did so because he was more attractive to them then Bush. 5% of the women that voted for Clinton, did so because they liked his ties better then Bush's. Oddly enough, an examination of why people voted for Bush revealed the same statitistics... that 20% of the women that voted for Bush, did so because they thought he was more attractive then Clinton, and that 5% voted for him because they prefered his ties to Clinton's choice of ties. That's 25% of the women that voted for each man did so because of purely how the man looked (physically or fashionably), and not on any issue.

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Not that men are any better. 27% of the men that voted for who they chose was based purely on looks as well, as they felt that the candidate they did not vote for looked less trustworthy then the one they did.

What's this tell us? The voting mob is brainless... you will get 1/4 of your votes based purely on looking better then the other guy. Look sharp, be fashionable and trustworthy, and you won't have to worry about issues in an election. Sad, but true, once you tag in party line (Tribalism, or UsAndThem thinking) voting...

---StarPilot

I have thought about ideas similar to this. But in terms of LiquidDemocracy ideas that BayleShanks has intiated, by giving your "vote" to people whom you think are really the "experts". So in voting you could say I am voting with the WikiWorld block on this issue. MarkDilley

====Some stuff from a chat sessionSession

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Session Start (Yahoo==== - dsiegel_spkn:jimscarver): Mon Nov 17 09:59:35 2003%%%

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dsiegel_spkn: Heh ya%%% dsiegel_spkn: i posted to WikiWorld today :)%%% jimscarver: bout time==== :-p%%%

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jimscarver: yiya.%%% jimscarver: nice, one of these days i'll add my two cents, good start...%%% dsiegel_spkn: yeah it was funny ... i was going along with the idea in my head and realized ... hmm there trully is nothing new under the sun%%% dsiegel_spkn: then i heard a piece on This American Life (radio show) about a legislator and what he went through making deals ect%%% jimscarver: another opening for me to promote the concept of open representation%%% dsiegel_spkn: it was an odd connection... he said there is trully no way he can be an expert on every issue that passes his desk%%% jimscarver: and represntation by interest area ranter than geography%%% dsiegel_spkn: yes%%% dsiegel_spkn: i like it%%% dsiegel_spkn: political parties for each basic area%%% dsiegel_spkn: hmmm ... that could get complex fast eh?%%% dsiegel_spkn: work it ... I will await your input even though this is not a hot topic on my radar at the moment :)%%% jimscarver: just a hiearchy of interest areas and rank ordering of reps in each%%% dsiegel_spkn: I guess geography was the best way to do this at the time%%% dsiegel_spkn: basic assumption was similar geography equals similar intrests or hot topics ... of course this dismisses utterly socio economic demographics%%% dsiegel_spkn: everything sounds like a datawarhouse problem to me these days%%% jimscarver: and there was always the fronteir to excape to%%% dsiegel_spkn: right ... wiki government in the west ... every one gets to make thier own laws%%% jimscarver: we have lots of datawarehousing capability between us....%%% dsiegel_spkn: <smirk>%%% dsiegel_spkn: interesting part of that radio piece was the concept of signal/noise %%% dsiegel_spkn: he said he might have gained a louder voice by becoming a state rep ... but he walked into a room crowded room where everyone talks louder%%% dsiegel_spkn: I think we solve this by social networks... in other words i rate the value of someone elses input by the level of relationship i have with that person%%% dsiegel_spkn: if i know your name and shook your hand i will value your input much more than if you call me at 6 pm while im eating dinner and have never met you%%% dsiegel_spkn: <see the movie Leagally Blonde 2 for a case study> <smirk>%%% jimscarver: %%% Technology: dan, george, sally %%% Info Technology: dave john alan%%% jimscarver: so if only sally votes on an infotech issue my vote is with her%%% jimscarver: if dan votes, my vote goes with him instead%%% dsiegel_spkn: because Tech and Info Tech are related subject areas?%%% jimscarver: info tech is part of tech%%% jimscarver: if aman votes also my vote is with him%%% jimscarver: 'dave is my first choice on infotech if he votes on an issue%%% jimscarver: aman->alan%%% dsiegel_spkn: I think all of this already happens or could happen without any formalized algorithm... %%% dsiegel_spkn: by means of recognizing and utilizing social networks%%% %%%

That's still nothing new. That's how you get 'informal' parties... allies in there crusades to get an issue voted/resolved in their favor.

Geography is the mother of all communities (and therefore, war and politics). It is your physical location that you are born to, and it shapes everything there. Its an environmental effect. Wherever you are, you are there. For example, while I might be a member of a world wide group that loves Star Wars and have banded together to agitate for official recognition of Jedi as a religion, should my local city council decide to pass a $5 sur-tax onto Science Fiction books, I'd suddenly focus my political attention on my locality, and pressure to not allow such a crazy idea to pass.

Remember, it is geography that creates the communities. It determines the distribution of the physical communities (Society) and resources, and ever other Society has to draw from that initial pool. All politics are local, and geography is the mother of war.

It is not surprising that the most basic, stable form of political entities that we create and recreate, over and over, is based on Geography. In days before light speed communication, your effective communication range was much lower, and that formed your upper limit of what Societies you could be a member of (a Society requires participation, remember? See: SocialDuty). That meant that your list of Societies you belonged to were limited, and primarily to/by geography. We still use this because it is still true... or physical body has to be somewhere. We have to participate to some degree in our local physicality. And as most of the people in the world as still limited in their ability to locate to somewhere else (China is not going to just let half its people leave, after all), nothing has actually changed in the world for the majority of humantiy. And no matter how far uncensored light speed communition penetrates, you are still going to have to participate in the local physicality to some degree, and therefore Geography will maintain the basic unit of denoting political entities. But, just as there are today, these geo-political entities will not be exclusionary. Other political entities will exist.

---StarPilot

Truely open and free representation is revolutionary and could not exist witout modern technology. All CitizensOfTheWorld are potenmtial representatives someone could choose in some interest area. --JimScarver