Broken British Politics and an idea for something new.
It should come as no surprise that the election system doesn’t work. How is it the Liberal Democrats can win 22.9% of the nations vote, and secure only 51 seats in Parliament? Whilst Labour who won just 29.2% can secure 247 seats? It only makes sense within the archaic rules and traditions of British Parliament.
We needn’t look too heavily into the detail of why it works that way, instead lets take a very broad analysis of how Parliament works. I am Phillyharper, I live in Phillyharpers town, and I have many personal beliefs and values. I vote for Jo Crotty (whose policies are as close a fit to my own beliefs as I can find) to go to Westminster on my behalf and shout at people on the other side of the room. The ruling government make up a new law and Jo Crotty then votes on that law on my behalf.
In the name of being succinct I’m skipping over things like lobbying, political donations, cash for honours, chief political whips, expense plundering, bribery, blackmail and sleaze, but if it makes it more real you can assume that throughout that process all of the above was going on.
In a nutshell we elect people to represent us in a room full of old men who sip gin and tonic and shout at each other.
Aged 24, I’m the crashing tip of a huge wave of global youth that have grown up being able to debate anything they want, with anyone they want, anywhere in the world, instantly. I’ve grown up with a technology that provides me with crowd generated, crowd edited, and crowd distributed content tailored exactly to my interests. I’ve grown up as a major player in a digital society where my views are entirely my own and form part of a valid, powerful, and totally free social sphere. I grew up in a generation that created the worlds most accurate encyclopaedia from absolutely nothing in less than ten years. I grew up in a generation that wrote operating systems, wrote books, created games, made films, developed entire new worlds and generated an entire new economy – all through collaboration.
Having made so many industries irrelevant, created so much and entirely sidestepped the mass-mind right, I look at British Politics and think “Why do I need someone to represent me? I can represent myself!” The digital tidal wave has its eyes firmly set on Westminster and collectively thinks “you’re next”. It’s the logical conclusion to everything that has happened before today – we will consume politics and make it our own.
When Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia in 2001, the general consensus was “it will never work” – but he proved everyone wrong and the doubters are now laughing out the other side of their face. Even Nature Magazine concluded that Wikipedia was about as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 2010, the idea of a digital collaborative government might garner a reaction familiar to Jimmy Wales, but I believe it can work, but more than that, I believe it has to. The doubters are people who don’t understand how we work.
We looked at the way parliament works from a very broad sense and we can do the same for a digital collaborative government. Rather than the detail, lets start with the building blocks needed for it to work. We would need an open source web application that let policies be generated, molded, edited, and eventually passed as law all through mass collaboration. That’s the first step, and it’s a step we’ve made dozens of times before. A story posted on reddit.com (hi reddit!) is like a policy – the community then discusses it and votes it up and down. The technology already exists, we just need to purpose it exactly to our needs. Reddit.com would be a great technology to start with, their comment and discussion system is widely regarded as one of the best on the internet.
Online communities are like much more efficient houses of parliament – decisions get made faster, debate is healthier, and everyone gets their say.
Then we’d need an open taxation system that allows the entire budget to be interacted with, moulded, shifted and voted on, to determine where money (or resources) were sent. Every single loophole, penny and waste pot would be accounted for, because rather than just Alistair Darling or (heaven forbid) George Osborne staring at it, the whole nation gets to see to the penny where their taxes went in an open source online web application. If they want to change it they’re just one click away. Tax levels are set at a level determined by mass collaboration – if we need more taxes then people suggest and vote for more, if people at the bottom are being squeezed too much they suggest less and vote for less. The system would move at lightspeed compared to two week tennis matches that go on with Parliament (again forgetting all the special interests at play). We could tax to meet our needs exactly to the penny, changing the rate daily like a stock market changes.
We build it agile – like everything else. Build a feature, put it live, test it and refine it. We do the same again and again for each new feature, so our government system grows naturally and organically as it needs to. We’d do the same with ideas and policies, using the machine we craft to generate nurture new ideas from their inception through to mass acceptance, and eventually a new arm of government is born. We could link science, education, communication, play and governance all into one.
The system shouldn’t be a prescriptive one, I’m already describing how it should work. I’m actually describing how it might work, but with your input the digital collaborative government might look entirely different. Like any great collaborative product, we don’t start with an end goal, we start with an inital idea. Where it goes from here is anyones guess, but if we work at it we’ll end up with a political system that includes everyone, quite literally built by the people, for the people.
It’s easy to get washed along with the excitement of an election and to feel as though your vote really makes a difference. Despite knowing that our political system is broken I voted Lib Dem, they seemed the best candidates for change. I’ve always liked Jiddu Krishnamurti thoughts when he said “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society“. In our case, I guess we voted to make adjustments to fit a profoundly broken system.
I’m writing this blog to suggest we fix the system by crafting a new one that includes all of us. Proportional Representation 2.0.
All great projects start with a great idea. You’ve probably got a million questions and ideas about how a digital collaborative government might work and I’d encourage you to leave those questions in a comment. If people are interested, I’ll set up a wiki, a chipin, and everything else we’d need to get this going. Don’t let negative comments or thoughts deter your ideas. If you think it could work, we can make it work.
We don’t need crooks, liars and thieves. We can do this ourselves.
If we could make it work I don't see any faults in it
Phillyharper for PM
An interesting read and worth a full answer.
You haven't dealt with the key weaknesses of direct democracy going back thousands of years, namely that the public do not and cannot know a great deal about 99% of anything the government does – there simply isn't time for people to look it up even if it was collated easily. Which is why full time politicians are used to run every country worldwide and in parliament for instance still require select committees to specialise in areas to provide at least some in depth knowledge. What is the check on what people can do – if your rights are whatever 51% of people say they are then you don't have any really. If those 51% say the other 49% are their slaves then what redress is there?
I'd be impressed if Phil or any people who read the whole article know half the answers to the following questions? (don't ask me because although I picked the Q's and I still don't know most of them)
state spending as a % of GDP now as compared to 5,10,20 years ago (is the govt too large or small?)
NHS spending (and how does it compare to 5,10,20 years ago)
Patient survival rates for the 5 most common types of fatal cancer, what are the 5 most common cancers (if you don't know how much the NHS costs, and how effective it is in curing patients both compared to its own past performance and other systems how can you know how to reform it/if it needs reform/where spending cuts/increases should fall?)
Average age and state of a hospitals infrastructure (important if you're going to decide how many billions are spent building/maintain them)
Average age and state of a schools infrastructure (“)
The figures NICE use for deciding if a drug is provided (eg should heceptim be provided)
The total order of eurofighters in numbers of aircraft per tranche, cost per aircraft included/excluding R&D, upfront costs/lifetime costs/airframe lifetime depending on mission profile, never mind the actual capabilities or how it compares with Rafale, F/A 22, JSF a,b,c, Su 35 …..
Defence spending as a % of GDP now, in '97 and during the cold war
Breakdown of defence budget army/navy/raf, what % SLBM armed SSBN's make up (ie how much would be saved by scrapping trident, where should the balance be between services)
How the above compares with allies/competitors/potential opponents, both now and for the next 50 years (the estimate lifetime for the CVF project for instance)
All of the above have cost of billions/tens of billions per year and the figures are publically available
If you follow US politics this problem is illustrated quite nicely by California, lots of talk about bankruptcy because of various referenda both require spending on different things, require spending on education to be a certain % and block certain tax rises, with the inability to agree where cuts/tax rises should be made/fall as no system regardless of setup will make people agree all the time on how the householdvillagetowncountystatenation should be run. The ability of special interest groups to sway things will be made worse not better – if people don't know about a topic they won't vote either way so 99% won't, the 1% affected will vote and probably in favour of spending as they get all the benefit but only 1% of the cost – the only time the majority vote will be on taxes to support the spending and then they'll vote against.
Secondly as a point of policy it is always a good idea to oppose revolutionary schemes advocated with phrases like
“If you think it could work, we can make it work.”
“but I believe it can work, but more than that, I believe it has to. The doubters are people who don’t understand how we work.”
Firstly you do a good thing and remind me of a joke :
Three drunks are standing on top of the Empire State Building. The first one says to the other two, “You know, it's a funny thing about these wind currents. A person could jump off of this building right now and not even hit the ground; the wind would carry him right back up to the top of the building!”
The second drunk says, “You're crazy!”
The first drunk says, “I'm serious! Watch!” The first drunk jumps off of the building, and the wind carries him right back up to the top!
The second drunk says, “Let me try!”
So the second drunk leaps off of the building and promptly falls to the street below, landing with a hideous SPLAT!
The first drunk smiles, clearly amused. The third drunk looks at him and says, “You know, Superman, you can be a real Jerk When you're drunk!”
The moral being just because you believe something doesn't make it true
More seriously correct me if this isn't what you meant but “doubters are people who don't understand” says to me that anyone who opposes it is both wrong and so wrong that they are beyond the pale or because you haven't explained it well enough, which is the reason political dissidents are usually locked up for being mentally ill. People who believe their ideas will work simply because they “think it can work” tend to become a little crazy and murder millions of people if given power – if “it has to work” then it is absolutely necessary to pay any price. Given that I found this article through Lisa on facebook I'm going to guess that your not a genocidal monster intent on making rivers run red with blood … but most of the earlier supports of communism were motivated by a desire to for “change” and to make things better for “the many not the few” but ended up either dead themselves or complicit in millions of deaths.
Overall I do like the open source idea when applied to other areas than national level politics, Eric Raymond's essay the cathedral and the bazaar is a good read about the model.
I'll finish with a quote from Mencken “democracy is the theory that the people deserve the government they get, and deserve to get it good and hard” – if people get one decision every 4 years and screw that up then what makes you certain that they will do better with 60,000,000,000,000 decisions to make (where every penny goes)?
hmm… that was a hell of a lot shorter in my head
An interesting read and worth a full answer.
You haven't dealt with the key weaknesses of direct democracy going back thousands of years, namely that the public do not and cannot know a great deal about 99% of anything the government does – there simply isn't time for people to look it up even if it was collated easily. Which is why full time politicians are used to run every country worldwide and in parliament for instance still require select committees to specialise in areas to provide at least some in depth knowledge. What is the check on what people can do – if your rights are whatever 51% of people say they are then you don't have any really. If those 51% say the other 49% are their slaves then what redress is there?
I'd be impressed if Phil or any people who read the whole article know half the answers to the following questions? (don't ask me because although I picked the Q's and I still don't know most of them)
state spending as a % of GDP now as compared to 5,10,20 years ago (is the govt too large or small?)
NHS spending (and how does it compare to 5,10,20 years ago)
Patient survival rates for the 5 most common types of fatal cancer, what are the 5 most common cancers (if you don't know how much the NHS costs, and how effective it is in curing patients both compared to its own past performance and other systems how can you know how to reform it/if it needs reform/where spending cuts/increases should fall?)
Average age and state of a hospitals infrastructure (important if you're going to decide how many billions are spent building/maintain them)
Average age and state of a schools infrastructure (“)
The figures NICE use for deciding if a drug is provided (eg should heceptim be provided)
The total order of eurofighters in numbers of aircraft per tranche, cost per aircraft included/excluding R&D, upfront costs/lifetime costs/airframe lifetime depending on mission profile, never mind the actual capabilities or how it compares with Rafale, F/A 22, JSF a,b,c, Su 35 …..
Defence spending as a % of GDP now, in '97 and during the cold war
Breakdown of defence budget army/navy/raf, what % SLBM armed SSBN's make up (ie how much would be saved by scrapping trident, where should the balance be between services)
How the above compares with allies/competitors/potential opponents, both now and for the next 50 years (the estimate lifetime for the CVF project for instance)
All of the above have cost of billions/tens of billions per year and the figures are publically available
If you follow US politics this problem is illustrated quite nicely by California, lots of talk about bankruptcy because of various referenda both require spending on different things, require spending on education to be a certain % and block certain tax rises, with the inability to agree where cuts/tax rises should be made/fall as no system regardless of setup will make people agree all the time on how the householdvillagetowncountystatenation should be run. The ability of special interest groups to sway things will be made worse not better – if people don't know about a topic they won't vote either way so 99% won't, the 1% affected will vote and probably in favour of spending as they get all the benefit but only 1% of the cost – the only time the majority vote will be on taxes to support the spending and then they'll vote against.
Secondly as a point of policy it is always a good idea to oppose revolutionary schemes advocated with phrases like
“If you think it could work, we can make it work.”
“but I believe it can work, but more than that, I believe it has to. The doubters are people who don’t understand how we work.”
Firstly you do a good thing and remind me of a joke :
Three drunks are standing on top of the Empire State Building. The first one says to the other two, “You know, it's a funny thing about these wind currents. A person could jump off of this building right now and not even hit the ground; the wind would carry him right back up to the top of the building!”
The second drunk says, “You're crazy!”
The first drunk says, “I'm serious! Watch!” The first drunk jumps off of the building, and the wind carries him right back up to the top!
The second drunk says, “Let me try!”
So the second drunk leaps off of the building and promptly falls to the street below, landing with a hideous SPLAT!
The first drunk smiles, clearly amused. The third drunk looks at him and says, “You know, Superman, you can be a real Jerk When you're drunk!”
The moral being just because you believe something doesn't make it true
More seriously correct me if this isn't what you meant but “doubters are people who don't understand” says to me that anyone who opposes it is both wrong and so wrong that they are beyond the pale or because you haven't explained it well enough, which is the reason political dissidents are usually locked up for being mentally ill. People who believe their ideas will work simply because they “think it can work” tend to become a little crazy and murder millions of people if given power – if “it has to work” then it is absolutely necessary to pay any price. Given that I found this article through Lisa on facebook I'm going to guess that your not a genocidal monster intent on making rivers run red with blood … but most of the earlier supports of communism were motivated by a desire to for “change” and to make things better for “the many not the few” but ended up either dead themselves or complicit in millions of deaths.
Overall I do like the open source idea when applied to other areas than national level politics, Eric Raymond's essay the cathedral and the bazaar is a good read about the model.
I'll finish with a quote from Mencken “democracy is the theory that the people deserve the government they get, and deserve to get it good and hard” – if people get one decision every 4 years and screw that up then what makes you certain that they will do better with 60,000,000,000,000 decisions to make (where every penny goes)?
hmm… that was a hell of a lot shorter in my head