[ExI] Internet based political party in Australia

David C. Harris dharris234 at mindspring.com
Thu Oct 18 17:29:14 UTC 2007


Brent,

I am delighted to hear that you have recognized some of the 
opportunities and virtues of what I called "delegative democracy".  
Trees of delegation that could be delegated to other trees was part of 
my original thinking.  Do you have a solution to the problem of 
accidentally getting a loop of delegations?  Check before allowing a 
delegation (linkage of a subtree to another tree) and forbid formation 
of a loop?

Among the virtues of your full proposal is that it creates a new 
approach to the problem of districting and gerrymandering.  Why restrict 
the political units to only geographic clumps?  With your system, people 
could flexibly form "districts" according to their perception of what is 
important.  And one could be in different districts on different 
issues.  I could delegate with Libertarians on fiscal policies, with 
public health nurses on health care structures,  with a bicyclists' 
coalition on a local road issue, and with cryonicists on the issue of 
validity of contracts after a party's "death".  And as you suggest, the 
delegation (proxy) could be moved as desired anytime, including using it 
for direct voting by myself.

Last night I offered the simplified version (one level of delegation) to 
the "contact us" for the SOL party/group and they said they'd put it in 
the hopper in case they won a seat in the Australian legislature.

Could you clarify what "hyper networked" means in the Canonizer discussion?

I don't have a solution to the accurate information problem you cite, 
other than Google and competing presentations of issues ("checks and 
balances").

  - David Harris, Palo Alto


Brent Allsop wrote:
>
> Emlyn,
>
> Yes that isn't the way to do it.  You don't want just another party 
> system with only two choices for everything.
> And even having a bunch of representative leaders that are expected to 
> vote on everything results in terrible leadership bottle necks.  You 
> can't expect any single leader at the top of a hierarchy to be an 
> expert on all issues a government must vote on.
>
> We're trying something completely different with the Canonizer, and a 
> prototype is already running at http://canonizer.com.
>
> Anyone can delegate their "vote" to any other person, on any topic or 
> issue being voted on resulting in a hyperdelegated networks of trees 
> on all issues.  So you get leaders, or delegates, with large earned 
> tree structures of trust on single issues.  The larger a tree a person 
> "earns" the more influence they get (since all delegated votes in a 
> tree follow them as they jump "camps"), at least on that one issue.  
> If anyone ever screws up, their delegated tree can vanish instantly as 
> voters switch to other growing trees of still trusted people.  Each 
> issue to be voted on can have drastically different delegated tree 
> structures, effectively resulting in different, possibly very 
> powerful, leaders on each issue.  You no longer have to just be either 
> democrat or republican.  You get to choose your delegates for each 
> issue, at any level, with hyper networked delegated tree structures.
>
> In this way, you have all the benefits of a leaderless network, yet 
> there are definitely leaders that can quickly change national or world 
> policy in an instant, at least as long as they don't screw up and lose 
> their delegated power structure.  And since different people can 
> become the leaders on different issues, you have natural networked 
> separation of powers and a very non bottleneck networked leadership 
> which will no longer restricting the morality of institutions.
>
> Another critical problem is:
>
> - Accurate information and balanced argument on each Bill and 
> important issues
>
> Who gets to decide, via what process, what is truly "balanced"?
> We believe the best way to truly achieve this is with a canonizer type 
> "camp with position statements" support structure like we are 
> developing in the Canonizer.  You have the same hyperdelegated tree 
> structure support system indicating who is in what "camp" for each 
> competing "balanced" position statement.  And in addition to that, you 
> get to chose who you trust to determine what is "balanced" and how to 
> sort and filter the various position statements by selecting your 
> preferred "Canonizer".  (i.e. YOU could chose to ignore the support of 
> anyone that is in any "camp" on any issues that is demed delusional. 
> (like the age of the earth being 6000 years old, the brain is just a 
> conduit for the spirit see 
> http://karolisr.canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/9  and so on right?)
>
> Anyone can start a topic or new issue, perhaps promoting a particular 
> action or new policy.  And as soon as a few powerful people join a 
> "camp" that believes a particular action should be taken (all their 
> delegated votes following them), you can get very fast response 
> times.  You no longer need to wait for another election 3 years down 
> the road, or endless debate in a devided congress,  to get a president 
> out of Iraq or whatever.  All the information on all sides of the 
> issues is collaboratively developed in "camp position statements" real 
> time for all to see and contribute to.
>
> What do you think the chances are that the Canonizer, with its hyper 
> networked delegated leadership structures, can take over the world and 
> effectively rendering governments, religious and business hierarchies, 
> and everything hierarchical meaningless?  After all, if a senator (or 
> pope?) doesn't folow what the Canonizer says his constituents want, 
> shouldn't he be thrown out of office?  And if so, what is he there for 
> in the first place?  Lets get rid of all these established primitive 
> immoral bottleneck leadership structures and throw big brother out on 
> his ass!
>
> Anyone else want to help us transhumanists finish developing and get 
> this thing off the ground so we can hurry and conquer the world?  And 
> get very rich while we do it?  All it takes is a bit of spare time.
>
> http://test.canonizer.com/topic.asp/4
>
> Upward,
>
> Brent Allsop
>
>
>
> Emlyn wrote:
>> I'm not a political scientist, but...
>>
>> IMO, that's a bad idea. It's going to lead to major party voting
>> blocks, like we have now. I really think, if you care about an issue,
>> then vote on it. If you don't really know, can't figure it out, can't
>> be bothered, then don't.
>>
>> With a proxy scheme like below, I imagine the major parties would go
>> round up enough true believers to have large voting power, then duke
>> it out amongst themselves, making a mockery of the whole idea, leaving
>> people who really care about issues but who haven't gathered proxies
>> out in the cold.
>>
>> If you want representative democracy, you already have it. The point
>> of this idea is to try out something else (participatory online
>> democracy).
>>
>> Emlyn
>>
>> On 18/10/2007, David C. Harris <dharris234 at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>   
>>> Excellent idea.  If they get good response to the initial concept, may I
>>> suggest this addition which is like the idea of delegation advocated
>>> independently about 30 years ago by Professor John McCarthy and myself
>>> at Stanford:
>>>
>>> Trying to make the many decisions of a modern nation will overload and
>>> wear out most of the direct voters of SOL.  Consider adding the ability
>>> to say "make my votes like the recommendations of NNN", where NNN is any
>>> member willing to be considered an opinion leader or wise
>>> representative.  Or accomplish the same thing with explicit electronic
>>> "proxies" that can be cast by the person who holds them.  Overloaded
>>> voters can give their proxies to anyone they trust, reducing the
>>> information processing load on them.
>>>
>>>  - David Harris, Palo Alto
>>>
>>>
>>> Emlyn wrote:
>>>     
>>>> I am very seriously considering voting for these people in our
>>>> upcoming elections:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.senatoronline.org.au/
>>>>
>>>> >From the site:
>>>> -----------
>>>> Senator On-Line is Australia's only Internet based democratic political party.
>>>>
>>>> Senator On-Line is not aligned to any other political party… it is
>>>> neither Liberal nor Labor.
>>>>
>>>> Senator On-Line ('SOL') is a truly democratic party which will allow
>>>> everyone on the Australian Electoral roll who has access to the
>>>> internet to vote on every Bill put to Parliament and have its Senators
>>>> vote in accordance with a clear majority view.
>>>>
>>>> We will be running candidates for the upcoming federal Upper House
>>>> (Senate) elections.
>>>>
>>>> When a SOL senator is elected a web site will be developed which will provide:
>>>>
>>>> - Accurate information and balanced argument on each Bill and important issues
>>>> - The vast majority of those registered on the Australian Electoral
>>>> roll the chance to have their say by voting on bills and issues facing
>>>> our country
>>>> - A tally of all votes which will then count in Parliament
>>>> - Each person on the Australian Electoral roll will be entitled to one
>>>> vote and only be allowed to vote once on each bill or issue.
>>>>
>>>> SOL senators will have committed in writing to voting in line with the
>>>> clear majority view of the SOL on-line voters.
>>>>
>>>> Senator On-Line will enable broader community involvement in the
>>>> political process and the shaping of our country.
>>>> -----------
>>>>
>>>> Related news:
>>>>
>>>> Online Party Hopes to Click with Voters
>>>> http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/online-party-hopes-to-click-with-voters/2007/10/18/1192300920221.html?page=2
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       

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