Political Power
– Shall we shape it or endure it?
It's easier to
invent the future than predict it.
—Alan
Kay
We're at democracy's
inflection point. Democracy is where the web was in 1993 and we can shape
it any way we
like. Broadcast politics seems vulnerable and the key to political
power is to let go of the illusion that politicians, governments, campaigns
and
political
parties
are
in charge
of
the voice (power)
of the
people (polis).
It's the governance,
stupid! But the means to effect better governance will arise only from politicians
and stakeholders dissatisfied with governance as usual.
This is an outline
of some obvious thoughts about specific ways that politics might be affected
by Internet technologies. Historically, every campaign is an echo
chamber striving to become a megaphone for its master's voice. The Internet
allows the echo chamber to expand to include millions of voices mastering
the politicians.
I had not realized
until recently that the voices outside an Internet-powered campaign must drown
out the voices within. The Internet clue is that any campaign is assured
of victory if it can inspire a smart mob to use the right tools to organize
itself into
a
viral, loose hierarchy. Until
the constituents build their own bridges and form their own hierarchies of
influence, every campaign's echo
chamber is sound and fury signifying not quite enough.
Assumptions
- Politics follows
money
- The 45th President
will reflect and amplify the forces that elect him
- Only our preconceptions
limit our ingenuity and power
Desirable outcomes
- Universal
participation
- Issue-based voting
- Fact-based campaigning
- Voter-financed campaigns
- Low average
contribution amounts
- Inter-campaign
civility (community vs. advocacy)
Strategy: Leverage the individual campaigns' urgency
If it weren't
for the last minute, nothing would get done.
Like the tech
industry, emergent democracy needs critical deadlines to make urgent the
deliverables that we
might otherwise express as theories. Primaries and elections provide those
deadliness and change agents must embrace that urgency. Change needs a series
of galvanizing conferences and enterprises to develop the next generation
of
tools to assemble
broad
but
powerful
constituencies.
We should not
assume that this public-spirited activity has no ROI. As the Republicans
have demonstrated, the payoff from winning is to influence the $1.7
trillion
annual budget.
To those
without
extraordinary access and influence, the elimination of special interests
is as profitable as was the gaining of
influence by the current holders.
- Consensus-building
open source web apps
- Each nomination
and election provides last minute deadlines
- Election season is development crunch time
Basics
Democracy's
essential resource is an unassailable voting system. Closed source unauditable
voting can only be offset by a broad-based voter-verifiable ballot record.
Until e-voting is open source and auditable, a few imperfect mechanisms might
stem the rush to managed polling:
- Digital
photos of voting screens
- Voter-controlled
digital ID
- WiFi PollCams
monitoring sensitive polling places (from 100')
- Open vote
declaration through auditable web sites
Voter Education through Fact-rich Timelines
- Issue-based
event timelines
- Documented,
linked statements depicting the history of issues & events
- Transforms
arcane facts into a time-based story
- Abundant
charts & graphics
- Categories
- Military
procurement
- Energy
policy
- Health
care industry
- Individual
lobbyists and their clients & fees
- Corporate
convictions, plea bargains & individual wealth
- The $1,000,000
Timeline Challenge
- Prove an
error, win $1,000
- Quiz show
The Web-based
Electorate
- Multiple opportunities for citizen expression
- A low level of expression may evolve through higher forms.
- Email becomes
- Blog comments become
- Group blogs become
- A personal blog
- Blogs may aggregate into a Knowledge Base
(Might the knowledge base finally arrive?
Perhaps through the urgency
of a campaign.)
- Election Issue
namespace to aggregate sentiment
- Comments can aggregate into issues compilations
- Campaign blog comments are implicitly issue-based,
begging for aggregation and indexing.
6:28:29 PM 
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