For the people, by the people
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “We conceive a world where every person, without exception, is able to substantively participate in any governance structure in which they have an interest.”
What! You didn’t think you had that already, did you?
“We envision governance which is not only more open, free, and democratic; but also which is more effective and less fallible than pre-Internet forms of governance.”
Both lines are from MetaGovernment.
“When the internet spread out to mainstream population, it did not take long for politicians and activists to start using it as a way to communicate to their constituents, to organize supporters, and more recently even to solicit input,” says an anonymous Slashdot post, which goes on »»»
Then as collaborative technologies began to develop, some people started to wonder what exactly we needed the politicians for. After all, complex projects like Wikipedia and SlashDot are driven in large part by the user-base, not a small group of overlords. So why can’t every governance system be open to input from everyone?
Over the past couple of years, this movement has been crystalizing in the Metagovernment project, and now they have brought together numerous software projects (most in late Alpha) which are actively building governance systems meant to operate with little or no input from elected leaders.
It should be pointed out that none of these systems are majority-rule or referenda systems: they are much more complex collaborative decision-making systems, deliberately designed to avoid the pitfalls of traditional direct democracy. The group has also compiled a much longer list of related projects.
So, what is the future of the idea of “open sourcing” human governance: doomed, possible, or inevitable?”
Inevitable.
In fact, it’s already happening.
People2People with net as the Great Equaliser.
Light nets, anyone? (Hint: they used to be called Dark Nets.)
No need to stay tuned. If you’re online, you’re already a part of the (r)evolution, of which projects such as MetaGovenment are a part.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Slashdot – Governance By Website Instead Of Politicians?, October 27, 2009
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