This is so inspiring. The movement towards making the institution of governance more open, accountable, and transparent is making real measurable progress. This movement is not being pushed from any traditional national landscape (east v. west / north v. south / developed v. developing), but from a diverse geographic mix of countries cooperating and learning with one another. After we make government more open, we must then move towards collaborative wiki-governments so that people have far more say in the decision-making process. Government are after all supposed to be institutions for the people.
I agree with you. But it's an important step towards the ability to experiment with open data. I recommend checking out WikiGovernments by Beth Noveck. Here is her perspective on how we take advantage of this next step towards open governments: She is actually acting and carrying out the necessary experiments with open government data and creating online Wiki platforms for collaborative government. The experiments have been successful so far. After Wiki-style government worked so well with the U.S. Patent Office, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said: Now I disagree slightly with him about his approach to Wiki government - as I think it can even be more extensive and eventually allows us to phase out politicians all-together. Mark Klein is also doing some fascinating things at MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence. I found this study insightful. Same with this one. Institutions are slow to change - all of our institutions are slow to change. They are all inherently industrial. Education, health care, government, etc. And they're all inefficient and poorly organized. We have the tools now to change them now. We can test better models. If we open government we can make our case to re-structure it completely.I cry "bread and circuses"
[We need to] make the case for an information policy that goes beyond mere data transparency to ensure that groups can make use of public information, thereby producing better informed and more accountable decisions as well as creating new, collaborative approaches to addressing issues and solving problems.
All the players who cared deeply about this bizarre and nerdy patent really go after it because there's now way where their patent examiners can fundamentally get all the insight that the wisdom of crowds can do. Why is that not true of every branch of government? It makes perfect sense, use all those people who care so passionately, and who have lots of free time, to help you.
It's certainly something that the global citizenry wants. My only fear is that it gets treated as window dressing and that non compliance will have zero accountability. I look forward to a time when we have easy access to our elected representatives. When they're about to cast a vote, they can know in real time what their constituents want. -It shouldn't be that difficult, right? It seems we are losing the Net Neutrality debate in the US, this concerns me in regards to the future of "collaborative wiki movements." -More to come here though.
It is window dressing. It's just the right next step towards the ability to really open up government (i.e., have elections for ideas and not people - that's what I've been working on lately, I think it's our way forward). If we know exactly what the people want, and we can get that data easily and efficiently, what do we need politicians for? I'm pretty confident that any government attempt to regulate the internet will end in failure long-term.My only fear is that it gets treated as window dressing
When they're about to cast a vote, they can know in real time what their constituents want.
It seems we are losing the Net Neutrality debate in the US
I don't trust politicians, but I don't trust the mob either.If we know exactly what the people want, and we can get that data easily and efficiently, what do we need politicians for?
-Hmmm, how do we determine what gets put to a vote? How do we ensure that the mob doesn't rule? Do we still have regional representation from each state? If so, how do we ensure that the states with smaller populations get represented too? How do we make sure idiots aren't ruling the day even more than they already are? -There are a lot of people that would say that they outnumber the informed significantly. I don't think that politicians are inherently bad, I think the system is. Perhaps we still would need a "filter" someone that can determine the sage course foreword in situations when there's more gray than black and white.
I will be posting my paper when it's ready to get critical feedback. Obviously the mob will not rule. A lot of mechanisms for governance by collective intelligence have already been explored and experimented by platforms like Wikipedia, Reddit, Hubski, and a bunch of other lesser known sites built around argumentation. There have already been successful small-scale trails of these governance sites and one has even been successful in practice in the U.S. Patent Office. Now it's time to force this new politician-reduced (or eliminated) form of government into practice on a large scale. Here is rough GB paradigm: These simulated models can be tested for efficiency at all levels of governance, from small-scale local decision making, to large-scale global decision-making. Wiki governments offer us the potential for global governance.How do we ensure that the mob doesn't rule?
At present, decision-making power tend to be centralized in political leaders, governments, and the executives of multinational corporations. The GB paradigm suggests a more distributed, self-organizing system of governance, in which anybody who has a good idea, a minimum of experience, or the trust of others would be able to contribute to the collective decisions that need to be made. This would allow for a much more democratic and bottom-up approach to the problems that society needs to resolve, while producing more balanced, diverse and creative solutions. Several methods and technologies have been proposed to achieve such collective intelligence or "wisdom of the crowds". Some of these have already proven to be successful in small-scale experiments. The GB model lays the foundations for a more integrated approach, while providing a simulation experiment for testing out different methods, thus helping us to select the most promising ones.