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Electronic Democracy
We aim to establish a political party that utilizes open websites, such as Wikipedia, to achieve the following goals:
- Organize and present reasons in support of or opposition to each government policy.
- Rank the highest-scoring reasons at the top of each list, based on their performance in supporting or opposing the policy.
- Generate scores for each conclusion based on the performance of the reasons.
- Include different types of costs and benefits in the reasons, such as financial, time, freedom, security, autonomy, risk, and health.
- Promote candidates who pledge to use open and transparent forums to evaluate the feasibility of each government policy.
Each proposal would have columns for reasons to agree and disagree. The reasons could include:
Cost or benefits (categorized by factors such as money, lives, man-hours, freedom, health, etc.) Logical arguments (if-then proposals, causal or strengthening arguments) Scientific studies (categorized by the number of participants, level of randomization, use of double or triple blind, placebo control, and clinical environment). Books, movies, songs, videos, sayings, or speeches that contain arguments or data supporting or weakening the conclusion. Each argument would have its own score, but once an argument is used to support another argument, it would have a "linkage score" and a "unique score."
For example, the belief that Nazis were committing genocide during WWII would have its own score. However, it could also be used as evidence to strengthen the conclusion of war with Germany if combined with the belief that "we should violently oppose those committing genocide."
Arguments can be found in various forms of media such as books, movies, poems, and songs. Sometimes, it takes an entire piece of media to discuss a particular topic thoroughly. Therefore, it would be helpful to brainstorm a list of the best media that supports or opposes different conclusions.
To measure how much a particular piece of media strengthens or weakens supporting different conclusions, we should evaluate the pro/con arguments presented in each media. For instance, we can analyze if the Wealth of Nations and Communist Manifesto are discussing the same topics from different angles, and whether or not they have valid arguments that have not been disproven. This would determine the linkage or alignment or the direction in which the book is pulling.
Another dimension we should evaluate is to what degree the media's arguments are valid. We could copy and paste arguments from the book and evaluate each argument's validity separately, then average the media's typical score.
Similar to an object moving in space, an argument has directions, validity, and popularity. While popularity is less important, it is still essential to understand what media is currently being used to convince the most people.
Therefore, in addition to understanding the direction a book is pointing the reader and the validity of the arguments presented, we also need to know how many copies the book has sold and other ways of measuring its influence.
An algorithm is a set of rules or procedures used to solve complex problems.
The US founding fathers believed in the power of well-constructed systems to solve difficult problems. They wanted to create a government structure that would ensure the principles of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The US Constitution is the embodiment of this belief and provides a framework for good governance.
The Declaration of Independence asserts that countries should be structured in a way that promotes safety and happiness for its citizens. This means that the way government is organized and operates can have a significant impact on the well-being of the people.
At our Policy Analysis Algorithm, we use this same approach to develop a set of rules and procedures for analyzing policy proposals. By evaluating proposals based on factors such as cost, benefits, logical arguments, and scientific evidence, we aim to provide insights into which policies are most likely to promote safety and happiness for the greatest number of people.
The notion that optimal policies are identified by a community of knowledgeable and logical individuals with the requisite education, intelligence, and resources to conduct thorough research. The aim is to pinpoint policies that are most efficient in terms of producing greater benefits while minimizing costs and risks, based on evidence and data. In other words, the community collaborates to identify policies that are pragmatic and viable, and that will generate the greatest favorable effects on society.
We require a political party that can effectively manage and balance competing principles. This involves establishing processes that utilize objective criteria to determine when certain principles should be prioritized over others. Such an approach is more effective than the current tendency to alternate between extreme viewpoints that only consider the benefits of one side and the costs of the other.
The aim of this GitHub repository is to develop an open-source web forum to support this movement.
Many political debates center around conflicting principles and ideologies, such as big government versus small government or justice versus mercy. However, history has shown us that simply promoting a particular political dogma or principle is not always effective in solving complex problems.
Instead, we need to focus on developing effective processes that can mediate between competing principles and produce good results. Processes can help us identify objective criteria for decision-making, root out corruption and bribery, and promote domestic tranquility by ensuring our common defense.
For example, the scientific process involves formulating hypotheses based on observation, testing deductions through experimentation and measurement, and refining hypotheses based on experimental findings. Similarly, democracies rely on constitutions that outline processes for achieving principles such as justice and liberty.
Unfortunately, many political parties and special interest groups rely on ineffective processes, such as campaign contributions and TV commercials that oversimplify and misrepresent government actions. Instead, we need to move beyond political dogma and promote processes that produce good results and help us solve complex problems.
Democracy is a system for processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on the actions of participants, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. By focusing on effective processes rather than political dogma, we can build a better society that promotes the common good.
Rather than preaching political dogma, political parties should focus on supporting proven algorithms, processes, and rules that promote better thinking, debate, reasoning, and conclusions. These processes could include separation of powers, the scientific method, cost-benefit analysis, logic validation, bias removal, methods used in conflict resolution, voting reform, quality promotion, transparency, and deliberative democracy.
We need political parties to function as groups and organizations that compete with each other to promote better policies and demote bad policies. They should find solutions that work for everyone and set aside issues that will never be resolved in ways that promote peace, encourage dialogue and understanding, and leave everyone involved in the process satisfied.
The aim of this GitHub is to build an open-source forum that facilitates this process-based politics.
Political parties should focus on promoting decision-making processes and procedures instead of endorsing specific policies or dogmas. The Republican Party was intended to advance the process of representation, while the Democratic Party was meant to promote democracy, group participation, and crowdsourcing. However, these parties have become entrenched in dogma, with one advocating for big government and the other for small government, and one being pro-abortion and the other anti-abortion.
Instead, we need to agree on a process for evaluating the merits of different arguments. We have largely reached consensus on what makes a valid argument and developed methods for promoting consensus-building in conflict resolution. Now, we must build a forum that can implement this process automatically.
Decision-making processes could include separation of powers, the scientific method, cost-benefit analysis, logic validation, bias removal, conflict resolution methods, voting reform, quality promotion, transparency, and deliberative democracy. Political parties should strive to compete with one another to promote better policies, demote bad policies, and find solutions that work for everyone, or at least set aside issues that cannot be resolved in ways that promote peace, encourage dialogue and understanding, and leave all participants happier at the end of the day.
The goal of this GitHub is to build an open-source forum that enables and empowers effective decision-making processes.
It would be impractical to run Wikipedia using a pure direct-democracy model. For instance, requiring everyone to take a stance on every wording change to every article would be unworkable. Instead, Wikipedia allows individuals to contribute to the collective knowledge in their own time and manner. Similarly, the public cannot be expected to learn about and vote on every issue, but individuals should be able to promote public understanding of the best path forward as they see fit, much like how Wikipedia functions.
There simply isn't enough time and resources to thoroughly debate every issue all the time with everyone involved. To address this limitation, democracies have traditionally relied on representatives chosen by the public. However, the technology for crowdsourcing democracy was not available in the past.
Representative democracy is not inherently problematic, but we need political parties that prioritize data and follow it to determine the best course of action.