> And rather than showing the messages that divided each of the four groups, Pol.is simply made them invisible.<p>This seems like a good way to find <i>some</i> initiatives through consensus. The main mechanism seems to be giving a "conversational veto" to everyone in the discussion. A "let's move on" button, basically.<p>I find that very interesting. It would certainly help with concerns that "my legislature does <i>nothing</i>". It might actually be an interesting mechanism for legislatures themselves to deploy internally to set agendas, though it would necessarily weaken the power of the factions that actually set legislative agendas (the majority party, the majority leader, etc.).<p>On the other hand, giving a strong and hidden minority veto also doesn't seem to help with the issues that actually divide citizens.<p>- Would not talking about Brexit anymore actually help the U.K.?<p>- Should the U.S. Congress not pass a budget anymore, to avoid balancing it?<p>- Maybe all legislatures agree to broadly humane treatment for refugees, but how would they agree on healthy <i>levels</i> and <i>categories</i> of immigration?<p>- The biggest divisive issue in the U.S might actually be abortion, which generally isn't debated so much as such. It's also clear that not addressing the issue isn't making the underlying problems go away.<p>- More broadly, would the U.S. have <i>ever</i> done anything significant about civil rights if consensus was required first?<p>EDIT: Maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic about civil rights... the constitutional amendment process <i>does</i> require two kinds of consensus for ratification. And many amendments did deal with civil rights.
For more context on the Polis platform, watch "Clojure on the cyberpunk frontier of democracy" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tBVMAm0-00" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tBVMAm0-00</a>
I found it quite interesting that they removed the reply button. Afaik HN also has a limited reply button - there is no notification attached to it. This discourages talk/debate like discussion (lack of personal reaction) and encourages more a discourse style interaction around the facts.
Unlike social media, traditional media "generates" opinion <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democracy,_media,_and_money" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democr...</a>
Gamified Nuance. What a brilliant idea.<p>I don't know if this particular design will work but I expect to see a lot more attempts now that the idea has entered the public consciousness.<p>Current social networks are gamified for virality which implicitly rewards the lack of nuance. So statements that are as short, simple, and wrong as possible will spread faster within the supporters while encouraging flaming from the opposition. This is such an inherent property of every social network in existence that I didn't even realize fixing it was an option.
I am very much convinced —have been for about a decade— that this is the general way to go. To fundamentally give democracy to people in a much more direct fashion, a peer-to-peer design true to what democracy actually is. Starting with the local / small issues (if resistance is met at the top, unlike the Taiwainese example it seems).
It's funny I just thought about this yesterday. "What if my smartphone loses network connectivity. How many apps on it will stop working? 95%? I miss the old days when storing and processing my personal data was done 100% on my own devices. Sharing that data with others wasn't really a problem and people had websites as always accessible billboards where they presented themselves as well." Sure the social media "network" aspect wasn't there, but it wouldn't be impossible to achieve that today while the bulk of the data resides on people's own devices.<p>Ever since the shift of storing the user's data not on their devices but in the cloud and ever since rendering ad blockers useless by tailoring not just the ads but the actual content towards the user's behavior and biases, the internet has gone down the drain. And more and more people are fed up with it.<p>Societies can be "hacked" via social media, that technology is out there and it is being used not only by superpowers like the US or Russia, but also by political actors in smaller countries like Myanmar or Ethiopia. People die. Mobs incited by fake news campaigns on Facebook kill people. Elections get hacked, not by manipulating voting machines but by manipulating people's minds using the same technology advertisers use. That's some scary stuff. Social Media manipulation is the nuclear bomb of the early 21st century, it's that hot new weapon every sleazy political actor wants to get their hands on. And so we are in a new Cold War, actually it's many cold wars. Unlike the one in the 50s-80s these new ones are invisible and don't feel as scary, which makes them... more scary?! Weapons of mass propaganda... we have to take action to render them useless by abonding social networks and cloud services as we know them today. But that can only happen with a better replacement that's harder to manipulate and that has a higher incentive to be used by the masses.<p>Without an internet connection your smartphones and even your PC becomes either almost completely or at least partially useless. That is not scary because we have to fear network issues or censorship but it's scary because it means so much of the information acquisitioning and processing is out of our control. Modern devices are perfectly capable of handling all the user's data and then some, they have the storage capacity and they have the processing power, the only reason the cloud still exists for end user's is because analyzing everyone's data makes them money.<p>And you can't even blame developers and companies jumping on this bandwaggon. Everyone else does it, the tools are out there, ready to be used, and that sweet ad money pays the bills or the investor's demand it because they think that sweet ad money will reimburse their investment.<p>But is it ethical? Hell no!<p>It seems like nobody is thinking about putting that processing power and that storage capacity that people own in their pockets to use. I welcome the initiatives that do exist, but I feel like that only something massive, something disruptive can change that.