Building consensus online
From:
Michael Allan
Date:
Feb 02 09:23 UTC
Short link
On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 12:54:55AM -0500, Lucas Cioffi wrote:
> I think these answers might help us put this conversation in context:
> -What is the largest *offline *consensus ever reached?
> -What is the largest *online* consensus ever reached?
(I've been reading up on this, so I'll try an answer from the book.)
Offline, the numbers are large because consensus is actually at the
root of society. We agree on common frames of reference, and they
define a big chunk of our social world. What's interesting is *how*
we come to agree, because we're never forced into it. We remain free
to test the limits, or even to ignore them in favour of eccentric
alternatives. Consensus is therefore tentative, and must continually
be renewed. It is renewed (according to social theory) through
discourse.
So, our tools/media for building consensus will follow this example,
and facilitate:
1) never ending, continual discourse
> A hypothetical question: how many citizens would have to agree to a single
> health care plan in a country of 300 million in order for the mainstream
> media or politicians to pay attention? Are we talking 1 thousand, 1
> million, 10 million, or more?
Those numbers would tell more to a technician (like me) than to a
politician. We know that health care concerns are nearly universal,
so the numbers could only be telling us about the popularity of the
process/medium in which people were being asked to participate. So:
2) open to all, inviting
(The numbers that a politician would need are the proportions for and
against. She would also look for patterns of disagreement, and
ultimately the reasons. Then she'd figure out what to do, and where
to lead.)
> Or does the mere fact that this consensus
> happened on the Internet prevent any chance of credibility with "real"
> people? I hope not, but I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.
Right, because we're interested in real consensus, not 'virtual'. For
credibility, we'd need to bind online actions to real people.
Votorola (for example) uses authenticated voter lists, in which online
identity (email address) is tied to name and street address.
3) authentic, credible, verifiable results
Finally, in addition to the possibility of consensus, there must be an
incentive to actually acheiving it. The politician goes to work
online; building bridges, enlarging her constituency, and moving
interests closer to action. (In my last post, D plays the role of a
politician.) And the voters want action on their interests, of
course, so the politician need only show them the way forward.
4) action on the consensus
Action would naturally follow. Any consensus on policy that emerged
from an open process (and was able to maintain itself) would find
support from candidates in the next election.
I think only Steven Clift, David Newman, and now I (in my previous
post) have proposed full outlines. My own proposal is somewhat
radical, but does anyone see a fault with it? I'm open to advice and
criticism.