Post in CivicEvolution - pushing information up to the meta teams

Feb 17 05:26 UTC

Ron Lubensky wrote:
> But I don't agree that CE should generate a constellation of
> documents that require aggregation through explicit voting. As a
> medium for online deliberation, I don't believe that CE should be
> fundamentally based on the primary tool of majoritarianism, that being
voting.

Is it voting, Ron, that ought not to be fundamental?  Or is it
majoritarianism?  Voting is fundamental, certainly.  Without voting,
it would be impossible to quantify the consensus.  (One consensus, one
position, would be just as good as another.)  And consensus is the
primary aim of the process, I assume.

Majoritarianism is unwanted, I agree.  Wherever it occurs, it can only
hurt consensus formation.  If a majority, for example, were to
suppress the voices of a dissenting minority, the discussion could no
longer proceed on a rational footing.  In the process I proposed,
majoritarianism cannot occur.  No majority ever overrules a minority,
and all minority decisions (even individual decisions) are immediately
actionable.  Further, no minority action can ever be erased, or
undone, except by the actor herself. (No other collaborative medium
offers such strong protections of minorities, as does recombinant
text.  It was originally designed for creative artists.)

However, in your design sketch for CivicEvolution, there are places
where majoritarianism threatens.  There any places, for example, where
a majority overrules a minority, and the process then moves on to the
next stage.  In moving on, if the minority position is then untenable
(unactionable) it is effectively suppressed.  And if a majority (or
agent of the majority) can erase the work of a minority, then this is
suppression, too.  CivicEvolution definitely favours *action* by the
majority.  Actions of the majority are favoured in the elevation of
content and actors to the meta-levels.  This is not allowed to the
minority.  This is one place (fundamental to your process) where
majoritarianism holds sway.

> Also, participants need to feel comfortable with the process and
> their place in it. If it feels instead like a competitive
> "marketplace of ideas", we will see aggressive behaviour that will
> threaten the inclusive ideal of the system.

I agree, and for additional reasons.  I agree, because an unforced
consensus depends on rational discourse (as we are enjoying here).
And rational discourse could not be maintained if the discussion were
to become tainted by economic interests (as one finds in a competitive
marketplace, or in the headquarters of a political party).  Nor could
rational discourse be maintained if the discussion were to be
manipulated by political powers (as one finds in the administration of
a government, or a business firm).

The process I suggested is free of economic interests, of course.
True, there is a competition among ideas.  But the basis of that
competition is *reason*.  As long as no external forces interfere with
the discussion, then it will be more-or-less rational (depending on
the capabilities of the participants).  In the normal course of that
discussion, ideas that are reasonable will out-compete those that are
unreasonable.  (I have the impression that you hope CivicEvolution
will foster a similar competition.)

As well, the process I suggested is free from political power.  There
is no scope for coercion through the exercise of authority,
priveledge, group pressure, and so forth.

However, this last point is not true of CivicEvolution.  Your design
sketch appears to be that of a virtual bureacracy, organized for the
manufacture of an artificial consensus.  I say 'artificial', because
it will be influenced by the management hierarchy; it will be
influenced by the administrative rules, and the privledges of the
specialized members; and it will be influenced, especially, by
pressures to conform with the team.  Individual members will be
reluctant to hold up the work of the team, even when they disagree
with it.  (If a participant feels like a member of a bureacracy, or
like a worker on an assembly line, then she'll rush to finish the job.
Other considerations will take a backseat.)

The process I suggested is, I think, a viable alternative to your own
design sketch.  It is also radically different, which makes the
comparison interesting.