Forum Post: "Leaderless" concept is Ignorant Stupidity ... Leading to big Misses
Posted 12 years ago on May 29, 2012, 7:21 p.m. EST by lorlarz
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Occupy Wall Street: "Leaderless movement", MY ASS: You know what the evil power elite are thinking (as they LOL)?: "We've gotten them so stupid that they believe in magic." That's what. (This is another view I hold with confidence.) Too bad that OWS has been the only "game in town"; it IS where I have lain my hopes.
All that refusing to find leaders does is make you MISS things (big time).:
For example: Am I missing some news coverage?? How come I am not hearing anything about OCCUPY outside when fund-raisers are going on? Did OWS miss THIS sort of thing? (This is all not-okay, correct?)
And, finally, from http://99online.us:
As I look down the road and know that there are major elections in November (and some before), I can't help but keep asking myself: "When will people conclude that OCCUPY lacks vitality?". And, I cannot help but answer myself: "Certainly by November, unless the influence of Occupy is seen?". Am I likely incorrect about this, when I feel so certain this would be the time of judgment for Occupy? Am I wrong?
Five months is a very short time in such an arena.
(quote from article, http://mynichecomputing.org/drupal6/content/when-will-people-conclude-occupy-lacks-vitality )
we could stop dropping bombs today
You may want to check out http://the99percentvotes.com (http://the99vote.com). I recently launched this site and currently have 125 public policies proposed and ranked by the 99%. It's a scalable way for the 99% to develop and clarify policy objectives. I want the most popular ideas to become key points in the debate, and be adopted by candidates. Let me know what you think.
Sign up, Greg
I like this idea, but feel compelled to offer my thoughts and apprehensions. The thing about direct democracy is, if a society is unprepared for it, you tend to get poor and sloppy solutions. Ideas are not good merely by caveat of their popularity. Some of the most popular ideas in world history, have been completely wrong.
bah popularity is a broadcast brand
I think it's important for people to actually say what they'd want, even if it's not precise. It makes people think and helps clarify. Popularity is just one way of ranking the ideas. I will be interested to consider other ways.
A great way is the scientific method (at least as an addendum to popularism).
Would there be a way of incorporating aspects of the scientific method into a website like Greg created?
I think it might be better if there were a good process in place. I would think we'd start by identifying problems, then categorizing those problems, and developing an understanding of how those problems fit within the bigger picture.
The problems are identified to some extent by the category/subcategory taxonomy, without assuming the direction or specific of the desired change (that can be done by the ideas). I will try to improve and iterate the design as I go.
I think the system can be valuable in different ways over time. To begin, it is a place for the 99% to work out its policy agenda and influence the debate and candidates in 2012.
The third part of your comment is crucial, I think. I tend to agree with the crowd that has been pointing out the downsides of 'direct democracy,' although I haven't researched it yet. Thanks for this comment; it's got me thinking.
Don't get me wrong, direct democracy or anarchism (in the textbook sense) is a utopian ideal. Nevertheless, it's easy to see it leading to a bad slippery slope if it's done poorly. To begin with, you'd want the vast majority of society to agree (a very large undertaking in itself), you would want strong enough consensus where it's sustainable, and I don't think that can happen over a short period of time.
But, I think some aspects of direct democracy could be implemented without any disruption. For example, the right to hold recall elections (of any politician for any reason) exists in a small handful of states (at least with respect to state and local officials), and I think this could be expanded to all states (and made to include federal officials). This isn't a cure for all our ills, and we would need robust campaign finance laws before we even started thinking about this sort of thing (it's easy to see how it could be manipulated by money), but it's one idea that I think moves us a little bit in the right direction.
The idea to expand recall elections is an excellent idea. Definitely an idea who's time has come.
The policies are tagged to categories/subcategories and locations (and can be filtered as such), and ideas can be marked as related and show up on each other's pages. The communication process goes through argument/counterarguments and replies.
I think we need better journalism in this country. I'd like to hear about poor people from poor people, what does the building they live in look like, is it in good shape or is it run down, how sanitary and pleasant is their living space, what do they worry about when they step out the door, how do they perceive their circumstances, the circumstances of those around them, and numerous other things that I think many people would be interested in learning.
I think there two sides to this - (1) improving the communication structures to promote rationality and agreement, (2) beefing up the sophistication and optimization of the policies
I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities for more complicated communication structures that might promote rationality/agreement. Like tagging costs and benefits, estimating them, comparing values, registering when people change their mind, etc.
You can put site development ideas on dev.the99percentvotes.com. This is a very interesting topic.
I'm going to do a little research on the 'scientific method.' I'm also anxious to see what francismjenkins says here shortly. He's an intelligent man. I think you have a good thing going there, Gregg. I'm mulling some ideas around and will post them to your site if someone doesn't beat me to it.
Thanks. I'm interested in what francismjenkins says too.
See above. Especially that last part about understanding how the problems fit into the bigger picture. Could this be incorporated into your site?
Yes, there are possibilities. I've launched a version that has a fair bit of functionality, but I am looking to development further with others' input. Let me know if you have specific ideas for features.
I definitely will. I'm not sure if I said this before, but a number of people on this forum, me included, have expressed the need for a site where ideas could be collected and voted upon since sometime late last year. You've satisfied that need, so even if you did nothing else OWS-related, you've still made yourself a welcome asset.
Yes, thanks. I brought the idea to OWS in October, but it was difficult to coordinate so I completed it independently. The key thing is for it to be used widely.
I think it will as more people become aware of it. You might want to talk to richardgates about SEO, unless you know about it already.
Some help OccupyWallSt could provide:
Hmmm. Have you considered going to the various Occupy websites to see if they will link to your site? That would get a lot of exposure, I think.
How does one use the scientific method to achieve a democratic outcome? Is it about presenting people with technocratically optimized policies?
You can use the people's votes on policies to optimize platforms for candidates, i.e., suggest the platform likely to win them the most votes in their election.
You can use public opinion in a study (many scientific studies are done using surveys). Roughly speaking, start by identifying problems, categorize those problems, develop an understanding of how those problems fit in the big picture, etc., then you have data to work with. Obviously, to do a study of any real value, you'd need qualified people.
This sounds like something pretty different (more aristocratic). I think the value of the site is that it's pitched to everyone, it's easy to propose ideas and get feedback, and the content is curated / ranked in various ways. It hasn't existed, but it should. I think every political group should have one as a tool for their members to develop their platform.
It is, I guess, more like how university research is conducted (and anyway, I agree, your site probably wouldn't be a fit for this type of thing), but I wouldn't call it aristocratic. I don't even think scientific method can be defined in that way (although, I suppose people who have an appreciation for scientific method, are usually people who have some amount of scientific training).
But our hope should be that everyone is given the opportunity of a brilliant education.
The DNC and RNC are before November. Lets see who is lacking vitality then.
What do you want to see happen in the November elections, and why do you see Occupy as having no vitality?
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