Forum Post: Phase 1: Occupy. Phase 2: Unify.

One of the major issues with OWS is the difficulty of directing a leaderless movement. Coincidentally, one of the goals of OWS is to allow more participation from the populace while limiting the scope of the elected leaders who seem to be acting in their own self-interest. These goals are parallel.

A big question everybody should be asking themselves is - why is this happening now? Why not after the dot-com crash, or right after the crash and subsequent bailouts in ’08? This is a completely organic movement - the reason it is only now beginning to come to fruition in a global sense is that the enabling communication methods have only recently become widely adopted. A pre-Internet world is not sufficiently capable of enabling the democratization of power beyond a strict representative democracy.

In order to accommodate the transition from a representative to a more direct democracy, an apparatus must be created to enable the entire populace to participate in a meaningful and efficient manner. Additionally, if such an apparatus could be used as the mechanism of direct democracy, it could also be used to bring about direct democracy by utilizing the combined insight and brainpower of a large number of people.

Let me first draw your attention to the parallel between a direct democracy and the Internet platform “Wikipedia.” As one people, we have created the most complete collection of cataloged knowledge in the history of mankind - immediately accessible with a tap on a screen. No small feat. But in another sense, it was simple. It’s certainly easier to be the person who adds a few lines of pertinent information to an article than it is to be the editor working nine-to-five at the Encyclopedia Britannica. So what is actually happening here? It all comes down to what mankind has been good at for millennia: division of labor and specialization. Now what we need to do is create the Wikipedia of social participation.

To accomplish this, the nature of its feedback loop is key. Every process of evolution runs on a unique and optimized feedback loop. Biological evolution relies on scarcity of resources and the suitability of an organism to its environment. Technological evolution relies on usefulness to humans, feasibility and the free market. The evolution of Internet memes relies on novelty and the desire to share with others. Adoption of the positive changes, dismissal of the negative - that’s all it is. The feedback loop defines and determines the result.

Wikipedia’s feedback loop is incredibly open-ended. Anybody can add, edit or delete whatever they like. So what makes it work despite its lack of specificity? The answer is that Wikipedia runs on a feedback loop of truth and objectivity. Everybody knows what an encyclopedia is supposed to be - everybody understands the end-game. With known facts, there is one ‘right’ answer that everybody is working toward. And where there are conflicting or ambiguous ‘facts’ - that’s where Wikipedia’s system breaks down (or acknowledges a discrepancy). The system works without a curated feedback loop because truth is generally universal, and the people act as the feedback loop, not the website.

Here’s the problem: This method of completely open participation will not work for evolving subjective material. Wikis are not equipped to deal with concepts such as ‘writing a law,’ or ‘how to best solve the energy crisis,’ because they require everybody to agree on something that has no obvious objective answer. However, while we can’t get everybody to agree on each proposal, we can use a voting system to find the majority opinion. This unifies the feedback loop, guiding the evolution of each project as a function of the people’s will, working together in concert as a sort of hive mind. For each individual proposal, there must be a general consensus in order to adopt an edit, resulting in a net positive change (however slight) in the eyes of the voters. Left over a period of time, the end result should be something, like any existing collaborative creation, that could not be built by just one of its participants.

To summarize, I believe this type of crowdsourced apparatus is the most appropriate, and possibly the only, way to transition to a system of direct democracy. In a way, this is what the internet is for: directly collaborating on ideas while filtering the bad suggestions from the good. If any of this resonates with you, please do not hesitate to ask more questions or join in. If you want details, I’ve got them. If not, then enjoy the rest of your day and thank you for hearing me out.