[Xaoc]

Hi there.

I assume that some among you are familiar to this idea but still I will try to explain it for those how are not and start good debate about it ( I hope ).

It is in theory a form of "direct democracy". Here are links to pdf that explain some aspects of it.
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UNPAN/UNPAN011094.pdf
http://www.gw.utwente.nl/vandijk/research/e_government/e_government_plaatje/models_of_democracy1.pdf

It seems that this two guys, Jan A.G.M. van Dijk and Ken Hackers are most in to it in their works.
There is also a book on Amazon "Digital Democracy: Issues of Theory and Practice", their writing and quite expensive one.
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Now, lets get to it.

In this approach to "governing" there are three major ideas.

>>1st. Ideological - We, the individuals are in full control of decision making and proposing. What gives us this unique opportunity is Internet. Institution of parlament is in the virtual sphere of internet. So there we participate in decision making without any form of representatives. As that song go's " I got the power! ".

Now there is huge range of problems that arise from this, from education, responsibility to "digital divide" etc.

So...

>>2th. Practical - Institution of prlament, senat or union is extended into virtual world. There we have representatives and active citizens that had passed the "test's" (found around knowledge of politics, history etc.)
This two forces are balanced around veto's and priority's as they both participate in decision making and are quite different in numbers. (roughly, at least ten citizens on one representative!)

>>3th. Illusionist - Parlament is what it is today, only its own decisions and proposals are "transparent" and more "public" than before. Like "your voice in Europe" of EU. You can find all about it on net.

So in generally this is it.
I hope we can now start some debate on this subject and try to evolve it into something usable.

There are some problems which I came up with thinking about it:
- Digital divide
- human rights ( as this way we are forming new elite of citizens and philosophical approach leads to evaluate this )
- bureaucracy
- impact on society
- impact on international relationship
- impact on economy
- corporations ( if we assume it will not destroy free market it could make company more dependent on state, if we rise the salary )
- socialism
- anarchy
- science

Thank you on your opinions.

[Xaoc]

A long time ago, in a world far away in space-time continuum, there was an age beyond our imagination, a world full of magic and strange occurrences.
This was a place of Gods whom walked upon the earth with power unimaginable to mortal human beings. Those mammals, our ancestors where loaded with fear toward this unthinkable power. They bones tremble at mention of immortal names of Gods.
In short, they where asses full of fear.

But among them walked handful of brave warriors and one, very important for our story, carried the name of Plato.

Ancient Athena.

This strange person forged therm non as direct democracy. And people started to rule their small city together, without kings etc. But this wasn't age of information. What this means is that time necessary for information to travel distance bigger then this small city would be too great for this principle to be effective. And they where conquered.

A time passed and another people in another place had stepped into democracy. Difference was that this was big empire and they had printing press. So information was now available to bigger number of people. They where French and they had representatives.

Now, story has come to us. We are born into information age, an age where information circles around the globe in a split of a second. We who call our self with prefix Cyber.
As this is our time, our age, our part of space-time continuum we must unite towards our common goal of grabbing the power of Gods and rule with absolute confidence. Together we are one.
We are one because of our collective virtuality, our common soul determined to evolve. We are what we are; a new breed of wo/man.
In our own time, Gods have changed their titles into representatives, they have become corrupt, inefficient and they do not acknowledge our need for progress.
Our souls are stuck in diarrhea of their childish politics.
But we hold the tool of destruction in our own essence, internet, requiem for their death.
Internet, one tool that will resurrect Plato's idea and bring us to new form of direct democracy; Cyberdemocracy, a global solution.
As we hold the flow of information, our new idea will come to the masses, all of those whom have determined to fight for better world.
Our echo shall bring it to them, in a split of a second as they are one click a way from us.

And cyberevolution shall begun.

Now, you must ask yourself; what is this Cyberdemocracy?

It is a new system of governing, forged in virtual space. It gives you a chance to be more than just a citizen. It gives you and me, us all, a power to rule upon our society. New way for our voices not just to be heard but to be recon with. This is our last chance to save our self and our planet, our jewel which spins around in kozmos, holding essence of our life. A chance to step into eternity.
It is our destiny to become more then organic shell full of shit.
You must decide. Use your imagination, your gift of consciousness, on what this new system is and what are its possibilities.
Do you want someone to rule in your name? Do you want this someone to say in your name to you what you must do and even; what you are.

Be a human, my friend, act upon it and time will come when we shall redirect quotes of those kind of selfish degenerated bedlamites: " What do I care for your suffering?"

[Anor]

Ancient Athena.

This strange person forged therm non as direct democracy. And people started to rule their small city together, without kings etc. But this wasn't age of information. What this means is that time necessary for information to travel distance bigger then this small city would be too great for this principle to be effective. And they where conquered.

A time passed and another people in another place had stepped into democracy. Difference was that this was big empire and they had printing press. So information was now available to bigger number of people. They where French and they had representatives.

Too many inconsistencies here.

1. Ancient Athena was a place of a very limited period of Anarchy (anarchy in Greek means = lack of Authorities) where each person could develope/grow and self-limit his individual under the prism of the common good. As we all know this is not something easy to achieve as each person , tends to want more possesion or wishes to enforce his authority over others. This paradox though worked for almost a century and this was the 5th b.C. age where philosophy, science and arts blossomed. A direct result of the citizens personality development. But this had a draw back. SInce most of the rest of the world and in definition.. Sparta.. had regimes or a social structure based on militarism , Athens did not have what it was taking to confront them in battles where "team spirit" is always better.

2. The next "democracy" was the one happened in Rome which came out of a mixture between Sparta's and Athen's political systems. A very good , modern and well functioning copy of this you can find in US political system.. where Kongress = Senators of Rome and so on.
In France it was not a democracy.. it was a mob's rebelion which throw down the Aristocracy.. right after that , since there was a lack of political system, Napoleon's dictatorship took over.

3. To the whole Cyber world thing now.

Information indeed travels faster and this helps in communication , information, and so on. But when it comes on enforcing a general structure that will work for the participants in that, you also need to establish rules and politics. For instance this forum has some rules to establish a good and smooth function which we all need to uphold. There is also a "punishment" if you violate them. Same goes with almost all IM messagers servers.

The idea of the autonomous individual that will uphold and restrain himself in favor of the common good is not valid even on the web, if you add hackers/crackers/crime in the picture. Internet is nothing more than a virtual image of our society. With all the good and bad in it. The only thing that balances that and we are able to feel more free is the lack of central control and authority. Which to my dislike (and many others i believe) will soon change as things go forth into the future.

So internet may be a place to feel free, share info , avoid sensorship maybe , but under no circumstances is a place to declare "Open Democracy".

Anor

[MB.]

This thread has nothing to do with Technocracy.