Help with Idea / Democratic Party - Internet - New Technology

[Alan Silverman]

Dear Christine, Birgitt, Jim, BJ, Michael,

Thank you for your responses.

I guess my idea has always been to create a type of virtual Open Space.
Virtual, because of my experience at IBM. Commuting hours a day to do
the same work I could do at home seemed so foolish. (I was in software
support.)

Having to physically travel to a specific place to participate in a
process, this immediately cuts out almost everyone - the disabled, the
poor, the dying, 99.9% of all of us,  from participation.  Which serves
the individuals who control powerful institutions.  I want a virtual
Washington D.C., a virtual UN.  I think it can be done, with specific
technologies.

I appreciate your responses.  But I feel some were really saying:  “Do
this instead”.  Or “No, that can’t be done”.  These are valid responses,
but should be said with a full understanding of what I’m saying.
Harrison came closest to understanding, but I had to clarify a key
point:  Convincing the Democratic Party is not necessary for the idea to
work.

“Is this what you mean?” 
  “Or is it this?” 
 “This might be a better
way....”
The role of listener, understander, interpreter for other’s ideas is
very important.

A few more things, before I go into my letter.  First, key to my system
of thought is trying to imagine all the ways something might possibly
work, before saying it won’t.  Second, although I do have the writer’s
horror of  having my ideas stolen, I also have a rather loose sense of
ownership.  I’m not saying ‘help me with my idea’ so much as ‘take it,
work with it, make it your own, whatever part, as much or little, as you
want.”  Third, content is important to me, not form.  If you can say it
better, then say it.  Take what I write, move it, slice it, dice it.
That’s the beauty of software.  Fourth, it doesn’t matter who you are or
where you come from.  Christine from Australia, if you understand what
I’m saying and can help create it, do so.  Anything, just referring an
idea to someone else, can help.  Think down the line.

Now I’m being wordy. I don’t want to be wordy.  I want to boil things
down to their essence, else the core objective be lost.

1. My goal is to create and legitimize a virtual institution where
everyone can input their ideas and join to create solutions, not fuzzy
solutions but very specific well thought out solutions, to specific
problems.  I believe the technology now exists to accomplish this.

2. I believe that at this specific time, right now, if we can find the
right words to express this, and find the right people to champion the
idea, and place those words in the right place, we have a decent chance
of creating such an institution.  This is worth trying.

I’m going to throw down my words, like characters on a Ouija board,
hoping they take shape and become something.  Don’t be too respectful
of  specific words.  They are just words, after all.

Thank you.
Alan

Letter I began to write:

Over the past few years I have created innovative solutions for the
Democratic Party, concise well articulated plans with a high degree of
granularity, intended to address specific problems. Since I worked as a
software engineer at IBM, many of these ideas dealt with the Internet
and new technologies, areas where I felt the Democratic Party could use
assistance.

At different times I presented these ideas in softcopy, hardcopy and in
person, to various arms of the DNC and individuals within the party, to
committees and liberal think tanks, and our elected officials.  Because
these were good ideas well presented, they were discussed, sometimes at
length, before each idea finally disappeared, swallowed up by that great
confused institution, the Democratic Party.

There is no lack of good ideas in America.  We have a wealth of
intelligent creative individuals.  But no mechanism exists to gather
innovative ideas, refine them into concrete solutions, and then feed
those solutions to the Democratic leadership for implementation.  If it
did exist, such a mechanism would invigorate the Democratic Party and
the American political system as a whole.

The problem is finding a process to efficiently gather and sort ideas,
winnow out good from bad, and then  create solutions.  This is the type
of problem I began working on at IBM in 1988, also the first year I
worked on the Internet.

The Internet is another great confused institution, implicitly
democratic, offering enormous possibilities,  but containing too much
information too easily created, and only with difficulty appraised.  The
difference between this and the problems we faced at IBM are more of
scope than of kind.

The solution lay within a matrix of four technological groups:

1. The Internet, search engines, sorting programs, heuristics.
2. Huge data bases, cheap data storage, data mining.
3. Digital signatures, encryption programs.
4. Moderated forums.

With these technologies we can build a forum where groups of individuals
can create intelligent solutions to better our party, our nation, and
our world.  This open forum, open to anyone with access to the Internet,
open in the fact that the discussions, this solution manufacturing
process, would be in plain view, thus mitigating against the back room
deals that often dominate politics.

The forums would be moderated and structured, not free form. Each
discussion would constitute communities of individuals most
knowledgeable in specific areas and most passionate about specific
problems, joining together from wherever they live, to break complex
problems into simple ones, attacking these simple problems in parallel.

Get the very best people, no matter where they live and who they are,
working together. Ultimately these are the people who should create
actual policy and suggest solutions.  The Democratic Party is the right
group to sponsor such a forum and champion its solutions.  This may be
the only way we can compete with the Republican Party, which has more
money and better organization than we.

(Al:   OK, this is where it peters out.

Question:

Is it too pedantic, stiff, self-important?  Does it matter I was at
IBM?  Does this technological connection lend some credence? Mention
Google somewhere?  Hot item now. When Google made it to the cover of
Newsweek magazine, I thought, ‘of course, if Google can cull 3 billion
web pages and organize them to give you the web pages you want, we can
do the same, matching idea and people together.’

But I don’t want to just give Google the ‘contract’.  It is most
efficient to find things which already exist, people who have already
plotted out implementations to an idea.  They are out there, for
virtually any idea or concept, quickly plugged into specific tasks.  But
at every level, task
 the  actual implementation must be left to the
best possible solution in competition with all other like solutions.
The best as judged by ones peers, those individuals most knowledgeable
about that specific area.  BJ, I think this is your distinction between
‘citizen democracy’ and ‘direct democracy’.)

Further wisps, some dealing with actual implementation, which needn’t be
in the letter:

The problem with “innovation” in business movements of the 1990’s, came
from three facts.  1. An idea created by one individual could be easily
stolen by  others.  2. Innovative ideas were submitted through a
hierarchy of management people not capable of understanding or adding to
the idea, and usually hostile to new ideas in general, since new ways of
doing things endanger their own positions.   3.  With software it’s so
easy to generate ideas, most of them impractical.  Assessing, grading,
and sorting them was simply too expensive.   Output generally didn’t
justify cost.

Now, with the availability of digital signatures, dependable encryption
programs, and cheap data storage, literally every discussion could be
documented and archived in total.  There would be no debate who first
came up with a suggestion and whose input was critical to its final
form.   But the great weight of output could also be inexpensively
sorted and grouped.

This would represent both democracy and capitalism at its very best.
Protocols would be developed to view ideas and refine them efficiently.
Heuristic searching, sorting, and summarizing programs make this
possible.

>From a country of 270 million, or a world of 6 billion, there is almost
always someone who really sees what’s going on. The problem is finding
that person and helping them refine that idea into a solution.

For instance, it seems apparent that an FBI agent in Phoenix and others
in Minnesota were on the track of the 911 terrorists. Undoubtedly many
other  individuals in other branches of the U.S. government also knew
something was up.  But hierarchical institutions and organizations, such
as the FBI, and the Republican Party, are not good at finding this type
of person and putting her/him together with other people individuals who
can reasonably assess the value of their ideas, so they may begin to
work together to create solutions. Perhaps more accurately, these
institutions are not good at allowing such people to find each other and
work together.

(too preachy and self-involved? I think so.  But the 911 stuff could
touch a nerve.)

The immediate question at hand is ‘what should the Democratic Party do
in light of successful Republican strategy?” That’s the button to push,
the hook. Do we push it accusingly, saying they’ve failed the Democratic
electorate?  Helpfully? as a challenge? I don’t know.

In the long run, I think one of the most important things the Democratic
Party could offer in competition with the Republicans, is giving all
(frustrated creative) people the chance to have their ideas seen and
used.  But to give you an idea what I’m thinking, following are specific
examples of the uses of such forums


(*** Important aside:  The above two paragraphs will be the last time
you hear me say:
 “I don’t know”

“But to give you an idea what I’m thinking”

“I think
”
If you do see these statements, please delete them from my writing.

I’m not a great believer in certainty.  “I think”, “I believe”, “I don’t
know for sure” are implied in my every statement.  But saying so makes
for  impossible reading.)

Forum examples:

1. Suppose there is need for a  policy decision concerning how farmers
should irrigate fields in the mountains of Peru.  I give this example
because I remember reading something about this in a back issue of
Natural History magazine.

I’m willing to bet there are at least three dozen people who know more
about these fields, farmers, and land use than anyone else in the world,
all the implications, connections, and complications.  If a U.S. policy
decision were ever needed concerning this (I leave it to your
imagination why there might be need for such a decision), these are the
people who should make it, or at least be party to making it.

This may seem inconsequential, but great disasters come from seemingly
inconsequential decisions. The complexity and size of our world leaves
open the opportunity for individuals and groups to secretly push their
own agendas, to the detriment of all. Computer data bases have an
unparalleled ability to model reality, to track the exact status, in
real time, of things which might otherwise fall between the cracks.

2.  At least 50 people in the world today have thought of the idea which
I am discussing here, all aspects, from the technologies involved to the
structures of forums and rules and protocols to governing them.
Together we could quickly refine the idea, break it down into
constituent parts, then  solve these as separate problems.

When I was working at IBM there was always someone somewhere who ‘knew’.
Of course you could figure out what they knew, but that might take days.
But if instead you found that person, and got the answer, the tiny bit
of information necessary to send the project forward, it might take her
or him only a minute.

Because I thought of certain ideas, it doesn’t mean I’m the best person
to organize them into an essay, write them down, etc.  I want to own
those ideas and get credit for them.  But I don’t want to ‘own’ the
whole.  I want to give ownership away, to all the people who best know
how to accomplish what should be accomplished, with each person getting
credit for the actual value of their input.

Any project can be broken down into segments.  This project:
1. Base ideas
2. Write essay
3. Round up prominent support
4. Place in prominent venue.

Each is the basis for miniforums.

What it comes down to is that already all the right answers are out
there somewhere.  All we must do is find them, create a forum for the
people who understand them, then use them, while crediting all those who
deserve credit for a solution.  This will constitute a great worldwide
institution.  The key is to legitimize the institution and the solutions
it proposes.

The people who should pose solutions are the community of all
individuals in the world most knowledgeable in certain specific areas
and most passionate about shared ideas.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

BJ Peters wrote:
>
> Alan-- Thanks for your contribution! I agree with Birgitt, particularly
> on the coast to coast meetings. I was part of an event in Phoenix that
> had Christopher Gates, President of the National Civic League as the
> keynote speaker. He did a marvelous job of talking about the need for
> what he calls "citizen democracy" - people coming together to engage in
> civic dialogue, decision making and action on public policy issues
> (sounds like a call for open space to me). He drew a line with
> "representative democracy" (not working so well these days) at one end,
> "direct democracy" - using the internet to obtain citizen input (votes)
> at the other end, and "citizen democracy" in the middle. His take (and I
> agree) is that "direct democracy" by itself is not the panacea some are
> touting. It's the community and "fire" of dialogue, decision and actions
> that we need.
>
> BJ Peters
>
> Birgitt Williams wrote:
>
> >Hi Alan,
> >I smiled when I read your exuberance about doing something to move the
> >democratic party forward. I encourage you to consider why it might work a
> >lot better to use OST either coast to coast meetings or the OS-online
> >software to gather more than ideas. I believe step one of your plan will
> >generate ideas much as in a brainstorming, but that does not build the
> >community and the passion.
> >
> >Birgitt
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> >Silverman
> >Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 7:28 AM
> >To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> >Subject: Help with Idea / Democratic Party - Internet - New Technology
> >
> >First I want to say hello and tell you how happy I am to be here.
> >I feel that I am at home.
> >
> >I worked at IBM in large systems networking, data storage and I/O.
> >At IBM there were not many people like me, both highly technical
> >and politically liberal, creative, spiritual. I left there in 1999.
> >Now there still aren't many people like me, with my technical
> >expertise and a deep understanding of how the new technologies
> >can transform society.
> >
> >I'm working on an important idea, part of a matrix of ideas
> >I've pondered for a long time.
> >
> >Steps:
> >
> >1. Write an  "Open Letter to the Democratic Party", the gist being
> >that, considering outcomes of the past two elections, the Democratic
> >National Committee should ask Democratic voters and the American
> >people: "What should we do now?"
> >
> >The ideas will be submitted, discussed, and refined on Internet
> >forums. People from anywhere can join. The goal being to create
> >innovative solutions, concise well articulated plans with a high
> >degree of granularity, intended to address specific problems faced
> >by the Democratic Party and America.
> >
> >2. Once the letter is written, get prominent individuals to
> >sponsor the idea.
> >
> >3. With their sponsorship, publish the letter in the NY Times
> >or some like venue (Solon Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly?)
> >
> >The letter describes in detail the confluence of four technologies
> >making it possible to gather ideas together and quickly refine those
> >ideas into solutions.  The final technological key is digital
> >certificates, also called digital signatures.
> >
> >In the short term we use this forum, these technologies, to figure
> >out what the Democrats must do in light of the past two elections.
> >
> >In the long term it will answer the question, "Who should be making
> >decisions and creating policy". The answer being:  "Whomever has the
> >best solution," with everyone getting an equal shot and the process
> >itself being out in the open for everyone to see.
> >
> >The Democratic Party is in crisis. If we step in and say, "We have
> >the solution to your problem", it will work. It must work, because
> >this is the democratic solution. If we don't say this now the
> >Democratic Party will surely move in a different direction.
> >
> >I have written a lot already. Should I just put it all up here for
> >analysis and discussion?
> >
> >Thank you,
> >Alan Silverman
> >http://thefuturevision.virtualave.net/
> >
> >Ps.  You may also want to look at
> >http://www.hf.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/hnctt/get/show106/19.html?nogifs
> >
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