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Alan-- This is quite good - succinct, clear, pointed. I hope you send it!
--BJ<br>
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Alan Silverman wrote:<br>
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<pre wrap="">Sometimes one only need know that a listening ear exists.<br>I woke up this morning and wrote the following. What do you think?<br><br>An Open Letter to the Democratic Party:<br><br>Friends,<br>The past two elections have seemed nothing short of disaster for<br>Democratic voters like myself. There is no need for specifics, who or<br>what might be to blame. Enough has already been written about that.<br>Rather I want to pose a solution which should be acceptable to all<br>Democrats, a solution based in my own experience and technical<br>background.<br><br>I want to help create an Internet forum where everyone's voice may be<br>heard, where the very best ideas America has to offer can be brought up,<br>discussed, then turned into real solutions which benefit all Americans.<br><br>There is no lack of good ideas in America. We have a wealth of<br>intelligent creative individuals. But no mechanism exists to gather<br>innovative ideas, refine them into concrete
solutions, then offer these<br>solutions to our leaders for implementation.<br><br>A forum of 270 million people may sound impossible. It is not. At IBM<br>I worked in technical areas involving networks and data base. If the<br>Google search engine can process over three billion web pages, then find<br>and group precise ones we are looking for, I assure you that our forum<br>can do the same. The key is putting individuals together who share<br>ideas, people knowledgeable enough in specific areas to say if an idea<br>might work, then together turn these ideas into viable solutions.<br><br>If such a mechanism did exist, it would invigorate the Democratic Party<br>and the American political system as a whole. I offer my assistance in<br>this task.<br><br>Thank you and warm regards,<br><br>Alan Silverman<br>Innovative Technical Solutions<br>Stone Ridge, NY<br><br><br><br>Skaparlust wrote:<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">Dear Alan,<br>Here is a link to the Swedish government web page with a summary of the<br>extensive report on A sustainable democracy, which was published 2000.<br><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.demokratitorget.gov.se/pdf/sustainable_democracy/pdf">www.demokratitorget.gov.se/pdf/sustainable_democracy/pdf</a><br>It talks a lot about deliberative democracy and the role of the people. You<br>might find something useful there. After that came a proposition from the<br>government, of which I have not found a translation.<br>Another web page which has a lot of interesting papers on deliberative<br>democracy is <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.co-intelligence.org">www.co-intelligence.org</a>.<br>Good luck and greetings from<br><br>Agneta Falk...<br>...who is passionately interested in democratic procedures and values.<br>I am currently looking into what the systemic worldview has to offer in ways<br>of expanding the definitio
n of democracy and what practical implications it<br>can present.<br><br>----- Original Message -----<br>From: "Alan Silverman" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:asilverman@hvc.rr.com"><asilverman@hvc.rr.com></a><br>To: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU"><OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU></a><br>Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 9:46 AM<br>Subject: Re: Help with Idea / Democratic Party - Internet - New Technology<br><br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">Birgitt, Mike,<br>Thank you so much.<br><br>Are there any editors or writers out there, who can help me write an<br>absolutely clear brilliant essay/letter? Or perhaps you know someone<br>else to refer me to?<br><br>Thanks again,<br>Al<br><br><br><br>Birgitt Williams wrote:<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">Alan,<br>Whatever you do with this is worth a pursuing because it is clear you<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">have<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">passion to move this forward. I found that the last few paragraphs of<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">what<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">you wrote was exactly what we say OST does. I get excited about any work<br>that I am aware of in which someone is assisting others to find their<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">voice,<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">their truth, their freedom, their right to make choices-all of which is<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">so<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">very much needed because people generally have lost touch with all of<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">this<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">and lost touch with their personal power. Bless you for pursuing this,<br>Birgitt<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From: OSLIST [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU">mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</a>]On Behalf Of Alan<br>Silverman<br>Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2003 10:58 AM<br>To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU">OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</a><br>Subject: Re: Help with Idea / Democratic Party - Internet - New<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">Technology<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">Dear Christine, Birgitt, Jim, BJ, Michael,<br><br>Thank you for your responses.<br><br>I guess my idea has always been to create a type of virtual Open Space.<br>Virtual, because of my experience at IBM. Commuting hours a day to do<br>the same work I could do at home seemed so foolish. (I was in software<br>support.)<br><br>Having to physically travel to a specific place to participate in a<br>process, this immediately cuts out almost everyone - the disabled, the<br>poor, the dying, 99.9% of all of us, from participation. Which serves<br>the individuals who control powerful institutions. I want a virtual<br>Washington D.C., a virtual UN. I think it can be done, with specific<br>technologies.<br><br>I appreciate your responses. But I feel some were really saying: "Do<br>this instead". Or "No, that can't be done". These are valid responses,<br>but should be said with a full understanding of what I'm saying.<br>Harrison came c
losest to understanding, but I had to clarify a key<br>point: Convincing the Democratic Party is not necessary for the idea to<br>work.<br><br>"Is this what you mean?" ... "Or is it this?" ... "This might be a<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">better<br></pre>
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<pre wrap="">way...."<br>The role of listener, understander, interpreter for other's ideas is<br>very important.<br><br>A few more things, before I go into my letter. First, key to my system<br>of thought is trying to imagine all the ways something might possibly<br>work, before saying it won't. Second, although I do have the writer's<br>horror of having my ideas stolen, I also have a rather loose sense of<br>ownership. I'm not saying 'help me with my idea' so much as 'take it,<br>work with it, make it your own, whatever part, as much or little, as you<br>want." Third, content is important to me, not form. If you can say it<br>better, then say it. Take what I write, move it, slice it, dice it.<br>That's the beauty of software. Fourth, it doesn't matter who you are or<br>where you come from. Christine from Australia, if you understand what<br>I'm saying and can help create it, do so. Anything, just referring an<br>idea to someone e
lse, can help. Think down the line.<br><br>Now I'm being wordy. I don't want to be wordy. I want to boil things<br>down to their essence, else the core objective be lost.<br><br>1. My goal is to create and legitimize a virtual institution where<br>everyone can input their ideas and join to create solutions, not fuzzy<br>solutions but very specific well thought out solutions, to specific<br>problems. I believe the technology now exists to accomplish this.<br><br>2. I believe that at this specific time, right now, if we can find the<br>right words to express this, and find the right people to champion the<br>idea, and place those words in the right place, we have a decent chance<br>of creating such an institution. This is worth trying.<br><br>I'm going to throw down my words, like characters on a Ouija board,<br>hoping they take shape and become something. Don't be too respectful<br>of specific words. They are just words, after all.<br><br>Thank you.<br>Alan<br><br>Lette
r I began to write:<br><br>Over the past few years I have created innovative solutions for the<br>Democratic Party, concise well articulated plans with a high degree of<br>granularity, intended to address specific problems. Since I worked as a<br>software engineer at IBM, many of these ideas dealt with the Internet<br>and new technologies, areas where I felt the Democratic Party could use<br>assistance.<br><br>At different times I presented these ideas in softcopy, hardcopy and in<br>person, to various arms of the DNC and individuals within the party, to<br>committees and liberal think tanks, and our elected officials. Because<br>these were good ideas well presented, they were discussed, sometimes at<br>length, before each idea finally disappeared, swallowed up by that great<br>confused institution, the Democratic Party.<br><br>There is no lack of good ideas in America. We have a wealth of<br>intelligent creative individuals. But no mechanism exists to gather<br>innovative
ideas, refine them into concrete solutions, and then feed<br>those solutions to the Democratic leadership for implementation. If it<br>did exist, such a mechanism would invigorate the Democratic Party and<br>the American political system as a whole.<br><br>The problem is finding a process to efficiently gather and sort ideas,<br>winnow out good from bad, and then create solutions. This is the type<br>of problem I began working on at IBM in 1988, also the first year I<br>worked on the Internet.<br><br>The Internet is another great confused institution, implicitly<br>democratic, offering enormous possibilities, but containing too much<br>information too easily created, and only with difficulty appraised. The<br>difference between this and the problems we faced at IBM are more of<br>scope than of kind.<br><br>The solution lay within a matrix of four technological groups:<br><br>1. The Internet, search engines, sorting programs, heuristics.<br>2. Huge data bases, cheap data
storage, data mining.<br>3. Digital signatures, encryption programs.<br>4. Moderated forums.<br><br>With these technologies we can build a forum where groups of individuals<br>can create intelligent solutions to better our party, our nation, and<br>our world. This open forum, open to anyone with access to the Internet,<br>open in the fact that the discussions, this solution manufacturing<br>process, would be in plain view, thus mitigating against the back room<br>deals that often dominate politics.<br><br>The forums would be moderated and structured, not free form. Each<br>discussion would constitute communities of individuals most<br>knowledgeable in specific areas and most passionate about specific<br>problems, joining together from wherever they live, to break complex<br>problems into simple ones, attacking these simple problems in parallel.<br><br>Get the very best people, no matter where they live and who they are,<br>working together. Ultimately these are the people w
ho should create<br>actual policy and suggest solutions. The Democratic Party is the right<br>group to sponsor such a forum and champion its solutions. This may be<br>the only way we can compete with the Republican Party, which has more<br>money and better organization than we.<br><br>(Al: OK, this is where it peters out.<br><br>Question:<br><br>Is it too pedantic, stiff, self-important? Does it matter I was at<br>IBM? Does this technological connection lend some credence? Mention<br>Google somewhere? Hot item now. When Google made it to the cover of<br>Newsweek magazine, I thought, 'of course, if Google can cull 3 billion<br>web pages and organize them to give you the web pages you want, we can<br>do the same, matching idea and people together.'<br><br>But I don't want to just give Google the 'contract'. It is most<br>efficient to find things which already exist, people who have already<br>plotted out implementations to an idea. They are out there, for<br>virtually
any idea or concept, quickly plugged into specific tasks. But<br>at every level, task... the actual implementation must be left to the<br>best possible solution in competition with all other like solutions.<br>The best as judged by ones peers, those individuals most knowledgeable<br>about that specific area. BJ, I think this is your distinction between<br>'citizen democracy' and 'direct democracy'.)<br><br>Further wisps, some dealing with actual implementation, which needn't be<br>in the letter:<br><br>The problem with "innovation" in business movements of the 1990's, came<br>from three facts. 1. An idea created by one individual could be easily<br>stolen by others. 2. Innovative ideas were submitted through a<br>hierarchy of management people not capable of understanding or adding to<br>the idea, and usually hostile to new ideas in general, since new ways of<br>doing things endanger their own positions. 3. With software it's so<br>easy to generate ideas, most of the
m impractical. Assessing, grading,<br>and sorting them was simply too expensive. Output generally didn't<br>justify cost.<br><br>Now, with the availability of digital signatures, dependable encryption<br>programs, and cheap data storage, literally every discussion could be<br>documented and archived in total. There would be no debate who first<br>came up with a suggestion and whose input was critical to its final<br>form. But the great weight of output could also be inexpensively<br>sorted and grouped.<br><br>This would represent both democracy and capitalism at its very best.<br>Protocols would be developed to view ideas and refine them efficiently.<br>Heuristic searching, sorting, and summarizing programs make this<br>possible.<br><br>>From a country of 270 million, or a world of 6 billion, there is almost<br>always someone who really sees what's going on. The problem is finding<br>that person and helping them refine that idea into a solution.<br><br>For instance,
it seems apparent that an FBI agent in Phoenix and others<br>in Minnesota were on the track of the 911 terrorists. Undoubtedly many<br>other individuals in other branches of the U.S. government also knew<br>something was up. But hierarchical institutions and organizations, such<br>as the FBI, and the Republican Party, are not good at finding this type<br>of person and putting her/him together with other people individuals who<br>can reasonably assess the value of their ideas, so they may begin to<br>work together to create solutions. Perhaps more accurately, these<br>institutions are not good at allowing such people to find each other and<br>work together.<br><br>(too preachy and self-involved? I think so. But the 911 stuff could<br>touch a nerve.)<br><br>The immediate question at hand is 'what should the Democratic Party do<br>in light of successful Republican strategy?" That's the button to push,<br>the hook. Do we push it accusingly, saying they've failed the Democratic
<br>electorate? Helpfully? as a challenge? I don't know.<br><br>In the long run, I think one of the most important things the Democratic<br>Party could offer in competition with the Republicans, is giving all<br>(frustrated creative) people the chance to have their ideas seen and<br>used. But to give you an idea what I'm thinking, following are specific<br>examples of the uses of such forums...<br><br>(*** Important aside: The above two paragraphs will be the last time<br>you hear me say:<br> "I don't know"...<br>"But to give you an idea what I'm thinking"...<br>"I think..."<br>If you do see these statements, please delete them from my writing.<br><br>I'm not a great believer in certainty. "I think", "I believe", "I don't<br>know for sure" are implied in my every statement. But saying so makes<br>for impossible reading.)<br><br>Forum examples:<br><br>1. Suppose there is need for a policy decision concerning how farmers<br>should irrigate fields in the mountains of Peru
. I give this example<br>because I remember reading something about this in a back issue of<br>Natural History magazine.<br><br>I'm willing to bet there are at least three dozen people who know more<br>about these fields, farmers, and land use than anyone else in the world,<br>all the implications, connections, and complications. If a U.S. policy<br>decision were ever needed concerning this (I leave it to your<br>imagination why there might be need for such a decision), these are the<br>people who should make it, or at least be party to making it.<br><br>This may seem inconsequential, but great disasters come from seemingly<br>inconsequential decisions. The complexity and size of our world leaves<br>open the opportunity for individuals and groups to secretly push their<br>own agendas, to the detriment of all. Computer data bases have an<br>unparalleled ability to model reality, to track the exact status, in<br>real time, of things which might otherwise fall between the crac
ks.<br><br>2. At least 50 people in the world today have thought of the idea which<br>I am discussing here, all aspects, from the technologies involved to the<br>structures of forums and rules and protocols to governing them.<br>Together we could quickly refine the idea, break it down into<br>constituent parts, then solve these as separate problems.<br><br>When I was working at IBM there was always someone somewhere who 'knew'.<br>Of course you could figure out what they knew, but that might take days.<br>But if instead you found that person, and got the answer, the tiny bit<br>of information necessary to send the project forward, it might take her<br>or him only a minute.<br><br>Because I thought of certain ideas, it doesn't mean I'm the best person<br>to organize them into an essay, write them down, etc. I want to own<br>those ideas and get credit for them. But I don't want to 'own' the<br>whole. I want to give ownership away, to all the people who best know<br>how to
accomplish what should be accomplished, with each person getting<br>credit for the actual value of their input.<br><br>Any project can be broken down into segments. This project:<br>1. Base ideas<br>2. Write essay<br>3. Round up prominent support<br>4. Place in prominent venue.<br><br>Each is the basis for miniforums.<br><br>What it comes down to is that already all the right answers are out<br>there somewhere. All we must do is find them, create a forum for the<br>people who understand them, then use them, while crediting all those who<br>deserve credit for a solution. This will constitute a great worldwide<br>institution. The key is to legitimize the institution and the solutions<br>it proposes.<br><br>The people who should pose solutions are the community of all<br>individuals in the world most knowledgeable in certain specific areas<br>and most passionate about shared ideas.<br><br>*<br>*<br>==========================================================<br><a class="moz-t
xt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU">OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</a><br>------------------------------<br>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,<br>view the archives of <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:oslist@listserv.boisestate.edu">oslist@listserv.boisestate.edu</a>,<br>Visit:<br><br><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html">http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html</a><br></pre>
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