How the Internet can Democratise Democracy

An exploration of a potential democratic operating system

Monday. 8am.

My phone alarm goes off. I wake up and roll over to check my phone (bad habit I know). There’s a notification on my homescreen about the upcoming decision that the country is making on immigration.

I continue my morning routine, go to the kitchen, make a cafetière and read the different articles in my voting info pack over a coffee. After reading a few different pieces of research, looking through a few infographics, my voting light turns green and I cast my vote on the direction I think the country should go in (and thus where it shouldn’t go).

8.30am.

Morning reading done. Now a shower. Get dressed. Tap my phone to request a car to take me to my 9.30am meeting.

Tuesday 12pm. Lunch with some pals.

My phone buzzes. Another notification pops up:

Breaking news: results in, the choices narrow on immigration

Following Monday 9am.

I’m working from home today. Open my laptop and check the info pack to cast my final decision, this time not on the direction but on the actual policy options available. A tricky one, but I can live with the different options presented.

I can’t believe that just a few years ago I used to not only vote on paper, but my only choices were to vote for politicians and parties. Our new system isn’t perfect and the new media landscape is still as tricky as it used to be, but it’s great to have a say on the real direction and on the real policies of this country and even my local region. I’m happy my kids will grow up in a world where democracy isn’t outsourced to politicians anymore.

Back to reality

This is the kind of diary entry I dream of writing in the next 5 years time. A contrast to the system we live in today. Nothing above isn’t possible in 2016 but it still feels a way off.

This year we saw “democratic” decisions which shook the world. Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, Farage, Brexit. Contradictory and unexpected decisions. I see it as the sign of an antiquated system in desperate need of an overhaul to bring it into the 21st century. If Democracy were an Operating System, it would be in dire need of a update. Why so? This isn’t a conversation about getting rid of paper voting, it’s far broader and deeper than that. I don’t think this is about technology for technology’s sake though. Let me explain.

If we’re to view the world we live in through a systemic lens, it becomes clear that there is increasing amounts of complexity. The internet has increased circularity, that is to say it has increased the speed at which feedback loop occur between different factors in our lives, between different parts of the world, between different groups, industries…

I use network principles to simplify this story in my head and see it something like this: we basically have more and more stuff happening (data, decisions, challenges…), at a faster and faster pace, more and more frequently, with more and more complexity. This is the world we live in. This is 2016.

The systems we use to organise ourselves in that system however were architected around 200 years ago and haven’t changed for the most part since then. They’ve barely changed at all since Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet 25 years ago. Based on centralised system architecture, these legacy systems are often linear, hierarchical and siloed. And therefore can deal with few data/decisions, infrequently, slowly and at low levels of complexity.

Bandwidth: slow, infrequent, simplistic

Essentially there just isn’t enough bandwidth in our democratic operating system to deal with the pace and complexity of the world of today. I would argue pseudo-mathematically, that it isn’t mathematically possible to deal with such complexity from a centralised systems. The pipes are too small. We need decentralised systems for this to work. Whilst in the days of pen and paper that may have been tricky, in 2016 it’s possible, but the tech just isn’t being used for this purpose. In the same way that old IT systems used to have single points of failure and operate largely linearly but now have moved towards redundancy and distributed networks: so must our systems of governance.

Indirect and long value chain

Furthermore, every time the internet has ‘disrupted’ an industry it has done so through disintermediation. That is to say, by jumping several steps in the value chain. Take music, where there were many parties involved in the manufacturing, distribution, production, marketing of an artist. Now it is possible for artists to speak and sell directly to fans, on a global scale. Today the internet could have a similar impact on the democratic value chain. From citizen to policy in one shot without the long slow chain in between. Could we do for democracy what Napster did for music? Using blockchain this is possible without even the corruption elements we might worry about with technology (but for some reason forget is also possible with paper ballots).

Reinventing democracy

The internet has democratised many industries, but not democracy itself. The system we operate in is still run by the very few (watch Larry Lessig’s TED Talk … to see how the US Elections are pretty much determined by a 100 wealthy people). It is highly ideological due to the binary choices we tend to face. choices between red vs blue, him vs her, left vs right, in vs out. The nuance and complexity of the world we live in is lost and our beliefs are reduced to the choice between set menus provided by ideologically set political parties. This needs reinventing. It needs democratising and it needs updating.

But there is a lot of hope!

This year I have interviewed and documented 5 projects which I think could revolutionise democracy. I’ve been inspired and given huge hope for what the future technology could bring to us. They are:

MiVote : a blockchain enabled platform which aims to make democracy in Australia far more informed, far more direct, and far more democratic. People must be informed to vote. The system is non-ideological. The funding is totally transparent. The research is objective.

a blockchain enabled platform which aims to make democracy in Australia far more informed, far more direct, and far more democratic. People must be informed to vote. The system is non-ideological. The funding is totally transparent. The research is objective. Pol.is : a machine learning-powered piece of technology which uses AI to make mass conversations far more coherent. When used in Taiwan this has resulted in tangible changes to laws and policies and engaged many many people in debates they wouldn’t necessarily otherwise have access to.

a machine learning-powered piece of technology which uses AI to make mass conversations far more coherent. When used in Taiwan this has resulted in tangible changes to laws and policies and engaged many many people in debates they wouldn’t necessarily otherwise have access to. e-Estonia : an e-residency platform which makes the Estonian government’s digital platforms available to people outside the country. Questioning the notion of a nation itself and pioneering the concept of ‘NSaaS’ — Nation State As A Service.

an e-residency platform which makes the Estonian government’s digital platforms available to people outside the country. Questioning the notion of a nation itself and pioneering the concept of ‘NSaaS’ — Nation State As A Service. Iceland’s Crowdsourced Constitution: proof that large numbers of people can create a rigorous document with qualitative data. Iceland is a pioneering example of true democracy at work, and unfortunately of the exact opposite, with a political gaming technicality stalling this amazing document which had been voted in by 70% of the people.

proof that large numbers of people can create a rigorous document with qualitative data. Iceland is a pioneering example of true democracy at work, and unfortunately of the exact opposite, with a political gaming technicality stalling this amazing document which had been voted in by 70% of the people. DemocracyOS / DemocracyEarth: an early example of how technology can disintermediate politics by putting in place a party which follows the will of people’s online votes. A genuine and purist example of the enactment of the will of the people.

These are, I’m sure, just a few of the examples of amazing things happening around the world. From speaking to the leaders of these projects, my initial pains at some of the ‘democratic’ decisions citizens have made this year, have largely subsided. The conversations I find myself engaging in now are less about the content of these decisions and more about the process by which we come to them. The underlying system. As Adam Jacoby, the Founder & Chief Steward of MiVote says:

“There is no excuse in 2016, when you can have a many-to-many and many-to-one conversation, that we do not have a conversation with our electorate on every issue. There is just simply no excuse for it.”

And I agree. How can we ‘enact the will of the people’ (which is how I define democracy) without asking what their will is in the first place? Without looking to understand the nuance? The current system is ideologically pre-determined and often doesn’t go to the lengths it should to understand what people want and need and believe. I can’t predict the future but I can hope that what I’ve learnt this year points towards a general direction. That direction is increasingly democratic, direct, deep, and distributed. That direction is one where technology democratises democracy.

The other side of the story

Whilst I am definitely an evangelist of this direction, I’m also of course conscious that there is another side to our relationship with technology and its impact on our lives. Filter bubbles and fake news this year have potentially made the way we use our binary democratic system even more binary. The governance and ethics issues around AI are not to be taken lightly. Cryptographic technology could empower us but also empower those less deserving of influence. We ignore mass governmental spying and the potential consequences or ethical impacts that has on our freedoms.

The potential pitfalls of humanity’s use of its own tools, however, are not a sufficient excuse in my eyes for us to not use them. It’s not the tech that’s at fault, it’s our use of it. And just because a new solution won’t be perfect, doesn’t mean we should ignore it in favour of an old system which is ill-equipped for the year 2016. I strongly hope that the future is one where future generations are a part of real debate. Where the voice of citizens is heard. Where the people are in charge of their own destiny, or at least a genuine conversation about that destiny.

I hope this is no more, and no less than a revolution in democratising democracy.

Jon Barnes, is the author of Democracy Squared: A digital revolution that’s about to democratise democracy — Available to buy now in paperback and ebook format from http://democracysquared.io.

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