A Book & Concepts Discussion Series
Paul Schumann – CenTexWFS
Taylor Willingham – Texas Forums
Jon Lebkowsky – Extreme Democracy
How?
-
The book as a guide:12 online interactive discussions
-
Discussion Guide ()
-
Extreme Democracy blog ()
-
Networking ()
-
Texas Forums blog ()
-
Survey ()
Strategy & the Political Process
-
Democracy for the Rest of Us: The Minimal Compact & Open Source Government: Adam Greenfield
-
Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower: Ethan Zuckerman
Greenfield
-
“In many ways, we human beings are cursed with a relatively short lifespan, not least because any one of us lives long enough to perceive the longer ways unfolding through history.”
Open Source Principles
-
Transparency
-
Vetting of participants only after they’ve gotten involved
-
Low cost and ease of engagement
-
A legal structure and enforcement mechanism
-
Leadership
Source: The Innovation Commons
()
Open Source Principles (cont.)
-
Common standards
-
Peer review and feedback loops
-
A shared conception of goals
-
Incrementalist - small players can make useful contributions
-
Powerful non-monetary incentives
Open Source Freedom
-
To run the program for any purpose
-
To study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
-
To redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
-
To improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits
Open Source Constitutions?
-
Minimal
-
Post National
-
Subsume, Not Supplant
Post National States
-
Flexible, Adaptive & Extensible
-
Infinitely Reproducible & Non-local
-
Interoperable & Mutual
-
Highly Robust
Questions
-
Is the open source model transferable?
-
Is the open source model useful to politics?
-
Does the open source model have a role to play in democracy?
-
Is it useful to talk about post national states?
Ethan Zuckerman
-
“While Moore and Ito have justifiable enthusiasm about the phenomenon we're seeing emerge from interconnected communities - the grow weblogs as an alternative to "mainstream" media, the success of grassroots campaigning in the United States - this enthusiasm needs to be tempered by some skepticism about who is currently using social software, and who has potential to use it. While these tools, in theory, have the potential to increase citizen involvement in collection, debate and action, in practice, they're being used by a small, elite group.”
-
Do you agree with this statement?
Zuckerman
-
“Late in 2002, Nua Internet Surveys estimated there were 650 million Internet users worldwide, concentrated in North America, Western Europe and the wealthier nations of Asia. This estimate suggests fewer than one percent of Africa's 800 million people are Internet users, in contrast to nearly 50 percent of North Americans. The number of participants in the weblog community is likely to be a small fraction of those 650 million worldwide users. The Perseus Blog Survey estimates the existence of 4.12 million blogs, only 1.4 million of which are regularly maintained. The NITLE weblog census, using a different methodology, estimates 1.7 million "likely" weblogs, 1.1 million of which are estimated to be active. If we accept either set of numbers at face value, webloggers seem to represent a small fraction of Internet users, perhaps a quarter of a percent. The NITLE statistics go on to suggest that 62 percent of weblogs are in English, implying that many of these weblogs are maintained by North Americans (with substantial blogging populations in Iran, Brazil and Poland.)”
-
Is this relevant or of any concern?
Questions
-
Is there any reason to presume that technology enabled democracy is transferable between languages, nations or cultures?
-
Do the social technologies offer any advantages to third world countries that would assist in the fostering of democracy?
-
Are there other technologies that would be better suited to the third world?
-
Does the initial form of Extreme Democracy need to include the world?
Next Week
-
DeanSpace
-
Exiting DeanSpace: Clay Shirky
-
DeanSpace, Social Networks & Politics: Jon Lebkowky
-
What is DeanSpace?: Aldon Hynes
-