Future politics - can a forum generate true democracy?

a reply to: Theli93
Actually, it is possible, despite your "patriotic" reasons for not wanting it to be so.

I was also pointing out that saying it is possible doesn't make me a progressive globalist. That was a leap in logic you chose to make.

originally posted by: PapagiorgioCZ
IMO there is a great potencial these days for online communities to give birth to a direct democracy like never before.
The time is ripe, the technology is there so what's the problem?
Everything from crowdfunding a candidate to organizing protests, social disobedience on a mass scale.
Did your central bank just give corporations trillions while letting your credit card interrest at 20%?
Aww, they are so powerful and untouchable. What about couple of millions deciding to stop paying any debt on May 1st?
Or opening their businesses at once? Who could resist such a power?
What are your thoughts? Why do people lack the ability to self organize without a personality declaring himself a leader?
Why is it not a thing yet IYO? I understand why it cant work in China but why not in a free country?

They would have to be heavily moderated. This forum for example is full of biased opinions and alternate facts which would make such a forum unmanageable. I do feel every elected official should have a place for citizens to interact, answer questions, etc.

Q: can a forum generate true democracy?


to my mind....

A 'Forum' would likely produce a pair of 'Caucus'... much like Nazi Pelosi 'Caucus' which controls the Democrat Party...

you seen them, dressed in White, all grouped together at Congress' meet-ups like the SOTU Address

a reply to: Klassified

Very true. Congress won't listen to the people because they don't need the people. The corruption begins at local level where election results are manufactured. Congress has all the money needed to maintain its power.

a reply to: St Udio

Moderated like Facebook?
Mark Zuckerberg: Lockdown Protests Are ‘Misinformation,’ Facebook Will Ban Organizers
This is it. I dont believe in any form of censorship nor moderation. It's always abused. Even when you say let's use common sense and ban calling for terrorism. Someone will ban you or try to arrest you for organizing a highway blockade, bank run or state secession, not paying taxes and basically anything what the system doesnt like.
If the idea makes sense it will leak elsewhere. Algorithms are useful. With a clean AI you dont need polls. It sucks that all major platforms are in wrong hands

it could easily turn into a tyranny of fickle sentiments and opinion.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ
You know, I thought maybe you had just used the wrong term when you used forum in your title.

A forum is really just a place to have discussions. So, people go on FB, ATS or wherever they like and discuss topics but none of that really shapes policy. Just like polls, they don't go anywhere. I remember that a majority of people, according to some polls opposed the war in Iraq. That didn't stop the invasion in Iraq.

What is really needed, or at least what would make a difference, would be a vote that had the power to change policy. People would still hit up their social media, watch the boob tube or go with their gut in how they vote or even choose not to vote but without a recognized vote you just have chatter.

a reply to: daskakik

People would quickly adapt to changed T&C and empowered activism. It's still a social media.
In ancient Greece they had Ecclesia which may be closer to it than Roman forum.
With today's technology they'd do the same stuff, talk about stuff, decide if they wanna go to war, only with less yelling and with women included. Many times people feel powerless even when public opinion is clearly against the actions of governments. It takes SHTF to take it to the streets and then it lacks high level of coordination, the will turns into mob low mentality, stupid riot and demanding something from the government like sheep, asking for a better leadership, more sugar, less whipping...

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

I see, but in the end you would have to have a vote and that vote has to be recognized.

You could have that without it being a forum. Even here we see someone start a thread and then a small group high-fives them while another small group argues against and it seems like opinions rarely change.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I would rather forego that and go straight to a vote and let the chips fall where they may.

a reply to: daskakik

I look at it through a lense of latest events which makes me a bit biased. At the same time it allows me to see the potential.
I see a technocratic entity pulling the strings behind the scenes for a lockdown and other agenda. Then banks, globalists and other unknown (unelected) entities, big pharma, ... projecting power over what looks like a disfunctional government forced to play the game.
People are home-jailed, economy crippled, put into more debt, society in danger of collapsing in the coming years,...
Ok, I see, the vote is still an important measure for the individual. The more people participate the higher is the probability that many share my view but may not agree on executed action. To measure my team and further coordinate inside of this population I'd need to create a sub-forum everytime.
Here's the beauty of it - even a minority can always take action and have impact beyond today's system. Even apart from recent events and emergency where there's maybe majority of people against the measures.

Other emergency situations come to mind. Like the Vietnam war draft and coordination of civil disobedience. A lot of students had enough coordination to execute a mass draft refusal even without today's technology. Beautiful. Had they no power over their lives? There was no majority vote demand. It could happen tomorrow with China and before you know it it's too late to talk about it and coordinate resistance on random platforms.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

A forum could not work as, for example ATS, there is a TOS and you can not truly speak your free mind. Without being 100% free in what anyone can say you can not use that as tool for democracy. You need to get rid of the owners and TOS to make it workable.

If you would make a decentralised forum there is nothing to prevent me to have a Dumbass and Smartass account and I can have as many alter egos as I want and by that undermine the true democracy. Without the control of limiting access to 1 account per user you would need an overseeing entity and a TOS.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

What you are talking about isn't democracy but organizing civil disobedience.

Democracy would be people having a say in policy as part of the system.

The fact that you would have to organize a protest shows that democracy isn't part of the government in place.

a reply to: daskakik

Sometimes, when there's a need to pull a handbrake. I like the idea of crowdfunding representatives who are not fake, making them nothing more than controlled avatars instead of having a 4 year monarchy segments. It's a fake democracy. It may look like a balanced system with checks but it's not. Even judges are partisan, police abused, military abused. Nothing works as it should if you think about it.
Organizing local investments, local economy. Everything could and should be under populist control check at all times IMO.
It doesnt even require changing the system. People always had the power but never truly used it (except strikes)
Strikes are a very good example of exercising direct democracy

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

Crowdfunding politicians that "are not fake" doesn't guarantee that they will not be corrupted by the system once they are elected. If they are, you are back to square one, with no other recourse but to ask them that they keep their promises.

As for strikes, those are just labor protests. If there were any semblance of democracy they wouldn't have to strike (protest), they would have the power to put into effect the policies they deemed necessary.

a reply to: daskakik

They cant corrupt your avatar representative when you make him out of a homeless dude mindlessly following his daily orders, is bound by a contract or is a true believer of the concept.
Recall_election
And strikes do effect the policies and if they are long and large enough they can change regimes. Unions have real power but they use to be too institutionalized and corrupted. You dont need a congress to say "Mmmh!", pass a law and your dude in suit giving interviews.
You have states with gun laws that are clearly unconstitutional and they still get away with it. Are they not operating outside the system just because they can? In fact you only need a representative when you want to play by the rules.
Lol, imagine an avatar president. It would be worth doing just once only to disrupt the fake choice two party election. Of course most peole are not interrested in remote-controlling their potus 24/7.
Yeah, it's a beta version idea but imagine Trump actually following orders of his base on something like Twitter.
For this to work flawlessly you'd need something like true ID to connect the polls with their real vote history. But yeah

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ
They can always corrupt someone. Some homeless dude that knows he will go back to being homeless once his term is up would probably take cash faster than anyone else. Money can make people break contracts or bend their beliefs.

Strikes effect policy through negations, not directly.

In a system where the people can promote legislation and contest government decisions you wouldn't need to control an avatar.

You have gone from a forum to a poll to a poll with voter ID. Why not just call it what it would need to be, a vote?

Lets finish it by saying that free internet is crucial and people dont need to win a fake election to exercise power and get things done at any level and at any time.
And yeah, using random homelesses would be asking for trouble

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ
Internet is important and people don't need to win a fake election but they do need a system where their vote, even if it were on paper ballots, is recognized, if you want to call it democracy.

Until you have that, all you have is just another form of social media used to organize a protest.

a reply to: daskakik

I got it. You still assume a need to be recognised by the government so that it's polished, bulletproof and legal while I'm working with shaping kinda cyberpunk movement. I dont see government as the ultimate authority that needs to be pleased with a final solution
When I got my hands on some bitcoins at some point someone made it hard to stay anonymous so I had to go through a process of authentication which was an outsourced Indian lady taking a picture of me and my ID card during a phone call. It took me less time than writing this long sentence. There's many more authenticators. Actually too many of them. Ip adresses, google accounts. If you have a phone and couple of apps you are identified to a disgusting level.
I actually like the idea of anonymous, self-organized, self-recognized communities projecting power, remote decentralized servers and movements without leaders who could be arrested. Hong Kong comes to mind. Is their government more authentic and democratic than those people on the streets? Their vote is worth next to nothing. In inverse relationship to government oppression and fakeness of the matrix of reality they create like a customized google search there in mainland China. Think about Hong Kong and China for a moment. How much of our western reality is fake too? The media mind control, fake elections, fake confrontations of fake people. It's designed to resist change like a youtube shadow banning.
I dont think it's either just good enough for protests or for general elections with real ID and nothing in between.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

Democracy is a form of government, so it needs to fulfill that requirement to be a democracy, which means the people either directly, what I keep harping on, or indirectly, the current system in place in many countries, shape policy.

Now you have shifted from just organizing protests to creating a counter-culture.

the idea of anonymous, self-organized, self-recognized communities

The hippies living in communes had this...

projecting power

... but not this and what you are describing really is just protesting. Unions do it, the civil rights movement did it and the different spring movements also did. The occupy movement got a boot to the neck and the tea party movement was infiltrated.

Seems like the amount of power movements/protests are allowed to project is dictated by the centralized power.

I feel your "kinda cyberpunk movement" will start spinning its wheels when you try to project power if it means the members lose the anonymity that made it alluring in the first place. I may be wrong, good luck with that.