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Democracy is in trouble, and we will need to become a new social organism to protect it. We are in a period of rapid evolution in social species. The dinasaur like institutions of our past are not capable of responding to the pace of change, and they respond by attempting to stem the tides of change. New social species are emerging who are agile and intelligent; they design their own structures and deploy themselves. Instead of being crushed by the shock waves that are the modern condition, they are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider|riding the shockwave]] into an open future. What is proposed here is a plan for action to take back the American democracy from global corporate interests, and to spread that work worldwide in support of any people who will stand to defend democracy, and to create new democracies where it is absent.
At the core of democracy is who votes and why, how are they organized. Now, going on 250 years in the boldest experiment in democracy in human history, what do we see? A dilapidated two party system that has been largely captured by one dinasaur institution or another, and a developing network of social organisms preparing to take the stage. The old systems is at most a handful of catastrophes from collapse and we need to be ready to take the stage. Careful where you stand or they could fall on you.
Our secret sauce is a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks|new mode of production]], commons based peer production (CBPP). This is the mode of production of open source software, and the Wagn project I help to build in this way, and many projects in collaborative content development. In this project we will not focus only on the production of information artifacts, that is shared data and code produced in common, but on our being as social species. The old species produce and reproduce by contract, fiat (scarce) currencies, and the "rule of law" as deployed by armies of lawyers and lobbiests. The modes and currencies of the old social species are environmental for the emergent species, and each of us must navigate this world as individuals and nuclear social groups. As such, we are often naked and vulnerable in the face of the power and violence of that enviroment, but there is a lot of slack in the system and many energy flows that can be tapped to stay ahead of the waves of change.
Emergence is probably more about the recognition of structures that were present in varied and partially functioning experiments, in prototype forms, and bubbling up of "best practices" to select the viable structures. I am making a claim that new species are emerging without providing much in examples, I trust the reader as a fellow rider will have had many experiences with them as I have. We have become architects of invisible (social) architectures. Now we need to build new levels of structure for ourselves. We need new currencies and financial institutions that are structured to support a gift economy, and to defend themselves and thrive against the command economy. We need to survive and thrive in the envirionment they have created, to have robust interfaces to dollars, but to make the numbers in the dollar denominated accounts less and less important. To use other currencies to make decisions, and to provide sufficient resources where and when they are needed.
A Vision of the Possibilities
We will need to start with a simple model that can be replicated everywhere. Take existing models and adapt them for the new context. When I was a kid, there was a political machine with precinct captains in every part of the city, but it was paid for in patronage and loyalty to a party organization. We image the same kind of coverage by a commons-based peer to peer structure. Clearly the question of[[how to pay for it|How to Finance a Revolution: Pay Forward Currencies]][[How to Finance a Revolution: Pay Forward Currencies|how to pay for it]] is important, but let us start with more of what and why. The greatest possibility is revitalizing the [[conversation of democracy||conversational democracy]][[conversational democracy|conversation of democracy]] and publicly examining the stories that have driven political and economics through history. That instead of a stale competition of interests looking to press an advantage, a genuine democracy could emerge where people participate because their voices are heard and their issues are addressed in a fair minded way.
Imagine how this might work, we begin to develop and deploy an[[app|The Citizen Contact App]][[The Citizen Contact App|app]], and a few people start to use it. They get experiece using it and with what their neighbors want from the political system and provide the feedback needed to make the app what it needs to be. Then it goes viral and everyone wants to get involved. The work we do in the beginning to engage our network in the practices of co-creation and stewardship of often intagible assets, and learning how to deploy these assets to expand the common wealth will be key to success.
A network of a few million activists could create a comprehensize network and database more powerfull politically than any dozen billionaires with checkbooks. If you paid every networker a living wage, the cost would still be modest compared to the current costs of political campaigns.
Participants: {{+particpants}}
Tags: {{+tags|line}}
At the core of democracy is who votes and why, how are they organized. Now, going on 250 years in the boldest experiment in democracy in human history, what do we see? A dilapidated two party system that has been largely captured by one dinasaur institution or another, and a developing network of social organisms preparing to take the stage. The old systems is at most a handful of catastrophes from collapse and we need to be ready to take the stage. Careful where you stand or they could fall on you.
Our secret sauce is a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks|new mode of production]], commons based peer production (CBPP). This is the mode of production of open source software, and the Wagn project I help to build in this way, and many projects in collaborative content development. In this project we will not focus only on the production of information artifacts, that is shared data and code produced in common, but on our being as social species. The old species produce and reproduce by contract, fiat (scarce) currencies, and the "rule of law" as deployed by armies of lawyers and lobbiests. The modes and currencies of the old social species are environmental for the emergent species, and each of us must navigate this world as individuals and nuclear social groups. As such, we are often naked and vulnerable in the face of the power and violence of that enviroment, but there is a lot of slack in the system and many energy flows that can be tapped to stay ahead of the waves of change.
Emergence is probably more about the recognition of structures that were present in varied and partially functioning experiments, in prototype forms, and bubbling up of "best practices" to select the viable structures. I am making a claim that new species are emerging without providing much in examples, I trust the reader as a fellow rider will have had many experiences with them as I have. We have become architects of invisible (social) architectures. Now we need to build new levels of structure for ourselves. We need new currencies and financial institutions that are structured to support a gift economy, and to defend themselves and thrive against the command economy. We need to survive and thrive in the envirionment they have created, to have robust interfaces to dollars, but to make the numbers in the dollar denominated accounts less and less important. To use other currencies to make decisions, and to provide sufficient resources where and when they are needed.
A Vision of the Possibilities
We will need to start with a simple model that can be replicated everywhere. Take existing models and adapt them for the new context. When I was a kid, there was a political machine with precinct captains in every part of the city, but it was paid for in patronage and loyalty to a party organization. We image the same kind of coverage by a commons-based peer to peer structure. Clearly the question of
Imagine how this might work, we begin to develop and deploy an
A network of a few million activists could create a comprehensize network and database more powerfull politically than any dozen billionaires with checkbooks. If you paid every networker a living wage, the cost would still be modest compared to the current costs of political campaigns.
Participants: {{+particpants}}
Tags: {{+tags|line}}