Friday, 8 June 2012

Politics is more like Religion than Shopping

Jonathan Haidt, professor of psychology at New York University's Stern School of Business and author of The Righteous Mind, writes in The Guardian"from the point of view of moral psychology: politics at the national level is more like religion than it is like shopping." He explains how our political views are based on our deep seated values.
He also writes "One of the most robust findings in social psychology is that people find ways to believe whatever they want to believe." Which leads us back to the important role of accurate evidence in the decision making process.
The Interactive Democracy system must integrate and clarify the evidence from a wide range of sources. But government should also monitor the effect of each decision and new law, to see if they are achieving their objectives. (This is the C in the Six Sigma DMAIC process: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.) Policies that are failing shouldn't be hidden in fear of damaging the governments credibility but celebrated as opportunities to learn and improve. To this end, a web page report for each decision should be added to the Interactive Democarcy site, with peer reviewed data showing how policies fair compared to their objectives.

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