Regrets

We all make decisions that we regret. The advantage of Interactive Democracy is that each voter is a small cog in an enormous machine with perhaps tens of thousands or millions of similar voters. A machine that requires a significant majority to ratify a law. So if you get it wrong (change your mind after the poll), there's no need to regret.

The corollary of this is that there are less than 650 voters in the House of Commons. Make a mistake there and it can have a much bigger effect.

Cool Off and Change Your Vote

In Interactive Democracy you can change your mind and alter your vote at any time before the poll is counted. This allows cooling off, time to think, to absorb the arguments and debates, and see if your initial decision still holds true.

It helps smooth out the demand peaks on the servers but also encourages people to vote instinctively and then reassess - a process that could increase the total number of votes and the processing power of the system.

Snap Decisions and Big Numbers

Voters may make snap decisions on how to cast their vote. Is this wrong?

Many people would say that a careful balancing of the facts is essential to making good decisions. Others would say that initial impressions are often correct and that detailed analysis is a process of finding evidence to support your initial view, rather than developing it.

Interactive Democracy recognises that no one person can process all the information pertaining to any decision. It recognises that your values and experience may be as important as your intellect. Each person making a snap or considered decision is just a small part of the national ID nervous system, making decisions on topics already considered and approved by professional politicians. In this context snap decisions aren't as problematic as they first seem. In fact they may allow more people to make more decisions, increasing the processing power of the system.

Voting In Advance

In Interactive Democracy votes may be cast any time before the poll is counted. This allows voters more efficient use of their time as they can vote on a whole range of issues at a single "sitting". They are thus able to process more votes.

Votes can be changed or cancelled at any time before the "count" and changes may be viewed on an online statement so that everyone can monitor for fraud.

For Bill(')s Sake!

I counted 105 Bills in the Lords and Commons in 2006/7. How much more law do we need... for Pete's sake?

As a mature democracy it's interesting that we continue to add new laws at such a rate... and it's a problem for Interactive Democracy because, unlike professional politicians, the public are unlikely to want to consider so many new laws. But do we really need them? Or are they just a symptom of having a political elite justifying their existence or reacting to media concerns? Would it really be a problem if we only had 24 new laws a year?

Alternatively, if all 105 Bills were presented to the public is it really a problem if not everyone votes on them: the people directly involved certainly would.

Adding Information to Politics... and Filtering It

It may be possible to add informative links to each ePetition. Perhaps anyone could add a link to relevant information, with a brief summary of what it's about? However, this presents problems of information overload because there is no mechanism for filtering the good from the bad.

Search engines have developed into powerful tools for filtering information because they automatically look at how many referrals a site may have, and the "credibility" of each of those referrals. The result is that the most relevant information is presented quickly. Using conventional search engines (and there's a number to choose from) arguably provides a better information system than allowing voters to add links to an ePetition system.

This link explains how Google works.

Requests For Information

The ePetition system can be used to request parliament to gather and publish information. For example this link on the No. 10 ePetition site, shows a request for a study into the economics of legalising drug use . I can see the benefits of requesting such studies, but their may be genuine difficulties in getting the information because of the problems (impossibility?) of gathering it. In this case it may be very difficult to set up a small scale experiment, as cheap, licensed drugs in one location would attract addicts from other areas, with various social consequences. Other types of study may be more successful and may already exist without the knowledge of ePetitioners. It would be useful for links to this information to be added to the ePetition site.

"Can we ever have enough information?" Using ID to rationalise the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act is one way of prioritising requests that may prove to be very expensive and are currently often instigated by individuals and journalists.

Fuzzy Thinking

"Fuzzy Thinking", the title of a book by Bart Kosko, looks at how logic is linked to probability to predict optimum outcomes. It's the sort of process your automatic camera goes through to try to produce the best pictures and gives some insight into how to make decisions with imperfect information... which is usually the case.

Interactive Democracy combines the Fuzzy Decisions of all voters to reach an optimal outcome.

Here's much more on fuzzy thinking.

EQ not IQ

By EQ I mean the Experience Quotient (nothing to do with emotional intelligence, though similar arguments may be made about EI). Lets imagine that the sum of your life experiences is the sum of every different experience that you have ever had or learnt about. This encompasses a good proportion of your learned IQ. Compare this EQ to IQ, which is useful in understanding and analysing data on relatively simple decisions that may not take into account complex values, feelings and motivations.

Imagine a group of politicians - how diverse are their experiences? Now imagine a much bigger group - the whole population involved in a referendum. This group probably includes every politician and has a cumulative amount of experience which can be expressed through the vote.

Many voters may not easily be able to articulate their views but it may be argued that their sub-conscious has already factored in all their experience to lead them to an opinion, which may be altered by the light of good arguments, stories and debate.

Interactive Democracy capitalises on the maximum amount of every form of intelligence, from every source.

(The picture shows John Wisdom, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His face matches his name)

The Opposition... They're Stupid!

Arguments, especially political ones, can get somewhat heated... It's always tempting to think of the other side as stupid because they can't understand your point of view. And if they're stupid, maybe we would be better letting the political elite decide? This may be one of the deep seated rationals behind opposition to Interactive Democracy.

Perhaps it takes a leap of faith to think "Well, maybe the opposition have other values, experiences and information, that I don't have. Maybe, they're not stupid after all!"

And maybe those "stupid" people, who may have a far lower IQ than you, suddenly say something true that you hadn't spotted before.

People as Transistors

Imagine a micro chip with each transistor switching to process information. Now imagine that each of those transistors is an autonomous computer in its own right, processing its own information stream, which effects which way it switches. This is how I imagine each voter in Interactive Democracy. Each person makes a decision on which way to vote based on all the information and experience they have available. They are part of a huge social, organic computer (ID), designed to process information and optimise society for the common good.

(And this is the best reason I can think of for being 1 of 40 odd million voters in any democratic election.)

Democracy as Information Processor

Imagine our society as an organism. It has a nervous system to gather and process information, and make decisions for its own betterment. What would be the best design of that nervous system?

How Much Would You Pay To Vote?

Here's a thought experiment: imagine how much you would pay, in Pounds Stirling, for your vote in a General Election... a local election... on an issue you care about using Interactive Democracy. £1, £10, £1000? Compare this value to how much money you would consider keeping in an online bank account. This gives some sort of comparison of the value and security of Interactive Democracy.

According to this research 44% of adults are expected to use an online bank account by 2012.

Freudian Politics

It may be that we are never fully aware of the subconscious motivations that drive us to decisions. Does "Interactive Democracy" latch on to deep seated suspicions of leaders who don't ask for my consent? Do others have a deep seated need for father figures?

If we accept that some of our decision making is subconscious, doesn't that further undermine the concept that a small group of similar, elite politicians can make better decisions than a much larger group who are less biased?

Values and Choices

It seems to me that one of the common sticking points of any argument is a difference in values:

• "I value mountaineering - you think it's stupidly dangerous"
  
• "I eat too much - you think I'm a drain on the national health service"
  
• "I value freedom - you value security"

It's very difficult to appreciate other peoples' values, which is one reason why we should all have an equal vote in Interactive Democracy... and not be governed by the values of a small group of 640 odd MPs.

6 Thinking Hats

Edward de Bono defined six styles of thinking:

1. White Hat Thinking is about facts and gathering information
2. Red Hat Thinking is about emotion and intuition
3. Black Hat Thinking is critical thinking and is sometimes seen as negative
4. Yellow Hat Thinking looks for the positive
5. Green Hat Thinking is creative
6. Blue Hat Thinking is about controlling the process

I've already mentioned the Blue and White hats in relation to politicians. Interactive Democracy is also a Blue Hat process and the debate each issue creates will draw in White Hat data from a multitude of sources. The ePetition aspect of Interactive Democracy provides creative ideas which are likely to provoke other ideas and the whole voting system absorbs the predilections of voters for Red, Black and Yellow Hat thinking.

6 Sigma Government

"6 Sigma" is the title of a quality management system and refers to being almost defect free (3.4 defects per million). Its procedure for the management of improvement is DMAIC:

1. Define
2. Measure
3. Analyze
4. Improve
5. Control

In Interactive Democracy any issue receiving sufficient support is already defined but may need to be clarified by the elected parliament. They should define the measurements required to identify success and gather the data (White Hat Thinking); analyze the data and present it to the public; improve the issue by writing the law and seek approval by public vote. It is then the governments responsibility to use Control to ensure success.

Blue Hat Politicians

De Bono's Blue Hat thinking is all about "Control of Thinking", "Focus", "Program Design", "Summaries" and "Monitoring". In Interactive Democracy this is the main role of politicians.

Once the "seconding" (ePetition) process identifies issues and ideas that the public feel strongly about, politicians must utilise their skills and resources to define the law which will then be presented to the public for ratification. A good government will monitor the effects of the changes.

Science in Politics

It seems that there are few people with the statistical skills to separate fact from assumption. I wonder how many politicians could do a regression analysis, calculate the significance of a sample size or understand the Monty Hall problem. It may be too much to ask for every politician to be fully conversant with all this, but maybe they can request the help and advice of academics on such matters. Or maybe there should be guidance from a civil servant adept at statistical analysis?

This is just as important to Interactive Democracy as to Representative Democracy.

White Hat Politicians

Edward de Bono identified several types of thinking. He associated each with a coloured hat: White Hat Thinking is all about collecting information (imagine a white piece of paper). It would be of great benefit to Interactive Democracy (indeed any democracy) for politicians to identify what information is required for each issue and to fund the gathering of that information, perhaps through independent academics. This should be reported via a link on the ID web site.

(Edward de Bono created the term "lateral thinking")

Democratic Falsehoods

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Winston Churchill

1. The manifesto of the winning party is always implemented... No it isn't - so how do we choose which party to vote for?
2. MPs reflect the opinions of the majority in their constituency... How do they know?
3. MPs always act on their convictions... So what are the party whips for?
4. MPs always tell the truth... And there's no such thing as spin?
5. Your vote can sway the result... Your vote is one in many hundreds of thousands and carries little influence.
6. Anyone can become a Member of Parliament... There are only 640 odd seats in the commons, so the odds are pretty slim.
7. All aspects of an argument are presented in debate... Points of view are as diverse as peoples experiences and can never be fully communicated in debate.
8. All pertinent information is presented and analysed by Parliament... Information is virtually infinite and decisions can never be fully informed.
9. Parliament makes logical and rational decisions... There is no set of standards for decision making as would be the case in, say, testing an aircraft wing structure to ensure safety.
10. Politicians are experts in decision making... And are well qualified in statistical analysis?
11. Politicians are mostly altruistic... Freud may disagree - he identified many sub-conscious motivators.
12. Consequences of decisions can be predicted and fully considered by dedicated professional politicians... Consequences can never be fully predicted because of chaos and complexity theory.
13. Politicians represent the will of the people... How do they know what the majority want?
14. A small group of intelligent politicians make better decisions than a large group of average people... Large groups of dissimilar people have more experience to draw on than a small group with similar experiences.
15. Multi-faceted decisions, such as those in a General Election can be calculated rationally... Multi-faceted decisions are much harder to decide than single issues.

(Politicians have special skills that are needed in Interactive Democracy and, despite the above comments, I feel it is everyone's duty to vote.)

About Democracy

This links to an excellent article summarising many of the issues regarding democracy.

Internet... The New Press

This article examines how the Internet may effect democracy. It makes the point that the Internet may be more powerful than the printing press, which was a crucial technology in the early days of democracy. However, the Internet does require some skill to use - much like learning to read!

The Importance of Leadership

Leadership, to galvanize people into action on important issues, is essential to all political processes. Interactive Democracy isn't a leader-less system: A government must still be formed, yet it allows others to be opinion leaders on all sorts of different issues. This may actually reduce the difficulties that political parties face in tailoring policies to appeal to the majority of voters, without risking appearing "wishy washy".

This article explains the difficulties of politicians moving their position in order to seek the centre ground.

Seeking the Centre Ground

Political parties can win elections by dominating the centre ground, where most voters are. Please see this link for an explanation of this argument (same as the previous post). The problem may be how to discover what the majority of voters want?

Interactive Democracy "asks" voters what they want through the ePetition system, refines it through parliament into workable laws and then asks the electorate to approve it by referendum. This is a process of discovering what the majority want.