Turning Debate into Data

One of the difficulties of any debate is how to extract the pertinent points. Interactive Democracy provides a system that can turn debate into data for analysis in many different ways. It does this by allowing people to vote point by point, question by question and on what type of evidence is being presented, from Heresay to Good Quality Empirical. Furthermore, the identity of voters, though hidden from public view, can include their age, location and qualifications.
These classifications allow users, including journalists and politicians, to analyse the debate in all sorts of different ways. It will enable better questions and summaries from journalists, new points from commentators, more focused campaigns from politicians and better law formulation from the legislature.

Graphing the Evolution of Debates

This TED talk by Hans Rosling, though fascinating in its own right, shows how computer generated graphs can help make sense of complex information. The same type of technology could be used to show how an Interactive Democracy debate evolves. For example, if each debating point grows or diminishes in approval, or is superseded by a counter point, this could be shown in a similar way as Hans Rosling's examples. If the data is open source, other people may create enhanced displays which may include demographic information about voters without divulging their identity (e.g. qualifications, age, sex and geographical location).

Anonymous Identity

Interactive Democracy can offer anonymous identity. That is to say, your name and address may be kept secret but the system can allocate you a vote because it knows who you are.
What are the implications of this?
By remaining anonymous you may be willing to express yourself more fully, yet there can still be sanctions against you for lying or bullying. It may free you to state your case or change your mind without feeling stupid. It may free you to make a case against your peers; it reduces social pressures. It may allow you to make a provocative point, to stimulate the debate, without wedding you to that opinion. It may allow you to ask simple questions without feeling daft.
Yet the system may allow your anonymous identity to be accurately attributed with academic qualifications. So, for example, the rest of us may know if you are a qualified doctor, engineer, scientist or policeman, putting your debating points in a personal context.
Should MPs also be given the privilege or anonymity?
I think they should not. Quite the opposite, I think their contributions should be highlighted so that we can give their opinions more weight and better judge them in the next general election.

The Hidden Influence of Social Networks

This video presented by Nicholas Christakis explores his studies into social networks. Although he mentions voter behaviour, the talk relates to many other areas, in particular the spread of obesity in society.
The power of influence within social networks could go a long way to explain the influence of one political party or another in certain areas of the country. It may also provide some insight into how new ideas, debates and opinions could flow through society. Worth a look as food for thought.

Debate, Hate

The attempted killing of Congresswoman Gifford has caused some consternation about the way political debate has been conducted in America. Some pundits have pointed to Sarah Palin's website, where cross hairs were used to target seats, as encouraging violence. On the other hand the Arizona Massacre may be blamed on the lunacy of the gunman. Nevertheless, this raises the question: Would intense involvement of the general public in the Interactive Democracy system lead to more hate and hate crime?

ID should quell these fears:

• It empowers individuals, potentially reducing the need for acts of rebellion
• Is designed to extract rational argument (plus, minus and interesting points and values)
• Illuminates with evidence and personal experience
• Is a web system that encourages debate but rules against swearing and verbal aggression
• Is supported by laws against threatening behaviour, religious hatred and encouraging violence.
  

Data Democracy

In this TED Talk, David McCandless presents some ideas on data visualisation and shows how it can lend perspective to the raw numbers, present vast complexity in a simple form and illuminate patterns. It could be an asset to democratic debate.
As part of his lecture he also presents a diagram of the left and right in politics, maintaining a balanced approach.


Data images are available from David's website - here.

Picture the Data

How information is presented can have a significant impact on the debate. This image, produced by The Guardian, is an excellent example (apologies for the small scale). If you look at it with a view to reducing our budget deficit perhaps it will clarify your values: perhaps you will want to compare the value and cost of the Department for International Development and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Will other voters agree? Will it cause an analysis of the benefits from each department?

The Lost Art of Democratic Debate

In this entertaining lecture, Michael Sandel, teacher of Political Philosophy at Harvard, highlights the importance of morals and values in democratic debate.

Thanks to TED for this lecture.

Horse Trading and Pork Barrels

Horse trading and pork barrels sound like rural terms. In Interactive Democracy they may have a rural dimension... let me explain.

Many people abhor the prospect of a hung parliament and they suggest that it will result in much behind the scenes horse trading and uncertainty. To garner the support of independent MPs, coalitions may offer them all sorts of sweeteners - pork barrel politics. This may be the case, or it could be that what some people call horse trading, others call debate and negotiation.

Interactive Democracy seeks to improve political debate by distributing votes on separate issues equitably across the electorate. It side steps the political wrangling and power broking of a hung parliament. However, there is still a danger of sweetening ID proposals if they can be structured to benefit the large urban centres where the majority of voters reside, to the detriment of rural areas. At least, that could be the case if city dwellers ignored the importance of rural areas to the national interest.... I don't believe they would.

(Please see this site for an explanation of the population map, above.)

The Quality of the Debate

Perhaps the quality of political decisions is directly proportional to the quality of the preceding debate. If so, how would we ensure the best quality debates? What would be the anatomy of a great debate?

1. Every opinion should be expressed.


2. Ineloquent opinions should be clarified.


3. The premise of every opinion should be sought.


4. Assumptions should be explored.


5. The evidence should be gathered, analysed and ranked for its quality.


6. Statistical analysis should be well founded (e.g. correlations don't always mean cause and effect).


7. New evidence should be gathered and fed into the debate.


8. There must be sufficient time.


9. Verbal opinions should be collated and written down to allow people to review them.


10. The impact and consequence of every suggestion should be analysed.


11. The administration of every suggestion should be considered.


12. The cost of every suggestion, estimated.

The question then becomes how do we conduct such an enormous undertaking on a regular basis? No one could possibly involve themselves in every aspect of every debate! No one could possibly calculate every consequence of every idea.

Interactive Democracy relies on formal debate in Parliament, contributions on the ID web site and many separate debates, each one imperfect, conducted among friends, colleagues, acquaintances and, very importantly, through the media. All opinions are then combined through a ballot.

Electioneering by Governments

Labour has been emailing cancer patients and GPs in order to garner their support and, yesterday, they launched their manifesto in a new hospital extension in Birmingham (it hasn't yet been handed over to the NHS, but that hasn't stopped the Conservatives from accusing the Brown government of breaking Cabinet Office rules on electioneering). These tactics, amount to an unfair advantage for governments over opposition parties, and I wonder how this would play out within the Interactive Democracy system.

For example, would it be acceptable to allow the government to email doctors about a bill they were sponsoring, say on the future of the NHS?

Should the opposition be allowed access to the same channel to make their case?

I think it impracticable to allow others access to these email addresses. Apart from anything else the Information Commission would probably have something to say about it. At the least it's likely to lead to a plethora of nuisance emails and at worst could lead to a breach of security.

If the government had sole access to these contacts, it provides an opportunity to promote one side of the story, and introduce bias, but on the one hand it would raise the subject for debate, which is probably a good thing.

So, perhaps the solution is to encourage governments to contact public servants in order to highlight relevant debates but prohibit them from presenting their arguments in the email. Instead they should include a link to the ID site where all sides of the debate can be aired.

Here's a report from the Teleraph on Labour's tactics.

Approved Contributions

The Interactive Democracy web site should be designed to enhance debates. Any voter can contribute an opinion or question (without being abusive), structured as threads and categorised as Plus, Minus and Interesting Points. These posts may at times link to external sites (which may be removed by the webmaster if they are found to be abusive).

MPs contributions to the debate should be highlighted and the site should have the facility to filter out all other contributions, leaving the Parliamentary debate clear and easy to follow. This would not only allow us to focus on the core issues without wading through vast numbers of posts, but would allow us to judge the qualities of the MP, and the pressure exerted on them by this public spotlight will encourage them to contribute effectively.

The site should also encourage MPs to present their evidence, which may be in the form of academic or government reports. They will therefore act as editors, ensuring that credible reports are presented on the secure site, both as highlights and the full document. The flip side of this is that academics, who may want to present their work, would be well advised to present it to MPs and persuade them of its merit. Unlike links to external sites, these documents wouldn't be corruptible after the link was posted.

Finally, each contribution, from MPs or voters, may be judged by the public on its relevance to the debate, allowing users to filter the debates to find what others perceive as the most crucial points.

The Great Undecided

Given that we humans are given to bias and group think, involving the great mass of population that are initially undecided could be a great advantage of Interactive Democracy. They are more likely to listen to the debate with an open mind, offer alternative points of view and "out of the box" ideas. They are better arbiters of argument and may provide better judgment than those embroiled in policy. Ultimately, they may be persuaded to cast their vote one way or another to reach a sound conclusion.

Blair's Wars

A simple summary of Blair's reasons for going to war with Iraq could be that

Saddam

+ chemical weapons

+ international terrorists
= a serious threat to British Citizens and our allies.

As Prime Minister, it was Blair's responsibility to protect us.

I don't want to get into re-examining Blair's rational, his estimation of the likely confluence of these factors or the downside risks involved. Instead, I want to ask the question - does a Prime Minister's duty to the British People skew his judgment; by analogy, do people accept more risks themselves than they would allow their children to take?

And another question: is it morally right to calculate the risks and duties to your own electorate at the expense of humanity abroad?

Thirdly, can Interactive Democracy help?

What ID does is allow everyone to input their own answer, balancing the calculus of probability, risk and reward and their own moral view. It allows each voter to take a personal view and not be skewed by the worry of how history would judge them. Imagine Tony, worrying about this sort of historical epitaph: "Blair, the leader who failed to protect his people, wallowing in weakness and indecision". My point is that leaders may be driven to make decisions by pressures that the average man in the street does not feel.

The problem comes when the key pieces of information are so secret that only our leaders are privy to them. But, even then, the Government's presentation of their rational would be debated by a broad spectrum of individuals, involving many military analysts, who may have cast doubt on the 45 minute claim almost as soon as it was made; or terrorism experts who may have questioned the link with Al Quaida. In such a way, ID may not only enhance the breadth of the debate, but it's quality, too.

But it's not all about the war decision, it's also about how best to proceed. Interactive Democracy provides a channel for creative ideas about solving problems. Limited wars to protect the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds, or offering Saddam and his family a luxury sanctuary, may have been among a plethora of suggestions for Parliament to debate. Perhaps, if we'd had ID, such ideas would have emerged at a much earlier juncture.

Interactive Democracy IS Education

I have heard it said that education is not just about imparting facts. It encourages people to think for themselves, to analyse, to create and to learn empathy.

I've also heard it said that learning should be life-long and not just for the youth.

In these senses Interactive Democracy IS education: it encourages and empowers people to think about issues, to analyse problems, to create solutions, to debate with each other and to learn from other people's experiences, thereby empathising with them.

The quality of the learning that comes from ID depends on the quality of the debate. The stories about each issue, the pros and cons, and the implications, should all be voiced through parliament and the media: leaders should be teachers.

But daft, amateurish and naive ideas, expressed through ePetitions, aren't a bad thing. Half baked proposals may inspire others to offer a better solution - a creative process.

Improving the Quality of Parliamentary Debate

Could it be that Interactive Democracy could apply pressure to improve the quality of Parliamentary debate?

Within Interactive Democracy, Parliament should present all the arguments, effects and interesting observations about any issue that is about to go to a national ballot. This should represent all the points of view of every Member of Parliament and may be written as a secure wiki type document. It may be constructed on-line before and after the debate in the Commons. The format may be De Bono's PMI (plus, minus and interesting points), perhaps as a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) or any other "thinking tool". Because this analysis would be presented to every voter when they come to cast their vote, it would put pressure on Parliament to do a good job; the electorate would be in a position to appoint or dismiss MPs as they do today.

No Politics or Religion Please!

Arguments may not be pleasant, and in polite society they are sometimes best avoided so that deep seated disagreements don't tarnish a relationship. However, cyberdisinhibition may allow discussion of politics that would never occur in a social group. (This blog may be a case in point.)

Flaming Emails

Cyberdisinhibition or "flaming" causes people to use language on the Internet that they would usually moderate in a normal conversation. This can lead to abusiveness and bullying, something that can readily be witnessed in the comments on You Tube. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, "disinhibition becomes far more likely when people feel strong negative emotions", as may be the case in politics!

This may cause a problem for ePetitions that allow feedback and comments, or if the author can be emailed. However, it may be moderated when abusers realise that they have to enter their name and address before posting a comment (as is required on the No.10 ePetition site, today).

As children may conceivably be using the site, this is especially important.

Swearing and abusiveness can be detected automatically by the computer system and moderated by the web master who may, in extreme cases, have cause to contact the police. Other sanctions may include a ban on the perpetrator for a period of time: "if you use word "x, y or z" you will be banned for 30 days"?