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.

Interactive Democracy for Organisations

The ePetition aspect of Interactive Democracy could be usefully employed for generating suggestions and measuring support for them in areas other than politics. For example, the military could use this system to get feedback and ideas from personnel at every level. Political parties, unions, or any other organisation may also like to take advantage of this aspect of the system.

There could be a small charge for organisations to use the Interactive Democracy infrastructure, but the content generated would remain confidential, open to its members or perhaps only to senior management (the military would need to be especially careful about security).

How would it work?

An organisation would supply a database of approved members who could then use standard security settings to access private areas of the ID site. The organisation may decide in advance if the system is to allow anonymity, or not.