Interesting Links for 05-08-2016

[andrewducker]

What it's like to be a midwife (tags: babies childbirth work healthcare viaSwampers ) The beauty of bitwise AND (tags: logic computing mathematics ) OneCore to rule them all: How Microsoft finally got the same operating system running on all of its platforms (tags: microsoft windows Technology computers history ) Columbia Researchers Find

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I agree with Andrew H. That's more like the sort of progressive alliance that I think is hits the sweet spot of being practicable, appealling to voters, and not actually anti-democratic whilst also not requiring the smaller parties to become the stooges for a bunch of stuff they actively don't want.

UD have been mulling over a campaign based around common manifesto positions on constitutional reform -either party based or individual candidate bases.

I think for MoreUnited to work it needs to work more like a Super-PAC and be a way for people around the country to channel resource to individual candidates they support.

A more fanciful version of a mechanism for a progressive alliance can be found her.

https://medium.com/@jordangreenhall/we-can-restore-democracy-by-disrupting-politics-here-is-how-c9d514a8c194#.5eid57abs

I find the idea of liquid democracy interesting but I'm not sure it quite passes the test of explaining it down the pub to my Dad's tipsy mate.

[andrewducker]

The main issue I see there is that during the formative phases of this party the voting will be swayed by the kinds of people who sign up. So if it's made up of 40% lovely people and 60% bigots then its representatives will be 100% supporting racist motions, which will make it hard for them to attract new liberal people to join.

What I'd want would be for the representatives to vote _in proportion_ to the people they are proxying.

[danieldwilliam]

There's a definate snowball effect with the plurality version of the liquid democracy proposal.

And that might get you in to an interesting arms race situation as all sides in the particular debate try and win the internal vote by one in order to gain all the representatives votes.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that feels imbalanced to me.

And turns every vote into a referendum. Whereas actually I want my representatives to be negotiating with each other, and trying to find areas of compromise, which I'm not sure this would achieve.

[danieldwilliam]

Aye - it feels like a driver towards a winner takes all situation with low information.

And also I think at odds with one of the underlying principles of liquid democracy - that it is a system for flexibly placing trust in the judgement, knowledge and values of particular individuals. I think that's a core feature of the system.

[andrewducker]

Exactly. So I'm really not up for getting there via a very different system which I don't actually approve of.

I do like the idea of proxying my vote through channels in useful directions. But it does also feel like having a wide variety of voices is good. I don't want to end up with all of the proxied votes ending up in the hands of, effectively, party leaders. I think I'd like to see this system put to good use in an organisation, and see the various ways it goes wrong before I support it.

[danieldwilliam]

Exactly.

I think likely failure points are that

a) in practice the proxies end up in the hands of a very small number of people
b) those people are not actually the experts but the people the experts trust (or are persuaded to acquiece) to actually get things done
c) a variety of cognitive bias kick in - halo effect, mistaking high confidence for high comptetence
d) the same knowledge asymertry exists when reviewing outcomes as exists when making decisions. How am I to know that you're views on the technical framework for pensions software turned out to be correct when I didn't understand enough about the subject to make my own decision?
e) Proxy kinship and tribalism - I'm more likely to proxy you on a matter I think you understand than A Random Stranger on the Internet. I assume you are more likely to proxy on my proxy to someone you know. Unproxying you is likely to be awkward at best, perhaps seen as a personal betrayal at worst. A bit like being in the Labour Party.
f) benign corruption - If I am proxied in for two areas of subject matter knowledge what happens if (when) I agree to slightly shift my position on subject A in exchange for a bigger (to me) win on subject B.

So it runs the risk of ends up as a slightly looser version of a political party.

I've had a brief conversation with someone about trialing it inside the Scottish Green Party, which would be an intersting place to try it.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, trialling it within political parties would make sense - I know that several of the Pirate Parties are using it, and I'll be interested to see if that grows.

And I agree that all of those are likely to be problems. Plus, of course, non-benign corruption.