[okfn-discuss] workshop on emergent democracy // tuesday 19 august in shoreditch

Tue Aug 19 03:01:14 UTC 2008

On Aug 18, 2008, at 9:32 PM, charlesarmstrong wrote:

> when i try to imagine an emergent
> democratic system operating in practice i still see 95% of people
> taking only occasional interest in decision-making. but there does
> seem to be a certain proportion of the citizenry who are motivated to
> take on more responsibility than the current system permits them. for
> me the key thing is not how many people are involved in decision-
> making, but how easy it is for someone who decides they want to get
> involved to start doing so, and the way they are able to start
> exerting influence.

Hello. I am new to this list, but this looks like an opportune place  
to introduce myself. I work with the Metagovernment project, and we  
are working on implementing exactly what you describe above, for any  
community (from chess clubs to large governments). I welcome you to  
investigate our project, and consider helping out, if you can:
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Our home page is a little out of sync with the ideas developing  
internally, but anyone is welcome to join our startup committee or  
read its archives:
http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Startup

Also, since it may be of interest for your meeting, I'd like to point  
you to a list we have been compiling of significant projects working  
toward some form of direct democracy through Web 2.0 technologies:
http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Related_projects
Our project has been in touch with several of these other  
organizations, and we are beginning to explore (or at least wonder)  
how we can work together. Some of these projects have very different  
approaches and/or scopes, so we may just have to see what the general  
marketplace does with our "competing" systems.

Ed Pastore
http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/User:Ed_Pastore