At 05:04 PM 2/27/2006, Simmons, Forest wrote: >It does my heart good to see this kind of discussion.
It takes a good heart to be warmed by this.... > >Yes, that is the solution I came up with. A meeting determines what > >is the optimum size, N, then the N proxies with the most votes are > >full members. It would actually not be difficult to do. > > >My response: > >It seems to me that each connected component of the DP network >should have a seat in the assembly, unless that makes the assembly too large. Consider the context of my proposal. Every member of the network has a *vote* in the assembly, so every member participates in determining if there are to be any restrictions on full participation. Generally, those restrictions aren't necessary until the assembly actually gets too large, though even in small organizations, it can be found necessary to restrict an individual. This is simply the right of the assembly to protect itself. (in FAs, no member can ever be expelled, but a corollary is that nobody is forced to meet with someone personally, with whom they do not wish to meet, except and unless both parties are high-level proxies and they both desire to seek some kind of organizational unity, which I presume high-level proxies will generally value. The only reason a loop (your "connected component") would not have *full* representation would be that the loop closed or terminated without having reached a sufficiently-trusted proxy. The continuation of that situation would be voluntary, unless the loop were so "deviant" from the large majority of members that they couldn't find rapport with any of them. Remember, if they can find anyone to trust outside their group, they have enlarged the loop. Outsiders may simply negotiate with each other to agree on a common proxy, bringing them over the threshold. But it is not necessary to have full participation rights to participate. Participation really only involves finding a proxy with full rights willing to enter a motion or pass an idea on. Of course, if a proxy does that in a way that harms the group, that proxy might face censure. But if the idea has any merit, I'd think it would not be difficult to find a proxy who would think it worthy of consideration, if for no other reason than to bring the "deviant" group into the fold by giving its ideas consideration, to the point that these ideas would find proper inclusion in the consensus. >In that eventuality one possibility is to require each of the >smaller components to attach itself to one of the N larger >components by delegation. >But this solution bothers me because the "require" is a constraint >that violates the otherwise voluntary delegation principle. It ought to bother you. Great minds think alike. :-) I think the value of fully voluntary delegation, aside from natural consequences, is so great that the harm from lack of full privileges is outweighed, by far. Essentially, if you can't find agreement outside your small group, you *deserve* to be somewhat isolated. But FA/DP organizations would present so many opportunities for connection, and so many of the fully-qualified proxies would want to be as inclusive as possible, that I doubt that serious isolation would take place. Restriction of full participation is actually essential; however, suppose I'm wrong about that, that there is a way to allow everyone to participate fully with incurring the well-known harms from it. Meetings, remember, establish their own rules (that is actually part of Robert's Rules, as it should be); all it takes is one full member of the meeting to move that restrictions be lifted, and all those "excluded" members can vote on it. I value consensus, but I do not want the seeking of it to become, as it often does in consensus organizations, minority rule where the status quo favors a minority. The majority retains the right of decision and the natural power that it has merely by being the majority. (If it is a true majority.) >Another thing that bothers me is that even the largest of the >natural components of the DP network might be so small that that the >N=500 largest components together might fail to represent even one >percent of the population, total. I think that as proxy level rises, the proxies will be better and better able to find good proxies for themselves. We won't really know, however, until we create such organizations. But my opinion is that there is so much benefit from collecting proxies in single individuals on a large scale, in terms of efficiency and cost -- remember, I consider that the time that members put into an organization its "cost," and in an FA, it is almost the only cost, or at least the overhead, there will be project costs, paid directly to projects by the members who support the projects. People will be motivated to seek those they trust, since it will relieve them of the burden of redundancy. There are *not* 500 factions in any organization, and trust in a proxy does not have to be absolute. >These two objections might not obtain in typical cases, but it would >be nice to have a method that finessed these potential problems, >because when there are problems at the extremes, manipulators have >incentive to press towards the extremes that favor them. FA/DP organizations will be, I predict, practically invulnerable to manipulation, if they have a certain set of founding principles that are well-understood by the members. FA/DP organizations are free to become whatever they want, they could abandon the freedoms and restrictions that preserve them, but they won't if they understand why they are there, that is, if they understand the organizational hazards that the rules are designed to avoid. The power of FA/DP is in its fractal structure; in particular, if the assignment of direct proxies takes place on a small scale, where, say, only 20 people directly choose a single individual as their proxy, corruption would be extremely difficult and ineffective. I've thought, sometimes, that this number should be limited, but, same principle as you stated above, it would be an infringement on the members, who must remain free to make what we think are mistakes. I just know that *I'm* not going to choose a proxy who represents so many people that I cannot reliably communicate with him or her. And, on the reverse side, I would not want to *accept* more proxies than I could comfortably call in a few hours. That's *direct* proxies. There is no natural limit to the number of indirect proxies. (And this is why delegable proxy is an inevitability. A single layer of proxies runs into the problem of scale, just at a bit higher level.) We aren't going to truly understand the problems of delegable proxy until there are real organizations using it. Hence my project to start FA/DP organizations, or to encourage others to do so. Try it. You'll like it. And I really want to encourage anyone who cares to join with me. BeyondPolitics.org, in its conception, is itself an FA/DP organization, I am merely a trustee at the moment, and I would never abuse that trust contrary to the FA principles. (I.e., suppose that a majority of members want to do something that I just cannot abide with. I might, as one possibility, turn the web site into a simple page referencing two new sites: one being controlled by me and whoever agreed with me, and the other being controlled directly by the original majority, however they wished, together with a consensus description of what happened (a consensus description can include unresolved controversy by stating multiple points of view). In other words, I would not use my position as trustee to bias the future of the organization in whatever direction I might happen to personally want. There are ways to ensure fairness and equity without controlling others. FA/DP organizations can quickly and easily split, but they can just as quickly and easily merge. And there is usually much more power in merging, if ways can be found to cooperate. ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
