On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 10:07:54AM +0000, hellekin wrote:
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> On 09/06/2016 04:12 PM, carlo von lynX wrote:
> >
> > Liquid feedback is a democratic platform that scales and works,
> > so that is major important news. It's not a hype.
> >
>
> Can you produce documents that demonstrate users of liquid feedback
> spend less time, are more active citizens, and less stressed with this
> usage? That would at least convince me to give it a try. But I have
Less time than sitting on their hands, watching frustrating
documentaries and news, having long debates in little circles
and being totally unable to do anything about what is going on?
No. Having a perspective to actually change society and politics
consumes time.
But my first hand experience is that having a perspective to
actually change society and politics is incredibly motivating,
turns depression into joy and reason to be more active citizen.
And by consequence less stressed, yes.
You could read interviews from the 2011 period in which most
Piraten that participated in the LQFB-based campaign would tell
a story of happiness to have a perspective of fixing politics.
> the intuition that LF requires more time and more attention, that
> belongs to the chair-keyboard arrangement, while I'm more interested in
> practical activity with real people in concrete environments.
The two have to go hand in hand to achieve political change.
As long as no established politician is seriously enabling such
a platform to produce content, you have to take your issues and
proposals to the streets, the squares, the parliaments. But in
order to know what you really want as a collective, not just
what you are against, you need such a tool.
> For example, are there municipalities that adopted LF in their daily
> workflow with citizens? Are there tangible results of such adoption?
> If such adoption didn't happen yet, why? Etc.
There are several situations in which LQFB was deployed with
suboptimal results. Frequently also against the advice of the
programmers themselves, which explain in manuals and books how
they think it should be done. In most cases, the votings simply
weren't binding, so after the first vote that for whatever
reason got ignored by the politicians, the motivation collapsed.
In other cases the issues were so fringe, that citizen didn't
really care (the LiquidFriesland case). The citizen clearly have
a strong urge to vote upon the big challenges of society like
the future of capitalism. It is not so exciting to give them a
tool that lets them decide about fences around the city park.
In the PP they were allowed to take political stance on any
issue they felt about - and that worked really well, even if
the perspective of putting anything of that into practice was
decades away. Tenthousand+ would spend immense time imagining
a better society. Until the general assemblies started
boycotting liquid democracy by priotizing the proposals of
those who happened to be there in person. So the Piraten failed
by putting the careerists interests first.
I think at the Italian PP we actually have some of the best
use of LQFB, because every little thing is decided there, and
anyone who cares about anything becomes part of the steering
directorate on that issue, simply by participating. So if you
have any interest in what the group as a whole is doing, then
LQFB is already a better form of governance than electing the
usual board of directors. Any NGO could be a better NGO if it
was using LQFB internally and reduce its dependency on
charismatic leaders.
There's even a success story of a software company that has
been using LQFB as a participation tool. The first vote was
actually a garbage decision, but the CEO had the guts to
implement it anyway. The staff then realized 1. the CEO
really takes their collective decisions seriously and 2.
they have to be more cautious not to decide stupid things.
FFrom then on the liquid feedback he got from the staff,
especially regarding the design of the products, made the
CEO super happy, because it made the whole company better.
I saw a talk about this, don't remember in which language.
So much from memory. Most of the stuff is documented in
German if at all. Some exists in Italian, if that helps.
Italy has seen more LQFB use than any other country. It
was a driving force bringing the M5S into regional parlia-
ments, especially in Sicily - right in the face of the mafia.
Some parliamentaries even launched a LQFB to discuss issues
in the national parliament chambers, but it didn't catch on
because it was too good to be true. Italians didn't believe
these folks would indeed let them "remote control" them.
It had been planned to need a certain quorum before the
representatives would take the issues into the parliament,
but the quorum was never reached. It looked too much like
a PR stunt of one specific parlamentarian. And Italians
have become very allergic to PR stunts.
Again, there are zillions of ways to mess it up, although
the technology does the job it was designed for. That's why
the necessary culture to go with it takes time to grow.
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