The Obstacles Facing Internet-Based Democracy

The advent of the internet allows unprecedented communication and collaboration between people all over the world. As such, it only makes sense to use this incredible platform as a way to improve a historically restricted arena: politics. Internet-based democracy promises to improve transparency in government, eliminate barriers between the people and their representation, and allow for new voices and ideas to receive fair consideration. The system holds additional advantages. Web platforms can be constantly edited, improved, and modified to better meet the needs of users. Change can be made quickly, relatively inexpensively, and in direct response to the feedback of those who interact with it, all the necessary elements for Intelligent Trial and Error. Furthermore, the internet is already used by over 2 billion people in ways similar to this proposal. While legacy thinking might slow adoption of such a system, the public’s inherent familiarity with its foundation put it ahead of most radical new ideas. Yet, despite genuine hopes that such an internet-based democracy system could someday exist, a number or specific obstacles remain to be overcome before immediate adoption could even be considered.

The first problem is something I’ll term: “the comment section dilemma”. While there are many different systems through which internet communication happens, one of the most ubiquitous is the comment section featured at the base of an article, video, blog, or product page. In smaller scale communities, this section can often foster intelligent, productive conversation that adds to the page’s existing content or perhaps advances the ideas covered above. These communities frequently rely on self-regulation to keep conversations productive. When applied to much larger pages with heavier traffic, however, this system often breaks down. Spam, joke posts, and hateful comments quickly crowd out the more productive comments, leading nowhere. This problem is not exclusive to comment sections either; large scale forums and chat-rooms regularly deal with these challenges as well. While some sites have been able to deal with these problems to an extent, it often comes at a price. Some sites have recently eliminated comments (or selectively limit comments based on how controversial the content is), or made it more difficult to access (either through drop-down menus, or by requiring registration). Others still have relied on heavy censoring. While censoring is undoubtedly necessary in any potential internet democracy system, the magnitude and method of enforcement are extremely important questions. Automated censoring systems can deal with massive scale, but face problems with intelligence. Existing systems appear to struggle with anything more than obvious spam or profanity. The task of identifying hateful or unproductive posts (beyond simple profanity) requires an actual understanding of the concepts being discussed. Furthermore, any system of censoring (both automated and manual) will hold some degree of bias. Free speech is an essential component to democracy, and the use of censoring in such a forum is dangerous (and perhaps even constitutionally illegal). An official internet democracy site would need to handle these issues nearly flawlessly to gain public approval (especially given the tremendous size of its user base), an obstacle that we, both technologically or socially, have yet to overcome.

The second obstacle is another unintended consequence of scale: the problem of maintaining equality and organization. A site with a massive user-base would generate far more content than any one human could read or comprehend. If perfect equality and equal attention were given to all posts, nobody would ever be heard. Furthermore, the benefit of transparency in this system begins to be lost if the content is hidden not behind closed doors, but behind terabytes of other information (a much more intimidating problem). It quickly becomes clear that for any idea to be seen by enough people to gain support, some kind of ranking system must be developed. Aside from the ethical questions surrounding ranking users or ideas, there exist technical challenges associated with this as well. Many sites, such as Reddit, use complicated algorithms to judge the merits of posts and users and choose how many others will see them. Unfortunately, a perfect algorithm for identifying the best political discussion points does not exist. The disadvantages to an imperfect solution, besides not promoting the best content, are that it can be “gamed” by users attempting to reverse engineer the algorithm. In other words, users can find ways of artificially increasing the ranking of their post that are not directly tied to its merit. The struggle with equality in internet democracy is broader than the specific implementation though. The development or usage of any new technology represents a form of legislation that may be unequal. For instance, an internet-based system gives more political influence to those who can afford internet access and a computer. Many of the poorest and most in need could become even less represented. Such a system also implies a degree of computer literacy. There may be a number of more elderly citizens who do not have the required skills to access and contribute to the system in the way that the younger generation could. The inherent inequality and struggles with organizing an internet-based democracy prevent it from being put into action in the present time.

Fighting Voter Apathy

Voter apathy in this country has been a growing problem for many years. Not only troubling in terms of the younger generations, voter disinterest in politics and government can lead to a whole host of problems, including the tendency for technological somnambulism and legacy thinking to prevail. As students of STS, our goal is steer the development of science and technology to the most favorable social outcomes. A government that cannot adequately adapt and evolve to regulate or foster these new developments is likely to fail us in our goal. Therefore, it is in our best interest to not only consider the design of a better democracy, but also examine ways in which we can motivate thoughtful participation that is representative of all the citizens. From lecture and supplementary reading, we identified a number of possible reasons for voter apathy based on research. Some of these included: “general disgust”, remoteness, capture by rich and powerful, and overall cynicism of the current system. I believe that these are the symptoms of two primary problems. First, the corruption and inequality of the system due to the controlling elite. We have thoroughly identified the connections between large corporations and politics through channels of lobbying and “revolving doors” between industry insiders and political positions. Secondly, the challenge of the “small voice in the large crowd”. This describes the tendency for citizens to abstain from voting because they see their contribution as having very little value or pull in the huge number of election votes. While our lecture proposed a push towards more participatory or direct democracy to combat these effects, the merits of a sortition (or pseudo-random) democratic process appears to be uniquely suited to meet these needs.

Our current representative form of democracy is plagued with problems of transparency and industry lobbying. The vast majority of voters do not feel represented by their elected officials, and yet the process of removing and replacing ineffective politicians is lengthy and difficult. While, in theory, a purely representative democracy presents a highly efficient way to make decisions, many of its pitfalls appear in the logistics. The Iron Law of Oligarchy is perhaps one of the most succinct ways to describe this challenge. It states that regardless of how democratic an organization may start, it will inevitably begin to fall prey to oligarchy thus eliminating true democracy. This is emphasized especially in large bureaucracies, which produce hierarchies of individuals with different levels of power. Power has the tendency to corrupt, and when those in power are corrupted, it becomes extremely difficult to remove them from that position. Furthermore, those in positions of power (in our current government) are by large majority white males. This distribution is not indicative of the population they are trying to represent. A sortition based process eliminates much of this problem. Voting power is given randomly to a diverse group of individuals who are representative of the overall population. Seen as a responsibility or civic duty rather than a career, those in this position would be expected to put their full effort into developing and voting on good policies for the public. Since this position in only temporary and always changing, participants will not be dis-incentivized from solving issues by the temptations of campaigning or elections to maintain their position.

The disinterest of young voters has been well publicized. Many of us are familiar with the “Every Vote Counts” campaign among many others. Encouraging people to vote, however, does not address the underlying issue of why so many feel that their vote does not count. In 2012, approximately 1.29*10^8 people voted. Although the process is not quite so simple, in effect every vote contributed to only 7.74*10^-7% of the decision. While not entirely logical or rational, there is a tendency to think that if only a tiny fraction voter’s opinion affects the output, why would she or he put in more than an equally small fraction of effort? There is some validity to the effort argument. If everyone who voted put in a week’s worth of dedicated, objective research into their decision, we would probably make far better choices for the country. This is neither practical nor realistic, however. Most individuals couldn't take a week off of work and productivity to pursue this, and the short term effects on the economy could be devastating. Basic economic theory tells us that when people specialize in one area of work, overall economy-wide efficiency improves. A sortition process helps to improve this efficiency. As described in one section of our reading, the sortition based process adopted by the coastal district of Zeguo in China has been using this process successfully for a number of years. As described in our reading: “if the public think their voice actually matters, they’ll do the hard work, really study their briefing books, ask the experts the smart questions, and then make tough decisions”. When people know that their decisions make a big difference, perhaps we would get a small but diverse group of informed decisions rather than a huge pool of half-informed ones.

"Voter Turnout in the United States Presidential Elections." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. 

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections>.

"Iron Law of Oligarchy." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy>.

Klein, Joe. "How Can a Democracy Solve Tough Problems?" Time. Time Inc., 02 Sept. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2015790,00.html>.

Innovation as a Basic Human Right

Both the textbook reading and supplementary article this week demonstrated the failings and inefficiencies associated with using capitalism as a tool to guide markets to the most socially responsible outcomes. While it is hard to argue with their premise, more interesting was the diversity of their proposed improvements to these problems. The supplemental reading strongly favored economic democracy, a system that it defines as one in which public power is more directly accountable to those affected by it. This too, took multiple forms such as public banks and worker cooperatives. The textbook, while also exploring the concept of increased work democracy, also noted some of the weaknesses in the ability of a purely democratic system to efficiently regulate business and developments in the interest of the public. Several other options were presented in its place, many of which appear as logical extensions of the development of an institution dedicated to the study and regulation of the market, which was presented in chapter 7.

Perhaps one of the most novel and unique solutions presented in the text was that of auctioning the right to innovate. As we have explored in the past, unintended consequences are all but impossible to avoid in full (regardless of how much planning and research is invested). In the event that an unintended consequence does occur, the preferred strategy to address it is efficient and intelligent trial and error. Quick identification of the problem and implementation of revisions to compensate are key to the iteration process. The downside to intelligent trial and error is in the resources it requires. This is what the concept of auctioning the right to innovate seeks to solve. The basic proposal, as presented by the text, suggests creating a maximum quota of major innovations that can be pursued every year. The demand created to own one or more of these annual rights will dynamically set their price, with corporations that believe more strongly in their innovation more willing to pay more. The money created through the sale of innovation rights will then go to the analysis and monitoring of possible negative consequences created through this innovation. Additionally, using the rough relationship between scale of an innovation and the likelihood of unintended consequences, monitoring institutions can more easily set priority between development projects. While the merits of this proposal are substantial, there are naturally certain concerns that will be raised. I believe that these concerns tend to fall in one of three areas: questions of effectiveness, questions of implementation, and questions of ethics. Questions of the effectiveness of the proposal are understandable, but difficult to answer without the implementation of test studies or extensive research. Similarly, questions of implementation could only truly be addressed through the extensive investment of time and money into engineering the system (which is not the goal of this discussion). Questions of ethics, however, are more accessible at the present "concept stage" of this proposal.

First, it is important to clarify that the primary target of this auction system is designed to be large businesses. The text even emphasizes that certain exemptions could be enacted for small businesses that are unable to compete at the prices of larger organizations. Without delving too deeply into the businesses as people argument, I accept that many of these concerns may not fully apply at the scale at which they are implemented. At the same time, this proposal represents what I believe to be an unprecedented restriction on business. Historically, we can find examples of government using taxes, environmental concerns, and anti-monopoly laws to restrict the flow of innovation created by the market. This is understandable, as activities restricted by these regulations have a direct, measurable effect on the rest of society. Trying to regulate the pursuit of an idea, however, is fundamentally different. Quite apart from the logistics of regulating ideas and degrees of pursuit, we must consider how the process of innovation is tied to humanity. Is innovation a basic human right? Perhaps not in the same sense as clean water and basic sanitation are (or should be), but it is hard to deny humanity's historical association with it. The development of basic tools and rudimentary construction is one of the achievements that we consider fundamentally (though not exclusively) human. It has helped us survive from ancient times until now (despite its clear potential to harm us). I think that many would consider it to be at least some form of expression of free speech, even if that right is not considered essential globally. Of course (as is the subject of much of this course), innovation can create consequences detrimental to others. Some of humanity's greatest inventions have been born of unlikely ideas and unexpected sources. While the point of this proposal is to eliminate or closely monitor those innovations less likely to benefit the world overall, is an outright ban on any activity or long-shot idea that cannot garner adequate funding a fair or responsible approach?