re-inventing democracy

"The Commons Connection Around early 2000, when the name "liquid democracy" was first coined, questions about the maintenance of civil infrastructure swirled with especially fearsome intensity. I found myself thinking about commons (please ignore the stuff near the bottom of that page - it's quite obsolete) as a wider conceptual framework in which to include civil infrastructure. I started wondering if all tasks traditionally relegated to government could be thought of in terms of commons maintenance. So, I wondered... Could we not think of this fast, decentralized, collaborative decision making system as a means to ensure that the things we all hold in common - like civil infrastructure - stay properly maintained... By small, stealthy, distributed teams of anarchist kung-fu badasses, if need be... Even in the face of radical technological change...? For that too-grandiose purpose, Liquid Democracy was designed."

"I left Istanbul in mid-June to join a 10-week program in Silicon Valley to solve global grand challenges through technology. On the first day, futurist and director of engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil, and futurist and CEO of X PRIZE foundation, Peter Diamandis, laid out our mission at Singularity University: Create a positive impact on a billion people in a decade and create disruptive innovation. The first thing that came to my mind were the demonstrations and police crackdowns I had just left behind in Turkey, and whether there was a way to disrupt this failed system of governance. + "

"What if we could hear the voice of every voter, what if every citizen could vote safely and wisely, and what if every voter could see the choices of citizens globally? What if we could make democracy global and have it be transparent?"

these are the 10 steps 

"Zwischen Februar 2011 und Januar 2013 sammelte die Enquete-Kommission Internet und digitale Gesellschaft des Deutschen Bundestages auf dieser Plattform Ideen, Anregungen und Meinungen zur Zukunft der digitalen Gesellschaft."

"Ypart is a European-wide online participation platform specially designed for adolescents and youth. The goal of Ypart is to provide young people with a platform, where upon they can meet online, develop ideas, discuss concerns, and be able to engender a collective influence on political decisions. Ypart directs its service also at the youth and regional organisations in which adolescents partake."

"Bürgerbeteiligung auf kommunaler Ebene Offene Kommune ist eine neutrale Bürgerbeteiligungplattform mit dem Ziel, einen direkten Dialog zwischen Bürgern, Kommunen und Organisationen zu ermöglichen. Sie können OffeneKommune jetzt testen und zu den ersten Anwendern gehören. Nehmen Sie dazu mit uns Kontakt auf."

"Last week, without much fanfare or publicity, 15 members of the Italian Parliament launched Tu Parlamento, a Liquid Feedback platform that allows Italian citizens to comment on proposed bills. it is an initiative led by Laura Puppato, a senator of the Democratic Party."

"The U.S. Pirate Party plans to create a new social network that will let Americans communicate without the National Security Agency spying on them, one of the party's "captains" told Business Insider. Like many third parties, the Pirate Party supports some uncommon ideas. But with the hullabaloo surrounding the NSA's secret surveillance program PRISM, one of its goals sits at the forefront of everyone's mind - online privacy. "Captain" (but really chairperson of the national committee) Lindsay-Anne Brunner told us the Pirate Party started thinking about creating a new social network two weeks ago. The Pirateseven posted a Facebook status requesting a few more deckhands with IT skills."

"Campaign managers, party researchers and communications researchers have been discussing whether there is any way of beating the all-powerful German chancellor in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Salomon Reyes, the campaign strategist of the Pirate party, is refreshingly open. "In 2009 we got 800,000 votes because of 'Censursula.' We'll be doing the same again this time: picking someone out and going for them." In the last parliamentary elections, the Pirates pilloried the Christian Democrat (CDU) minister Ursula von der Leyen: They coined the pun on her name and depicted her as a keen advocate of censorship because she wanted to extend Internet blocking to assist the fight against child pornography. The campaign helped the Pirates to achieve a national profile."

"The Pirate Parties International(PPI) had their general assembly in Kazan on 20-21 April 2013 where they accepted some new ordinary members. One of these new members was the Pirate Party of South Korea. Pirate Times interviewed the founder Gyung Chan Lee about the current situation."

"Rome (dpa) - In February's general elections, Italy's biggest protest party beat all expectations, taking a quarter of the votes as it rode a wave of popular discontent against a deep economic crisis and a corrupt political class. The Five Star Movement (M5S) attracted Europe-wide interest and comparisons with other up-and-coming anti-establishment forces such as Germany's Pirate Party, with a campaign focused on cleaner politics, web-based democracy and a referendum on a eurozone exit. But now the political creation of comedian-turned-activist Beppe Grillo appears in disarray, after suffering an embarassing defeat in a nationwide round of local elections last weekend."

" Please, do every one of your constituents a favor and the next time you go to speak, stop and think "Am I about to say something stupid?" If the answer is anything other than "No, and I can cite you independent and peer-reviewed evidence to back my statement" then please, KEEP your mouth shut."

" Adhocracy is a policy drafting tool for distributed groups. It allows members of organizations or the public to compose or vote documents that represent the policy of the group. "

"The Liquid Democracy Association is a non-profit and non-partisan organisation that works on innovative ideas and projects for democratic participation. Our goal is to establish a transparent democratic principle in both the political and social domain based on strengthening the citizens' participation. We are working on ideas and projects that will make our modern democracy more transparent and flexible. The work of the Liquid Democracy Association encompasses both the theoretical conception and the practical implementation of software projects."

"The conversation has only just begun when Ms. Linke calls out, "Just a moment!" Linke, sitting on a sofa next to Christopher Lauer, head of the Pirate Party's parliamentary group in Berlin's state parliament, waves her hand in the air. "Before we start talking about the issues, let's clarify a couple of questions.""

"UPDATE: At Cameron's Probable Cause hearing, the prosecution was apparently not prepared, and was unaware of the previous ruling in Superior court where Cam's bail was denied. They said they weren't ready to move forward with the Probable Cause hearing. Cameron's attorney argued that the prosecution had plenty of time to prepare, since he has been in jail for over a month and still has not been indicted. While the judge chastised the prosecution, the judge pushed the court date back to June 27th. Cameron will sit in jail for nearly a month before the government even has to prove that they have reason to charge him."

"Script: Did you know the word politics comes from ancient Greek "polis" - the city state in which the first kind of democracy was carried out by its citizens? They, like us today, identified problems and discussed them. We do it on the streets and in bars and sometimes begrudgingly at thanksgiving dinners. In Athens the citizens all came together on a designated hill outside of the city to discuss current issues and create policy solutions. Every free man, literally only free men by the way, had a say and a vote to decide on a policy for each issue. Thus word on the street was transformed into politics. This input from citizens into policy making is what we call direct democracy. Modern nation states, like Germany in our example here, do not share one common public space where all citizens could meet. Reaching an understanding about common issues merely by talking them over is unfeasible for the amount of people that would have to be included in our modern societies. The problems of our time are very much different from those of ancient Greece in three ways: Because of the diversity among our citizens mitigating their issues is far more complex. Moreover, to be a citizen today is no longer a vocation. Unlike the men of Athens we usually have to work to earn our living and do not have the time to spend all of our day pondering and discussing political issues. That may be part of the reason why many people today feel they do not have the adequate expert knowledge about those issues to contribute to the political sphere. What most modern democracies do instead, then, is have designated representatives from the populace devote their full time to be professional politicians. They carry out the public discussion of issues in our place. Mass media channels their discussions back to our societies. But only the politicians get to decide on those issues in the designated political arena. We, the public, do get the chance to vote for a representative of one world view or po

"You can browse what's happening in this test system. If you like to actively participate in this test system, please send your request to test20120629@public-software-group.org and we send you an invitation code with further instructions."

" This week, Beth Noveck kicked off her talk at the Personal Democracy Forum conference by reflecting on the the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S), Italy's 5 Star Movement, and their use of Liquid Feedback (LQFB), a software for policymaking and political discussion. After its initial deployment by the German Pirate Party, the software has gained a lot of popularity over the past few years, and most recently it has been adopted by several M5S groups in regions such as Lombardy, Lazio and Sicily. True to their principles of participatory democracy and free access to the internet and information (and in response to criticism about how they run their business), it is no surprise that these two parties have been searching for a platform to engage their members more directly. But is Liquid Feedback the answer?"