[p2p-research] P2P democracy?
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 1 00:29:11 CET 2010
keep us in the loop Smari, and also tell us how to help when you get
elected!
2010/11/30 Smári McCarthy <smari at anarchism.is>
> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for your support, it's meant a lot to me. Also, sorry for the
> late feedback, but I've been waiting too.. read on. :-)
>
> The elections were slightly disappointing in a number of ways.
> Throughout the time running up to the elections, various special
> interest groups, mostly allied with the old political models, were
> attacking the idea of a constitutional assembly, and even went as far as
> to spur confusion about the voting system itself, the STV-PR (Single
> Transferable Vote) system.
>
> The result of this was the smallest voter turnout in Icelandic
> history, roughly 37% - in comparison, parliamentary elections here have
> a typical turnout of roughly 85%. However, with 37% of the electorate
> there's still, ironically, more votes behind each potential member of
> the constitutional assembly than behind a comparative parliamentarian.
>
> An interesting side-effect of the low turnout is that those who did
> show up are considered less likely to be populistic in their choices and
> in general better prepared.
>
> However, at the current time no results have been made public. There
> were some problems with the count, mostly owing to poor handwriting
> analysis software and a lot of manual checking, but the final result is
> expected today.
>
> Judging from what I've heard from people my chances are fairly good.
> With 25 seats and 522 candidates there's an off-the-bat 5% chance for
> any given person to get a seat. Factoring in that about 100 candidates
> did no campaigning and another 200 did only very minimal campaigning,
> that chance goes up somewhat for the remainder. Also taking into account
> my relative online popularity (#9 on Facebook "likes", and a lot of
> YouTube videos that got some viewing), my vaguely defined support bases
> in Reykjavík city center and in Vestmannaeyjar, and a few other similar
> things, I'm fairly confident that my chances at this point are roughly
> 30-40%, that is to say, that I'm in the top 60-or-so canddates.
>
> So... there's still a chance. I'll know more in the next 8-or-so
> hours. I'll keep y'all posted.
>
> Interesting times...
>
> - Smári
>
>
>
> On 11/30/2010 07:49 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > Dear Smari,
> >
> > what's the news on the election, and on your candidacy in particular?
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > 2010/10/18 Smári McCarthy <smari at anarchism.is <mailto:smari at anarchism.is
> >>
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As some of you may know, a lot of things have been happening in
> > Iceland of late. The collapse has led to a rather invigorating
> > democratic upheaval, with strong demands amongst the public for
> greater
> > transparency, freedom of information, and many other things which, to
> > anybody who payed attention to the revolutionary ideals of the 19th
> > century or the enlightenment ideas before them, would seem incredibly
> > reasonable, but yet for some reason have not become the norm...
> >
> > On the 27th of November the Icelandic electorate will vote for 25 to
> > 31 people to sit on a constitutional assembly, a special assembly
> which
> > has the purpose of proposing a new constitution for Iceland.
> >
> > I have decided to run for the election, along with about 500 other
> > people who are all ostensibly independent but many have ties with
> > special interests, political parties, and so on.
> >
> > What sets myself and some of the other candidates apart is our
> > involvement with the digital freedoms battle, the fight for freedom
> of
> > information, the participation in the commons, the understanding of
> the
> > new Peer-to-Peer reality. There are a few of us, but in general we
> > suffer from having ideas which are somewhat foreign and weird to a
> > majority of the public, and little access to traditional media to
> > promote ourselves.
> >
> > This, while the industrial interests and old guard have vast
> > resources, they own the traditional media, and the political ideas of
> > centralized government by the elite, these ideas which they will
> > espouse, have been taught as fact to every schoolchild here since the
> > schooling itself became fact.
> >
> > So you understand that the opportunity here is great. We may have
> the
> > opportunity to change the world. We may have the opportunity to alter
> > the way the world thinks about democracy forever, by creating a
> > democratized democracy - a Peer-to-Peer Democracy.
> >
> > But only if we win. Not necessarily me, but somebody from this line
> of
> > thought must win, and must be put in the situation where the ideas of
> > the 21st century are put into the new Icelandic constitution.
> >
> > The old guard have the media, they have the money. They have the
> > political clout and the ideological indoctrination. But we have an
> > immensely powerful and infinitely valuable secret weapon at our
> > disposal.
> >
> > You.
> >
> > You're receiving this mail because I have had the good benefit of
> > getting to know you, and I believe that I can ask your assistance in
> > making this work. I don't exactly know what it is I'm asking of you,
> > because I'm not exactly sure what will work; rather, I'm requesting
> that
> > we crowdsource an answer to the question of, "given great
> opportunity,
> > what can the P2P community do?"
> >
> > Specifically, I think these questions need to be answered:
> >
> > - How do we make the idea of crowdsourced/participatory
> > democracy seem
> > realistic to people who've been taught to think it isn't?
> >
> > - How do we make the idea of the commons and collective
> ownership
> > palatable to people who associate it with failed communist ideals?
> >
> > - How do we show that the models we've seen on the Internet
> > can apply
> > in meatspace state governance?
> >
> > - How do we most effectively promote these ideas amongst
> > people who
> > aren't active users of social networks or are outside our immediate
> > network's reach?
> >
> > ... and so on.
> >
> > Again, this isn't about getting me into the constitutional assembly,
> > per se, although inevitably the two goals are coupled by way of me
> being
> > a representative of these ideals. Rather, it's about using this great
> > opportunity.
> >
> > What say you?
> >
> > - Smári
> >
> > (cc'd is Herbert Snorrason, who is also a candidate.)
> >
> >
> > p.s., at this time I don't think it's prudent to share this line of
> > thinking on publicly listed/indexed mailing lists, blogs or web
> pages;
> > rather for discussion amongst ourselves (not adding people either..).
> > Reason being that we still haven't identified who is serving the
> > interests of the existing power groups and other special interests;
> this
> > won't be fully possible until the full candidate list is published a
> few
> > days from now.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >
> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
> >
> > Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
--
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
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