[p2p-research] P2P democracy?

Wed Dec 1 17:32:36 CET 2010

I'd suggest a first draft on an etherpad session...

   http://pad.telecomix.org/p2pconstitution

Write away and let's see where we can get in a couple of days (I don't
think I'll have much time to work on it today, but tomorrow and onward!)

	- Smári

On 12/01/2010 03:36 PM, Paul B. Hartzog wrote:
> As a political theorist and activist I am willing and interested in your idea to
> 
> "make some kind of "p2p constitution package" that
>  contains information about how networked societies need to be
>  represented in modern governance models."
> 
> Perhaps we could tackle this on a wiki somewhere?
> 
> -p
> 
> 
> 
> 2010/12/1 Smári McCarthy <smari at anarchism.is>:
>> Hi all,
>>
>>  So, the results are in. I lost. The vote was incredibly even for most
>> of the rounds - I eventually got eliminated after 377 rounds (out of 509
>> total), which put me in the top 25% of the candidates, roughly, but
>> nowhere near enough to get in.
>>
>>  This just means that I'll have to focus on other stuff. There's a lot
>> to do. The 3rd annual Reykjavík Digital Freedoms Conference is today,
>> so I guess I'd better focus on that for now... and then there's all the
>> other stuff.
>>
>>  I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and now know how not to play this
>> game (clean). Of the people who did get in, none can be considered
>> representatives of the views prevalent in our community, and a few can
>> actually be considered hostile to those views. There are a few glimmers
>> of hope, a few members are somewhat oriented towards the ideas we share
>> but are very unaware of what's going on in the larger context. It would
>> be very useful to make some kind of "p2p constitution package" that
>> contains information about how networked societies need to be
>> represented in modern governance models.
>>
>>
>>   - Smári
>>
>>
>> On 11/30/2010 09:46 AM, Smári McCarthy wrote:
>>> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
> 
> 
> 