[p2p-research] P2P democracy?
Kevin Flanagan
kev.flanagan at gmail.com
Wed Dec 1 17:49:37 CET 2010
Hey Smari,
Sorry to hear you didnt get elected. You know you'd have had my vote.
Kevin
2010/12/1 Smári McCarthy <smari at anarchism.is>:
> 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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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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