1. anon on January 24, 2004 3:48 PM writes...

I agree. To have a voice without responsibility for the consequences is not democracy, it is the mob. And of this our Founding Fathers were rightly afraid. One cannot be governed by a system of "emergent effects" - as much as current political rhetoric would have otherwise.

This is seen quite clearly in the dangers posed by foreign monetary contributions in election cycles that has been facilitated by current credit card based internet donation mechanisms.

Thus the importance to representative democracy of such underlying complexities as accurate census counts and the distinction of citizenship. (These being of course critical difficulties in establishing an electoral process in the short term in the newly liberated Iraq, for instance.) We do not yet have "web" estates or political structures based on non-geographic representation- all politics remains local. To create such a system empowers interests absent the natural tension of other concerns (property rights, history and culture, etc.)

A conservative view, perhaps. But one grounded in a system which has endured for quite some time now, and deserves carefuly consideration lest we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

2. Lucas on January 24, 2004 5:09 PM writes...

I think Will's vague intuitive fears are unfounded. Perhaps he forgets that constitutional democracy as represented by the vote is also largely unexercised by the majority. The common refrain that this is so because of apathy is incorrect. The neglect is a function of despair and the feeling of disempowerment and alienation. So to increase political empowerment one needs to find ways of, first of all, increasing the feeling of empowerment. This may seem a subtle point, but so is the smoke and mirrors of political perception. Highly interactive polling technologies, if done right, could have a dramatic effect upon this feeling.

Put more succinctly, I'm not sure what Will is smoking.

3. Clay Shirky on January 24, 2004 5:29 PM writes...

He hasn't forgotten any such thing, as you would have discovered had you read his piece.

4. Lucas on January 24, 2004 7:08 PM writes...

Oops, I see now, my apologies.

"True, half of us can't be bothered to vote in elections any longer, but that apathetic 50% is still considered politically significant"

It sounds like he added it to head off critism and not to make a point. Considered politically significant by whom? And in what way? And how does that different from the problem of disproportionate minority vocalism in an edemocracy setting? The problem of minority vocalism is everywhere. The most blatant example is activists within a party, pulling it away from the center. This is not to say it is a problem, just that it isn't specific to online polling.

One remedy might be to try to avoid divisive "hot-button" issues, and instead focus in the more seemingly mundane problems of living.

5. Will Davies on January 25, 2004 5:37 AM writes...

"Considered politically significant by whom? And in what way? And how does that different from the problem of disproportionate minority vocalism in an edemocracy setting?"

One thing which I was also trying to get across was the importance of top-down governance systems in a democratic society. As I put in the post, democratic rights get handed out from the powers that be - i'm not saying that's good or bad, but that it's a fact of democratic systems. If those who receive those powers cease to use them, that is potentially - as Lucas says - a form of protest against the system that granted them.

If my Dad doesn't even know what Pop Idol is, how can the fact that he doesn't text in his vote possibly be understood as a form of protest?

6. Lucas on January 25, 2004 8:17 AM writes...

Hi Will, first of all sorry for replying in this forum rather than on yours. Perhaps I realize how much more of a vocal minority I can be here seeing as how the lurk/post ratio is so high. :)

I think the idea that "democratic rights get handed out from the powers that be" is a self-fullfilling one. We have to also remember that politicians are notoriously poll driven. This is condemned by the media as being slavishly tied to the whims of the constituancy, but I believe it to be a potentially wonderful thing, that is, with the proper polling technologies in place. In fact, if people realized how important and advanced is the state of the art of getting inside their heads, first they would freak, and then they would truly realize that the battleground is (and always was) not on the battlefields of Iraq, but in their mind.

7. Lucas on January 25, 2004 11:46 AM writes...

Hmm, Will, let me try to be more respectful by addressing your points more closely, rather than giving the impression that I am using this for my own personal soapbox. :)

You imply that 1) polling is like a form of play-voting, essentially meaningless since it is not vested with the power instilled in voting by our leaders. This point I addressed with the previous post. And 2) that the non-polled don't even have the means of protest through abstaining from being polled, and are thus even more disenfranchised than are the non-voters. I failed to address this second point. Let me try.

I didn't say that not voting was a form of protest, but rather the result of the feeling of disempowerment and not apathy. Statistically as we know polling (or sampling) can be as arbitrarily close in results to the full population as required. So the requirement is not that everyone participate in edemocracy, but rather that a statistically representitive one does. This brings us back to the problem of minority vocalism. Since we can't very well shut these guys up (I know, I'm one :) we have to find a way of engaging the common citizen. And I think the way to do this is, like I have said, increasing the general feeling of empowerment. How this is done I leave as an exercise to the reader, but my feeling is that to write off the possibility without trying is giving up without a fight.