Comments on: The failure of the Pirate Party’s direct democracy based on the Liquid Feedback system

By: David Bovill

David Bovill — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:13:26 +0000

I’m a big believer in “liquid democracy” – but while I’ve no wish to discourage people working in these early experiments – I have very little confidence in current systems and practices. I started working with the core concepts that are at the heart of liquid democracy in the late 1980’s – applying these to peer review in science. Later in the late 1990’s and early years of this century I worked on code, and art projects with LD principles at their heart. So I am not a sceptic.

However, these ideas appeal too much to the introverted, and autistic mind – and this is the Achilles heel of current implementation and practice. The heart and soul of the new form of democracy, some may say the historically authentic form of democracy, that internet based communication and delegated voting can support is rich interactive dialogue, what Michael Allen calls “communicative ascent”. This term describes the natural emergent property of votes following paths of rich interactive dialogue – one which emerges over time, and only when properly facilitated and implemented at sufficient scale. It is only when the technical ability to delegate radically and freely, is combined with a rich face-to-face culture of debate, personal acquaintance and physical meetings that the real value of such systems emerges. This is the emphasis of my blog Parliament of Things – Liquid Democracy is not understood, and every encouragement should be given to current experiments – but it’s time will only come when we get the fundamentals of distributed debate right first.

By: Zbigniew ?ukasiak

Zbigniew ?ukasiak — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:06:31 +0000

I have to agree with this critique – but the German Pirates are not the only force inside the Pirate Movement and I hope that a more educated, more sincere approach will eventually gain ground. We are working on that. The number of pirate parties is growing with over 50 now it becomes a significant force – lets make it more hacker ethics based and less populist!

By: Zacqary Adam Green

Zacqary Adam Green — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:58:06 +0000

“This lack of curiosity about how the world works is the most pernicious feature of Internet-centrism.”
“The Pirates took the idea of the Internet seriously—only to discover that the rhythms and rituals of old-school politics do not stem merely from inferior technologies, but rather reflect assumptions about human nature, power, and justice.”

This lack of curiosity about how the world works is the most pernicious feature of Evgeny Morozov’s critique of liquid democracy.