Make Way for the Radical Center - NYTimes.com

[Owen Densmore]

I'm trying to figure out if Tom Friedman has been taken in by a too-weird-to-believe stunt, or its a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible: http://goo.gl/bnvFM

It appears to be a cross between a poll and a grass roots 3rd party.  I'm going to try it but I'd like other opinions on this: whether its a goofy stunt, political pfishing, ineffective, or maybe could be real.  I'm upset enough about the off-the-charts insanity of the current Debt crisis that just about anything looks better than what I got.

        -- Owen

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[Russ Abbott]

I suspect it's for real. I answered a lot of their questions, many of which were very unsophisticated. They seem to have no idea that their process, like any process (especially a public one), can be corrupted by big money.

 

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 747-999-5105
  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________ 

On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 8:08 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm trying to figure out if Tom Friedman has been taken in by a too-weird-to-believe stunt, or its a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible: http://goo.gl/bnvFM

It appears to be a cross between a poll and a grass roots 3rd party.  I'm going to try it but I'd like other opinions on this: whether its a goofy stunt, political pfishing, ineffective, or maybe could be real.  I'm upset enough about the off-the-charts insanity of the current Debt crisis that just about anything looks better than what I got.

        -- Owen

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Steve Smith]

Cross-Responding to the Cross-Post

On Jul 24, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> I'm trying to figure out if Tom Friedman has been taken in by a too-weird-to-believe stunt, or its a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible: http://goo.gl/bnvFM

I am a fan of Friedman's commentary in general.  I think I understand why he called this out to us.  In the spirit of positive divergence from existing limited choices, I understand his not questioning this more critically (which is his penchant).  I look forward to him doing a follow up after this gathers a little more momentum, asking harder questions.  While his announcement and positive statements may seem like an endorsement, what I think I know of Friedman still leaves lots of room for him to ask them hard questions down the road or better yet, as *us* hard questions.

Specifically to the Americans Elect (America Select?) website and organization.

1. It seems too slick, to populist, too dumbed down for my taste.
2. I followed their process and found several things less than stellar.
1. populist/dumbed-down.  Always a balance... I might be able to forgive this part if the underlying process and values turn out wholesome.
2. the vector of important issues was a little odd too me...  there is always a bias imposed by choosing the questions.   I find Education and Health Care a significant part of Social Issues so it was hard for me to rate them without wondering what they really mean by "Social Issues"...  gay marriage?  women/minority rights?   I feel that Immigration is is entangled with Social Issues AND Foreign policy, so is Foreign policy mainly related to what dictators we prop up or undermine, or who we sell weapons to, or take military action against, or who we feed, or ?   
3. I was curious to participate and reluctantly started the signup as a "Delegate" but was stopped by the Terms of Use.
4. The Terms of Use might have been written by Microsoft's laywers.  There was little progressive in those terms of use.  Basically they solve the problem of potential questions about things by reserving all rights.   That and not having a clue what they meant by Delegate.
   
3. I agree with the commentary to date here regarding two-party systems.   There are good game-theoretic reasons we have a two-party system.  Underlying election laws/processes need to change before 3rd parties can be more than spoilers and/or locally viable (Green) and/or waiting-in-the wings (e.g. Tea Party).  
   
4. All this said, I'm willing to give them some benefit of the doubt and treat them as "a good start".  If this had been started or promoted by EFF or similar, I would be more hopeful.  We need a much deeper consideration of what a new, progressive, democracy really looks like.  But this, as I said, might be "a good start".

Shaping the Debate
    This is the part of their rhetoric that moved me the most.  In the 2000 democratic primaries, I watched a group of (8?) candidates, many with very good intentions (best I could tell) chip away at eachother when they should have been building a platform.   Kucenich and Sharpton could have been the token tricksters asking the other's the hard questions, yet it felt to me like everyone was asking undermining/hard questions during a phase of the process when they should have been reinforcing common ground and looking for nuanced differences, not trying to kick the legs out from under eachother's stumps.

    This group (and others that might be inspired by, replaced by or find alliance with) might very well generate a better public debate among candidates and voters alike.   The *media* and the standing politicians shape too much of the debate for my taste.  In our attempts to make the complex and subtle issues fit neatly into a sound-bite and a simple vote, we do ourselves a disservice.

Dream Team
    That said, I'm willing to play the "dream team" game a little.   Ignoring their rule about running mates needing to be from a different party, I'd strongly consider endorsing Kucenich and encouraging him to take on Obama as his running mate.    Maybe Kucenich can declare "Independent" or "Radical Centrist" or something to fit their rules.   While I'm disappointed in what Obama has been able to achieve and I question a number of his methods and actions to date, I'm not ready to give up on him.   His presumed biggest fault going in was a lack of experience with DC... well, now he has it, and Kucenich has been in the fray even longer.   Kucenich's questioning of Obama's decisions on many things is healthy... he's been trying to keep him (like everyone else) honest and straight.  If Obama can put aside the sting that I'm sure Kucenich's censures must have brought, they might make a powerful *progressive* team despite their roots in the Democratic Party.   

I started life as a Conservative and still have a soft spot in my heart for some of the *motivations* of Conservatives.   I appreciated the Tea Party trying to stand up for what they believe even if there is little of what they believe that I agree with.  Right now their best feature is the way they are helping to divide the Republican party.   But I don't want to see the other side lose an election, I want to win one.   So who do the Conservatives have to offer up in this  internet-mediated populist game?  Before McCain aborted his assault on Bush in 04 I might have been interested in him... but that plus his abysmal showing in 08 (mostly in his choice of running mate) completely invalidated him in too many ways.   I don't trust my intuition about Conservatives... I still have a soft spot in my heart, but I'm not letting that make one in my head.

It is not mere political correctness that has me wanting to see a female candidate.   Sadly I'm afraid we are still in an era where we will choose a "manly" woman this way.   Sarah Palin gets half her credibility (whatever that looks like) from her "bulldog with lipstick" and "I shoot wolves from helicopters" maleness.   Hillary *has to* (IMO) put on a mannish/bullish style to be taken seriously (but then dismissed for being such a bulldog)... that may have started in law school for all I know.  What I know is that we aren't asking for *feminine* leadership, we are asking for "masculine" leadership in a female body (at best).  

High Tech
    So what are we to do, those technophiles among us who want to imagine that sprinkling some high tech pixie dust (a Blog, a Website, is that really all that high tech?) on the problem will fix it.   First, I say make sure we have the *big guns* in on it... starting with the likes of EFF, but there are many more serious-minded socially aware/responsible technogeeks out there.   We here have our own contingent, so I say let's not be swayed by the natural mistake that technology solves all nor that the first ?serious? example of a new (but overdue) paradigm shift should be the one we expect to take us to the moon.

    What can *we* do?  I'm not sure, but I think efforts like Tom Johnson's and others here to try to develop better analytic tools/understanding, using the ubiquitous access of the internet and the leverage of computation is a good start.    These questions here, triggered by Friedman's article, brought to us by Owen and now being bantered about, is a good start.

    I take (minor) exception to Owen's original statement "a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible:" but forgive it as perhaps being *challenging rhetoric* rather than truly claiming that "we have all dismissed it" literally.   Some things take time to Ripen... those of us (Owen included) who have been part of the Interneterati for decades have seen the *potential* for this practically from the start.  I'm tempted to go back to the Usenet archives from the eighties and dig up the discussions (even then) of how the internet would save the world (politically) from itself.. And again during the early public Internet years in the 90's.   The internet (or more aptly, global electronic communication... including cell texting,etc) is now a part of the global backdrop, no longer merely a playground for the elite.   I don't believe it will fix our problems, but it does change the nature of our problems or more importantly the nature of the solutions we might find to them in some interesting ways. 

This new crue, AmericansElect, are helping to stir that pot for us.  At the very least, I give them credit for that.   I look forward to an interesting discussion here (and elsewhere) in response to this new attempt.

- Steve

BTW for anyone who cares/follows my free-associative ramblings, we retrieved only 2 of the 5 sheets of glass from California last week.  The failures did not become square marbles, but rather sharks teeth, now filling a recycle dumpster in Mountain View.   Nobody got hurt, and we *did* install a 20ft x 8ft Plexiglass screen (from the same haul) in a location at the Traditions Outlet Mall.   If you have an idea for 2 10x10x5/8" glass panels (very fragile)... let me know... right now they are a liability!

On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Jason Goodyear <[hidden email]> wrote:

I hope it's a joke.

???

 

I happen to believe that more than 2 parties is what this country needs,

I can't agree more.  I hate having to vote for what strikes me as a poor choice, to prevent a much worse one from winning.

 

but to cite as proof of it's relevance the "successes"

I was distracted by the main body of Thomas Friedman's piece and did not pay enough attention it's closing paragraph, and at first I was puzzled by your next comments.  I'm quoting that paragraph to reestablish context.

Write it down: Americans Elect. What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life — remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in. Watch out.

 

 

or driving local bookstores out of business,

To be fair, it was Barnes and Noble, and Borders that drove the local bookstores out of business.  And now Amazon, is driving the big box bookstores out of business.

 

turning people away from local news sources,

It was Media Consolidation the killed (and is still killing) the local news sources.  The blogosphere is a newer phenomena, that is giving a voice to alternatives to the media conglomerates.

 

and helping morph the music listening experience from a social one to something that just exists between the headphones doesn't exactly make a positive impression.

Once again I don't see the ipod and other music players in such stark terms.  For example, in New Mexico, we do have a vibrant music performance scene.  We have many local, national, and international musicians performing at many local venues.  Many more, and much more diverse performances that we heard a decade ago.

 

And then there's this:

i"Any presidential nominee must conform to all the Constitutional requirements, as well as be considered someone of similar stature to our previous presidents. That means no Lady Gaga allowed."

This means what? Only rich white men, or perhaps anyone so long as Elliot Ackerman approves them.

This quote did bother me, too.  But I think we'll have to wait and see how this plays out.  I can understand the desire to only have "serious" candidates, and I hope this is not really meant to limit the field to "rich white men". 

(don't stop here!  more comments below.)

On Jul 24, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> I'm trying to figure out if Tom Friedman has been taken in by a too-weird-to-believe stunt, or its a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible: http://goo.gl/bnvFM
>
> It appears to be a cross between a poll and a grass roots 3rd party.  I'm going to try it but I'd like other opinions on this: whether its a goofy stunt, political pfishing, ineffective, or maybe could be real.  I'm upset enough about the off-the-charts insanity of the current Debt crisis that just about anything looks better than what I got.

I agree this is very interesting!  And, I hope it turns out well and provides us with a better, and viable candidate than the traditional parties.

I am a bit skeptical about being to successfully narrow the choice to a single candidate.  I suspect the process may only go so far before a schism forms in the community.

I'll be taking a much closer look.

-- 

Drew Einhorn

"You can see a lot by just looking."
  --  Yogi Berra
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I'm trying to figure out if Tom Friedman has been taken in by a too-weird-to-believe stunt, or its a real example of internet governance we've all discussed and by now dismissed as impossible: http://goo.gl/bnvFM

It appears to be a cross between a poll and a grass roots 3rd party.  I'm going to try it but I'd like other opinions on this: whether its a goofy stunt, political pfishing, ineffective, or maybe could be real.  I'm upset enough about the off-the-charts insanity of the current Debt crisis that just about anything looks better than what I got.

        -- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org