______ If Thomas Jefferson and James Madison lived in the 21st century instead of the 18th, what sort of government would they have designed? It took over a week for news to travel from Monticello to Philadelphia by horse; now it flashes around the world in seconds via Twitter. Yet our government still runs on essentially the same horse-drawn design. If we look with fresh eyes and discard analog assumptions, what kind of participatory democracy can we build for the digital era?
Hyperarchy is our attempt to answer that question. Hyper•archy literally means non-sequentially linked government. In a hierarchy, power flows upward through a rigid, slowly-changing structure. It's the Washington elite, debating the fate of millions on the Senate floor. In a hyperarchy, by contrast, power flows through a complex network of personal relationships, continually pooling and dispersing in an ever-shifting landscape of trust and influence. Like an operating system for democracy, Hyperarchy strips away the formality and procedure we normally associate with government, relying instead on software to give structure and meaning to organic human conversation.You start by raising a question, like "How should we balance the federal budget?" Then you or anyone else suggests answers to that question. When you see an answer you like, you can drag it to rank it above or below other answers. As you and others vote by dragging answers, Hyperarchy uses a sophisticated algorithm to compute a collective ranking of all answers that fairly reflects everyone's opinions. Everything updates in real time, so you can quickly see where the group stands, or drill into other people's rankings to see what they think individually. It's up and running now at https://hyperarchy.com/organizations/1 We believe it can indeed solve "real world" problems.
Even as simple as Hyperarchy makes voting, no one has time to contribute to every question. So Hyperarchy recasts representative democracy as networked democracy. Instead of electing a Senator you've never met to represent you on everything, you elect individuals you trust personally to represent you on specific issues. I can give my girlfriend power to vote on my behalf for questions about health and nutrition, while delegating to my coworker for questions concerning programming languages or digital privacy. So when my girlfriend votes about health or my coworker votes on technology, they vote for me as well.
But the real power is when influence flows through multiple connections in the social network. My girlfriend might delegate nutrition to her friend David, who in turn delegates to Michael Pollan. So Michael Pollan might become an emergent super-representative, voting on behalf on hundreds or thousands of followers, all because of individual trust relationships. And you can change your delegation at any time, meaning that people hold power only so long as they deserve it. ________
I find the idea inspiring, and have found it inspiring since he first told me about it 5 or so years ago. Anyway, it's online now, we could use any feedback people want to give.
Until I read to the third paragraph of the snippet, I was thinking "this is just another polling website", but the innovation that is proposed could result in some interesting results.
After reading the snippet, I was excited to go visit the site, expecting some thoughtful discussion on current affairs and politics. I was pretty disappointed with the activity on the site.
I understand that currently the site consists of the core functionality, but you should make that clear. If I was just a standard visitor I would have no incentive to come back in a few months when the app actually has some meaning.
A final note: when I vote in elections, my vote is anonymous and private. On hyperarchy I can see who voted on a topic, in 'real life' this information is not available and I believe that many people would not want it to be known what they are voting on.
Was it the lack of delegation, or just the non-political / deep nature of many discussions that was most disappointing? What would we need to change to make it more interesting to you?
As far as anonymity, making votes public is a controversial choice but it's important to us. We want to heavily favor transparency, and it makes for a more social experience. Looking at other people's votes is actually the number 1 thing people do on Hyperarchy.
Thanks for your feedback!
Time will tell.
Get to work!
Hey, get me between $50k and $100K (like donations, not investment -- getting well was not cheap) so I can pay off my debts and quit my day job and I will get right on it. Otherwise, well, I will get there when I get there.
But thanks for the encouragement. Really. :-)
The answer of how to balance a budget is as simple for a government as it is for you and me: don't spend more than you have. So what does your network vote to cut? How can that be peacefully decided? What will those that claim "disenfranchisement" do?
Please understand, I am heartened to see this topic here, and I, like you, want to work toward a better system of government. I just see human nature working against any centralized power system, as those least deserving of the power always work hardest to yield it.
Good conversation. Good group involved. I am glad to see your group thinking on this incredibly important issue.
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Our goal with Hyperarchy is to build a system that can achieve greater fairness. Clearly, the current electoral process has problems that lead to injustices. As a society, we need to move toward a more advanced system, and it's not going to happen unless we build some and experiment with them.
I appreciate your thoughts very much. I hope you'll try our site, and share any further feedback.
Again, just musings- but I'm happy to have found you and your efforts.
The exercises don't extend past maths, and i think would need some conceptual tweaking to apply to e.g. languages or programming.
I'd love to get something up for this - anyone want to join up and brainstorm/rapid prototype a project? Reply to this thread or find me on Google+ and let's hangout.
Thanks wz3chen!
