Hi folks,
I appreciate your openness for experimenting with new voting methods and tools, even if they might be a little more complex. Laura and I have just finalized the translation of another text on our website:
https://janonymous-and-the-rabbit-hole.net/2018/05/24/old-lqfb-is-not-liquid-feedback/
We thereby agree with @Frew’s view on the problems with the old (pseudo or non-) Liquid Feedback:
Additionally, concerning conscientious decisions and effectivity of self-organization with non-Liquid Feedback, commonly used majority voting (we call it “Republikstandard”) or the Schulze Condorcet preferential method, we criticize a lack of precise and valid measurement of quality of ideas and political performance, e.g. suitability of candidates, priority of problems and goals, as well as of solutions’ fit with common goals and human rights, e.g. the coherence of political performance with UN Global Goals and human rights, which is essential for a collective intelligence to self-regulate.
Of course, we would be happy to find skilled programmers who have the time to build a platform that incorporates some first modules and realizing step by step what we call “Extended Liquid Democracy” (ELD). ELD is a newer progress in our research and reflects a synthesis of two opposite modes of decision-making, i.e. based on bottom-up and top-down processes, as you can see in this picture of the ELD-Eisberg-Model:
The ELD is a synthesis of two opposite psychological modes (above and under water) each associated with decision-making methods of varying intensity that represent a continuum of increasing information, freedom of decision and complexity of problems to be solved (from the top down to the bottom*) and of self-coherent goal setting and emerging conscious will by reduction of complexity (from the bottom up to the top). With this new concept it is possible to improve both direct as well as representative democracy by implementing quality-oriented participatory methods of decision-making to measure the people’s will and coherence with human rights.
Please feel free to ask us everything you are interested in to know.
Kind regards,
Jana
Footnote:
*Please recognize that according to an integrative view at the will of individuals and groups, bottom-up and top-down processes show an inverse relation concerning freedom and self-determination at the micro- (individual) versus the meso- till macro-level (groups till society). Whereas at the individual level, free will and self-determination are associated with top-down processes including brain structures as the frontal lobe, such a maximally free and self-coherent decision process requires an open quality-oriented bottom-up design at the group and society level. Conversely, a group or society mainly based on quality-unspecific top-down decision methods cannot provide or support transparency and substantial freedom of expression, discussion, decision and thought on the individual level, nor can it depict pluralism without manipulative and ideologically framed polarization processes, or without the risk of developing an increasingly centralized oligarchy or dictatorship.