Cobb

This is off topic, I probably should e-mail you, but

I wanted to bring bloggerCon III to your consideration and your readers.

http://www.bloggercon.org/II/FAQ
BloggerCon FAQ

Basic facts:

The focus of BloggerCon is weblogs in journalism, education, science, business and politics. We're interested in people's experiences with weblogs, now that they've been in use for five or six years, depending on who you ask. This is not a technical visionary venue, nor is it a place for political activism. Our interest is in the use of weblogs. Of course technology and politics are related to the use of weblogs.

http://www.bloggercon.org/III/newbies
BloggerCon for Newbies
Posted by Dave Winer, 8/17/04 at 5:23:48 PM.

BloggerCon is an unusual conference. We don't have speakers, panels or an audience. We do have discussions and sessions, and each session has a discussion leader.

The discussion leader ?

Think of the discussion leader as a reporter who is creating a story with quotes from the people in the room. So, instead of having a panel with an audience we just have people. We feel this more accurately reflects what's going on. It's not uncommon for the audience at a conference to have more expertise than the people who are speaking.

The discussion leader is also the editor, so if he or she feels that a point has been made they must move on to the next point quickly. No droning, no filibusters, no repeating an idea over and over.

The discussion leader can also call on people, so stay awake, you might be the next person to speak! ?

http://www.bloggercon.org/2004/08/16#a1361

BloggerCon III date -- Saturday, November 6, 2004

We've chosen a date for BloggerCon III: Saturday November 6, 2004.

It will be held at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, California.

How firm is this date? Well, our experience has been that when we announce a date, people try to plan their participation and find that there are conflicts. There just aren't any perfect weekend days on the calendar, so we accept in advance that there are people who won't be able to participate because of conflicts. In the past we have changed the date of the conference because of Jewish and Christian holidays, but we don't expect to have to do that this time.

I'm going. I hope to have a discussion on blogging by/for those born before 1955. I'm interested in blogging and primary school education.

What would you be interested in talking about?

Sorry, I have no products for your consideration, just a question.

"For example if one constituency leaves out clauses which specify "you cannot murder by poisoning with mercury" in a murder law, and it doesn't have a mercury poisoning, then the resolution is safe enough. Why add to its complexity in anticipation of a sophistication that doesn't exist in the constituency?"

I may be making your point with my question - or simply misunderstanding the context of your post. You are, pretty obviously, much more educated than I am.

I was thinking of the above statement as it might apply to the Constitution. There are a number of issues, which are thrown into controversy because the document was perhaps not explicit enough. An example might be the second amendment or the use of filibuster to create a cloture scenario, and thus require a super majority, on issues which constitutionally require a simple majority.

My question is: Does your statement still stand, in your view, in the context of the US Constitution? The other side of the question would be whether your angle supports the need for a more "living document" view of the Constitution.

If I am WAY off base here, let me know. I was just wondering if I understood you and if I did, whether you had thought about it in that context or not.

I don't think you're off base at all.

XRepublic resolutions are probably not going to be robust enough to be considered 'law' in the context which we judge law. And I must say that I have something of a bias against the complexity of law in our society to the extent that only lawyers seem to be able to understand it.

Nevertheless, the opportunity for collaboration and mutual intelligence gathering is more appropriate to the constituencies that an XRepublic might serve. Think of something like the rules of Personnel, hiring & firing in a corporation of 1000. That's certainly within the scope. Ultimately, I think XRepublic will scale up after some revision, but for the short term, I can't imagine it assisting in generating anything capable of withstanding the scrutiny of something like a city of half a million.

Part and parcel of the collaboration is to allow the agreed-upon resolutions to be compared one to the other over time. And I think the complexity and completeness of the resolutions will be a function of the sophistication and diligence of the constituents who contribute. But I think of them as living documents, always in flux. And I also think of XR generating a series of heretical resolutions as well.

This is very different from a Constitution which is a kind of axiomatic framework upon which laws would be built. There isn't this kind of reference back or hierarchy of resolutions. In that way, XR is more of a pure democracy - resolutions stand based only on the socratic machinations of the participants. There is no fixed or supreme reference.

A perfect example of a resolution in this vein would be one on Same Sex Marriage. Multiple interest groups in multiple houses will argue from many different points of view, not of which are reconciled to principles which are standing rules for everyone. Rather, each interest group would have their own standing rules, and will try to influence other interest groups and persuade them on the merits of their arguments.

So we would expect, say 33 talking points pro and 27 talking point con on the matter of Same Sex Marriage. You can't vote on the resolution until you review each of them and weigh their credibility. It gives you all of the nuances of all of the arguments - and these may change over time. Related to this might be a separate resolution on Civil Unions with arguments pro and con. But under no circumstances would there be some universal restriction on the decision-making process which would declare some resolution 'unconstitutional'.

So the documents an XR generates through its participants won't be as rigorous as law, but in another sense they are not as limited in application as a law. They could augment a process of scientific discovery or intelligence sharing. Most importantly they illustrate a subjective decision making process. In this way they are a kind of reversal of how we actually vote.

Notice that in the blogosphere, people are going back and forth all the way back to Vietnam (or Cambodia depending on whom you believe) to parse out Kerry's fitness for the presidency. In the booth all we have is a binary choice. What XR seeks to do is capture the unending discussions and tally them up to generate a more subtle indication. When multiple related resolutions come forth people recognize that their thinking process supports more than binary choices. I think this is very beneficial and can change the way we express ourselves as citizens.

My aim in this is to allow us more transparency to the kinds of clauses and provisions of the complex bills that go through our legislative houses and strip them down to their primary parts so that we don't just say thumbs up or thumbs down to the PATRIOT Act, for example. This democratizes the job now only done by 'special interest', lobbying and watchdog organizations. It also can provide a much more sophisticated manner of polling people.

Liz,

I like the structure of BloggerCon, as I am familiar with 'facilitation' of this type which I had the good fortune to learn early on in my career at Xerox. I'll definitely try to attend; in fact I'll make that week a vacation because Halo2 comes out the following week.

I would like to discuss the extent to which I think the blogosphere is capable of disintermediating media and other specialty areas but why it's not. I think a lot of people might think of blogs and big media as zero sum, rather I think they are capturing excess mental productivity which exists due to inefficiencies in other intellective work markets.

Blogs are a marginal contribution to the mediasphere, but I doubt that they are that to the political process which I find to be a great deal less efficient in capturing brainpower.

Ok - Until you applied this methodology to something tangible, it was difficult (for me) to wrap my brain around. Let me take a walk with this:

"This democratizes the job now only done by 'special interest', lobbying and watchdog organizations. It also can provide a much more sophisticated manner of polling people."

What you are speaking of, I think, epitomizes a "truer" or "more pure" form of democracy - if democracy is even an applicable term here. Perhaps a level [of democracy] not "appropriate" for governing, yet completely relevant to making decisions which (sorry searching for words) directly impact or imminently impact individuals of a group. This assumes that the input, as it were, was equal for each member involved in the process. I think it would also assume the results of the decision making criteria would impact people of a common group differently depending upon their choices. I don't see the latter as always a given.

"My aim in this is to allow us more transparency to the kinds of clauses and provisions of the complex bills that go through our legislative houses and strip them down to their primary parts so that we don't just say thumbs up or thumbs down to the PATRIOT Act, for example."

Ok, so a line item approach to legislation? If the result of this methodology was to cut the pork out of legislation, you can sign me up right now.

Thanks for your time on this.