schlach's Journal: A Working Model of Direct Democracy, at slashdot.org

[ Editor's Note: this is copied over from my blog, for a wider readership and more feedback. Whenever I get around to actually writing an essay on the subject, rather than just having conversations, I'll post that here too. ]

I believe that government exists for no reason more fundamental than providing a mechanism for a population to communicate amongst itself. A just government facilitates communication within its populace; an unjust one seeks to prevent it. Openness and Democracy versus Secrecy and Censorship.

It seems to me that Slashdot has already solved the hardest part of the problem. Five years ago you could easily dismiss a direct democracy on the grounds that no system exists for allowing a nation-sized group of people to communicate with each other. You can't do that today.

I think that Slashdot is the most interesting thing to happen to civilization since the Printing Press. And some day more people will appreciate that, too. When else in the history of Mankind has a stadium-sized group of people come together for an interesting and more-or-less intelligent discussion? It's never happened. Why don't more people think that's significant in its own right? Wait for it.

So the hardest problem of a Direct Democracy (hereon simply "Democracy") is communication. And we've got a framework in place that solves it. How exciting. So now, with the aid of others, I'm trying to figure out how to solve all the problems that are less important, individually, but just as important, collectively.