170 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
    1. Open Polls Protocol

      Could this Open Polls Protocol be useful in establishing long-term governance of Shrewdies3?

      It's never too soon to think about such things. But not currently a priority as I'm currently fully involved with Pre-Launch activities.

    1. The ORCID Researcher Advisory Council (ORAC) is a diverse group of researchers who provide valuable perspectives and advice to ORCID staff and the ORCID Board to ensure that ORCID provides value and utility to researchers and facilitates research and innovation.

      PID - Governance

    1. for - social transition - rapid whole system change - cosmolocal - cosmo-local - anywheres - everywheres - commons - Michel Bauwens - P2P Foundation - somewheres - meme - glocalization - meme - cosmos-localization

      summary - A good article introducing cosmo-localism as a logical vasilation of failed markets and states, swinging the pendulum back to the commons as a necessary precursor to rapid whole system change

      • for: collaborative commons, rapid whole system change - governance, 3rd party, TPF, power2thepeople political power, criminal power

      -SUMMARY - A good article that - briefly traced the roots of the the major categories of power in modernity: - government - business - NGOs - and provides an argument for the emergence of a 4th power - the collaborative commons - it provide a model for the collaborative commons and a system diagram showing the various parts - I've critique I raise it that since it could only emerge within the technological mileau of the internet, it cannot be based upon an archaic, corporate and centralized power be structure. Even cryptocurrency is still centralized and there is generally a single point of failure. - When more important than decentralisation however, is that the current web id not people-centered and intertwingled with interpersonal - a necessary condition for a collaborative commons is their what we call a "flipped" web. - The indyweb and Indranet are being designed as an open function opens learning ecosystem for humanity at the level of trust networks - inter-operating with other larger systems, it can pay a role in creating the flipped web which can provide the human communication media for a collaborative commons

      • comment

        • There night also be a bother 4th category of power not me- criminal mentioned - criminal power
      • epiphany: new slogan

        • power2thepeople has a double meaning
          • political power
          • physical power
        • since modern society runs on physical power, we need the people too control it rather than serving a small group of financial elites
    1. The sectors become the vehicle to carry the problem-solving governance
      • for: adjacency - problem solving - governance sectors - cultural evolution

      • adjacency between

        • governance sectors
        • problem solving
        • cultural evolution
      • adjacency statement
        • Governance sectors culturally evolved to reflect different problem-solving approaches
    2. continent of coherence"
      • for: meme - continent of coherence, emerging commons governance, transition, awakening the sleeping giant
  2. Dec 2023
    1. Washington is a swamp it we throw out one party the other one comes in they take money from special interests and we don't have a government that's serving the interests 01:25:09 of the public that's what I think we have to fix and I don't see how we do that unless we have a party that takes no money from special interests
      • for: key insight- polycrisis - climate crisis - political crisis, climate crisis - requires a new political party, money in politics, climate crisis - fossil fuel lobbyists, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics, James Hansen - key insight - political action - 3rd party

      • key insight

        • Both democrats and conservatives are captured by fossil fuel lobbyist interests
        • A new third political party that does not take money from special interests is required
        • The nature of the polycrisis is that crisis are entangled . This is a case in point. The climate crisis cannot be solved unless the political crisis of money influencing politics is resolved
        • The system needs to be rapidly reformed to kick money of special interest groups out of politics.
      • question

        • Given the short timescale, the earliest we can achieve this is 2028 in the US Election cycle
        • Meanwhile what can we do in between?
        • How much impact can alternative forms of local governance like https://sonec.org/ have?
        • In particular, could citizens form local alternative forms of governance and implement incentives to drive sustainable behavior?
      • for: SONEC, neighborhood circles, downscaled planetary boundaries, earth system boundaries, community governance, neighborocracy, neighbourhood parliament

      • title: SoNeC: Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles in Europe

      • date: 2022
      • authors:
        • Barbara Sirauch
        • Rita Mayrhofer
      • collaborators

        • Maria-Juliana Byck
        • Orsolya Lelkes
        • Johannes Zimm
        • Pia Haerlinger
        • Naya Tselepi
        • Nathaniel Whitestone
      • summary

        • SONEC offers a framework for relocalization of the economy but it will require very careful planning to create the right conditions for the emergence of local wellbeing economies.
        • One of the leverage points is the cosmolocal nature of SONEC, allowing the rapid, global sharing of good and best practices
        • This will be important because if SONEC is to reach its potential to awaken the sleeping giant of citizens to drive the necessary changes to mitigate the worst of the current existential polylcrisis, we will need a global synchronization of collective action at the local level.
    1. Most people affected by aresource system can participate(although many do not) in modifyingthe rules of use
      • for: question - SONEC community governance - participation

      • question: SONEC community governance - participation

        • Communities have such diversity, multimeaningverse of lifeworlds converged
        • So many different capacities, limitations and worldviewes - I would recommend the Deep Humanity multi-meaningverse is important as a framework to mitigate misinterpretation
    1. As in every aspect of the ancien régime, the judicial and institutional map of France had no uniformity.

      Lack of political uniformity

  3. Nov 2023
    1. Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die COP28 mit dem Emissions Peak für Treibhausgase zusammenfallen könnte. Um das 1,5°-Ziel zu erreichen, müssten allerdings die Emissionen bis 2030 um die Hälfte sinken. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/nov/29/cop28-what-could-climate-conference-achieve

    1. Why do Direct Leaders decentralize when they issue a token? Decentralization imposes costs on an organization — decisions are made more slowly by lower context people who are not held accountable for bad decisions — this is why companies don’t operate this way. These costs are being felt across the industry. Kevin Owocki, who left as Direct Leader of Gitcoin to later return, described a broader trend of “founders boomeranging” back into leadership to solve the organizational dysfunction caused by decentralization. As the impetus for governance changes, Rune Christensen wrote of MakerDAO in 2022, “The governance processes and political dynamics… fundamentally aren’t compatible with the reality of effectively processing complicated real-world financial deals.”

      Just keep relearning the lessons of a 1000 years of governance experiments.

      People have been trying decentralized governance for a really long time and it's really hard. Progress does not depend on structural innovation, duh! It depends mostly on ontological/cultural innovation (e.g. "god is watching" aka the internalized morality of e.g. late christian religion) with some amount of increased monitoring and transparency ...

    1. ჩემს მიერ შერჩეული ბლოგი დაწერილია ქართველი და შვეიცარიელი სტუდენტების მიერ(ლუკა კაპიტანიო,სიმონე გიორზი და ნათია კეკენაძე) რომლის განხილვის საგანია თემზე დაფუძნებული მთის მმართველობა საქართველოში,სადაც აღწერილია მაღალმთიანი დასახლებების რისკები და მათი გამომწვევი მიზეზები,ასევე განხულილულია მათი სოციალურ-ეკონომიკური მდგომარეობა და მაღალმთიანი რეგიონების მომავალი.საერთაშორისო ორგანიზაციების და საქართველოს მთავრობის მჭიდრო თანამშრომლობის შედეგად შექმნილია ადგილობრივი სამოქმედო ჯგუფები(LAG),რომელთა მიზანი კერძო,საჯარო და სამოქალაქო საზოგადოების ადგილობრივ დონეზე დაკავშირება და მთის განვითარების პრიორიტეტების/საჭიროებების განსაზღვრაა.2020 წლიდან LAG-ები აქტიურად მუშაობენ საქართველოს თითქმის ყველა მუნიციპალიტეტში.მაგალითად ხულოს LAG აქტიურად იყო ჩართული 73-მდე ადგილობრივი განვითარების ინიციატივის დაფინანსებაში.LAG-ის დახმარებით დაფინანსდა ორი სამკერვალო მაღაზია,სადაც 15-მდე ადგილობრივი ქალი დასაქმდა(EU4GEORGIA,2020). "შესაბამისად,უაღრესად მნიშვნელოვანია ისეთი ინსტიტუტების შექმნა,რომლებიც შესაძლებელს გახდის შესანიშნავი კომუნიკაციის საშუალებას ადგილობრივ მთის თემებსა და შესაბამის პოლოტიკურ ინსტიტუტებს შორის,რათა შესაძლებელი გახდეს საუკეთესო მმართველობა". გიორგი ჟამიერაშვილი

    1. health impacts of violent conflict, bioterrorism, pandemics, and endemic diseases disproportionately affecting certain regions are all linked to health and security
    2. World Health Organization (WHO) and policymakers recognize the importance of health for international peace, stability, and human security.
    3. "responsibility to protect" (R2P).R2P suggests that states have a responsibility to intervene and protect civilians in other states if they are unable or unwilling to do so themselves.Some feminist scholars argue that the language of protection can reinforce gendered and racialized narratives.
    4. International Criminal Court
    5. providers of human security, and that NGOs and international organizations
    6. he United Nations Development Programme and the Commission on Human Security have played important roles in promoting and defining the concept of human security.
    1. I 01:00:30 think that a proper version of the concept of synchronicity would talk about multiscale patterns so that when you're looking at electrons in the computer you would say isn't it amazing that these electrons went over here and 01:00:42 those went over there but together that's an endgate and by the way that's part of this other calculation like amazing down below all they're doing is following Maxwell's equations but looked at at another level wow they just just 01:00:54 computed the weather in you know in in Chicago so I I I think what you know I it's not about well I was going to say it's not about us and uh and our human tendency to to to to pick out patterns 01:01:07 and things like but actually I I do think it's that too because if synchronicity is is simply how things look at other scales
      • for: adjacency - consciousness - multiscale context

      • adjacency between

        • Michael's example
        • my idea of how consciousness fits into a multiscale system
      • adjacency statement
        • from a Major Evolutionary Transition of Individuality perspective, consciousness might be seen as a high level governance system of a multicellular organism
        • this begs the question: consciousness is fundamentally related to individual cells that compose the body that the consciousness appears to be tethered to
        • question: Is there some way for consciousness to directly access the lower and more primitive MET levels of its own being?
  4. Oct 2023
  5. Aug 2023
    1. story of three Inuit tribe members who get stranded in a blizzard during a hunt
      • for: governance - story, story - choice, story, Inuit
      • story
        • Three Inuit tribe members who get stranded in a blizzard during a hunt
          • They discuss their situation.
          • The two elders say their experience and instincts tell them to stay put and wait for rescue.
          • The younger hunter accepts the argument
            • but states his belief that it would be best for the group if one of them were to attempt to make it to safety and tell the rest of their community about their predicament.
          • Finally the younger hunter heads off.
          • In the end, the elders are rescued and the younger man dies.
          • There is
            • no blame,
            • no repercussions,
            • no second guessing the decisions.
          • The choices were the only ones the trio could have made in the circumstances.
          • They were respected, the young man’s death was mourned, and life went on.
  6. May 2023
    1. Formal incentives to fulfil mission & wind-down – infrastructures exist for a specific purpose and that purpose can be radically simplified or even rendered unnecessary by technological or social change. If it is possible the organisation (and staff) should have direct incentives to deliver on the mission and wind down.

      {Formal Incentives]

    2. Living will – a powerful way to create trust is to publicly describe a plan addressing the condition under which an organisation would be wound down, how this would happen, and how any ongoing assets could be archived and preserved when passed to a successor organisation. Any such organisation would need to honour this same set of principles.

      {Living Will}

    3. Cannot lobby – the community, not infrastructure organisations, should collectively drive regulatory change. An infrastructure organisation’s role is to provide a base for others to work on and should depend on its community to support the creation of a legislative environment that affects it.

      {Cannot Lobby}

    4. Transparent operations – achieving trust in the selection of representatives to governance groups will be best achieved through transparent processes and operations in general (within the constraints of privacy laws).

      {Transparent}

    5. Non-discriminatory membership – we see the best option as an “opt-in” approach with a principle of non-discrimination where any stakeholder group may express an interest and should be welcome. The process of representation in day to day governance must also be inclusive with governance that reflects the demographics of the membership.

      {Membership}

    6. Stakeholder Governed – a board-governed organisation drawn from the stakeholder community builds more confidence that the organisation will take decisions driven by community consensus and consideration of different interests.

      {Stakeholder Governed}

  7. Mar 2023
    1. Whose values do we put through the A.G.I.? Who decides what it will do and not do? These will be some of the highest-stakes decisions that we’ve had to make collectively as a society.’’

      A similar set of questions might be asked of our political system. At present, the oligopolic nature of our electoral system is heavily biasing our direction as a country.

      We're heavily underrepresented on a huge number of axes.

      How would we change our voting and representation systems to better represent us?

    1. The Fediverse indeed does, because its decentralization is a matter ofarchitecture, not just policy. A subreddit moderator has control only insofar asReddit, a soon-to-be public company,22 permits that control. Because Redditcan moderate any piece of content—indeed, to ban a subreddit outright—no matter whether the subreddit moderator agrees, it is subject to publicpressure to do so. Perhaps the most famous example is Reddit’s banning ofthe controversial pro-Trump r/The_Donald subreddit several months beforethe 2020 election.

      Reddit : Fediverse :: Decentralized-by-policy : Decentralized-by-architecture

      Good point! It makes me think that fediverse instances can look to subreddit governance as models for their own governance structures.

  8. Feb 2023
    1. Rozenshtein, Alan Z., Moderating the Fediverse: Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media (November 23, 2022). 2 Journal of Free Speech Law (2023, Forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4213674 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4213674

      Found via Nathan Schneider

      Abstract

      Current approaches to content moderation generally assume the continued dominance of “walled gardens”: social media platforms that control who can use their services and how. But an emerging form of decentralized social media—the "Fediverse"—offers an alternative model, one more akin to how email works and that avoids many of the pitfalls of centralized moderation. This essay, which builds on an emerging literature around decentralized social media, seeks to give an overview of the Fediverse, its benefits and drawbacks, and how government action can influence and encourage its development.

      Part I describes the Fediverse and how it works, beginning with a general description of open versus closed protocols and then proceeding to a description of the current Fediverse ecosystem, focusing on its major protocols and applications. Part II looks at the specific issue of content moderation on the Fediverse, using Mastodon, a Twitter-like microblogging service, as a case study to draw out the advantages and disadvantages of the federated content-moderation approach as compared to the current dominant closed-platform model. Part III considers how policymakers can encourage the Fediverse, whether through direct regulation, antitrust enforcement, or liability shields.

  9. Jan 2023
    1. It is not by erecting fences between power and right that governance can be steered toward justice, but by entangling power within solidarity, care, and other modes of right relationship.

      !- strengthen governance : by entangling power with care, rights and solidarity

    2. Discourse within the public sphere signals the normative will of the democratic citizenry to the steering institutions of governance. It also articulates and rearticulates (expresses and reshapes) the core of the civic, the vital beating heart of a democracy. This core is a political morality of intentional action motivated by reasoned understanding and moral imagination. In the political morality I see emerging, the separation of the political and the normative is subsiding. Conceptually, power and right are becoming entangled rather than bifurcated. 

      !- quotable : growing impact of democratic citizenry affect the steering institutions of governance

  10. Dec 2022
    1. I am uncertain whether such a shift towards participatory governance is possible. A useful analogy is that of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, which are undergoing a significant “phase shift”, from the culture defined by the community of early contributors, to a broader and more inclusive culture– one centered not just on encyclopedic prowess, but also institutional organizing. This example suggests that such a shift is possible, but hard. It requires both significant resources, which have been invested in the case of Wikimedia, but also strong leadership that is in dialogue with the community and can negotiate together the changes (this has happened to a lesser extent). 

      I'm surprised that the underlying assumption (and tone) not just here but in most tech discussion of this type, is still that 'everything' around a tech tool should be done through that tech tool. Of course you need to organise around it, and professionalise that in the face of growth or becoming more central to some group's functioning. Obviously you need to leverage other types of governance and decision making than what went into creating a tech at first. Institutionalising is a time proven way to sustain an effort. Technology = politics. You need to be a politician in your own technology space. A politican in the artisanal and as a practice / behaviour sense, not in the occupation sense. Vgl [[Mijn werk is politiek 20190921114750]] which mostly implies thinking at different levels of abstraction about your situation simultaneously (Vgl [[Triz denken in systeemniveaus 20200826114731]] but then socially as well as tech)

  11. Nov 2022
    1. Modularity is a form of multistakeholder, co-regulatory governance, in which modules—discrete mechanisms, protocols, and codes—are developed through processes that include a range of perspectives. This novel co-regulatory approach proposes to achieve greater multinational alignment in internet governance, while respecting the inherent sovereignty of national and regional governments, some of which have already adopted new digital platform accountability regimes. Modularity works by identifying tasks common to laws in multiple countries and creating global, multi-stakeholder processes and institutions that can operationalize those tasks. It facilitates compliance with different jurisdictions and reduces the cost of enforcement, all without the necessity of treaties or other mechanisms that constrain or replace official authority.

      Sounds cool. Connects with the idea, borrowed from #web3 space, that you can think of policies as built of "primitives". In the case of primitives, it's about managing complexity of regulation - here it seems to mainly focus on managing incompatibility of jurisdictional law.

    1. As users begin migrating to the noncommercial fediverse, they need to reconsider their expectations for social media — and bring them in line with what we expect from other arenas of social life. We need to learn how to become more like engaged democratic citizens in the life of our networks.

      Fediverse should mean engaged citizens

    1. The majority of scholarship on platform governance focuses on for-profit, corporate social media with highly centralized network structures. Instead, we show how non-centralized platform governance functions in the Mastodon social network. Through an analysis of survey data, Github and Discourse developer discussions, Mastodon Codes of Conduct, and participant observations, we argue Mastodon’s platform governance is an exemplar of the covenant, a key concept from federalist political theory. We contrast Mastodon’s covenantal federalism platform governance with the contractual form used by corporate social media. We also use covenantal federalist theory to explain how Mastodon’s users, administrators, and developers justify revoking or denying membership in the federation. In doing so, this study sheds new light on the innovations in platform governance that go beyond the corporate/alt-right platform dichotomy.

      Promises to be interesting wrt governance structures in moderation/adminning.

  12. Oct 2022
    1. Ranking the voting systems: STAR Voting > Approval Voting > Ranked Choice Voting > Plurality ("pick only one") voting.Ranked Choice Voting is marginally better than plurality voting, but it has problems. The chief defect with Ranked Choice Voting is its non-monotonicity, whereby increasing your support for your genuine favorite can actually hurt their odds of winning. This may be what happened in Alaska [1].STAR Voting is a slight modification to Score Voting, where you simply score each candidate and are not forced to rank them. You are given the discretion to give multiple candidates the same score if you so choose. STAR is highly expressive and simple to count: just sum the scores.Approval Voting is appealing because of its simplicity. Both ballots and how they are counted would require only superficial changes versus plurality, such as changing the prompt from "Vote for only one" to "Vote for as many as you like." Approval has a good balance of utility and simplicity.If we are going to invest time and effort into achieving voting reform, it would be a shame to spend that effort on RCV rather than superior alternatives.[1] https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/rcv-fools-pa...

      ...but read on, I only highlighted the root comment because it sparked an interesting debate.

  13. Sep 2022
  14. Aug 2022
    1. fully decentralized’ Dai is insecure from incentive misalignment.

      low attack cost or high attack value?

    2. These attacks affect both the current single-collateral Dai (SCD or ‘Sai’) and the upcoming multi-collateral Dai (MCD) implementations, as well as similar systems with on-chain governance.

      51% is not neccesary to manipulate governance to steal the system's collateral.

    1. To reduce liquidity indirectly, projects can provide incentives that make individual token holders less willing to sell.

      Staking or standalone value like soc exp pr in-person events.

    2. Nevertheless, designers can limit the value of attacks by limiting the scope of what governance can do

      Semi-DAO?

    3. inefficient outcomes

      incentive failures, inertia or active capture by malicious actors

  15. Jul 2022
    1. Can they reshape the contours and boundaries of their socialsituations instead of being shaped by them?

      !- key insight : can an individual reshape the contours of their social situations instead of being shaped by them? * This realization would open up the door to authentic inner transformation * This is an important way to describe the discovery of personal empowerment and agency via realization of the bare human spirit, the "thought sans image"

    2. In searching for a configuration of intelligences in the world that would make possible for humansto govern, we want the exemplar human agents X, Y and Z to be able to impact the socio-econo-politicalsystem rather than be steered and moulded by it.

      !- in other words : This would be true individual DIRECT governance agency, rather than INDIRECT and ineffective representational agency.

    3. Consequently, theshape of the gridlock [9], in which further progression towards an ever-greater executive capacity givento a selected group of institutions has become nearly impossible, is not an anomaly to be overcome.The gridlock is the only configuration in which the global system could have settled. It isthe configuration any system is bound to adopt when it is composed of a multitude of differentlypositioned, differently oriented, heterogeneous decision-makers, operating in different dimensionsand scales, none of which universally dominant and all are co-dependent and constrained by others.

      !- question : governance gridlock of disparate actors

    4. Approaching the two extremes of the ‘hierarchical versus collective’ axis as irreconcilablemodels and the two extremes of the ‘governor versus governed’ as distinct social locations seem to bemisleading rather than useful. These are just two opposite conceptual idealisations of an actual broadrepertoire of patterns of distribution of influence.

      !- question : claim: it is not useful to choose between hierarchical and collective and governor and that which is governed * Do the authors mean between capitalist vs socialist systems?

      • This needs some sensemaking and examples to clarify and substantiate.
    5. Only if an event of communication triggers a change and thischange is observed as being causally connected to that same event, the communication event can betreated as a decision. In this sense, a decision is a special category of actions that is, the exercising ofintentionality—doing something in order to change the state of affairs. This is how intentional mentaloperations of humans become functional in the context of a social system.

      !- explanation : when human intention is communicated and triggers a governance decision in a social system * inner to outer flow * articulating inner experience * manifests as outer (communication/language/linguistic) behavior

    6. At first sight, it might seem that no one but humans (even though in actuality only a few of them)hold positions of influence and power over social systems. We wish, however, to challenge this view.We argue that while human-driven governance is conceivable and in principle possible—and it is thegoal of our research to draw the path towards such future—for now, it is not human beings but ratherthe social system which governs itself [6, 7].

      !- question : human-driven governance * needs clarification !-gloss : human-driven governance

    7. This understanding of governance makes apparent that, for any particular challenge considered byany particular designated ‘governor,’ there is, typically, a considerable number of impactful selectionsthat are made elsewhere

      !- question : governance: * need examples to demonstrate

    8. we posit that there is no need to define the global system as a configurationof only such social forms (e.g., international organisations) that remain after the presupposed unitsof their respective environments (e.g., nation states) have first been excluded

      The authors are suggesting an alternative to traditional forms of institutional governance, even on a global scale that is independent of nation states or even an international organization to govern our entire civilization.

  16. Mar 2022
  17. Jan 2022
    1. welfare models of the Government in providing food security to poor households and designing gender budgeting in energy infrastructure are also welcome.
      • orly Does Modi strict government induce economic growth during COVID
  18. Dec 2021
  19. Nov 2021
    1. In all cases, institutions need to have a security and privacy strategy. Endpoint protection platforms, two-factor authentication, and cloud monitoring tools are some of the technologies that IT staff use to protect institutional data and individuals' identities.

      How to ingrain this into an organization without being dictatorial? I imagine: public pronouncements from high levels about the importance of cloud service governance, lots of education for decision-makers and implementers, clearinghouses of common information, open/blameless reports of problems.

    1. Politically and legally, the principle of subsidiarity ensures that education remains a national competence for EU Member States (Ertl, 2006), while, theoretically, scholarly research points to the continued relevance of the state within a multi-scalar governance complex (Levinson et al., 2020; Tröhler, 2020).

      multi-scalar governance complex (Levinson et al.,<br> 2020; Tröhler, 2020).

    1. Politically and legally, the principle of subsidiarity ensures that education remains a nationalcompetence for EU Member States (Ertl, 2006), while, theoretically, scholarly research points tothe continued relevance of the state within a multi-scalar governance complex

      multi-scalar governance complex

  20. Oct 2021
    1. When the originators of DAOstack set about to architect solutions for decentralized governance, they recognized that given the complexity of the problem, the best solutions would emerge only over time, especially since needs would vary across use cases.So, first and foremost, they designed DAOstack to be not a fixed offering in decentralized governance, but rather a sandbox for ongoing experimentation, in which bits and pieces of governance infrastructure can be easily mixed and matched for each organization, like LEGO building blocks or WordPress templates.

      An evolutionary approach is optimal.

    2. Perhaps the biggest one is inefficiency. If you give everyone a voice, things can get very noisy very quickly, like an annoying neighborhood association meeting, multiplied by a thousand. The more you distribute decision-making power throughout an organization, the more you risk either taxing everyone’s attention with a sea of decision-making or creating gridlock among decision-makers — or both.So, if you’re going to coordinate a crowd effectively, you need technology not just for making proposals and tallying votes, but also for managing the collective attention. You need ways to determine who can make proposals and how. You need ways to determine which proposals should actually get the attention of the voters — sort of like means of voting on what to vote on. And you need ways to determine who should be involved in each decision, according to reputation or subject-matter credibility.

      This is a critical requirement to make decentralized governance practical.

  21. Sep 2021
  22. Jul 2021
  23. May 2021
  24. Apr 2021
  25. Mar 2021
    1. Planetary governance must be seen not just as an extension of Internationalism but in contrast to it. Internationalism, such as the United Nations, is a kind of Federalism. It presumes the sanctity of the isomorphic Nation-State, and it understands the organization of the world as primarily the circumscription of plots of land. In many ways, it is fundamentally ethnocentric, fundamentally traditionalist, and as such its form represents a misalignment of the governor and the governed.
    1. The core of OpenFaaS is an independent open-source project originally created by Alex Ellis in 2016. It is now being built and shaped by a growing community of contributors and end-users.
  26. Feb 2021
  27. Jan 2021
  28. Dec 2020
    1. Governed under a Temporary Benevolent Dictatorship (TBD)

      first sighting: Temporary Benevolent Dictatorship

    1. Felt is a set of tools for building customizable self-governing communities.
    2. a co-op of worker-owners, and hopefully one day a platform co-op (communities owning themselves? absurd)
  29. Nov 2020
  30. Oct 2020
    1. That is to say: if the problem has not been the centralized, corporatized control of the individual voice, the individual’s data, but rather a deeper failure of sociality that precedes that control, then merely reclaiming ownership of our voices and our data isn’t enough. If the goal is creating more authentic, more productive forms of online sociality, we need to rethink our platforms, the ways they function, and our relationships to them from the ground up. It’s not just a matter of functionality, or privacy controls, or even of business models. It’s a matter of governance.
    1. Departmental communication was a one-sided process, with nodal institutions seeking sectoral information without looking to build climate capacity in the state or involving departments in the ideation process. As a result some recommendations do not seem grounded in what is politically or developmentally tenable.
    2. While senior state bureaucrats have been supportive of developing a plan, there is little evidence that they have championed adapting to or mitigating climate change as a cause, at either the political or bureaucratic levels.1
  31. Sep 2020
  32. Aug 2020
  33. Jul 2020
  34. Jun 2020
  35. May 2020
    1. Illegal economies often work faster than governments’ and NGOs’ ability to formalise and implement conservation strategies
  36. Apr 2020
  37. Mar 2020
  38. Jan 2020
  39. Dec 2019
  40. Nov 2019
    1. Early in the life of the Audius network, the AudiusDAO will control governance. During this bootstrap-ping phase, the Audius DAO will also have the abilityto intervene in catastrophic circumstances to x criticalissues in the Audius blockchain code, such as issues en-abling fraud or resulting in unintended loss of Audiusor Loud tokens.
  41. Oct 2019
    1. The Politics of Sustainability and Development

      This reading is to help you better understand the role and importance of literature review. Literature review connects us to a bigger community of scientists who study the same research topic, and helps us build up, illustrate, and develop our theory (what is happening between the IV and the DV?) and research design (how one plans to answer the RQ).

  42. Aug 2019
  43. Jul 2019
  44. Jun 2019
  45. Apr 2019
    1. City of Sydney. Should it have CBD planning powers? It's scope of interest is too limited for a metropolitan area as big as Sydney.

  46. Jan 2019
    1. That’s true not just within the classroom environment, but in the web of interactions students experience

      Subtle call for more cross-campus collaborations between faculty and administration. A productive form of shared governance.

    1. Freedom to organizeAragon lets you freely organize and collaborate without borders or intermediaries. Create global, bureaucracy-free organizations, companies, and communities.
    2. The world’s first digital jurisdictionAragon organizations are not only great because they are decentralized, global and unstoppable. They will also benefit from the Aragon Network, the world’s first digital jurisdiction.

      "digital jurisdiction"

  47. Oct 2018
    1. oversight by an independent and respected body or bodies t

      strong, well resourced and independent would be much stronger watchdog demand

    1. Effective governors communicate what the priorities of your organization are and what is expected of people.

      Largely missing in HIH.

    2. most IT governance strategies prove to be ineffective in practice due to application of traditional strategies and ways of thinking.
    3. Lean IT governance balances your short-term and long-term needs. Too many organizations have allowed technical debt to grow in recent years, for the skills of their IT staff to stagnate, and to continue to tolerate traditional IT process strategies from yesteryear. This is because they allowed short-term priorities to trump long-term health. We must do better.

      Sounds like HIH.

  48. Aug 2018
    1. Since November 1st you will get your mail from public authorities and institutions as Digital Post. This means you have to read it online. It is important that you know how to find and read your Digital Post.

      Digital Posts for Government Mails and Instructions

    2. NemID is a digital signature and an all in one login for public and private services on the Internet.

      NemID - Digital Single Sign On for Citizens

    3. Borger.dk is an Internet portal for the citizens of Denmark. Here you can find different self-services and get information on issues regarding the public authorities. 

      Borger.dk - Internet Portal for Citizens of Denmark

  49. Jun 2018
    1. By requiring a lock up period for the DCR to obtain tickets, Decred hopes that only users invested in the long-term growth of the network will be involved in the consensus process. Short-term speculators and day traders of DCR will not be able to participate in consensus or governance without making their holdings illiquid.
    2. One concern in the Decred community is that the rising ticket price (about 100 DCR, as of mid-2018) excludes small holders from participating in governance and block validation.
  50. Mar 2018
    1. Mention has been made of the new environmental body. Strictly speaking, under this clause as it currently stands, the Government would be able to establish, under secondary legislation, the kind of body that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who is no longer in his place, was arguing for earlier—a body so powerful it could sanction other public bodies, including the Government, if it was able to reproduce the powers that presently rest with the European Commission. That is an enormous power, which this House would not allow the Executive arm of government on its own without primary legislation conducted through the two Houses.

      interesting point

    1. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, we are not asking for anything more; we are just asking for what is in the existing provisions. We are just trying to put it into language that most people would be able to understand and not tie it up in legal knots.
    2. My Lords, is the Minister familiar with Einstein’s theory of relativity? The reason I ask is because if you do the sums, I reckon that there is just over 12 months to go between now and the proposed date of exit from the European Union. We are talking about a three-month consultation period—starting heaven knows when, because we still do not know when the document for the consultation will be launched—then we have perhaps another nine months to pass an environment Bill through Parliament, if it is to be a statutory body, and then perhaps another six months to set up the organisation, fund it and appoint ​the staff. That sounds like a minimum of 18 months to go into 12. But of course, as Einstein pointed out, if you can travel at a speed faster than 186,000 miles per second, you can stretch time, so I hope that the Minister is proposing to invoke Einstein’s theory of relativity in ensuring that the body will be in place by the proposed date of exit.

      lol

    3. On Amendments 66, 112 and 113, I simply say that, if the Government are sincere in their stated commitment —as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said—to uphold all the environmental commitments that we are signed up to and to uphold the spirit of the transfer of EU law into UK law, they should have absolutely no hesitation in supporting all these amendments.
    4. I also share the anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about whether there will be real welly behind the regulator. I was chief executive of the Environment Agency, the environmental regulator, which had to help negotiate the urban wastewater treatment directive infraction proceedings that produced the Thames tideway. In spite of wanting and willing there to be an example elsewhere in the world of a body established by a Government that is capable of fining its own Government —and hence its own establishing power—I have not been able to find one. I hope, however, that Ministers will look assiduously at producing that result.
    5. Most of our environmental protection today is as a result of being in the EU. Ministers wanting to deliver have been helped to do so by the threat of infraction. So the thing that is missing from all this—although the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, touched on it—is the governance and delivery of the sanction. If it is not delivered, what is the sanction? If it is not money, it will not work.
    6. can the Minister assure the Committee that the new green watchdog will be in place on a statutory basis by exit day?
    7. There is no point in having high aspirations unless you have an effective mechanism to ensure that you deliver. As a member of the European Union, we have been subject to scrutiny and enforcement by the Commission, ultimately through infraction notices. As I pointed out at Second Reading, 46% of the judgments handed down by the European Court of Justice on UK infringements since 2003 related to the environment.The Government have accepted that after Brexit there will be a governance gap and that therefore a new green watchdog will be required to hold the Government to account on their environmental performance. The purpose of Amendments 112 and 113 is to ensure that this new green watchdog is in place by exit day and that it will mirror as closely as possible the current arrangements that we have as a member of the EU.
  51. Feb 2018
    1. es decir, formas difusas y casi microbianas e intermitentes de poder.

      Habría que decir que no existe una falta de estructura, sino que ella es invisible, por tanto es difícilmente contestada. El poder es auto-organizado y rotativo. Explicitar la estructura sin petrificarla es la tensión de espacios como los hackerspaces.

    2. desde esta perspectiva las organizaciones constituyen conversaciones para la acción. Hay un cierto grado de recurrencia y formalización en estas conversaciones, que Winograd y Flores (1986) caracterizan en términos de actos lingüísticos distintivos. Las organizaciones son redes de compromisos que operan a través de actos lingüísticos, como las promesas y

      las peticiones. [...] En última instancia la característica central de las organizaciones y su diseño es el desarrollo de competencias comunicativas en un ámbito abierto para la interpretación, de manera que los compromisos sean transparentes

      [...] Una parte importante del marco de Winograd y Flores es el desarrollo de un enfoque lingüístico para el trabajo de las organizaciones sobre la base de ‘directivas’ (pedidos, solicitudes, consultas y ofertas) y ‘comisiones’ (promesas, aceptaciones y rechazos). En la década de 1980 Flores desarrolló un software para organizaciones, llamado El coordinador, basado en la idea de que las organizaciones son redes de compromisos que operan en el lenguaje. Véanse Winograd y Flores (1986, capítulos 5 y 11) y Flores y Flores (2013). Su objetivo era “hacer las interacciones transparentes [...] en el dominio de las conversaciones para la acción”

      La interacción entre organizaciones institucionalizadas y conviviales está ocurriendo para casos del hacktivismo en términos de peticiones (derechos de petición, entradas al blog) y promesas (hackatones, respuestas, proyectos).

      Una de las preguntas actuales es cómo hacer que las dinámicas de gobernanza propias de las organizaciones conviviales puedan ser coherentes y escalables a nivel barrio o ciudad. Qué infraestructuras favorecerían dichas posibilidades de acuerdos transparentes en red.

      Interesante reencontrar el software de Windograd y Flores y revisar cómo se adecuan o no a sistemas como wikis y repositorios de código y cómo el diálogo entre ellos podría alentar estas ideas de software para acciones transparentes.

  52. Nov 2017
    1. And, in general, to observe with intelligence & faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

      Again, I find it important to note the emphasis placed by the founders on encouraging social intelligence as well as academic intelligence. The University was not meant solely as an institution of book-learnin', but also one of character development. Still, this sentiment is rather ironic in the face of UVA's history, but I prefer to look at it from the perspective of self-betterment. The social relations of the university are certainly included in "all the social situations under which [the student] shall be placed," so change can be made from the inside, especially with the advent of student self-governance.

    2. instil into them the precepts of virtue & order.

      I selected this excerpt because it is rare for an institution to prioritize the successful instillment of virtue & order. UVa's student led honor system, similar to the precepts of virtue and order, is a malleable form of governance that changes over time. Other institutions have cheating policies and varieties of regulations, but UVa's untaught loyalty to honor creates a sense of trust that is unmatched. Precepts are normally societal rules that regulate behaviors and thoughts; however, though it is similar, our UVa community determines our precepts. This power instills students with dignity, which leads to internal acceptance of our society's virtues; rather than the confinement experienced by other individuals who aren't granted governance.

    1. 4. The best mode of government for youth in large collections, is certainly a desideratum not yet attained with us

      For as important as student government seems to be at UVA, I am surprised it is not mentioned more explicitly. Perhaps this was a quality of UVA that came later. I think that Uva is somewhat centered around student governance - however good or bad it may be - and because it is used as such a defining aspect and selling point I was really expecting it to be more present in a document as crucial to the foundation of the university as this one. I would not have thought it would come alter and just be added in to the university's important qualities list. Jefferson also already had clearcut plans for the Academic Village and where certain buildings and facilities were to be placed as outlined in this report. This is another central quality to UVA and it exists right here from the start. Where is the concept of student government?

    1. Thecharterincludesnineteenrightsandonesetofduties,whichareimportanttooutline

      Nuestro trabajo estaría enmarcado en la parte de Libertad de participación en los asuntos públicos a través de Internet y también con las puestas por el pluralismo y la gobernanza.

    2. TheUnitedNationsWorldSummitontheInformationSociety(WSIS),heldinDecember2003inGeneva,iswidelyrecognizedasa‘constitutionforcyberspace.’[52]TheimportanceofWSISisthatitdrawsitsimaginaryforcefromtheUniversalDeclarationofHumanRights(1948)andinstitutesparallelsbetweenthoserightsanddigitalrights.[53]Theorganizationofthesummitandthedeclarationofitsprinciplesweretheresultsofyearsofwork.Itssixty-sevenprincipleshavemoreclausesthanmanyconstitutionsinclude.Itisanambitiousdocument,anditsfirstprincipleaffirm
  53. Sep 2017
    1. ‘wemakerightsclaimstocriticizepracticeswefindobjectionable,toshedlightoninjustice,tolimitthepowerofgovernment,andtodemandstateaccountabilityandintervention.’

      Puede esta performatividad construir alternativas en las que no está el estado, en lugar de contraponerse a él o cuestionarlo? Qué otras configuraciones de gobernanza son posibles?

    2. Forus,thisalsomeansthatactsoftruthaffordpossibilitiesofsubversion.Beingasubjectofpowermeansrespondingtothecall‘howshouldone“governoneself”byperformingactionsinwhichoneisoneselftheobjectiveofthoseactions,thedomaininwhichtheyarebroughttobear,theinstrumenttheyemploy,andthesubjectthatacts?’[14]Indescribingthisashisapproach,Foucaultwasclearthatthe‘developmentofadomainofacts,practices,andthoughts’posesaproblemforpolitics.[15]ItisinthisrespectthatweconsidertheInternetinrelationtomyriadacts,practices,andthoughtsthatposeaproblemforthepoliticsofthesubjectincontemporarysocieties.
    1. They should be lodged in dormitories, making a part of the general system of buildings.

      The emphasis in this document on lodging students in dorms is less about giving students housing and more about establishing a living and learning environment. This living/learning environment runs much deeper than a classroom education, but is associated with UVa's insistence on stressing student self governance. However, this idea of self governance cannot be achieved if the students do not live together in a society where the "government" can function. Living together is part of this education the university was so set on establishing; when people live in close quarters, they are able to learn from each other and really begin to establish an environment for themselves. This idea is still prevalent at UVa today where first years must live on grounds and essentially start their journey together.

    1. Altering the infrastructure for governance marks CfA as different from other progressive organizations focused on, for example, electoral politics or youth mobilization. Participation entails personalized involvement where individuals create or alter digital infrastructures to support community need

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. Co-regulation encompasses initiatives in which government and industry share responsibility for drafting and en-forcing regulatory standards
    2. policy makers and scholars should explore an alternative approach known as “co-regulation.
    1. Citizens were asked to take over responsibilities that were previously handled by the state, and participants would “recognize problems only insofar as technology can operationalize and solve them.”
    1. Data activism and advocacy ranges from civic engagement (Putnam, 2001) to more oppositional activism (Jordan, 2001). In this sense, it is a spe-cific association of technologically mediated participation with particular political goals (Lievrouw, 2011) resulting in a wide range of tactics. Although open government data is still evolving and is constrained by predictions for economic growth and self-regulation, I argue it enables civic hackers to participate in civic data politics. This is particularly important because data-driven environment is often distanced from pro-viding individuals a sense of agency to change their conditions (Couldry and Powell, 2014). Data activism and advocacy can take place through organizing on related top-ics, online through mediated data repositories such as Github, and in-person events such as hackathons.

      [...]Contributing, modeling, and contesting stem from residents leveraging possibilities of open data and software production to attempt to alter process of governance.

      En este amplio espectro, sería chévere ver maneras de gobernanza y cómo pasan a la esfera de lo público y se articulan con los bienes comunes y las entidades encargadas de preservarlos y extenderlos.

      Esta transición aún está desarticulada y no la hemos visto. Las formas de gobernanza de HackBo, aún se encuentran distantes de las formas institucionales públicas, privadas y del tercer sector (ONG), si bien piezas de este rompecabezas se exploran en paralelo, su escalamiento a nivel ciudad aún está por verse.

  54. May 2017
    1. The IDEAT project launched by the Partit Nazzjonalista a few days ago offers a glimpse into how Maltese politics can be transformed through a digital platform which bridges the divide between the citizen and the Party that represents it. IDEAT is built around an eDemocracy framework in which ICT serves as a tool of choice in order to, not only engage and communicate with the population, but empower it to be better equipped to participate in the democratic process. Crowdsourcing is less a new idea than a new concept. It covers a wide array of tools that use the power and knowledge of crowds brought together through the Internet, especially by means of social media and other applications which primarily focus on bottom-up information flow. Citizens can take part in brainstorming, discussing, developing, and formulating ideas that used to be the limited domain of political elites. This IDEAT project seeks to explore methods to obtain active citizen input in the policymaking processes - an input which has been severely curtailed by this government. It serves to empower each and every one of us, enabling our voice and ideas to be heard. Politics for the people can be more than just casting your vote when a general election comes by.
  55. Apr 2017
    1. DRAFTpresentedtoNMCBoard,November12,2015v.0.3

      Was this draft approved by the Board?

    Tags

    Annotators

  56. Jan 2017
    1. Early open source was about the idea that code is ownerless, enforceable by license, which theoretically leads to resilient software.Modern open source is about 1) building and 2) collaborating in public.The conversation has shifted from protecting the rights of a user to adopt the software as they wish (now the norm) to protecting the rights of the author or community that stewards the code (still TBD).

      Early Free Software (predating Open Source) was about protecting community rights: in this case the ones of the hacker communities and authors sharing the software. The extreme depolitization of modern open source, particularly in USA and The Valley, brings hide politics and governance, as is documented in the bitcoin case, the hidden politics of the "apolitic" money. So, there is some kind of pendulum movement from plain Open Source to its re-politization showing again a concern for governance and sustainability of software as a commons.

    1. 4. Technological and Media Change.

      There is still very little thinking about digital education from a policy/discourse/politics-of-education perspective. Interesting work by Ben Williamson, Greg Thompson, Ian Cook

  57. Sep 2016
    1. It is time to think seriously about how the algorithmi-cally informed decisions now driving large swaths of society should be ac-countable to the public
    2. This bit of infor-mation, together with recent research showing biased search results can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters,10 points to the need to start asking questions about the degree to which such curation and ranking sys-tems can affect democratic processes

      Algorithmic accountability

  58. Aug 2016
    1. DATA GOVERNANCE

      la Data Governance fa pensare ad una Pubblica Amministrazione come unico organismo pensante e decisorio. Un concetto facile da metabolizzare, ma che non rispecchia spesso l'architettura reale delle PA di grandi dimensioni come i Comuni capoluogo, ad esempio.

      La Data Governance parte da una PA che ha progettato o implementato la sua piattaforma informatica di 1) gestione dei flussi di lavoro interni e 2) gestione di servizi erogati all'utenza, in maniera tale da eliminare totalmente l'uso del supporto cartaceo e da permettere esclusivamente il data entry sia internamente dagli uffici che dall'utenza che richiede servizi pubblici agli enti pubblici. La Data Governance può essere adeguatamente ed efficacemente attuata solo se nella PA si tiene conto di questi elementi anzidetti. In merito colgo l'occasione per citare le 7 piattaforme ICT che le 14 grandi città metropolitane italiane devono realizzare nel contesto del PON METRO. Ecco questa si presenta come un occasione per le 14 grandi città italiane di dotarsi della stessa DATA GOVERNANCE, visto che le 7 piattaforme ICT devono (requisito) essere interoperabili tra loro. La Data Governance si crea insieme alla progettazione delle piattaforme informatiche che permettono alla PA di "funzionare" nei territori. La Data Governance è indissolubilmente legata al "data entry". Il data entry non prevede scansioni di carta o gestione di formati di lavoro non aperti. La Data Governance nelle sue procedure operative quotidiana è alla base della politica open data di qualità. Una Data Governance della PA nel 2016-17-... non può ancora fondarsi nella costruzione manuale del formato CSV e relativa pubblicazione manuale ad opera del dipendente pubblico. Una Data Governance dovrebbe tenere in considerazione che le procedure di pubblicazione dei dataset devono essere automatiche e derivanti dalle funzionalità degli stessi applicativi gestionali (piattaforme ICT) in uso nella PA, senza alcun intervento umano se non nella fase di filtraggio/oscuramento dei dati che afferiscono alla privacy degli individui.

  59. Jun 2016
  60. Apr 2016
    1. “I don’t like big government,” Sundeyeva said. She made two circles with her thumbs and forefingers and pressed them against each other so they touched, like binoculars. This Venn diagram represents the interests of people and government, she said. “They don’t have very much in common.”

      It's my firm belief that "big" vs "small" government is a juvenile argument. It's much more productive to ask what things government does well and what things it doesn't. Make it as large as necessary to handle the things it does well.

      While a statement like "I don't like big government" basically renders this person's politics dismally weak to me, I'll try to read the rest of the article anyway.

  61. Jan 2016
    1. It is the third bucket that contains the most ambitious applications: “smart contracts” that execute themselves automatically under the right circumstances. Bitcoin can be “programmed” so that it only becomes available under certain conditions.

      In other words, it can facilitate a deferred payment system that works when the payer provides payment in escrow, like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding systems. It could manage deposits on purchase-and-sale agreements and handle escrows on legal judgments, without a third party holding title to the money. The core financial system itself could hold the money.

      Could it be made into a complete deferred payment system for managing loans, mortgages, and coupon bonds? I don’t know how, since the source of those payments is outside the bitcoin system and generally doesn’t exist at the time of the loan or bond purchase. But imagine if a financial system was entirely built around a programmable trust system, then financial instruments themselves become a part of the logic of a company’s assets and liabilities. When a corporate bond coupon comes due the company treasurer doesn't create a transaction, instead the coupon payment is automatically transferred to the holder of the bond by the financial system itself. That is, the structure of the bond has been integrated directly into the financial system for automatic execution.

      If a future government were to implement blockchain technology and legislate its adoption throughout the financial community (perhaps as an option, in parallel with the pre-existing system), it could 'write the code' for legally certified instruments like corporate bonds, mortgages, car loans. It could further write legally permissible derivatives of those instruments (yes, derivatives have tremendous value in reducing risk, when used wisely).

      At that point, financial companies like Vanguard or Fidelity could issue mutual funds whose prospecti assert that the only kind of instruments held by the fund were those certified by the government to use the legislated systems. This could reasonably allow safe and less expensive adoption of powerful financial instruments with far less risk to the system.

      Sure there are plenty of flaws and dangers in this kind of a system. But could they be worked out to create a safer, less expensive, more transparent and more accessible financial system than we currently have? Would it help engender some of the trust that has most recently been lost?

    2. This has implications far beyond the cryptocurrency

      The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.

      Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.

      I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.

      How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?

      Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.

  62. Nov 2015
    1. Canada is unique in the world in that it is the only country whose national government has no authority in education;

      Though it may be taken for granted by actors in the sphere of learning in Canada, this factoid can have a large impact in terms of “Canadian Exceptionalism”.

  63. Jan 2015
    1. And claims about the magical powers of tax cuts are often little more than a mask for the real agenda of crippling government by starving it of revenue.

      This part I absolutely agree with. However, most of these people would, I suspect, vociferously deny being anarchists, but also claim to be patriots. Perhaps it's worth asking why, if governance itself is not an issue, why these people seem to believe that government cannot scale. It's hard to govern large areas effectively, and in the public interest, but it's not clear that it's impossible.

    1. I have been worried for a little while now about the construction industry in Australia turning their apprentices (heavily subsidised by Govt) into "sub-contractors" once there is no more subsidy available when the apprenticeship is completed.

      It means that (often) young people are turfed into the business world with little business acumen, still treating themselves as "employees" of the company/tradesman who indentured their skills learning. Unable to negotiate their own income and terms because of limited financial planning skills.

      If apprentices are to be shoved into this world, they are doomed to fail unless they are provided with the adequate business governance learning and advice. Understanding their legal and fiscal obligations as a sub-contractor is vital and being able to say NO to companies who demand rights to monopoly over their contractual services is imperative.

  64. Dec 2014
    1. However the Internet changes how governments work, I’m optimistic that it’s a good thing for governance.

      However, we have to be extremely wary of importing too many things from the technology world into governments. "Move fast and break things" is great when you can just roll out a patch, but not so good when it costs a generation their education or health care.

    2. Governance has to adapt to global catastrophes and individual suffering at the same time. It’s hard.