In Vermont and Maine, people pass laws in assemblies called “floor meetings”. They make binding decisions in face-to-face deliberations. Cornell biologist Tom Seeley (http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml) says that people in these floor meetings display behavior similar to the “animal democracy” behavior displayed by honeybees.
Similarities between town meetings and honey bee behavior:
• Scout bees report on the surrounding countryside; Townspeople report on their community.
• Bees recruit others to support their opinions; Townspeople try to sway opinion with spirited debate.
• A swarm chooses a nest site by establishing a quorum of supporters; Townspeople shout ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ or cast ballots to vote on community actions.
The main character of the interactions are that they establish a decision making process that is characterized by:
• Seeking a diversity of knowledge.
• Encouraging a friendly competition of ideas.
• Using an effective mechanism to narrow the choices.
Hallmarks of Swarm intelligence include (Seeley):
• Diversity of knowledge about the available options.
• Open and honest sharing of information about the options.
• Independence in the members’ evaluations of the options.
• Unbiased aggregation of the members’ opinions on the options.
• Leadership that fosters but does not dominate the discussion.
Twitter has a Digital Townsquare, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with people coming together to make decisions or with swarm intelligence:
Digital Townsquare
@digitaltownsqua
http://www.digitaltownsquare.coms
The Twitter space gives you the opportunity to “Find information about movie times, parks, things to do & events including nightlife, outdoor recreation, sports in your city in USA.”
After a little thought, I’m wondering if it is even possible to make group decisions in a digital environment. How could you tell who’s voting, how many times they’ve voted, which groups have been excluded because of the digital divide and other socio-economic issues?
Recently, I was thinking that it would be very nice if politicians could actually get accurate opinions from their constituents to back up their assurances that they know what the people want. Instead of a poll with a sample group, you ask everyone, and everyone instantly answers. Impossible!? I’m not so sure. I think the idea has to at least first be articulated before it can be refined or shot down. The more people who have phones because the price keeps going down; the more everyone has instant mobile access, the closer we can get to such a thing. All we need is some mechanism to easily register people (one tap technology), and some way to make sure that each person only gets one vote, and a way to aggregate and display the data in real time. Oh, and a boat load of band width. Then the president/prime minister/queen/king, etc. announces an important topic with a simple question in unambiguous terms, and BANG! Instant reliable opinions from the real “people”. I know, the formation of the questions would always be attacked, and all of the typical problems with surveys would still be there. But a conversation could be established where unclear items get ironed out.
As far as the back-and-forth communication necessary for swarm intelligence? Not sure, maybe follow-up debates for mobile devices with proxy debaters representing each side of the issues as they get fleshed out by the votes and ranked by number of people who hold that opinion. Or a combination of multiple push questions administered in a responsible manner.
The biggest threat to this kind of thing working is the problem of participation. Maybe people just don’t give a damn! Also, I wonder if politicians would actually want to know what people think. If the system was widely seen to be successful and representative of peoples’ opinions, then politicians might have to abandon their ideologies when they are seen to actually not be representative of those whom they claim to represent.
This discussion seems very apropos given the goofy squabbling in the U.S. over whether or not we will give a hearty stomp to the world economy this week.
So, that’s what’s on my mind this evening. Collaboration starts tomorrow!
Have a good week everyone!