What's wrong with democracy?

[Patroklus Murakami]

I've decided to resuscitate my blog which has been on extended leave for the last couple of years. Myfirst post in a long time asks "What's wrong with democracy?" Here's the first paragraph as a taster to persuade you to click through!

I started this blog about two years ago with the intention of reporting on Neualtenburg (since renamed Neufreistadt as part of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators or CDS), Second Life's only democratic, self-governing community at the time. Since then I've been more of a participant than a participant observer, helping to found the Citizens' Social Democratic Faction and serving as a member of the government first on the Scientific Council and latterly as an elected member of the Representative Assembly and more recently Leader of the RA. But I have been observing all the time I've been active in the CDS and wondering 'Why has no one else followed our lead? Why are there no other democratic communities in Second Life?'

[Bromo Ivory]

Great blog post - I think it really underlines some concerns - especially the overhead with the system we have. I believe a rational compromise could have been reached, but everyone has a limit where - even a strong person such as yourself - it no longer becomes worth it. It is a shame that the faction was unable to back-fill your departure.

Weaknesses I saw in the Governance to date:

1. We had rather informal rules for an RA so large (I have found 5 to be the practical limit for informal controls in RL, and it seems to bear out in CDS) - and we had 4 factions as well which does not add to it.
2. Selection of LRA by fiat - works well when the faction actually has the largest number of seats - but when there are a large number of more or less equally weighted factions factional alliances won't have any control of the agenda even if they are a majority. This recipe equals chaos as we observed.
3. Borda count - the Borda count is a deliberate method where the will of the majority is compromised to the median opinion. The median opinion is the goal - not the majority. We have never been able to get it through our heads that the will of CDS is the median opinion, not the # of first votes. This also caused conflict as the seats are distributed along median and not majority lines.
4. We fiddle with the election system too much. The latest "elimination" rules was a particularly difficult reform - since actual use of it distorts from the selection of the "median opinion" and any evidence of its use on any level caused a lot of rancor and discord - and outright attacks though the RA swept it in last term. Fiddling with the election system was called once by Pat the "CDS disease" and I believe that is a good summary of the condition.
5. Factions - I like the idea of factions, but we are seeing some difficulty in keeping ranks filled. This is the key weakness (ironically it is also in RP sins that rely upon factions to keep the RP stories unfolding, though CDS is not RP). Due to the items Pat listed in his blog (great entry - BTW) as well as slow growth - leaves us vulnerable to a "apathetocracy" - or rule by those who want to without a great democratic test. We are seeing this with CSDF - they had the largest Median, yet they are unable to fulfil their portion of the median-will mandate - essentially abdicating their responsibility through "apathy." (I know it is more complex than that, but this is the overall effect)

As this thread explores some ideas - and Jon has weighed in some that I thought were salient and interesting, but rather than add more, I will leave my post with a quote from Winston Churchill:

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
~Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

[Jon Seattle]

Borda count - the Borda count is a deliberate method where the will of the majority is compromised to the median opinion. The median opinion is the goal - not the majority. We have never been able to get it through our heads that the will of CDS is the median opinion, not the # of first votes. This also caused conflict as the seats are distributed along median and not majority lines.

Borda counts are usually used in cases where a single candidate wins an election. In those cases, if there is no strategic voting, yes, Borda count methods would tend towards the median.

However, when you add the Sainte-Laguë method to allocate seats among multiple winners the whole picture changes. When I have more time I will post some simple simulations to show that there are many situations, our own among them, where a divided community works to force the median position to loose to smaller minority.

[Flyingroc Chung]

Seems like a critique of the CDS brand of democracy, rather than democracy in general. I myself wonder if the recurrent drahmah in the CDS is symptomatic of structural problems of our government, or simply a result of passionate people with differing opinions.

[Jamie Palisades]

Pat and Bromo ask if our democracy is working.

We have a lot of heavy-duty math aficianados (like Jon and Cindy) who focus on whether we have the right Borda count algorithm, etc. I am grateful that experts are giving this some thought -- even with a bit of software experience, those issues make my eyes cross.

I'm more interested in Bromo's point about 5 versus 7 RA members -- and the unspoken issue of increasing fractious personal attacks, and decreasing civility, in the RA.

Do we really need government redesign? Or, as Roc suggests, isn't this more about personalities than structure? Do we just need better ways to deal with uncivil behavior?

Legislative and professional consultative bodies in RL risk grinding to a halt, too, when a few people keep picking fights. In RL, the usual cure is rules that discinventize extreme cases of bad behavior. What should we do about that in SL? If theoretically we had a few parties who were consistently nasty, personal and in attack mode, are there any options to shutting down all progress for six months? Even the U.S. Congress and the Europarliament have some rules of order. Robert's Rules may or may not be the answer, but the last few RA meetings have made it blindingly obvious that *some* procedural behavior norms for official meetings would help. Even the meanest, dumbest U.S. Congressman (and we've had a few) or MEP is restrained a bit by knowing he could be ejected or censured if he goes waaaaay too far.

As Sonja points out, this is not a universal problem, even in today's RA. [1] But we have been suffering from a few longstanding CDS feuds. Feuds discourage others from participating, and block our progress. They're indulgent. They drive away volunteers. They should stop. On all sides.

Let's be grateful for what we do have. I would like to thank and complement several of our current officials for demonstrating unfailingly positive & productive communication styles. At a minimum, it looks to me like MT, Brian, Sonja, Alexicon and Arria all have managed to do their jobs without a single snarl, threat or feud. Thank you. There may be others even now, and of course we've had many -- Sudane, Moon & Gwyneth come immediately to mind. They all prove that we can govern & work without uttering a single "nyah nyah nyah", "I told you so" or "you're an idiot."

I'm sure everyone would have a different list, and there may be others I just haven't noticed; please forgive me if I've overlooked someone. But let's be grateful for the obvious best examples of constructive behavior.

Cheers & thanks Jamie

[1] Sonja makes the point that not everyone behaves badly here:
http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1654

[Jon Seattle]

I've always agreed that we need some well defined rules of order in the RA. Robert's rules are very complex and are just used in the US (and Canada?) and of course we have a large number of citizens from europe. As I said before, it seems to me we could do better.

Some of the most severe examples of harassment (hurling insults etc.) were outside of an RA meeting and I can't see how Robert's Rules or any rules would help to halt that. And I will also have to disagree with you about MT, who gladly participated in at least one instance of verbal attacks.

[Cindy Ecksol]

As Sonja points out, this is not a universal problem, even in today's RA. [1] But we have been suffering from a few longstanding CDS feuds. Feuds discourage others from participating, and block our progress. They're indulgent. They drive away volunteers. They should stop. On all sides.

I second Jamie's thoughts wholeheartedly. This perception of ongoing feuds is what sent me to chat first with Jon and then with the CSDF meeting last week. There's clearly a high degree of paranoia floating around, and as far as I can tell much of it (on all sides) is unwarranted. Various individuals are more susceptible to "pokes" from the "enemy" and tend to ratchet up their disruptive behavior instead of shrugging off the provocative language and focusing in on the issues.

Perhaps we would do well to adopt civilized forms of address as they do in various legislatures for starters. "The esteemed Representative" certainly ought to engender a more temperate response than "poo poo head" Then maybe we could all start assuming that a bill introduced by another party actually doesn't have any nefarious agenda attached to it and evaluate it based on its benefits to the CDS. We all have personal reasons for wanting one thing or another, but that a bill makes one person particularly happy should not mean that it's a poor proposal for the community. And of course bills can often be improved through calm discussion of various pros and cons. Those who propose a bill could even remember that a suggestion to change some aspect of the bill is not an attack on their personhood.

It could get even better after that....

Cindy

[Beathan]

Hear Hear!

Right on, Cindy -- although I should note that both British and Canadian Parliaments can become vitriolic and personally offensive, even while using the phrase "Right Honorable Member" -- As in, "Mr. Speaker, I would like to observe that if the Right Honorable Member had kept his member in the right and honorable place, he would not be the named party in three paternity suits" '-- and somesuch.

However, provided we don't have to wear wigs and stoop to bowing and scraping, I'm all for elevating the conversation in the RA.

Beathan

[Bromo Ivory]

However, provided we don't have to wear wigs and stoop to bowing and scraping, I'm all for elevating the conversation in the RA.

But powdered wigs are so *stately* -- and they are a mere attachment in SL!

[cleopatraxigalia]

and i can start a wig store then and make oodles of money on them cos it will then soon be trendy!
see i have a profit motive after all!