Thanks for this! I strongly believe in this pursuit, even if I would argue for it and go about it slightly differently. A few random thoughts, fwiw:
- I think you're throwing a lot of different kinds of governance innovation into the same bucket. For example, sometimes (but not always!) I get the sense that your mental model is that governance/democracy consists of detecting a group's (e.g., citizenry's) views and translating that into governance. That is the mental model that most people have. I think the evidence suggests that people's views adjust to the cues they get from their tribal leaders (e.g., Republicans increasingly anti-FBI and pro-Russia) -- and so this may not be the right/best/only mental model (and not saying it's your only one!). I think a truly next-gen democracy might not necessarily take as its premise (as many people do) that citizens have independent views that just need to be accurately detected, aggregated, and translated into policy -- but rather it should take greater account of the ways in which opinion-formation probably flows the other way -- and should be designed to "nudge" both mass publics and elites against tribalism, against short-termism, and towards evidence and reason. This tension (which is a tension at the heart of all democratic theory) appears when you justify this cause area on the basis of wanting "high-quality decisions" but then a lot of your legos are really just fancy, teched-up ways to aggregate views/interests (but, obviously, a lot of people don't seem to be very interested in 'high-quality decisions'!). Both are necessary, of course (aggregating interests/views and nudging things in prosocial directions), but it helps to be aware of the tension and to be intentional about it.
- Relatedly, the crux of our governance/democracy problems are informational and epistemic. No amount of governance design/innovation is going to get very far without really innovating around how human societies can/should handle information and speech (can't be censorship, but also can't be a free-speech fundamentalist free-for-all, where everyone can pollute the public square as much as they want and get rich off of it). It would help to explicit about this.
- I've actually explored whether there are any opportunities for state-level experimentation with more fundamental governance/democracy reforms (for example, proportional representation) -- via, for example, (state) constitutional conventions. I came away from my initial exploration extremely discouraged, fwiw, though it would be good to explore more.
- I think there's a fair amount of experience that's not included here (which makes sense given that you did this in 24 hours!). Things like participatory budgeting, etc.
Thanks for this! I strongly believe in this pursuit, even if I would argue for it and go about it slightly differently. A few random thoughts, fwiw:
- I think you're throwing a lot of different kinds of governance innovation into the same bucket. For example, sometimes (but not always!) I get the sense that your mental model is that governance/democracy consists of detecting a group's (e.g., citizenry's) views and translating that into governance. That is the mental model that most people have. I think the evidence suggests that people's views adjust to the cues they get from their tribal leaders (e.g., Republicans increasingly anti-FBI and pro-Russia) -- and so this may not be the right/best/only mental model (and not saying it's your only one!). I think a truly next-gen democracy might not necessarily take as its premise (as many people do) that citizens have independent views that just need to be accurately detected, aggregated, and translated into policy -- but rather it should take greater account of the ways in which opinion-formation probably flows the other way -- and should be designed to "nudge" both mass publics and elites against tribalism, against short-termism, and towards evidence and reason. This tension (which is a tension at the heart of all democratic theory) appears when you justify this cause area on the basis of wanting "high-quality decisions" but then a lot of your legos are really just fancy, teched-up ways to aggregate views/interests (but, obviously, a lot of people don't seem to be very interested in 'high-quality decisions'!). Both are necessary, of course (aggregating interests/views and nudging things in prosocial directions), but it helps to be aware of the tension and to be intentional about it.
- Relatedly, the crux of our governance/democracy problems are informational and epistemic. No amount of governance design/innovation is going to get very far without really innovating around how human societies can/should handle information and speech (can't be censorship, but also can't be a free-speech fundamentalist free-for-all, where everyone can pollute the public square as much as they want and get rich off of it). It would help to explicit about this.
- I've actually explored whether there are any opportunities for state-level experimentation with more fundamental governance/democracy reforms (for example, proportional representation) -- via, for example, (state) constitutional conventions. I came away from my initial exploration extremely discouraged, fwiw, though it would be good to explore more.
- I think there's a fair amount of experience that's not included here (which makes sense given that you did this in 24 hours!). Things like participatory budgeting, etc.