[EM] proxy ideas: continual consideration, and proxy committees

[Alex Rollin]

So,

I've been doing research for about 15 years now on any and every governance
system I've been a part of.  I'm one of those people who senses the deep
problems with oligarchy, and I apply my insights (often inappropriately) in
experiments with capital, somewhat outside the realm of 'just' discussion.
 Obviously aspects of FA lead to the forming of groups that have specific,
localized interests, and those group/organizations have positions and
inclinations.

I'm doing my best at this point in time to not be totalizing and monotonic
in deciding that voting systems themselves are the core of all
organizational systems in a certain sense.  Specifically it is through this
system that the will of participants is vocalized and re-distributed across
the FA polity (is that what you call the group of individuals members in an
FA?)

Given that different rules govern different groups for the reasons that
support the mission of the group, the wide-body planet-wide FA is a really
important thing!  And at the moment, we have a whole bunch of groups forming
things that look like FAs, and even espouse principles that would be
similar, but in fact the organizations exist to produce position statements.
 You probably have a lot better terminology and experience to examine and
describe those errors.  I am struggling with that piece at the moment.

So, these groups are not aware of some of the most important pieces of FA,
as you so eloquently described in your mail:

Anyone can join
Proxies are consent (and expectations) to communicate
Proxy limits may set themselves (how many a person may accept)
FA body has no position statements against or for anything
Small bodies may form to work on specific issues
Any group may form and create exclusive rules for membership
All groups that expect to be considered part of the polity should arrange
transparency for their meetings.

At this point it seems that a lot of groups that desire to have high
throughput like a 'pristine' FA get sidetracked as they do their best to
figure out how to preserve what they see as the one-in-a-million value of
consensus that they might stumble upon.  So they lock down membership to
protect their polity from ideas.  That's a best case example, of course.
 Most of the time they form with those ideas and then limit membership from
the start.


So, the issue is two-fold.  People don't know about FA.  Second, people who
do know the power of communicative assent and large scale communication say
they are doing FA but they aren't.  Add on to that the specific case that
groups that are or would benefit from something like FA to handle a single
stream of their discussion are completely disaggregated and separated from
each other for reason 1 or 2.

I feel very strongly that writing down (more of the) FA rules would be very
useful so that the many organizations can see that they have polity
transparency with a much wider body.  They can share their issues and
membership (privacy respected, of course).

You might be wondering why I care about this.  I see that many of the large
organizations that take advantage of large scale communication, which
enables coordination, also have this oligarchical tendency.  In most cases,
the tendencies don't serve the people inside those systems or the people
outside the systems.  In my opinion the only way to alter the status quo is
to out-communicate and out-coordinate these closed system.

The issue is not so much education as delivering working models that are
flexible and not entirely dependent on old systems to function.  You
mentioned the software option that shut down the Demoex FA (in whole or in
part.)  This is the kind of issue I see as a regular, recurring problem.  My
current interest is in seeing a widely adopted open standard that allows an
FA to function in distributed form.  This allows organizations to open and
close boundaries as they see fit, but also to make the choice to do so.  I
am emphasizing this because I see this as a larger form of the same
useful exercise you mentioned giving to Professors in choosing their student
as a proxy.  In fact, this is, perhaps, the single most
important exercise in civil society, and is trumped up to become the
patriotism of American when choosing their representatives, though of course
this is a whole different arena and I understand that.

So, how do we make the FA form small?  Modular?


--
Alex

“It’s no longer possible for a country to collapse in isolation. Now we all
collapse.

The only path to stability is to equalize the consumption rates of the first
and developing world. Our dream is no longer possible in the new world.” -
Jared Diamond March 2010



On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> wrote:

> No I don't mind.  I am working my way through it now, doing lots of
> searches to educate myself.
>
>
> --
> Alex
>
> “It’s no longer possible for a country to collapse in isolation. Now we all
> collapse.
>
> The only path to stability is to equalize the consumption rates of the
> first and developing world. Our dream is no longer possible in the new
> world.” - Jared Diamond March 2010
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 3:30 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>wrote:
>
>> do you mind if I send my reply also to the EM list?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 09:07 AM 4/9/2010, Alex Rollin wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Abd,
>>>
>>> What you have written is utterly fascinating to me.
>>>
>>
>> Hey, me too.
>>
>>  Last night I spent several hours grasping new vocabulary.  What you wrote
>>> agrees with my internal understanding of what I wish very much.
>>>
>>
>> The ideas are popping up all over. I think the time has come, but, I
>> caution anyone starting to work in this field: it runs contrary to
>> widely-accepted assumptions about democracy and what is possible. Most
>> people are going to need to see operating organizations to even believe it
>> is possible. And I'm sympathetic. After all, how do I know that this will
>> work? Lots of ideas that have seemed really great didn't work, because of
>> unanticipated consequences.
>>
>>  On top of that I am very curious about your work.  I went to your website
>>> but it appears to have been coopted in some way.  Is your email still
>>> working?
>>>
>>
>> This one is. The web site for beyondpolitics.org is working, occasionally
>> some people help with it, but it's been languishing. I'm only one person and
>> I have a few irons in the fire, maybe too many. The wiki is at
>> http://beyondpolitics.org/~beyolom0/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page.
>>
>> My email from there may not be working, but this address, the one this
>> mail comes from, is working.
>>
>> (Domain hosts were changed, and I never transferred all the old tikiwiki
>> stuff. So the FAQ which was on the original site is missing, which is an
>> important document. I should fix that, like I should fix hundreds of other
>> things... It is impossible to take a world movement beyond a few words, here
>> and there, without more than one person being actively involved. There *are*
>> other people involved, but they are all, also, busy. Gradually, this will
>> shift.)
>>
>>  I would like to know what kinds of organizations DO use FA-DP now, and
>>> where I could look at one.
>>>
>>
>> There are none currently using it that are of sufficient size to test it.
>> It should be understood, however, that "Free Association" describes almost
>> any original informal cooperative organization, at its inception. However,
>> what normally happens if the organization grows is that it adopts a
>> traditional form, that's what people know how to do. And the traditional
>> forms normally leave behind many of the Free Association characteristics.
>> There is a huge exception, though, and it's kind of a trick. The exception
>> is Alcoholics Anonymous, and the FA characteristics are generally drawn from
>> the AA Twelve Traditions.
>>
>> Delegable proxy is actually regular proxy, which has always been delegable
>> (by default), it's just that delegability hasn't been considered routine.
>> When I sold my house a few years ago, I had to be out of the country for a
>> few weeks, so I have a power of attorney to the lawyer. That allowed the
>> lawyer to execute necessary documents on my behalf, and the lawyer had the
>> discretion to make routine decisions, representing my interests. But suppose
>> something had to be signed on a day when the lawyer wasn't available. He
>> could delegate it to someone, providing an additional document showing this.
>> It isn't normally done, because the necessity is not common. A power of
>> attorney is a proxy.
>>
>> In FA/DP usage, though, a proxy does not normally exercise legal rights,
>> but is simply considered to "generally represent" the client, for purposes
>> of estimating consensus. The proxy will not be "voting on behalf of" the
>> client, just voting, in a poll, his or her own conclusions. I would not put
>> mechanisms in place to allow a proxy to split votes, rather, the proxy
>> simply votes his or her opinion. It is considered to "generally represent"
>> the opinion of the client, but not necessarily the ab initio opinion,
>> otherwise a proxy could be replaced with a remote vote. Rather it represents
>> a projection: the proxy's vote is considered to be the most probably vote of
>> the client *after the proxy and client discuss the matter,* should that come
>> to pass. And before anything happens of consequence in the real world, so to
>> speak, the client has to be convinced!
>>
>> (Unless the client, as a separate and distinct action, gives real proxy
>> power to the proxy, as with, for example, the right to issue checks from a
>> dedicated account, and that is not necessarily the business of the FA.)
>>
>> But this is off the top of my head: Demox, in Sweden, briefly used
>> delegable proxy in its process. Michael Nordfors reported that the biggest
>> "problem" was that most proxies ended up pointing to a single widely trusted
>> individual. These were, I'm sure, assigned proxies that didn't require
>> acceptance, the need for acceptance and the consequences of an individual
>> holding a large number of direct proxies had not been explored. It is not
>> clear that this was really a problem, because the power of Demoex, at that
>> point, was to advise its members how to vote in local council elections. But
>> Demoex also set up a non-FA characteristic. It took organizational positions
>> based on votes, and the elected Demoex representative on the city council
>> was pledged to vote per the Demox vote. Very bad idea, ran entirely contrary
>> to the basic principles of deliberative bodies, i.e., the right of
>> participants to make decisions, on the spot, based on the deliberations and
>> real possibilities in the moment.
>>
>> Demox would have been far more successful if it had functioned as a purely
>> advisory organization, seeking to facilitate communicatin between the people
>> and the government. *All the people,* not just "Demoex members." What member
>> of a city council would not want that advice? But by allowing Demoex to take
>> organizational positions, Demoex then became an enemy to other interests,
>> and could not function as a mediator, as a mechanism to seek consensus. It's
>> essential that FAs not take controversial positions *as an FA.*
>>
>> Suppose there exist two large factions in a place. They have trouble
>> getting along, and if an FA includes them all, it will be, supposedly, full
>> of wrangling and arguments that go nowhere. But, now imagine this with DP in
>> place. The two factions can exist as two different "meetings" within the
>> overall FA, which is rigorously neutral. Suppose that all members of faction
>> A belong to FA-A, and all members of B belong to FA-B. But suppose that both
>> FAs allow anyone to join who is interested. "The only requirement for
>> membership is an interest in our topic."
>>
>> What will happen? Without DP, it's a mess, and the mess is the reason why
>> such fora are often avoided by sane people.! But with DP, here is what will
>> happen: There will be a member of FA-A who has the balance and capacity and
>> time to join and participate in FA-B. That would include, as a skill, to be
>> stable, knowing when to "speak," and when the time isn't ripe and speaking
>> will only create disruption. But this member asks all members of FA-A to
>> join FA-B, name him or her as a proxy, and go on "silent mode," if they
>> want, which means they don't get routine traffic from FA-B.
>>
>> And the same thing happens in reverse, i.e., there may be a proxy on FA-A
>> who represents all members of FA-B. Or, in fact, there may be more than one.
>> It doesn't matter, and the FA rules, combined with decent DP rules, will
>> simply make this energetically advantageous.
>>
>> And when polls are held on one of the FAs, vote analysis can show what's
>> going on. Real faction A can see how its own members feel, and can, as well,
>> see how members of the other faction feel, because the public nature of
>> proxy designation allows it to be known that the FA-B proxy is identified,
>> and it's possible to go to the FA-B web site and see exactly who is
>> represented by that proxy.
>>
>> The information becomes available to estimate, in advance, the effect of a
>> political decision by faction A. It remains completely free to make that
>> decision, the FA does not control it, it merely advises. Faction A improves
>> as a representative of its members, because it becomes more difficult for a
>> subfaction to take over, unless it truly does win substantial consensus.
>> Faction A might be a real political party.
>>
>> It really gets interesting when high-level meetings start to form. These
>> would be deliberative bodies that restrict membership as they, themselves,
>> decide. If the FA is operating properly (following traditions), every member
>> of the overall organization has the right to "join" the meeting, and to vote
>> in any process. But the right to vote is different from the right to speak.
>> The right to speak at any meeting is controlled by the consensus of that
>> meeting. All meetings are, in their own government, independent. (This is
>> how AA works.) When a meeting becomes very large, the "traffic" can become
>> such a burden that people start dropping out. The point is to encourage them
>> to drop out from direct participation, but remain connected through a proxy
>> left behind, who has direct contact information. But we know from experience
>> that the most contentious participants will remain, so traffic will remain
>> high. Okay, at this point the meeting decides to restrict participation to a
>> specific set of members. If it does this right, the active members will
>> represent, and represent well, the "silent majority." If it does it badly,
>> nobody fights over it, they just start "another damn meeting." AA, in fact,
>> grew rapidly because of this, they actually turned resentment over "the
>> terrible way that those idiots are running this meeting" into rapid
>> multiplication of meetings, and the best meetings survived, and badly-run
>> meetings didn't, and because no actual power was assigned to a meeting (no
>> built-up treasury to fight over, no property owned to speak of), it was not
>> worth it, at all, to fight over meeting management. The saying in AA is,
>> "All you need to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot.")
>>
>> With delegable proxy and an FA structure, it would be possible for a
>> single FA to facilitate communication among all people on the planet,
>> efficiently.
>>
>> Yeah, sometimes I get excited. Be careful. It is very difficult to get
>> *one* person suficiently interested in this stuff. People will often say,
>> "What a great idea!" but very few will actually lift a finger. It's normal.
>> They don't believe it's possible, and, as I mentioned, most people will need
>> to see it working before they will believe it. So, given this, how do we get
>> from here to there?
>>
>> Well, there are probably millions of answers to that question, but what my
>> answer boils down to is this plan:
>>
>> 1. Develop the concept, and distill it into simple and likely effective
>> operating principles.
>> 2. Spread the concept based on this.
>> 3. Organize to spread the concept, using the concept itself.
>> 4. Propose the necessary structures and traditions whenever organizational
>> opportunities present themselves.
>> 5. Connect with others who are working on similar ideas, and support this
>> work.
>>
>> FA/DP concepts will work with very small groups. I've found that naming a
>> proxy, just as a personal act, is quite useful. I can leave active
>> participation in a mailing list, if there is a proxy left behind who will
>> tell me when something of special interest to me comes up.
>>
>> Accepting a proxy is volunteering, in this conception, to serve the
>> client. The only actual advantage received by the proxy is somewhat enhanced
>> creditibility, which is ruined if, when push comes to shove, the client does
>> not actually support the positions taken by the proxy.
>>
>> Assigning a proxy is consent to direct communication from the proxy, and
>> that should be made clear, and someone adding a proxy name to a proxy list
>> should, for example, be claiming that they have sent a personal message
>> (perhaps through the web site communication system) to the proxy.
>>
>> Accepting a proxy is consent to direct communication from the client.
>>
>> I order to protect an FA meeting from becoming co-opted by meeting site
>> management, that clients and proxies have direct means of communication,
>> independent of the site, is very important. (In AA, people exchange phone
>> numbers, and if a new meeting starts up, they can and do notify each other.
>> This would often also be announced at existing meetings. It's generally felt
>> that the more meetings there are, the merrier, because there are then more
>> opportunities for anyone to find a congenial time and place, and congenial
>> members.)
>>
>> Note that if a meeting takes place as a mailing list, generally people
>> will have the email addresses of list members. Some lists may not allow that
>> information, but it's a dangerous form of centralization of control. It
>> would be proper in some cases, where a meeting isn't central. High-level
>> meetings will have controlled posting rights, and those with posting rights
>> should have public email addresses so that those who might want to choose
>> one as their proxy can contact them.
>>
>>  I am also interested to know what you have discovered about how and why
>>> some organizations cannot use it.  I read some of that here, but i am
>>> looking for specifics, so perhaps you can point me at such a thing?  What
>>> kinds of conditions distinguish such organizations from each other?
>>>
>>
>> Central control or the rising of an oligarchy with extra privileges over
>> general members will create resistance, for those who have inequitable power
>> will correctly see any structure that distributes power equitably as, in
>> fact, "inequitable" in a different sense. The oligarchy generally believes
>> that it knows better how to implement the organizational purpose than the
>> general membership, and it may even be correct. However, not necessarily!
>> FA/DP is not immune to the Iron Law of Oligarchy, there will exist a class
>> with higher privilege, in a sense. But FA/DP restricts the privileges of
>> that class, and confines it to what is necessary for noise control and
>> intelligent action. Those who actually do serve the membership will retain
>> and grow in privilege, whereas those who only serve their own ideas, will
>> find their privilege failing.
>>
>> FA/DP does not oppose the oligarchy; rather it selectively enables and
>> encourages members of it, the best, and lets the others fall away with no
>> campaign of elimination.
>>
>> For these reasons, I think that FA/DP could be possible for what would
>> ultimately become political organizations in China, as an example. The FA
>> would never, as an organization, oppose government policy, and, in fact, it
>> would support it, or, more accurately, the best of it. Generally, the
>> oligarchy does believe that it is serving the "people." In fact, if we were
>> to look at the people in the Chinese government who do exercise control,
>> we'd find them divided. Some are truly after personal power and some are
>> after actual service. The latter group will not oppose an FA that rigorously
>> respects the rules about taking a controversial position as an FA. The
>> former might, but in so doing, would be exposing itself as seeking to
>> repress the people and their right to cooperate for common welfare, in favor
>> of their own assumption of superior intelligence or character. It could make
>> for a very interesting story, I suspect.
>>
>> EMIG, the election methods interest group, currently inactive, but still
>> available for use, at electionmethods at yahoogroups.com, has a proxy table,
>> and it's an FA, so it is FA/DP. I found it useful for the little bit that it
>> was used, you can check it out. The page is
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electionmethods/
>>
>> There is no reason, if one is interested in election methods, to *not*
>> join this list, except for a belief that it will be useless. We actually
>> have some supporters of IRV who joined. (Now, *that's* extreme!). List
>> membership, per se, does not betray any political position or controversial
>> view. There are no dues or fees. And you can go on Special Notice status,
>> which leaves you as a member, but stops traffic. However, you don't need to
>> stop traffic if there isn't any! (I would not send a special notice unless
>> there were some emergency or there were consensus to send it. The whole
>> point is to not bug people more than is clearly needed.)
>>
>> My proposal to academics was to join and encourage a worthy student to
>> join, and then delegate a proxy to the student! And ask the student to let
>> you know if there was something of likely interest to the professor....
>>
>> Information filtering is essential to large-scale organization. FA-DP sets
>> up the possibility of ground-up structure where one's input is filtered by
>> someone volutnarily chosen for that purpose, and who accepts the burden.
>> (which can be very small, unless one accepts a boatload of proxies, creating
>> a substantial communications burden. Many people have proposed formal limits
>> on the number of proxies, but I expect it will self-limit to what actually
>> works. A factional representative, as in FA-A and FA-B above, would probably
>> maintain a mailing list for clients, and would not necessarily read all mail
>> from clients (and large lists would, again, take measures to restrict
>> traffic.)
>>
>> Ah, yes, one more point. Demoex stopped using DP because it was a software
>> feature in software designed by Nordfors. They adopted conferencing software
>> that didn't have the feature. But DP should not be a "software feature," and
>> setting up a proxy table is very simple, it can be, and should be, a simple
>> text file. Software may or may not have the tools to analyze it, but the
>> network is set up and useful if people simply start naming proxies. Proxy
>> analysis can easily be done manually by anyone who wants the information
>> about how representative a process is.
>>
>> And an Assembly can be elected using Asset voting and existing proxy
>> assigments..... no extra poll would be needed, but if there is some good
>> membership definition, that will distinguish between distinct individuals
>> and sock puppets, then a secret ballot poll of the confirmed members could
>> be used for the first layer of elector determination, and then the proxy
>> table could take over for the negotiation of seats. (Ratified, in the end,
>> by actual votes in a standing election by those who are holding the votes
>> per Asset -- unless specific proxies allowing indirect voting are assigned.)
>>
>>
>
>
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