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.