Dustin Plett

This is an idea that’s been rolling around my head for the last 24 hours, spurred by talks internally at ICUC, encouraged by some politically minded friends and egged on by continuous tweets from the Middle East calling for political reform. 

Maybe it’s too big of an idea for a tumblr post but — why wouldn’t government build a private network giving each elected official a community with an account for each voting member inside their constituency? Each constituency and individual part of an overall network connecting all voters to see and understand the issues and interests of other constituencies and voters across the country.

Put aside the issue of technology limitations (not that limitations exists), security issues (not that one exists), and the issue of the government trying to coordinate this (good chance this would be an issue). Put aside fears of corruption, of new world orders, and of government apathy and entertain this thought with me.

It would make information sharing incredibly efficient, vertically and horizontally. It would make acknowledging concerns of the voting public unavoidable, and it would allow everyone to provide feedback on every decision.

Imagine, if through a secure and verifiable network everybody had the ability to vote on every issue. No matter how trivial the issue was to me it would undoubtedly be very important to someone, somewhere, and they would have input - the exact person who should have input.

If you think about the system in place now the only reason we have “representatives” to represent us is because it was impossible to give everyone a seat in parliament. Social media has the power right now to give everyone a seat.

Someone suggested this could lead to the end of politicians. Although at times this seems like a great idea I think that’s a stretch for the same reason you can’t automate every aspect of social media - it’s not social without people socializing. 

Some people suggested this would lead to chaos as uninformed people made bad decisions. Is this any different than the current situation - in all seriousness? I think if everyone could participate in making a bad decision, we the public, would learn from our mistakes much quicker as opposed to blaming those on the hill who feel a world away.

Imagine protesting. A group of 10,000 people united against a policy without having to leave their homes, united under a “group page” with a clearly outlined point of view and one cohesive message. Impossible to ignore, bringing light to a situation many others had possibly never considered or were unaware of. 

Imagine if a governments around the world had similar systems and we could interact with the people our trade agreements and policies affected? What would be different?

Utopia or dystopia? Anarchy or true democracy? Scary? Inspiring? If nothing other than an interesting thought it’s worth thinking about.