[Ag Meinungsfindungstool] Disruptive behaviour (was Re: Grundkonsens: Nicht werten, vernetzen)

[Scott Raney <scott AT metacard.com>]

2014-08-13 10:06 GMT-06:00 Slash <pirate_slash AT yahoo.com>:

> Mit so einem destruktiven Verhalten verlässt man den Grundkonsens der AG.

(trans) With such a destructive behavior departing from the basic
consensus of the AG.

Oh, the irony!

Long time lurker, first time poster.  Note that I don't speak,
understand, or read German and so am relying on Google Translate for
my understanding of this post, and of qKonsens in general.  Please
feel free to correct any misconceptions I may have.

I'm posting because I recognize the behavior you've described, and
it's the same thing that has caused (and continues to cause) the
failure of the Metagovernment project
(http://www.metagovernment.org/).  If you'll go to that site, you'll
see the Home page was removed about two months ago because it
contained inaccurate statements, among them statements claiming
interoperability of tools and that "consensus" had been achieved on
the philosophy that "consensus" was a reasonable goal for any
decisionmaking system (more irony for you!)

I recognize the behavior of "Wolfgang" because we saw the same thing
when I put a proposal for a new MG home page up on Loomio for a vote.
Rather than debate or even cast valid votes on the matter, those
participants who insist on "consensus" as a design goal merely
obstructed the vote!  Again, they irony here is pretty overwhelming:
Those participants who insist that a valid decision-making process
must seek "consensus" prove their own position to be fundamentally
invalid by their own actions!  Unfortunately, as with most hypocrisy,
they fail to appreciate not only the irony of the situation but
steadfastly refuse to admit their position has any defects nor are
they even willing to debate the issue.

I see the same flaws in the design and philosophy qKonsens I see in
most of the projects on MetaGovernment, a list I created in my first
post to that list:
http://metagovernment.org/pipermail/start_metagovernment.org/2014-April/006218.html

I also still strongly recommend everyone working in this field have a
thorough understanding of the authoritarian personality, the best
introduction to that still being Altemeyer's most recent book:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

The bottom line is, there is a certain portion of the population that
simply does not use rationality as the primary regulator of their
decision-making system and this group furthermore is also the most
likely to display prejudice and aggression towards others (and
unfortunately also the most likely to seek positions of authority in
representative governments).  The size of this subset varies depending
on where you draw the line (it's a continuum) but my own "rule of
thumb" is that it's about 25% of the population.  As a result *any*
decision-making system that requires more than a 75% majority (let
alone "consensus") is simply unworkable except in very restricted
domains (homogeneous populations, non-controversial decisions, no time
or resource constraints, etc.)  Conversely, we *need* to have that
other 75% participate fully and vigorously in the political process or
that authoritarian 25% will continue to lead us into new wars,
conflicts, genocides, and just plain inefficient government that they
have been for the past couple thousand years.

As to why this is, and what we can do about it, that's the subject of
a book I'm working on, the current draft of which can always be found
at:
http://www.metacard.com/ThePlan.pdf
  Regards,
     Scott

PS: One more thing about qKonsens: Although these direct democracy
systems will need moderators to deal with things like spam, criminal
acts, etc., they absolutely cannot be involved in the debate *at all*.
Any feedback or regulation of speech must come from other users, not
any individual in a position of authority or the system will directly
devolve back into an authoritarian form of government.