Monday, January 11, 2010

Invisible Government

As I've mentioned before, my life's work is a project I am calling Democracy 2.0.  My idea is to restructure the mechanic processes of democratic government in a way that will end corruption and expand transparency and inclusion.  The whole idea of the internet has been a fundamental influence of what I think is possible here.

I just found an interesting article talking about the changes wrought by the internet in publishing and education.  The core idea here is that once upon a time you had to be rich to own a printing press, and owning that printing press gave you significant power in the community.  The internet has ended that.  Now everyone has a printing press, and the power of owning a printing press has been dramatically reduced.

It used to be the case that only the rich could form a government.  The internet has ended that (although we haven't fully realized it, yet.)  Democracy 2.0 is a government "of the people" in a way that no pre-internet government could ever be.

The article discusses the Invisible University--a movement of chemists who reacted to their secretive alchemist forefathers by publishing and sharing all of their data.  Individuals who were willing to experiment and share their results built the modern science of chemistry, and truly laid the foundation for all physical sciences.

In a sense, then, I'm hoping that Democracy 2.0 can become an Invisible Government.  Governments large and small can be open and honest, and share their triumphs and successes.  Everyone can learn from each others' mistakes and build upon each others' successes.

No comments:

Post a Comment