Organic Habitat-6
5.2 Self governance - A.
Kingship.
Democracy.
Government.
Democracy 2G.
Digital platform.
Education.
SIL.
Self governance.
Since the dawn of civilisation, people had leaders and rulers.
Today we call them kings.
Civilisation also saw the formation of nations.
These nations were invariably ruled by kings.
National boundaries changed over time,
but the concept of kingship remained strongly rooted.
It was so strongly entrenched, that kings continued to rule nations, for several millennia.
For nearly 6000 years people accepted, or resigned themselves, to be ruled by a king.
Even more remarkably the concept of kingship was widespread geographically,
in different civilisations.
This happened during times, when there was little or no contact, between civilisations.
The concept of entrusting the management of their lives,
must have embedded in the psyche of human beings.
Another interesting aspect of kingship, that it was almost always inherited.
One family controlled the destiny of people for several generations.
This may appear astounding today, but this has been the fact of life, for millennia.
For several millennia people believed that the sun orbited to Earth.
When scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, proposed that it is the Earth that orbited the sun,
people including the learned and powerful church members would not believe it.
Entrenched ideas are difficult to change.
Sometimes we wonder, whether the same thing could be true for the concept of kingship.
Even today we have kings and queens, even if they are only ceremonial in nature.
People still respect and revere their ceremonial royalty.
When we discuss new models of governance, we need to be aware of the possibility of existence,
of the remnants of old schools of thought.
The seeds of democracy was planted in the late 18th century.
It started to spread in the 19th century.
It became more wide spread in the 20th century.
Compared to the history of civilisation, which is 6000 years old,
democracy is at best, only about 200 years old.
Most people today are firm believers in democracy.
The democratic model of governance, was formulated about 200 years ago.
The basic idea of democracy, was that people should govern themselves.
To put this into practice, people elected a representative.
The collection of such representatives, constituted a parliament.
This in turn governs the people.
This is a simplified model, but it conveys the essence of the design of the model of democracy.
People have a say in governing themselves, because they elect the people who govern them.
This basic model of democracy, with variations, is widely practiced in most nations of the world.
In democracy everyone has a vote, which they can exercise during an election.
The vote is exercised by physically going to a voting booth, and making a choice.
For practical reasons this cannot be done very often.
Elections are held say once in five years, to elect a representative.
These representatives in turn form a government.
The government rules the people, for the next five years.
During this five years, the people have little or no say,
of what the government does.
The government becomes an institution by itself.
Democracy is definitely a great leap forward from kingship.
After thousands of years of kingship, we were able to move to a more self governing model, through democracy.
The basic architecture of democracy was formulated about two centuries back.
Since then we have had a industrial revolution, in the 19th century.
After that we had an information revolution, in the 20th century.
We are witnessing the emergence of a knowledge revolution, in the 21st century.
The world has changed dramatically in the last 200 years.
Technology which we could not have dreamt about in 1800, is now available.
The internet and augmented intelligence, has the potential to change the way we live.
Even the successful models of democracy, we conceived of a, couple of centuries ago,
can now be considered as a prototype.
With the current advancements we have made,
the time is now ripe to design a entirely new model of democracy.
With democracy came the institution of the government.
When people elect a government, they essentially delegate the responsibility to govern them,
to the elected government.
This is a kind of wholesale transfer of responsibility, from the self to an institution.
The elected representatives, need a medium to govern a country.
A large number of officials are appointed for this purpose.
Collectively we refer to them as the bureaucracy.
The elected representatives are supposed to direct the bureaucracy, to govern us.
Effectively it is the combination of the elected representatives and the bureaucracy which governs us.
This is what we refer to as the government.
The institution of government has made practical, the implementation of democracy.
Like democracy as it was conceived, the institution of government is also outdated.
There are several deficiencies, in the form of government, that we are used to.
We will review some of these.
In the typical election, 50 to 70% of the eligible voters, choose to cast their vote.
This by itself is a major shortcoming.
A process which only reflects 50 to 70% of the voters views,
obviously does not truly reflect the views of the population.
In many cases the missing voters, could have made a dramatic shift in the outcome of the election.
The process of election is so inconvenient that many people,
do not take the trouble of participating in an cumbersome voting process.
Sometimes there is a feeling of impotency.
They feel that they cannot change the way things are, and resign to their fate.
Some people are just complacent.
They feel their lives will not be affected, by what happens in the election.
In any new model or democracy, this issue needs to be addressed.
A democracy which has 99 plus percentage participation,
would obviously be superior to the old model.
A government is usually elected for a period of about 5 years.
This literally transfers power from the people, to the government,
for a relatively long period of five years.
After electing a government, people are practically impotent.
We can see people expressing views, during this period, in the form of protests and agitation.
This is clearly born out of frustration, that they cannot participate in the process of governing themselves.
We need to design a model where people's views are always taken into consideration,
when the government makes decisions.
When the election is held, millions of people, might elect one representative.
This one representative is supposed to represent the view of millions of people.
On a given specific subject, we know that this could be a gross approximation,
if not an outright misrepresentation.
Let us imagine that a million people, have their views on hundred different subjects,
relevant to governing them.
Obviously all of them will not have the same views, on all the different hundred subjects.
If we poll them on each subject, we will have different outcomes for different subjects.
But the concept of an elected representative, makes the fallacious assumption that the million people,
will have the same view on the hundred different subjects.
A model with this assumption, suffers from this serious flaw.
The new model that we conceived, has to truly reflect the opinion, of the million people,
in each of the hundred different subjects.
People have a spectrum of views on different subjects.
A true democracy reflects this spectrum of views in its decisions.
A government tends to get rigidly institutionalised.
It could develop self perpetuating tendencies.
Only a small group of people get actively involved in politics.
Unfortunately this group is neither the most talented, or the most honest.
Though elections can change governments, power tends to oscillate within a narrow class of politicians.
There is an entire system, including financing, which works to bring politicians to power.
This art which is mastered and exploited by the political class, to perpetuate itself.
The bureaucracy which is the foundation of the government is also rigid.
The bureaucrats who are appointed are not the best talent in the country.
For historical reasons what needs to be professionally managed,
is actually managed by the government through the bureaucracy.
For qualifications of the bureaucrats are not co-related to the needs of the job.
There are kind of general purpose, all purpose managers, who try to manage jobs,
which requires specialised skills.
These skills are available in plenty in the private sector,
but have no motivation to work in the government sector.
The government sector, pays very poorly and in turn attracts the worst talent.
There are no doubt exceptions to this, that unfortunately it is true for the large majority of the bureaucracy.
Bureaucrats are also appointed for a full term, up to retirement.
In the fast changing world of today, dramatic changes can happen in a span of 40 years.
This is about the time that a bureaucrat spends in office.
Seniority, not merit, is the measure of the bureaucrats rise to the top.
The most important decisions are made by the senior most bureaucrats.
Unfortunately, these are the people who have lost touch with the new reality,
which has emerged more recently.
Bureaucracy thus suffers from both incompetence and obsolescence.
In some cases it suffers from the additional malady of corruption.
The general weaknesses that plague, the current model of democracy and government,
points to the need for a fundamental design change of democratic institutions.
The first generation models of democracy,
was a transition from thousands of years of kingship.
Once the institution of democracy, - the government-, was put into place,
it appears, that psychologically we developed an attitude,
that the government will take care of us.
It is as if the role of the king, was shifted to the government.
We seem to have a strong need for someone, or something, to take care of us.
If we need to build a new model of democracy, we need to break away from this historical constraint.
It would be interesting to examine, why at all we would need a government, to govern us.
One possible hypothesis could be, we think that we are too busy to govern ourselves.
So we need a government, to take care of us.
Let us examine this line of thinking.
People spend a lot of time, reading newspapers, and watching news.
People also spend a considerable amount of time, expressing their views of the political scene.
It is amazing, that this much amount of time is spent, without actually achieving anything.
We do have the time, we do have views, but we are impotent to act on it.
If we had a mechanism to channel this time, perhaps we will begin to realise,
that it is indeed possible to govern ourselves.
Another possible hypothesis, for the need to have a government, could be that we feel,
that we are not competent to govern ourselves, and we feel,
that it is only the government which has the competence to govern us.
It does not require close examination to realise that, most of skills, expertise and competence,
exists outside the sphere of the government.
In the prototype model of democracy, we created a disconnect between the high levels of expertise,
that is available in society, and the actual government.
This creates a rather surprising situation, when a competent of society, is ruled by a incompetent government.
The prototype model may be understandable, when the vast majority of the people were illiterate.
In the modern developed and highly competent society this model is not acceptable.
People do have the competence to govern themselves.
Even if they do not have expertise on a particular subject, they can read or listen to experts on this subject.
They have the capability to understand the essence of the matter from the experts they choose to trust.
The hypothesis of not have competent does not hold good anymore.
Is it the right time to design and implement the second generation model of democracy?
A number of conducive, complementary conditions, have to concurrently come together,
to enable a paradigm shift to happen, in our democratic model.
We sometimes refer to such a paradigm shift, as a revolution.
Such a coming together of conducive factors, enabled the industrial revolution,
and the information revolution.
The democratic revolution itself, was the resultant of several favourable factors.
We now have several conducive factors.
Most of society is literate.
Many of them are highly skilled professionals.
Knowledge is now more abundantly available.
This knowledge can be disseminated widely using print media, TV, Internet, etc,..
People have the technology, like handheld smart devices,
to access any information and knowledge.
People if they choose to, can become well informed and knowledgeable.
The advancement of technology has placed many more tools at our disposal.
Using a personnel smart device, which we will call 'Jeeves', a person can express his views,
or register his vote anytime.
This he can do any number of times during a week, month or year.
This provides an outlet to express views, which actually defines the outcome.
We have a large number of experts in all areas of management.
We have augmented intelligence, which can be applied to many areas of management.
What was in the domain or government management, can be shifted to professional managers,
who work with the aid of augmented intelligence.
And lastly the desire and the will of people to govern themselves.
We have reason to believe, that people are realising, that they wish to, and can actually govern themselves.
The time seems to be ripe to design and implement the second generation of democracy.
We will call this simply as 'Democracy 2G'.
The essence of Democracy 2G is that people govern themselves.
There are several enabling factors which needs to be conducive, for self governance to become viable.
When these factors fall into place, conditions are ripe for Democracy 2G to be born.
Technology is one of the significant elements required to make self governance possible.
Computer technology, communication technology, and augmented intelligence,
have reached an advanced stage, where together they can provide the tools required for self governance.
It is now possible to provide a digital platform, which acts as a medium for people to govern themselves.
In traditional democracy people elected politicians.
Politicians formulated policies, and governed the people.
In Democracy 2G most of the functions delegated to politicians can be withdrawn,
and people can engage in a direct participative democracy.
The role of middle men is removed, or greatly diminished.
The concept of voting, is pivotal to democracy.
It is now possible to vote digitally with a smart device, which we will call 'Jeeves'.
Smart devices are now affordable and accessible to most of the population.
Even the small percentage of people, who don't have Jeeves can vote via the postoffice.
It is even possible that a visiting postman, can register the vote, of a disabled person.
With such easy to implement simple schemes, we can assure that 100% of the population,
has the access to voting.
In a democracy it is important to ensure that every registered vote is valid.
Technology also helps to authenticate the vote.
Using technologies like, finger print recognition, face recognition, etc., it is possible to ensure,
that the voter is authentic.
These technologies can ensure a higher degree of reliability than the current systems.
This means that a citizen can reliably register his vote, from anywhere, and anytime.
The fundamental principle in designing Democracy 2G would be to maximise the extent of self governance.
This could require that we do away, with the traditional method of voting for a person,
once in five years.
It is possible on every significant subject, citizens can register their vote.
This is like the whole of society, is the parliament of Democracy 2G.
We can easily visualise a situation, where every weekend, citizens can register their vote on a few subjects.
People have enough time to form and refine their views.
The subjects on which the voting will take place, on a particular weekend,
is published sufficiently in advance.
People can get informed on the subject by themselves through print media, TV, Internet, etc.,
They could also listen to the views of experts on the subject.
On any subject there are likely to be different shades of opinion.
People are free, in fact encouraged, to view the subject from different perspectives.
This increases the quality of the decisions, that people make collectively.
This means that on every subject, every citizen, gets to express his views.
We do not have to find one person who has the same views, on all the subjects.
We have the flexibility to have our own views, on different subjects.
In traditional democracy voting has been binary.
The choice was typically limited to 'Yes' or 'No'.
We can now conceive an analog system of voting.
Let us take a hypothetical proposal.
Should we outsource our defence to the U.N..
This will bring down our defence expenditure by 95%.
For this proposal, the voting choices could be :
Strongly in favour.
In favour.
Neutral.
Against.
Strongly against.
This gives us more flexibility to choose that right intensity of our views.
If the mandate is overwhelming strongly in favour,
it clearly indicates the strength of the views of the electorate.
Many variants of analog voting can be designed.
This will lead to a superior reflection of public opinion.
The subject for voting can also be presented as policy A, policy B and policy C.
These alternative policies are formulated by different groups of experts.
We can choose the policy that we think is the best.
We could also rank the policies according to our views.
The voting will determine which policy is chosen for implementation.
Typically augmented intelligence guided by experts will translate a policy into a plan of action.
This will be implemented by private consultants and executors.
Another conducive condition, for self governance that is falling into place, is education.
There was a time when a significant proportion of the population was illiterate.
Now most countries have universal literacy.
The situation now is far better than mere literacy.
People are much better educated.
Most people have a two star, or a three star qualification.
This is equivalent to the earlier diploma or degree education.
People are in a position to grasp the essence, of the subjects related to self governance.
A significant proportion of the people, go on to acquire four and five star qualification.
This is equivalent to the earlier post graduate, and doctorate qualification.
This means that there are large number of experts.
It is not possible for one person to acquire in-depth expertise in two or more fields.
This has created an opportunity to develop expertise in thousands of fields.
For example, a glaciologist develops expertise in glaciology and related subjects.
Experts are available on virtually every subject that we can think of.
These experts usually work as freelance consultants.
Expert knowledge is thus available when required.
Earlier a typical timeline of a professional would be about 20 years of education,
and forty years of professional practice using that education.
We are now experiencing a fundamental change in this thinking.
Learning is a continuous life long process.
To keep up with the pace of change, happening today, we have to continuously upgrade our learning.
It is common for people to acquire learning credits, on a monthly and quarterly basis.
For example, a three star qualified person, with 350 credits, is on his way to acquire a four star qualification.
This could be, when he is middle aged or even a senior citizen.
The essence is that people are continuously learning.
Online learning modules and courses are available on the cloud.
One can learn at any convenient time, and at their own pace.
Credits are awarded on completing a course.
Society in general has become a learning society.
This makes them much more qualified to govern themselves.
Even if the subject is not familiar, they can learn just enough about it,
to make informed decisions.
Citizens are getting more and more qualified to govern themselves.
Media like TV and social media is now omnipresent.
With smart devices like Jeeves, information and knowledge is literally available at our fingertips.
Importantly this is available universally.
Universal access to information and knowledge makes everyone qualified to vote,
in a self governing society.
The need for expertise has given rise to the emergence of thought leaders.
These thought leaders do in-depth research on a subject, to acquire expert knowledge.
Importantly they translate this into simple concepts, which most people can understand.
This is communicated to the people through various ubiquitous media.
Society has designed various mechanisms, to handsomely compensate thought leaders.
This motivates many to take-up this profession.
People can listen to the thought leaders, they trust and admire,
while forming their own opinions.
The availability of a many thought leaders, gives people a wide choice to choose from
This ensures that there is no monopoly.
It also allows to detect any idealogical bias.
People can lean on thought leaders, if they want to, to form their views on any subject.
The availability of augmented intelligence is a big plus for individuals.
Earlier, facts could be ascertained with search engines.
Now knowledge can be acquired with knowledge engines, powered by augmented intelligence.
Augmented intelligence could itself be a thought leader, one could consult before taking a decision.
Augmented intelligence has resulted in providing a phenomenal leverage to a person's thinking capability.
An average individual can be a knowledgeable voter, for self governance, thanks to support of A I.
Basic education has also undergone a fundamental change.
The art of self governance, or civics is now uniformly taught in schools starting at the primary level.
Children at a very early age or groomed to responsibly govern themselves.
The basic knowledge required to take responsible decisions is universally inculcated in the most basic education system.
A knowledge of civics is equated with being literate, just like reading and writing used to be.
Children also practically practise self governance in schools.
The governing council in schools have student representatives.
Children are gradually encouraged to participate more and more in the decision making of school management.
This early training helps to breed knowledgeable and responsible citizens of the future.
A literate population, a high degree of education, continuing education, social media, expert consultants,
thought leaders, augmented intelligence and training in civics, all contribute to the development of all round citizens,
who are well qualified to govern themselves.
There are more than 4000 significant languages in the world.
In many countries multiple languages are spoken.
Each language has its own literature, poetry, songs, proverbs, etc..
This contributes to the rich cultural diversity that exists in the world.
With increasing globalisation the need was felt for a global language.
This led to the emergence of the 'Simple International Language' or SIL.
SIL is specially designed as a language easy to learn and use.
The basic alphabets are derived from the Roman script.
SIL has a limited vocabulary of words.
Each word is easy to spell, and even easier to pronounce.
Each word has a simple, unambiguous meaning.
SIL uses very simple grammatical rules.
The SIL language can be spoken with the same accent, regardless of one's cultural background or mother tongue.
The advantage of having global language like SIL, is that all concepts can be communicated globally and unambiguously.
SIL is designed in such a way that it is easily mastered by primary school children.
Even kindergarten children have a good command of SIL.
SIL is now taught in all schools.
SIL is adapted now globally in most countries, as an additional global language, apart from the mother tongue.
Contracts between parties can be written simply and unambiguously using SIL.
International agreements can be written, which can be easily understood.
Most of international transactions is now done using SIL.
International agreements are made in SIL.
SIL plays an important role in global trade, contracts, and in general globalisation.
There is another indirect important use of SIL.
It is contributing considerably to self governing democracy, specially in countries which are multilingual.
Subjects which needs to be voted upon by all citizens, is presented in SIL, apart from the local language.
Due to its simplicity and unambiguity, people all over the world are beginning to prefer SIL as the language of democracy.
When a subject is presented to the electorate, it is also presented in SIL.
Expert consultants offer their views using SIL.
Thought leaders communicate to people using SIL.
Since all nations are communicating in SIL it is possible to draw international analogies.
What is being discussed in China can be easily understood by people in Chile.
Society is all about people interacting with each other.
If all the people in the world are able to interact, they need a common communicating medium.
SIL provides this common thread which knits together the entire world.
The wide use of SIL, leads to the evolution of global thought.
We could even say that we are witnessing the emergence of a global brain.
SIL has become a powerful force in national democracy.
All voters are able to understand the subject in the same way using SIL.
This is one more strong conducive factor, which facilitates the adoption of democracy 2G.
Democracy 2G is the democracy of self governance.
There is another interesting advantage that SIL offers.
Many machines and augmented intelligent systems, are now voice compliant.
It would be laborious and inefficient to provide voice interfaces for thousands of languages.
SIL has now become the default standard for human machine interface, or HMI.
Though machines and augmented intelligent systems may provide voice recognition in other languages,
they invariably provide SIL as the default voice.
Standard software offers ready conversion of SIL to machine language.
This enables even a small producers, to integrate SIL into their devices.
Even school children incorporate SIL voice interface to their projects.
Most interactions with machines will be done via a smart assistant, like Jeeves.
Jeeves and similar devices are always SIL compliant.
This enables a single window interface to machines and augmented intelligence systems.
This means that every device and system need not individually provide translation interfaces.
Jeeves will provide the translation and communicate it to the device wirelessly.
This is the age of the 'Internet of devices'.
With SIL, we now enjoy a voice driven environment.
SIL has not only integrated people of different societies, speaking different languages,
but also integrated machines and augmented intelligence systems, with people.