Other Uses of a Decision Website
Here’s what a decision website model can do…
Here’s where we could use a decision website model…
Organizations are typically non-profit groups overseen by a board of directors, who then hire the top director, who then hires down the chain. It is a hierarchical pyramid of control by a small handful of people.
Non-profit organizations accomplish a lot of good in the world. But they also possess a lot of power. There is plenty of speculation that this is the way wealthy people get to influence the world.
It doesn’t matter where that truth lies. Concentrated power is not good for us. Democratized organizations are going to make better decisions, be more transparent, and be a safer option for all of us.
Would you trust a union
if it were run democratically?
An organization could let everyone get involved by using their own decision website model. Maybe they let all employees make the decisions. Maybe they open it up to a larger membership of people.
We cannot tell an organization to change to a democratic model. But we can, as a citizenry, throw our support behind those organizations that do operate transparently and democratically.
There are other organizations that benefit from a more democratic style. Home Owners Associations (HOA) should reflect their members, so why not create a better method to participate. Co-Ops have the same expectation of reflecting member viewpoints. Now imagine if worker’s unions were controlled by its members rather than some upper echelon. The history and our distrust of unions would be radically different.
Think of all the organizations we could start as a non-profit, and then run them democratically. Imagine social media websites (like Facebook, Twitter), where we control the privacy, features, algorithms, and advertising. A democratic search engine could keep our information from advertisers. If we create a democratically controlled news media network, then we can decide the most balanced way to present news. In all of these, we could still sell some advertising to pay the bills. But it is our choice and our limits.
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Imagine a company that opens up its decision-making to all employees. Employees can be very narrow in their thinking, focusing on their personal role, and their own happiness at work. However, after a bit of experience in a decision website, they might easily shift to a new point-of-view that reflects the company as a whole. There are employees that understand the customers far better than leadership ever could. There are employees that have insightful understanding of production, customer service, purchasing, and all a company’s internal procedures.
Who wouldn’t welcome the employees’ input? Well, it’s the bosses that now have substantial power in the company. Rarely does someone readily give up power. But are they thinking about the company’s best interests?
We could create new companies that are non-profit or owned by employees. These are definitely ripe for using a decision website model. For companies that serve us all, like a Twitter style company, we could manage them democratically. To protect information collected on ourselves, we might replace: Tik Tok, YouTube, email, LinkedIN, WhatsApp, etc..
We could also move the oversight of natural resources into a democratically controlled model. Oversight of critical industries like transportation might be prime for the people’s voice. Certain government agencies could benefit from transparency and citizen control. These might be good tests to see how far we could take the Decision Website concept towards Direct Democracy.
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Scientists could give a tremendous gift to the people if they created a website of information. I want to know what the entire scientific community thinks about…
Habitation of Mars,
Quantum mechanics and reality,
Climate change and global warming,
Applications of nanotechnology,
Trans-humanism,
Dangers of AI,
Gene editing and the creation of new species,
Multiple big bangs and universes,
GMOs,
Multiple dimensions,
and more.
As it is now, the people have their scientific information filtered through the media. We don’t read a scientific study, we read an article about some research or study. It lacks depth and balance. Why? Because it’s put out by a for-profit media corporation that restricts its length to fit a TV schedule, or because they “know” our attention span. It’s used as a dangling carrot by the media corporation to manage viewership. Wouldn’t it be nice if the journalists were allowed to tell the story in their own way.
It’s not really the proofs and details that we need, as that could be over our heads. It’s the scientists’ thinking and the debate among themselves. We need understandable scientific information and we need it balanced with challenges and caveats. This would give more validity to the scientific point of view. Isn’t that what scientists want? And this would give us a better understanding of our world. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
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There are so many topics we should explore. Some are best deliberated by experts. Some topics pertain to the human experience and should be wrestled by all of us.
As an example, great ideas appear on TedTalks and other sites. Without a truly central place to discuss this information, the idea does not receive the needed debate to become trusted, and it lacks a sufficient audience to gain traction. The decision website model would let us rally and support worthy ideas.
Here’s a few topics that would be interesting to debate in a decision website:
Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories are simply looking at circumstances and projecting intentions as to why those events occurred. They are not necessarily true or untrue. If we were to break a theory apart and determine each part’s accuracy or probability, then we might make some headway on understanding the likelihood of the entire theory. That’s a real benefit to all of us.
Economics
What are the options for an economic system? Has the modern world changed our options? Is the goal simply survival? What about the ideas of post-scarcity? Is our monetary theory honest and up to date?
Genetics
How do we feel about the genetic revolution? How will gene editing change society? Who should own the technology?
Climate Change
What’s the full range of causes? How effective would any action be? How shall we plan for consequences?
Abortion
What is the nature of the act? Is a human life really that important? How does science and religion come into play? Where does individual freedom fit in? Wouldn’t it be unifying for us as a society to work towards our best understanding of the issue rather than solely relying on a court’s opinion?
Court & Legal System
They could use a review of procedures for our modern times. Should judicial appointments be in the hands of the people so as to remove political ties? Are lifetime appointments outdated? How can we equalize the judicial process so money is not a factor on conviction rates and sentencing?
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Punishment
Are we setting people up for failure? How should we think about victimless crimes? Have we made too many laws? What is the balance between individual freedom and societal goals?
Law Enforcement
Are we asking police to do too much? Should there be specialty officers with a variety of skills? Shouldn’t we give officers more flexibility in their responses? Should officers have a milder approach to petty crimes? Are we unnecessarily putting officers lives in danger? Is law enforcement trying to circumvent search & seizure rights? Who sets law enforcement’s standards of conduct? Shouldn’t we step back and evaluate what we really want from law enforcement?
Earth
How should we approach the world as a whole? What policies need global cooperation? What’s the secret to world peace? If we can envision new ways to cooperate globally, then maybe as full democracy spreads, we can embark on a solid direction towards our best ideals.
Society
What are we truly looking for? What’s the nature of tolerance? How is happiness achieved? It won’t result in absolute definitive answers, but it could represent our best thinking and a wonderful elegant way to comprehend our lives and our world.
History
What if historians hammered out the proofs of what has occurred in history. All the evidence and theories, debated and sifted, until we can see the probabilities of what really occurred. And what if in the spirit of transparency, secret documents around the world are released. It might be a wake-up call for us.
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