Future Governance Session

Future Governance Session

'Checking in with purposes of joining the session
'Currently working w tech, so here to get a more human perspective.
'Bc participation is central to governance. 'Understanding how societies organize.
'Discuss these topics with new people.
'I like the subject and was intrigued by the pitch and discuss that with other people.
'How decisions are made in society - where most conflicts lie.
'Fascinated by governance: one of the challenges of our time is agreeing what we do, in the context of a global system.
'Non-violent communication, human connection rather than tech. Reorganizing human relationships as most effective.
'Most of our challenges seem to often meet the challenge of governance. Lots of respect for where we’ve come to today, but I’m curious to see how we can make it better - improving transparency and __ using technology.
Governance and organization is central to many things. Let’s do it in a better and healthier way- requires more thinking and experimentation
Liquid democracy, cyndicalism. Exploring how scuttelbutt can organize in a distributed way.
I’m usually very result-oriented, getting things done. One thing i like which is not that is organizational gruop processes.

Mapping the baseline of political polcymaking
Development: Who - Thinktanks, political parties, corporate forces, lobbyism, (systemic prerequisites). How - comes up with a proposal. process is opaque, not very clear. (Where do I want to participate? Eg machine standards do not interest me, but certain companies are very interested by that)
Deciding: who: small group of professional politicians, elected as representatives by the general publich with utilized voting rights. How: binary y/n approve/reject, with some room for minor adaptation of proposals
Implementing: who: civil service and municipalities - most cases these are made up by professionals who are not political in function. how: translating the national proposal to a particular context of their own.

Imaging the desired future of governance and policymaking
1 minute for individual reflection
3 minutes for brief conversation in pairs
10 minutes for brief conversation in groups of four, focused on sharing proposals.
2 minutes for groups to formulate Takeaways from convo’s into framework
Presentations and wrap up

Group 1: (Kristian etc)
The people that are involved and directly affected by the decision should be making it. Relevant for all stages in terms of who does it.
Organizing locally is important. Asking a representative to tell me what to do does not work. Ants can organize without a governor. How can we create messaging that makes roles/titles superflouos in filling a function?
I was mostly complaining. Newer methods of communication to enable participation. Challenge: apathy towards participation. Great to see that change with a sense of empowerment (and incentive? what incentive?) Transparency should be easy with the tools we have available.
Participatory democracy as a form of democratic duty. You’re made to go (forced) and decide. This is already implemented in Mongolia.

Group 2: (alex, )
If people CAN participate, there are still barriers of interest. Knowledge, level of information. Across all stages, how do we engage people who are not being paid? Feeling of ownership. Tracking your impact should be possible. Gap between those who do this full time and those who not.
More iteration, updating the current system. Democracy (in Sweden) has not changed dramatically since the 1800’s.
Citizens Assemblies could be a viable form.
Proposals should be transparten, possible for anyone to comment on. Makes clar who suggested what and who made what changes.

Group 3: (Kim etc)
Development, decision making and implementation should be done by the people who are affected by it the most.
The people who are the most engaged in an issue is usually updated and knowledgeable.
Citizens Assmeblies, direct democracy, sociocracy. Good enough for now, safe enough to try. Not based on majority vote, instead the concept of ‘consent’ (ie. lack of objections means proposals is approved).
Systemic prerequisites - in any system, there are preceding (nested) systems that determines how the system is operating. ‘(Direct Demoracy’ is now a party in sweden.) Eg. in the context of this workshop, it was the conference organizers and workshop organizers developed and decided most variables. We as the participants could engage only in implementatio (execution).

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