What do these have in common: Elon’s Twitter, ants, General von Moltke’s strategy, brains, AI, prediction markets, and Wikipedia? The answer shows the path to the future of democracy.
you are totally right , I want to talk about the influence that the social media platforms like facebook and twitter have nowadays and how they can affect the opinions of people. The presidential elections of Tunisia back in 2019 prove it , a former law professor became the president of the country without any heavy campaign like other candidates who had by far more ressources to make a big campaign and also support from certain media outlets but the law professor succeeded because he was supported essentially by youth who made several facebook groups and pages where they talk that we must support him, it was a blow to the political establishment in Tunisia. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50087240 you can have an idea through this article.
Furthermore , this president Tomas stopped the parliament since July 25 because there are many problems and Tunisia is facing political and economic crises , I cannot go much in detail here , he says since many years that he has a view of governance that you are describing , he wants everyone to participate at the local level in his region in order to contribute to policy making but many are criticising him and his idea and I was among them but this article changed my opinion a little bit , I saw it as difficult to apply in reality but it can be possible in th future.
The president launched in the beginning of this year an online consultation where every citizen can contribute by answering questions and giving his view about the issues facing Tunisia and how we have to tackle them https://www.e-istichara.tn/home this is the website and now we have a referendum in July in order to accept the change of the constitution or not and he said that all the remarks from the platform will be taken into account in the new constitution and the economic reforms program , this is its website https://www.e-istichara.tn/home sorry for being long but your project reminded me of the views of the president that's why I wanted to explain , I'm still a lit bit skeptikal about how it can be applied on the ground but it will happen ..
A soap factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the bar inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important these relationships were, the CEO of the company assembled his top people.
Six months and $8 million later, they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.
They solved the problem by using a special scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a soap box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.
A while later, the CEO decides to look at the first week report. Since the scales were put in place, no empty boxes had been shipped out of the factory. Each day about a dozen defective boxes were being removed, which was consistent with the projections. There were almost zero customer complaints and they were gaining market share. The CEO felt the $8 million was well spent.
However, the number of defective boxes picked up by the scales dropped to zero after three weeks. He filed a bug against it and after some investigation, the engineers came back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.
"Oh, that," the supervisor replied, "Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang."
Jun 8, 2022·edited Jun 8, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Great article. Love the use of examples from different fields all pointing to the same things. And as usual the use of the visuals which makes it fun to read and more likely it will be read!
James Surowiecki's book Wisdom of Crowds sets out a couple of things that are necessary for better decisions among groups. Diversity, Independence and some mechanism for aggregating the ideas together. Without some of these conditions being met some of the examples you discuss would not work eg a Wikipedia article written only by Democrats or the work people contributed all had to be approved by me.
He also points out democracy is not just a mechanism to come up with the best policy. It is a mechanism for agreeing on how we can get along. In this regard, harmony is just as important (or more important) than the best decision. Free and fair elections where all our opinions are (sort of!) weighted equally leads to more citizen harmony and satisfaction.
Similarly when the German Govt decided to get out of coal-fired power, it didn't want to touch the issue because it would cop it in the neck whatever it decided. So it gave the problem to a commission made up of 28 stakeholders, told them to meet Germany's emissions targets and gave them funding to allocate. After nine months of negotiation they released a plan which was largely agreed on (27 of 28 stakeholders voted for it) despite decades of conflict. No one got everything they wanted. The German Govt got a plan without the grief it would have otherwise got and Germany was more settled. After all if you've a greenie and you've negotiated a plan on equal terms with a power company, unions etc, you've only got yourself to blame if you think you could have done better.
Good thinking here as always. I could see local legal-twitter-analogs that develop drafts of laws that legislatures and parliaments can approve or disapprove. That can serve as a check on twitter mobs. If a particular representative is always voting against the crowd sourced drafts, that can be used as a campaign issue next election.
A big roadblock is the “legaleze” language in which laws are written. I think you could either append the crowd-sourced laws with legal definitions or have translators work on the draft laws. Too many people will not engage if drafts are not in everyday language when they are being worked on.
"...lawmaking will become fast, prolific, and intelligent, and we won’t all be angry all the time at the terrible politicians we’ve had to elect." - I am ever optimistic Tomas!
Tomas, I feel like you are the only writer on the internet laying out a positive vision for the future. I mean that in two senses - you reject normative analysis; and your predicted post-democratic ideology-transcending world government sounds like progress to me!
Do you have a proposed KPI? Aggregate land value? An 'Optimism Index'?
Fascinating, as always... One thought about your conclusion on the future of democracy and how laws could be written in the future. Is there a fear it could play out badly for minorities?
The consultation aims to give the opportunity to all citizens, whether they are residents in Tunisia or abroad, to express themselves freely and transparently about the recovery of the democratic transition in Tunisia and this, according to an unconventional mechanism, in a participatory approach allowing a common conception of the future of Tunisia. Ideas can be proposed for the development of new visions and approaches that could allow the management of public affairs in their different aspects.
The consultation also aims to make the Tunisian citizen a real actor in the process of developing a new conception of the fundamental choices linked to the political system in Tunisia.
This consultation will allow the Tunisian people, the sole holder of power, to identify the major political and economic reforms to which they aspire, and will set up a democratic framework for deliberation on various proposals that would help to face the various current challenges Tunisian citizens are confronted to in various fields.
This is what is written in the website of the consultation Tomas , making everyone participate and this is what you explained ..
Very interesting post! I'm interested in the concept of mission command that you discuss in your first point.
Moltke the Elder's version of mission command was very much necessary due to the possibilities and limitations of military technologies you mention. Decentralization was critical when one could communicate without controlling.
Fast forward to 2022. Western militaries have the technology and capability to both communicate rapidly with technology and keep persistent communications throughout operations. In military circles, this has developed into the problem of the "8,000 mile screwdriver". In other words, military commanders have so much tech available that the tech actually enables them to micromanage to their liking (to the detriment of the organization, at times).
The U.S. military in particular loves the concept of mission command. But it struggles to implement true decentralization due to both the bias towards control and the capability of doing so. It's interesting to me because, of all the examples you sketch out, this one is a case of technology impeding decentralization.
Do you see any parallels or lessons to be learned for your broader argument, or is this just a one-off case that is specific to military contexts?
As always, you’ve provided info that is new to me and makes me think. This is insight into a paradigm shift that is coming. I always greatly appreciate the heads up. Thank you, Tomas.
I remember as an MBA in 1986 reading in our case studies about the Japanese concept of Kaizan, "gradually improving productivity by involving all employees and by making the work environment more efficient." That was revolutionary then and what you outline here is gonna be cool to see.
Not sure whether to be eagerly hopeful or incredibly terrified by the prospect of decentralized autonomous organizations making the rule of law on the fly (relatively). Interesting times ahead!
I live in the museum otherwise known as England. It is a physical museum, but of more relevance to this article is the fact that it is a social museum and a museum of thought as well. Its use of DAOs was the foundation of the British Empire.
My very brief take on England’s Geohistory would be something on the lines of:
One of the last areas in Europe to get Mesopotomian/Greek/Roman knowledge so the local tribes were vulnerable to invaders with better technology. Somewhat protected by sea, but also at the mercy of other sea powers because of that. This creates a massive incentive to develop naval power.
Flat, fertile lands in England are an asset that everyone wants, so conflict drives development of both military technology and social evolution. Communities are forced to band together for protection so the “nation” expands to the limits of geography: the Welsh and Scottish borders.
England’s subsequent success depended on the unifying mythos of nationalism and loyalty to the monarch. Not necessarily to a particular monarch, but to the idea of the monarchy. This was greatly helped by the fact that from the time of the Magna Carta onwards English monarchs were gradually forced to share more power with the nobles and then parliament. A society with a strong sense of hierarchy and obedience developed and a microcosm of that society inhabited the DAOs otherwise known as ships.
Before the development of radio there could be a massive gap in both space and time between the commander-in-chief and the action required. Orders had to be in the form of “do x by whatever means you see fit” and individual captains had to exercise their judgement in how best to achieve those aims. I am a big fan of Patrick O’Brian and his meticulously researched (but fictional) naval series about the British navy in the time of Napoleon. Part of the secret of British success was the naval education system both on land and at sea that prepared officers for obedience, but also nurtured a degree of independence.
As you have explained to some who question the relevance of Geohistory, the history of a nation can explain a large part of its psyche today. Britain still has strong elements of the very hierarchical and obedient society the enabled the empire to flourish. It worked in part because of the concept of noblesse oblige. The populace gave their loyalty and obedience and in return the nobility had some sense of honour and duty. The problem with success can be persistent belief in the things which produced that success (or were perceived to produce that success) and a reluctance to change as the world changes.
I had written the above several weeks ago, but got stuck at 75% done trying to make sense of the British attitude today. Despite their former success using DAOs, recent Britain has a strong bias towards command and control and is often regarded as a nanny state. The leaders of both sides of politics almost universally attended Oxbridge. Medical practice in England is largely dictated by centralised bureaucracy producing guidelines (which get interpreted as rules) and formularies to dictate prescribing practices. There is little trust in the knowledge and experience of individual doctors.
To get somewhere near a postable 90% I’ll just go back to the usual framework for a useful model of reality: there is a balance between command and control and the DAO concept. As your discussions above highlight, certain circumstances favour one over the other and I think you have the parameters right. Constant Conflict Theory predicts that whichever works better will eventually be widely adopted. Those who seek power and wish to impose their ideas on others will obviously favour command and control. Those who seek optimisation of results will favour listening, trusting others enough to cede some control, and allowing people and systems to develop and grow stronger.
In the section Peer Review you describe releasing an article that is 90% correct and then depending on crowd sourcing to advance the 90% to 99%. This may be appropriate if you want to produce an evolving system that values only future goals. Many systems, medicine most prominently, value both current and future targets. You can not morally release a therapy that is 90% effective when you know 99% is achievable albeit at great cost. To do so makes you a monster like Elizabeth Holmes. Many other (most?) systems besides medicine may resist sacrificing current day performance for future advances. Democracy may be one of them.
Jun 10, 2022·edited Jun 10, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
There is a puzzling inconsistency in the story: you wrote, "Decentralization was enabled by faster communications"; but in fact faster communications make decentralization less necessary. Ancient Sumeria, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire had much less centralized decision-making than the US today, because communication across them took weeks.
It would be more-accurate to say that faster communications increases the geographic scale that any system of government can achieve. So today's communications could enable the true democracy of Athens, supposing that were desirable, on the scale of a modern nation. But it also means you can create larger centralized totalitarian governments than ever before, as we saw in the 20th century.
you are totally right , I want to talk about the influence that the social media platforms like facebook and twitter have nowadays and how they can affect the opinions of people. The presidential elections of Tunisia back in 2019 prove it , a former law professor became the president of the country without any heavy campaign like other candidates who had by far more ressources to make a big campaign and also support from certain media outlets but the law professor succeeded because he was supported essentially by youth who made several facebook groups and pages where they talk that we must support him, it was a blow to the political establishment in Tunisia. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50087240 you can have an idea through this article.
Furthermore , this president Tomas stopped the parliament since July 25 because there are many problems and Tunisia is facing political and economic crises , I cannot go much in detail here , he says since many years that he has a view of governance that you are describing , he wants everyone to participate at the local level in his region in order to contribute to policy making but many are criticising him and his idea and I was among them but this article changed my opinion a little bit , I saw it as difficult to apply in reality but it can be possible in th future.
The president launched in the beginning of this year an online consultation where every citizen can contribute by answering questions and giving his view about the issues facing Tunisia and how we have to tackle them https://www.e-istichara.tn/home this is the website and now we have a referendum in July in order to accept the change of the constitution or not and he said that all the remarks from the platform will be taken into account in the new constitution and the economic reforms program , this is its website https://www.e-istichara.tn/home sorry for being long but your project reminded me of the views of the president that's why I wanted to explain , I'm still a lit bit skeptikal about how it can be applied on the ground but it will happen ..
I guess this story is what you are talking about:
A soap factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the bar inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important these relationships were, the CEO of the company assembled his top people.
Six months and $8 million later, they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.
They solved the problem by using a special scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a soap box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.
A while later, the CEO decides to look at the first week report. Since the scales were put in place, no empty boxes had been shipped out of the factory. Each day about a dozen defective boxes were being removed, which was consistent with the projections. There were almost zero customer complaints and they were gaining market share. The CEO felt the $8 million was well spent.
However, the number of defective boxes picked up by the scales dropped to zero after three weeks. He filed a bug against it and after some investigation, the engineers came back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.
"Oh, that," the supervisor replied, "Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang."
Great article. Love the use of examples from different fields all pointing to the same things. And as usual the use of the visuals which makes it fun to read and more likely it will be read!
James Surowiecki's book Wisdom of Crowds sets out a couple of things that are necessary for better decisions among groups. Diversity, Independence and some mechanism for aggregating the ideas together. Without some of these conditions being met some of the examples you discuss would not work eg a Wikipedia article written only by Democrats or the work people contributed all had to be approved by me.
He also points out democracy is not just a mechanism to come up with the best policy. It is a mechanism for agreeing on how we can get along. In this regard, harmony is just as important (or more important) than the best decision. Free and fair elections where all our opinions are (sort of!) weighted equally leads to more citizen harmony and satisfaction.
Similarly when the German Govt decided to get out of coal-fired power, it didn't want to touch the issue because it would cop it in the neck whatever it decided. So it gave the problem to a commission made up of 28 stakeholders, told them to meet Germany's emissions targets and gave them funding to allocate. After nine months of negotiation they released a plan which was largely agreed on (27 of 28 stakeholders voted for it) despite decades of conflict. No one got everything they wanted. The German Govt got a plan without the grief it would have otherwise got and Germany was more settled. After all if you've a greenie and you've negotiated a plan on equal terms with a power company, unions etc, you've only got yourself to blame if you think you could have done better.
Cheers
Good thinking here as always. I could see local legal-twitter-analogs that develop drafts of laws that legislatures and parliaments can approve or disapprove. That can serve as a check on twitter mobs. If a particular representative is always voting against the crowd sourced drafts, that can be used as a campaign issue next election.
A big roadblock is the “legaleze” language in which laws are written. I think you could either append the crowd-sourced laws with legal definitions or have translators work on the draft laws. Too many people will not engage if drafts are not in everyday language when they are being worked on.
"...lawmaking will become fast, prolific, and intelligent, and we won’t all be angry all the time at the terrible politicians we’ve had to elect." - I am ever optimistic Tomas!
Tomas, I feel like you are the only writer on the internet laying out a positive vision for the future. I mean that in two senses - you reject normative analysis; and your predicted post-democratic ideology-transcending world government sounds like progress to me!
Do you have a proposed KPI? Aggregate land value? An 'Optimism Index'?
Fascinating, as always... One thought about your conclusion on the future of democracy and how laws could be written in the future. Is there a fear it could play out badly for minorities?
The consultation aims to give the opportunity to all citizens, whether they are residents in Tunisia or abroad, to express themselves freely and transparently about the recovery of the democratic transition in Tunisia and this, according to an unconventional mechanism, in a participatory approach allowing a common conception of the future of Tunisia. Ideas can be proposed for the development of new visions and approaches that could allow the management of public affairs in their different aspects.
The consultation also aims to make the Tunisian citizen a real actor in the process of developing a new conception of the fundamental choices linked to the political system in Tunisia.
This consultation will allow the Tunisian people, the sole holder of power, to identify the major political and economic reforms to which they aspire, and will set up a democratic framework for deliberation on various proposals that would help to face the various current challenges Tunisian citizens are confronted to in various fields.
This is what is written in the website of the consultation Tomas , making everyone participate and this is what you explained ..
Very interesting post! I'm interested in the concept of mission command that you discuss in your first point.
Moltke the Elder's version of mission command was very much necessary due to the possibilities and limitations of military technologies you mention. Decentralization was critical when one could communicate without controlling.
Fast forward to 2022. Western militaries have the technology and capability to both communicate rapidly with technology and keep persistent communications throughout operations. In military circles, this has developed into the problem of the "8,000 mile screwdriver". In other words, military commanders have so much tech available that the tech actually enables them to micromanage to their liking (to the detriment of the organization, at times).
The U.S. military in particular loves the concept of mission command. But it struggles to implement true decentralization due to both the bias towards control and the capability of doing so. It's interesting to me because, of all the examples you sketch out, this one is a case of technology impeding decentralization.
Do you see any parallels or lessons to be learned for your broader argument, or is this just a one-off case that is specific to military contexts?
As always, you’ve provided info that is new to me and makes me think. This is insight into a paradigm shift that is coming. I always greatly appreciate the heads up. Thank you, Tomas.
I remember as an MBA in 1986 reading in our case studies about the Japanese concept of Kaizan, "gradually improving productivity by involving all employees and by making the work environment more efficient." That was revolutionary then and what you outline here is gonna be cool to see.
Not sure whether to be eagerly hopeful or incredibly terrified by the prospect of decentralized autonomous organizations making the rule of law on the fly (relatively). Interesting times ahead!
I live in the museum otherwise known as England. It is a physical museum, but of more relevance to this article is the fact that it is a social museum and a museum of thought as well. Its use of DAOs was the foundation of the British Empire.
My very brief take on England’s Geohistory would be something on the lines of:
One of the last areas in Europe to get Mesopotomian/Greek/Roman knowledge so the local tribes were vulnerable to invaders with better technology. Somewhat protected by sea, but also at the mercy of other sea powers because of that. This creates a massive incentive to develop naval power.
Flat, fertile lands in England are an asset that everyone wants, so conflict drives development of both military technology and social evolution. Communities are forced to band together for protection so the “nation” expands to the limits of geography: the Welsh and Scottish borders.
England’s subsequent success depended on the unifying mythos of nationalism and loyalty to the monarch. Not necessarily to a particular monarch, but to the idea of the monarchy. This was greatly helped by the fact that from the time of the Magna Carta onwards English monarchs were gradually forced to share more power with the nobles and then parliament. A society with a strong sense of hierarchy and obedience developed and a microcosm of that society inhabited the DAOs otherwise known as ships.
Before the development of radio there could be a massive gap in both space and time between the commander-in-chief and the action required. Orders had to be in the form of “do x by whatever means you see fit” and individual captains had to exercise their judgement in how best to achieve those aims. I am a big fan of Patrick O’Brian and his meticulously researched (but fictional) naval series about the British navy in the time of Napoleon. Part of the secret of British success was the naval education system both on land and at sea that prepared officers for obedience, but also nurtured a degree of independence.
As you have explained to some who question the relevance of Geohistory, the history of a nation can explain a large part of its psyche today. Britain still has strong elements of the very hierarchical and obedient society the enabled the empire to flourish. It worked in part because of the concept of noblesse oblige. The populace gave their loyalty and obedience and in return the nobility had some sense of honour and duty. The problem with success can be persistent belief in the things which produced that success (or were perceived to produce that success) and a reluctance to change as the world changes.
I had written the above several weeks ago, but got stuck at 75% done trying to make sense of the British attitude today. Despite their former success using DAOs, recent Britain has a strong bias towards command and control and is often regarded as a nanny state. The leaders of both sides of politics almost universally attended Oxbridge. Medical practice in England is largely dictated by centralised bureaucracy producing guidelines (which get interpreted as rules) and formularies to dictate prescribing practices. There is little trust in the knowledge and experience of individual doctors.
To get somewhere near a postable 90% I’ll just go back to the usual framework for a useful model of reality: there is a balance between command and control and the DAO concept. As your discussions above highlight, certain circumstances favour one over the other and I think you have the parameters right. Constant Conflict Theory predicts that whichever works better will eventually be widely adopted. Those who seek power and wish to impose their ideas on others will obviously favour command and control. Those who seek optimisation of results will favour listening, trusting others enough to cede some control, and allowing people and systems to develop and grow stronger.
In the section Peer Review you describe releasing an article that is 90% correct and then depending on crowd sourcing to advance the 90% to 99%. This may be appropriate if you want to produce an evolving system that values only future goals. Many systems, medicine most prominently, value both current and future targets. You can not morally release a therapy that is 90% effective when you know 99% is achievable albeit at great cost. To do so makes you a monster like Elizabeth Holmes. Many other (most?) systems besides medicine may resist sacrificing current day performance for future advances. Democracy may be one of them.
There is a puzzling inconsistency in the story: you wrote, "Decentralization was enabled by faster communications"; but in fact faster communications make decentralization less necessary. Ancient Sumeria, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire had much less centralized decision-making than the US today, because communication across them took weeks.
It would be more-accurate to say that faster communications increases the geographic scale that any system of government can achieve. So today's communications could enable the true democracy of Athens, supposing that were desirable, on the scale of a modern nation. But it also means you can create larger centralized totalitarian governments than ever before, as we saw in the 20th century.
Thank you so much for your analysis, ideas, and inspiration. Your substack is the best thing I read.