I have been working with the theory of human metasystem transition theory (HMST) and the paradigm of global brain (GB) for quite sometime now. This theory and paradigm is directing my research and affirming my belief that we need new institutions for the 21st century. I think the most important institution we need to re-design is the governance institution, as the re-design of all other institutions will follow from the re-design of governance. As a result I have been working on specific properties of a 21st century “global brain” governance system. You can find my paper “Distributed Digital Democracy” below. This is an open-source Global Brain Institute Working Paper. You can find the PDF linked after the abstract, however I have also decided to publish the entire paper here as well. Constructive comments and feedback are welcome.
Abstract: Modern democratic political institutions are based on a decision-making system that is both inefficient and corrupt, as it seems to enhance the proliferation and implementation of ideas that benefit only political leaders, upper-class individuals, and multi-national corporations. Fortunately, this system is also unnecessary given advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the emergence of Web 2.0 features that enhance collective intelligence on the Internet. Several theorists have proposed alternative models of governance that can broadly be categorized as “e-democracies”. These models have been met with incredulity and resistance from policymakers, despite impressive theoretical developments, practical demonstrations, and empirical testing of their ability to maximize the collective intelligence of our societies. Broadly speaking, most “e-democracy” models are built within a framework of three pillars: (1) distributed decision-making, (2) digitally-based social mediums, and (3) a new paradigm of collaborative democracy. Therefore, the dominant models proposed to replace our current democratic systems can be referred to as a Distributed Digital Democracy (DDD). Here I attempt to introduce the main concepts of DDD, and suggest a potential pathway for the further development and implementation of a new governance system.