Wikicracy

I was ruminating over what sort of project I hoped to pursue for my Ph.D., I was beset by a kind of despair because explaining my project to lay people elucidated the same sort of quizzical how-does-this-affect-me blank stares as one might get trying to explain postmodern art. Gold farming and virtual property rights? "They're just games!" Transnational and online identity among gamers? "They don't sleep and eat online." Celebrity, governance, and recognition in social networks like wikipedia and MySpace? "Like superlatives in a yearbook?" Consumption and value in post-scarcity economies? "Huh?"

A common thread wove through each: how authority & deviance are constructed, (de)legitimized, and re-appropriated within online (virtual, synthetic, disembodied -- take your pick) collaborative spaces. Or, who gets to make the rules, why are they made, and how are they enforced? This line of thinking had been ruminating in my head for weeks and three major pieces of legislation have caused substantial consternation on all sides of the political sphere during that time: H.R.1591 (Iraq funding supplemental with troop withdrawal), H.R.2206 (Iraq funding supplemental without withdrawal), and H.R.2230 (Comprehensive immigration reform). In each of these examples, small but specific differences between these huge legislative tomes create very real implications. And who put all these stupid pork barrel funding items in? Gosh, I wish I had something like Media Wiki's history tool to track all of this! Then I got to thinking, well who actually writes legislation?

Certainly senators and congressmen have neither the time nor the mental stamina necessary to personally write all of this, they have staffers who write, review, vet, and negotiate and so forth. Since Attorneygate has proved that huge pieces of legislation (ie, USA PATRIOT Act) generally go unread by the legislators voting for them, and certainly the staffers writing this legislation are not directly elected by the legislator's constituents, why not just have the people write the legislation directly and submit it to the representative body for deliberation? For that matter, why have all the debates about it spread out all over the blogosophere/internet when they could be hosted in one place? It seemed like a really good idea to use Media Wiki to draft legislation.

So thinking myself cleverer than I am, I search for wikicracy -- sure enough, people are already on to the idea: Wikocracy.com, Wikitution.org, Openlaw. Ok, but there seems to be some fundamental disconnect between our ideas as I never thought that a wiki constantly in transition could be a reliable basis for law and justice. Rather, the wiki could be used as a collaborative tool by various ideological sects to draft and coalesce around specific pieces of legislation, changes could be tracked, consensus achieved, and debate centered. At some later time, the wiki-legislation (wikilation?) could be submitted by means of a vote, consensus, or administrator for consideration and a vote by the deliberative body. I think of it as a reverse referenda as the people set the agenda and issues to be voted on by the legislative body.

Obviously there are a host of problems that would have to be overcome. Implementation questions about accessibility, security, and usability would have to be addressed firstly: how do you address spammers, sock-puppeteers, and other users acting in bad faith? How do you ensure that only citizens or constituents can contribute or should such restrictions not apply? How do you overcome systemic bias, the "digital divide," and questions of representation? How would highly contentious or partisan issues like abortion and immigration be effectively addressed without massive revert-wars? Who would own or control this legislative interface? How are issues selected to be submitted to the body? What elites would have to be assuaged or overcome to implement this? How would this change the social-political discourse? What other problems does this model introduce?

Questions I hope to begin to address.

Democrats blink

The Democrats blink first. After a whole campaign of tough talk and weeks to get withdrawal legislation on the President's desk, the Democrats blink and are about to pass legislation funding the war without timelines or accountability just like the Republican congresses before them. This is a complete and total collapse and a betrayal of their base who elected them there. It is obvious they are more concerned about perceived as having politicized the war in the next election than actually keeping the ball in the President's court. Now that the President is newly emboldened, do you think those investigations and subpoenas are going to go as swimmingly? I doubt it.

Double-take

Hugh Hewitt writes about the immigration bill:

There are so many problems with this bill that it should not be introduced in the Senate absent a period of open hearings on it and the solicitation of expert opinion from various analysts across the ideological spectrum. Even were it somehow to improbably make its way to the president's desk, if it does so before these problems are aired and confronted, the Congress would be inviting a monumental distrust of the institution. There is simply too much here to say "Trust us," and move on. The jam down of such a far reaching measure, drafted in secret and very difficult for laymen much less lawyers to read, is fundamentally inconsistent with how we govern ourselves.

Open hearings? (But not have Rove & Co. testify on their roles in attorneygate?) Expert opinion from across the ideological spectrum? (But evolution and climate change don't exist.) Don't just "trust us" and move on? (But trust us on Guantanamo detainees, NSA wiretapping, et al) Drafted in secret and difficult to read? (Cheney's Energy Task Force?) Inconsistent with how we govern ourselves? (But the Military Commissions Act and PATRIOT Act are consistent?)

What a tree-hugging, bleeding-heart, wacky moonbat, America-hating liberal. Why can't he just support the troops and the President so that we can protect freedom?

Muzzling Ron Paul

Malkin excoriates Ron Paul for making claims like

Well, I never automatically trust anything the government does when they do an investigation because too often I think there's an area that the government covered up

Sounds familiar to Reagan's oft repeated quote, "Trust but verify." Wasn't it Reagan to whom all the Republican candidates aspired (gee, why not the current 2-term Republican president?). Perhaps something about Paul's message (maybe lower taxes, less government, less foreign intervention) appeals to a certain group of Americans who do not want to promulgate a misogynist and xenophobic Christian theocracy. However, it is funny seeing a twice-divorced cross-dressing Roman Catholic, northeastern elitist Mormon, and agnostic hypocritical politco trying to pander to these Southern Baptist Bible Belters.

It should get interesting as all the other neo-cons who have been drinking the Cheney-Rove KoolAide(Malkin, LGF, RedState, etc) continue to cover Dr. No over his "radical" and "lunatic" stances even though he was not even in the second tier of candidates before. John Dickerson at Slate has more on the Republicans efforts to silence their own candidate. Well now Paul's the top hit on Technorati and getting top-fold coverage elsewhere online. Let's see how the media tries to cover or spin it as it continues to pull for its favorite 3 as well as if he can translate into any momentum "on the ground."

EVE Online

I've been away from the blog for a while, still need to get used to doing this on a more regular basis. What I have been doing in the meantime is (1) bartending which, while generally thankless, does provide the opportunity for me to get away from the computer and read; (2) working on the oral history project which is greatly picking up steam and I need to find a way to break it to the bartending management; and (3) EVE Online.

EVE is gigantically, titanically, cavernously, enormously BIG. I mean other virtual worlds are big, it would take a few hours to run end to end on one of Azeroth's continents. But Eve is larger than anyone can really imagine. It is so starkly barren, one rarely sees other players, and given the intrinsic PvP aspects of the game, you're generally better off for it. Nevertheless, in addition to its "geography" (galaxgraphy? univergraphy?) it has a overwhelmingly complex and robust trade and bartering system. There is no simple "take loot to vendor, get coins from vendor, buy sword from AH with coins" economy here - contracts, corporations, bounties, margins, taxes... it can be overwhelming. But it's also really interesting, plus I get to play out my ambitions of being the renegade gun-for-hire like Hans Solo.

Like I said before, EVE has a small player base, maybe 30-50k active; but it definitely attracts a very different crowd based upon my interactions. One "levels" in the game, not necessarily by repetitive combat to gain experience, but by learning skills that train in real time... ie, powerleveling is impossible since your character's power is tied to skills that require finite amounts of time to learn. Gone are many of the behaviors that are stereotypically associated with hormonal teenage boys ganking and pwning everything in sight; public channels and Vent conversations are measured and mature and even the OOC discussions about politics or current events occur on a higher plane than most games. That being said, the mechanics of gameplay are tedious, repetitive, and have an enormous learning curve - nevertheless EVE should be an interesting case study or counterpoint to many other virtual worlds.