Greetings Mr. Eaton :)

It sure is nice to have a good conversation.


>>> Very good to get encouragement. --RE <<<

[I know the feeling, almost like drugs, though I never use them -- Bowo]



>>> The people in the Muslim-Jewish dialog were self-selected, so they started out with a willingness to listen. At the time, this was not so clear - the dialog itself made it obvious that for these people we were not dealing with an intrenched hostility. This self-selection is something that I am counting on for the future of the Global Assembly dialog as well. At first the GA will be too unimportant to attract people who are hostile and if it does rise to importance, then I think it will be too late for it to be dominated by any particular brand of hard-liner, so I am hoping they will all continue to stay away because of fundamental distaste for anything that smacks of human unity. All the Muslim-Jewish messages could be seen by dialog participants only. We advertised that the winners would be made public, so cannot at this point go back and make all the messages available. There was no great hostility, though some amount of suspicion was shown. In the GA, all messages will be viewable at the end of each round by all participants. I am inclined to think we should continue to publish only top rated messages, but I foresee this kind of decision eventually being handled by a committee of the Global Assembly, so my influence will be limited. -- RE <<<

I guessed that would be the starting condition, mild or little disagreement.

I once learned of a webcast by the NGO "Global Exchange" where they held face to face
dialogue for several days between Palestinians and Israelis (around 30 people in total) with extreme prejudices at the beginning of the dialogue.
The two sides were both victims of the war, in the sense that some loose members of their family, or sustained injuries and insecurities resulting from the war. After all prejudices, suspicions, accusations and anger were expressed, and the facts starting to emerge, they end up in a more or less consesus to the fact that no body wins, both parties were losers in the war and that they were just humans with the same concers and desires in life.

The point I'm tryin to make here is that, if well facilitated, a truly "open" and "sincere"
dialogue will give the best result in reaching a consensus shared by all participants
in the dialogue process. And making sure that each view is given the necessary
time to be heard by all is of crucial importance. This would somehow be along the
lines of Tom Atlee's conception of co-intelligence in his book "the Tao of Democracy".

As with the hardliners, the problem with them is that they seem to have a natural
tendency to be party crashers. Let's do hope that they don't crash yours as your party gets more interesting and fun.

Thus, the reason why I suggest all the messages should be made public is so that people, especially those who did not or late to participate in the dialogue cycles, can learn whether or not their message has been expressed there and learn about the range of views out there. I do understand, I think, why you prefer to show
only top rated messages: to increase the clarity of the dialogue process and results,
and encourage late comers to find the "wisdom of the crowd" contained there.

I haven't join GA yet, and haven't seen how the cycles are displayed,
but I assume they would be along the lines of the Muslim-Jewish dialogue, except for the fact that in the diversity phase, there will be numerous messages corresponding to the number of groups participating in the dialogue, instead of just two.

Thus, giving a clickable link for late comers to "view all messages in this cycle or from this group" would be more than enough for the curious minds who wish to explore further.

After all, it is the hardliners and late comers that we desperately need to reach,
not the already "converted" ones. That's the whole point of participatory democracy, to be the solution and prevent another kind of "partial democracy" or "partially democratic democracy".



>>> It will take longer but the assumption is we can handle any number of participants. We already have multiple cycles of ratings with a percentage of messages surviving into the next cycle. By the time we get large, we will be further advanced in the code, so we will be able to apply statistical methods to make the winnowing process more rapid. --RE <<<

Maybe it's too early for me to comment on the technical details, but I would like to know what are the criterias for that "percentage of messages" which survives to the next cycle, and how many percent? I'm also curious about the kind of statistical methods you mentioned.

But if my guess is correct, the criteria would look something like "the top 5 rated" messages for each group in each session, which would represent the most supported diverse-point-of-view in each group and across groups. I can't however guess about the statistical method, and how it can help in the winnowing process.



>>> My guess is that it will take between a month and three months to select a message when we get global with tens of millions of participants. A guess. To fill that time there is going to be a normal forum discussion capability. I say normal, but of course it won't be normal with so many people, but I do have ideas how to handle it - buried down in my blog.voiceofhumanity.net. --RE <<<

This handling method would be of the highest interest for me. Since I see the problem of scale to be the biggest stumbling block of successful participatory democracy, whether offline or online. Can you point out the link for me?



>>> In the forum, each Global Assembly candidate message can be replied to and the replies can be replied to and so forth, so as we vote, we can be discussing the merits of the messages. --RE] <<<

This would be nice and necessary.



>>> [The reason why I am vague is twofold. First, the local task-forces have to be autonomous, so really what they do is up to them. It is safer if they are autonomous and it is more practical, since we can very possibly enlist entire existing organizations. Second, the advice of the Global Assembly is not predictable. We can guess, but really how do we know? Is the Global Assembly going to call for Direct Nonviolent Action where people go to jail on day one? I hope not, since that would not be smart. We have to get organized and try ourselves first. I would think the early advisories would be to build up the NVSA and a coordinating structure, but we shall see. --RE] <<<

If you say "entire existing organizations", then the function of G.A. you envisioned would then be similar to WiserEarth, which is to provide structure, resource database, connection, and collaboration platform for the millions of NGOs and individuals working for a better world, with the difference that your focus is on the dialogue and consensus building aspect, and on groups as the main actors (though in the end, it will be individuals that matters). Thus, my suggestion to integrate GA's methodology and technology into WiserEarth becomes ever more relevant. We'll just have to see then how things unfold.

By the way, have you had any contact with WiserEarth's administrators on this regard? And can you explain a little more on " a peer-to-peer second generation with many servers across the world instead of just one. Perhaps we can meld the two technologies at that stage?"



>>> For better or for worse, we are marginalized although we actually stand for the center. The GA technology can give us central standing - that is its great advantage. Of course, being its author, my opinion might be biased, but I think I am just telling it like it is when I say that GA looks to be the best hope. It allows the disparate elements of the global civil movement to maintain their diversity, while also encouraging a vital sense of unity. That is the right formula. --RE <<<

Yes, I do believe your group dialogue methodology have excellent potentials to materialize the elusive
"unity in diversity" into actionable concensus.



>>> I have put you on the list on my profile page, Bowo. Can you bring in your contacts? Do you have enough contacts to bring in a group? I think we need 50 minimum in a group. --RE <<<

I'm new in WiserEarth and have only begun to know a few people, one of them "marcusmatthew" is already on your list. I'll see what I can do. But first, I need to join GA. By the way, is it possible to join GA as an individual? Or should I wait for your list to reach 50 so you can enlist them as a WiserEarth group on GA?

Eagerly learning,
Bowo

Greetings Mr. Eaton,

The devil is indeed in the details of things :)

I skimmed through all the links and found just how much work and planning you've put into G.A.

In many respect, it seems to be more ambitious than WiserEarth, and provides a more thorough platform for connecting and converging resources (people, organizations, knowledge, etc) into solutions for our multi-dimensional global crisis. And it sure gives the impression of immense complexity. I am aware that this might be because they are somehow unmined and unstructured concepts and presented as "source codes" instead of "user interfaces".

I also have the impression that some of the ideas contained there can be added to the way WiserEarth organizes their database and to make the data contained there to be more useful to users (via the rating systems, building meaningful interconnection between resources, etc). This is one of the other areas where WiserEarth is still very basic in functionality.

I learned about the concept of the annotated/semantic web and how you envision the Intermix software to be one of the key infrastructure in it.

I also learned that one of the origional function the "Eaton Model of Collective Communication" was to be a conflict resolution mechanism among two groups within the semantic web dialogue processes.

I also learned that among those many plans, some does have the potential to make only the resources most relevant to a particular user/group to show, thus facilitating the function of making the resources
(including discussions) to be "trackable" and "understandable" to users.

I do hope that you and your team can come up with an elegant simplicity for the system's appearance and usability in the users' point of view. We need simpler solutions to complex problems, however unlikely that would seem to be.

Thus, I await your next trove mining results and progress on this project.
I appreciate you effort to respond to my long comments and questions amidst your busy day. I'll try to keep them as short, 'to the point' and necessary as possible in the future.

Thanks Roger for sharing the big picture of GA.

After reading your last reply over and over, and reading the "Global Assembly Technology" page (I missed the link to this page before, but found it after rereading the wikipage at WiserEarth), I begin to understand the underlying technology and technical details of the project. Although I still haven't quite understood some crucial things. I'll point you to these things later in this email.

Most importantly, the explanation you did and the language you used (in the wikipage, links on that page, and in your replies) somehow still didn't give me a "clear picture" of just what GA is trying to achieve in "this world that still doesn't work for all" and how it is supposed to "be able"/"enable us" to do so.

And I believe I also discovered several "Achille's heels" that may inhibit the global success of this project (I'm sure you've thought of these before, but just in case).

So, one by one, I'll walk you through my questions, suggestions and findings, starting with some fundamental questions about the project, and suggestions on how to answer each question (this should help, I suppose, in rewriting the project's introduction to increase clarity and impact. I gathered the suggestions/answers from the wikipage and links contained there and your email replies, including several blog entries you linked). The "Achille's heels" will go into no.7.

So here they are:

1. WHAT IS G.A.?

2. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM G.A. IS TRYING TO SOLVE?

3. WHY OUR CONVENTIONAL SOLUTIONS/TOOLS CAN'T OR IS INSUFFICIENT TO SOLVE IT, AND G.A. CAN OR SUPPLEMENT THEM?

4. AN OVERVIEW OF G.A.

4.1 THE DIALOGUE PROCESS

4.2 THE ARCHITECTURE

4.3 THE NON-VIOLENT SERVICE ARM

5. SIMULATION/EXAMPLE HOW G.A. CAN SOLVE A SPECIFIC GLOBAL/REGIONAL/LOCAL PROBLEM and HOW CONVENTIONAL TOOLS CAN'T/IS INSUFFICIENT.

6. STARTING POINT, PROGRESS AND ROADMAP

7. PROBLEMS G.A. IS FACING AND WILL LIKELY FACE

8. WHAT YOU CAN DO

-----------------------------------------------------

And here are possible contents (in keywords, gathered from you) for each section, and hints on how to improve it (my ideas and questions, in brackets).

1. WHAT IS G.A.?
- The Global Assembly Dialog is an experiment in (global, participatory, deliberative) democracy on the web aimed at massively involving "We the People of the Earth" and leading to the formation of a bottom-up Global Assembly with real power to build a "world that works for everyone" (in the form of) a self-organizing, bottom-up hierarchy, online dialog framework in a (global) peer-to-peer (computer) network.
- the basic idea is that we can elect messages to represent us, such that "elected" messages truly represent the entire human race.
- In other words, the top rated messages have reached collective consciousness. They are shared messages, and as such leap ahead of the other messages in everyone's imagination. We get everyone on the same page in a very literal way, thus encouraging the groups to self-coordinate. At some point we will have enough participation so the whole world will be reading the messages elected by humanity. That will be such powerful PR for the global perspective that all the media money and hardliner spin-machines in the world will not be able to dent our impact. (this paragraph needs rewriting)

2. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM G.A. IS TRYING TO SOLVE?
- (How to make a world that still doesn't work for all into) a world that works for everyone.
- (more specifically?)

3. WHY OUR CONVENTIONAL SOLUTIONS/TOOLS CAN'T OR IS INSUFFICIENT TO SOLVE IT, AND G.A. CAN OR SUPPLEMENT THEM?
- The weakness of the nation-state system, (of representative democracy, of international institutions, etc)
- We are betting that democracy on a global scale is the solution to the ever more obvious shortcomings of the nation-state system. We love our nations, but we have to rise up to the global level to solve global problems. Unifying mankind, if we do it right, will mark the beginning of a golden age -and it is in our reach.
- (Why online dialogue?)
- (How can GA achieve this unification? In what way can it solve global problems?)

4. AN OVERVIEW OF G.A.

4.1 THE DIALOGUE PROCESS
- The focus is on the group level message exchange, not on the exchange of messages between individuals (why?)
- (How long is each message going to be? is there a limit?)
- (why use ratings in place of consensus. And why this rating system?)
- "When groups talk, people listen" (really? some arguments perhaps?)
- "unity" and "diversity" dialogues (why this? compared to other methods)
- The continued alternation of viewpoint from the unity perspective to the separate group perspective and back should prove highly educational. Because the framework of the dialog itself guarantees the separate group identities, the participants can ardently promote unity in the unity phase without feeling any sense of disloyalty to their separate group. And it works the other way about as well, where the participants can whole-heartedly promote the welfare of the separate groups in the diversity phase without thereby betraying their common humanity.
4.2 THE ARCHITECTURE
- a self-organizing, bottom-up hierarchy, online dialog framework in a (global) peer-to-peer (computer) network. (why this? compared to others)
- (the software and the coding language. and plans to go open source?)
- (the hardware)
- Basic explanations on elements (administrator, moderator, groups, networks, hubs, etc)
- any two nodes agree to trade both messages and ratings, where messages move in both directions, but the ratings only move in one direction.
4.3 THE NON-VIOLENT SERVICE ARM
- real power to build a "world that works for everyone"
- will be composed of autonomous local task-forces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NVSA task-forces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories.
- each local task-force will have a secretary whose responsibility will be to coordinate with the other task-force secretaries and to respond as a group via the dialog software to the Global Assembly.
- the expectation is that the NVSA task-forces will self-assemble into an autonomous organization devoted to, but separate from, the Global Assembly.
- having the NVSA in place will add credibility to the process, making it apparent that we can have an effect in the world. On a more theoretical level, by channeling all action through a nonviolent body, we will train the Global Assembly to think in terms of nonviolence. When we get to a position of global power, the built in nonviolent bent of the Global Assembly will help prevent the misuse of that power.
- (G.A. sart as with a bottom-up approac, why must it end up using a top-down approach via the advisories? of course I realize obbeyance will be voluntary)

5. SIMULATION/EXAMPLE HOW G.A. CAN SOLVE A SPECIFIC GLOBAL/REGIONAL/LOCAL PROBLEM and HOW CONVENTIONAL TOOLS CAN'T/IS INSUFFICIENT.
- the muslim-jewish dialogue (along with it's context, starting point, conclusions, etc)
- (imaginary dialogue on more complex and crucial problem)
- a diagram to describe the process from problem, to solution, to action (containing keywords, and specific example in each phase)
- A description of how an elected message (which seems to be not too long, and not detailed) can be translated into action.

6. STARTING POINT, PROGRESS AND ROADMAP
- My mistake before was to try to build the infrastructure first and then have the dialog. Now I am hoping we can begin with the dialog structure. With today's servers we can have a lot of people in a single dialog without having to tackle the peer to peer design, which is difficult. I think that if we can get ten thousand people in the Global Assembly dialog, then we can get grant money to do the infrastructure.
- We have two plans to bring the online GA Dialog down to earth so it will have its effect.
- First, as we recruit groups and networks for the Dialog, we will be asking them to add a mention of Dialog results to their local agendas and to provide representatives to an annual in-person Global Assembly meeting. The annual Global Assembly meeting is expected to evolve into a global institution that sits permanently, something like the U.N. General Assembly, but organized bottom up from groups and networks rather than top-down from the nations.

7. PROBLEMS G.A. IS FACING AND WILL LIKELY FACE
- (how to achieve "one human, one online ID, one rating/message")
- the highly rated messages will consistently express love and wit, because these core attributes are what all the world appreciates. (really? for example, most people still believe in the magic of "perpetual economic growth", while progressive economists and environmentalists has clearly pointed the "limits of growth" and offer a "steady state economy" in it's stead. What if the highly rated messages will be those in favor of perpetual economic growth?)
- in http://udcworld.org/gatech.htm the following were written: "In each rating section, each participant is doled out a preset number of messages to rate, normally somewhere between 5 and 10. Care is taken in unity rounds that messages are evenly distributed over the groups. Participants do not have to rate all their messages in one go. They may come back over and over. They are not required to rate their messages at all, and it is OK if they rate only some of the messages that were distributed to them." (So a participant will likely not read all messages in each round/cycle when the number of messages is too large. Thus, we come back to the scale problem. And the party can still be crashed by the fact that not everyone will rate, and those who rate may not have the competence to properly do so. Another important way to look at it is that, a message will only be distributed to some people for rating, instead of to all participant of a dialogue, which would decrease the credibility that an elected message is truly the one considered to be most favourable by all participant. This though, may be the best effort that can be made under the cirscumstance. The solution would be not to limit a participant on the number of messages they can rate. If they wish to rate more messages, they should be provided the means to do so)
- the hardliners are faced with the difficult choice of either staying away, in which case they lose influence entirely, or participating, in which case they are effectively endorsing human unity and will feel the pressure every day to moderate their views. Therefore we, the Dialog proponents, are in the enviable position of being entirely inclusive in our attitude. If you are not against us, you are for us! (what if the majority of groups in a dialogue are those of the hardliners? or they are evenly spread out in the peer-to-peer network to effect the final "unity" cycle message, such as the example of "perpetual economic growth". But I understand the reason for the optimism.)

8. WHAT YOU CAN DO

(Join the dialogue, report bugs, suggest improvements, reverse engineer the code into open source technology, invite friends, etc.)

-----------------------------------------------

Things I didn't quite understand:
On what exactly you mean by " the ratings only move in one direction" and "not to create loops" in your last email reply.
You said "With today's servers we can have a lot of people in a single dialog without having to tackle the peer to peer design, which is difficult. I think that if we can get ten thousand people in the Global Assembly dialog, then we can get grant money to do the infrastructure." So what will the hardware of the infrastructure be like? and why you need grant money for it.

That would be all for now. I hope that would produce a clearer, more balanced and high impact introduction for GA.

Still eagerly learning,
Bowo

No worry, take your time.
That's probably why they call it "brain-storming" anyway. The storm took a while to wreck havoc, but the coping and aftermath recovery process always takes time :)

I think you manage to answer these question quite elegantly Roger :)
(though I somewhat can agree to your "good question" remark. I did manage once to get a professor gave me a "good questions" comment who ended up unable to answer them satisfactorily)

I am especially enlightened by your answer regarding the message winnowing process.

I think the phrase "It is an add-on feature allowing us to get past the current us-vs-them impasse and the overbearing influence of monied interest" summed up the role of GA Dialogue most succinctly. Though how we can go from there towards a Global Assembly in the rank of the UN's still seems quite blurry.

Eager to hear more,
Bowo