[pp.int.general] Consensus and power (before Re: Reflections on the PP GA)

Sat Apr 19 19:06:42 CEST 2014

The language is a barrier, yes, but I don't see how it could turn to a
representative system. Maybe it could help: in the PPAr's Statute we
defined a kind of bodies called "bureaucratic bodies", which are usually
administrative roles without autonomy. Bureaucratic bodies must execute
directions from the Permanent Assembly and they have to report any
activity concerned to the assigned role. Maybe the translator(s) could
be this kind of body, and we even could ask for help to other pirate
parties.

Regarding your comment:

> My goal is to have some communication structure linking all the pirate
> parties that works. The current one does not work - because not many
> people use this mailing list or even the leaders maling list (read and
> write).

There is another underlying problem that make communication harder: the
PPI structure is strongly vertical. Decisions are taken by a small
groups of elected committees or "boards". Direct democracy has a very
important MUST: people must be able to get involved in any topic as
they want. As I said before, it does not means that everyone must be
involved in everything, but it must be possible if someone wants to. A
representative system tends to exclude people and it builds an "elite"
separated from the "mass" (there's a lot of political science
literature about this). So the "mass" is limited to "choose between a
set of leaders" instead of actively participate in decisions that
matter (I encourage you to think about psychological effects of this
kind of "delegation").

Think about common problems in a representative system and you will see
how they're also reproduced in the PPI. When there's a small group of
people taking decisions, it doesn't matter whether they have good
intentions or not (I assume yes), they will forget some scenarios,
there will be holes in the decision that excludes more and more people
from the scope. So excluded people start asking for "democratization",
they fight against the "tyranny" of those representative that "cheated
them" at election. It's happening all around the world, and it is
boosted by another capitalist crisis that started on 2008.

> For that goal we need a communication channel that:
> 
> 1. Matters. Taking part in the discussions requires some effort - so
> people will only do that if they feel that this effort leads to
> somewhere.

Assuming that we talk about an horizontal organization, it requires
effort but at least it is possible. If you success communicating to
people that they're building a new social order based on strong
relationships, and it leads to a kind of power that may make a
difference on they daily life (for example, they can change little
things on their neighborhoods), you won the half of battled. The other
half is to fight against the social apathy produced by our
representative systems. People forgot how to take decisions and execute
collective actions. It sounds sad, but it happened to all of us. This
perspective also can help to figure out the answer to "why a political
party" :)

> 
> 2. Is fair - democratic and self-governed.
>
Fairness is a trick. If we think about legacy of decisions time and
time again everything gets stuck. I rather prefer to speak in terms of
legitimation, and consensus is the essence of legitimation. As I said
before, consensus is hard to reach, but there're a lot of tools and
mechanisms that can help to build a strong consensus-based institution.
I would like to resume a thought from Cal: "there are people with
extensive political baggage, unable to understand how their preexisting
ideas are controversial". This is the key. How many people like this
have you in the organization? In the PPAr we assumed that 10% is good
enough for our organization, but it depends on how the organization
grows and the baggage of its founders. This percent of dissent is still
easy to handle, and in most cases it can be addressed with a pair of
beers :)

> 3. Is efficient - the effort for reading it and writing is not too
> big.
> 
This point is very important. People must learn how to manage their
participation. The organization can help providing tutorials about
tools or periodic workshops. If something can be automatized it should
be made quickly (infrastructure autonomy is very important to make
changes as it is required, that's because online services like google
are not recommended for core services). For example, in the PPAr email
lists the server automatically puts different email lists into IMAP
folders. Of course, it is not too much, but more heuristics could be
implemented.

Just a last word about dissent. Trolling is a fact. Some people just
dissent because they can, and sometimes they try to turn the discussion
into another in which they feel more comfortable. That's because it is
important to adopt mechanisms like Relevant Dissent and unlocking
strategies. When there's a new type of trolling, the organization must
create new tools against it. IMHO, the effort should lead to exclude
from organization those people that will not kill their egos in favour
of the whole group. Of course, that doesn't mean to invalidate feelings
or values from people, I'm talking about trolling and we all know how
it works.

Regards,

Matías

On Sat, 19 Apr 2014 16:32:08 +0200
Zbigniew Łukasiak <zzbbyy at gmail.com> wrote:

> That language problem sounds difficult.  We'll need translation and
> until machine translation is good enough for this - this means that
> someone will have to translate the stuff for the local parties. If we
> designate people to do that - what we eventually get is some kind of
> representative system - where the translators represent the local
> parties.
> 
> Personally I don't see this as a  problem - but I guess it depends on
> what is your goal.
> 
> My goal is to have some communication structure linking all the pirate
> parties that works. The current one does not work - because not many
> people use this mailing list or even the leaders maling list (read and
> write).
> 
> For that goal we need a communication channel that:
> 
> 1. Matters. Taking part in the discussions requires some effort - so
> people will only do that if they feel that this effort leads to
> somewhere.
> 
> 2. Is fair - democratic and self-governed.
> 
> 3. Is efficient - the effort for reading it and writing is not too
> big.
> 
> Cheers,
> Zbigniew
> 
> 
> On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Betiel <betielix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > that´s a good point. the other problem I see is language. Not all
> > pirates feel comfortable writting english and for sure many doesn´t
> > understand English at all and that can discourage many pirates to
> > participate. Regarding the first problem, well nobody said
> > participating would be super easy. There always be the issue of
> > having to read lot of emails, and many of them won´t say any
> > usefull but I think it worth the try. What makes me doubt about
> > using this list for a consensus, is  the language issue. Perhaps we
> > can think all together how to solve it. The first step should be to
> > ensure all the pirate parties arround the world are aware on this
> > tentative change, specially the ones we don´t hear here much so
> > they can participate and tell us how they would like to proceed..
> >
> > Betiel
> >
> >
> > 2014-04-18 0:32 GMT-05:00 Zbigniew Łukasiak <zzbbyy at gmail.com>:
> >
> >> That was very thoughtful!
> >>
> >> For now I have just one comment about using this mailing list for
> >> anything serious. The problem with this is that not many people
> >> read this mailing list any more - there were too many flamewars
> >> and people got tired of that. This is not unfixable - but for some
> >> ideological reasons it was decided that this mailing list has no
> >> rules. Nobody would propose something like that for an in-person
> >> meeting - but somehow any way of limiting the individual
> >> expression on-line is considered censorship.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Zbigniew
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 10:31 PM, seykron
> >> <seykron at partidopirata.com.ar> wrote:
> >> > Online consensus practice in easy enough with our existing
> >> > tools, even applying quite adapted versions of classical
> >> > techniques. For example, the Permanent Assembly might be this
> >> > mailist. Usually no everyone is interested in all topics (for
> >> > example, only you answered to my email about consensus). The
> >> > advantage of the mailist is that no everyone MUST to be present
> >> > physically on the same location to get involved in a decision
> >> > making, so it promotes participation. The mechanism is very very
> >> > simple:
> >> >
> >> > 1) You propose a topic to the Permanent Assembly. If someone is
> >> > interested in this topic (usually about a specific issue or
> >> > activity) will get involved in the discussion to enrich the
> >> > whole perspective and make an agreement. In the PPAr we consider
> >> > consensus when three persons agree on a topic.
> >> >
> >> > 2) If there's Relevant Dissent, the decision is blocked until
> >> > dissent is resolved ("Difficulties in Reaching Consensus"
> >> > section of the Starhawk's article is a good reference to
> >> > identify dissent). For the PPAr, Relevant Dissent means that at
> >> > least 10% of people involved in a discussion disagree. This
> >> > mechanism helps to avoid the "dictatorship of the majority" (or
> >> > the so called 50%+1 factor) and it also avoids blockings from a
> >> > single person.
> >> >
> >> > 3) If there's Relevant Dissent, it is a warning sign. Usually in
> >> > a group like pirate parties, personal values involved in a
> >> > decision finally can get closer (or some concessions can be
> >> > easily made from all sides). If it does not happen, it may means
> >> > that something in the organization is declining. I also could
> >> > mean that the topic is very controversial -like abortion, to
> >> > mention an example-, or even simpler: there're misunderstandings
> >> > on what someone is trying to say (sometimes it's very hard to
> >> > express yourself). In any case, if there's Relevant Dissent the
> >> > decision is blocked and the discussion must be taken away from
> >> > keyboard. For example, it could be discussed in a conference
> >> > room with Mumble, or if it is possible in a bar drinking a
> >> > beer :). If it does not work, there're several unlocking
> >> > techniques, but I will not extend myself on this (some good
> >> > techniques are explained in "Tools for Consensus Process"
> >> > section of Starhawk's article).
> >> >
> >> > The key point is: we are all human beings, we make mistakes, and
> >> > we act with good faith. Of course, I'm aware of what "power"
> >> > means in a capitalist, post-industrial society. But the key
> >> > question for PPI to answer is:
> >> >
> >> > What *power* means for pirates?
> >> >
> >> > In the PPAr it is always under discussion, however we have
> >> > consensus in this point: power means to build a strong human
> >> > organization which distributes its power between all
> >> > participants. And these "pieces" of power is what legitimates
> >> > any decision. If an organization grows with this kind of
> >> > legitimation, it is very difficult to take it down, it is very
> >> > consistent on its decisions (which is essential to manage outer
> >> > press and public opinion), and it is very strong despite
> >> > personal problems between people within the organization.
> >> >
> >> > How to take a decision is the answer to the question "who has the
> >> > power". A decision may imply a lot of economic resources, and we
> >> > all know how we behave when there's money in the middle (in the
> >> > PPAr we work very hard to decentralize money, for example). From
> >> > here to a political party is just a little step, but "why a
> >> > political party instead another kind of organization" is out of
> >> > the scope.
> >> >
> >> > If you reached the bottom of this message, I encourage you to
> >> > think about power, how people is involved on it in the real
> >> > world, and how conflicts rise and are resolved by people when
> >> > there's power in the middle.
> >> >
> >> > Regards,
> >> >
> >> > Matías
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 15:37:33 +0200
> >> > Zbigniew Łukasiak <zzbbyy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Hi there,
> >> >>
> >> >> seykron - good point about consensus.
> >> >>
> >> >> Any ideas how we could translate
> >> >> http://www.starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/consensus.html
> >> >> into on-line circumstances?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> It is possible that we are already a group too large for a
> >> >> traditional consensus decision making - but who knows? We
> >> >> cannot tell if we have not tried.
> >> >>
> >> >> Z.
> >> >> ____________________________________________________
> >> >> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> >> >> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> >> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > ____________________________________________________
> >> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> >> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Zbigniew Lukasiak
> >> http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
> >> http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/
> >> ____________________________________________________
> >> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> >> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> >
> >
> >
> > ____________________________________________________
> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> >
> 
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/attachments/20140419/67165746/attachment.pgp>