Democracy as Emergent
Further on Joi Ito's paper on open democracy as an emergent phenomenon, I would like to point out some ideas brought by the discussion that Cory brings about in this link on the different urbanistic paths taken by Portland and Vancouver vs Seattle.
The efforts of the planners are simply to experience what occurs in a city with high population density, and a lot of possibilities for interaction between its inhabitants.
Remember the idea that Richard Florida was championing a few months ago, about tolerant cities being vibrant ones. Let's further that idea with the concept of emergence within an open group, and we may have one of the characteristics of a truly dynamic system: we need interaction between those tightly knit units, the creative networks, but we also need fragmented and porous boundaries among social networks.
Part of the attraction of the qualities of emergent behavior is that, while the rules being clear – high density, high participation, mobility of ideas, feedback, small distributed agents – it is often very difficult to implement those, if not downright impossible. To witness, consider the central planning policies of any government and the results it brought about, vs the decentralized growth and maturity of systems that exhibit this behavior.
My point: the social experiment of increasing interaction and density in Vancouver and Portland has, implemented all of those characteristics enumerated above, and as a result of this both cities benefited in growth and quality of living.
This points out one interesting conclusion: whereas complexity and self-organization can not be dictated, it is possible to set up the proper conditions in which those characteristics will emerge within a system, but, as Kevin Kelly explained, the overseer of said system must release any thoughts of control over it.
And this very clear and recent example brings me back to the points made about democracy on the internet, or any other collaborative media: the high level of interaction and trust based reputation that the system exhibits right now may act as an advantage for the democratic total, even in relation to highly complicated decisions, but it is necessary to protect, maintain and further refine the conditions that the system needs to operate. Mainly, when participation is limited to a central nod or previous approval from authorities – even in the case of perfect openness (As an example, consider the story about google-watch.org, which didn't appear using Google until after a few days after it was blogdexed) – the system breaks down; the result is a resurgence of alternative communication channels, but with increased noise, and dissolution of trust.
In order to have a functioning democracy using the communication tools that the internet provides, such as blogging, SMS, moblogging, wifi, and the like, it is necessary to expand their reach and make them include every possible stakeholder, allowing them to interact, with access to the results of any decision, even when the voting is taking place. This direct participation in the affairs of the government may not be to the liking of many totalitarian regimes, but direct civil participation could prove invaluable to preserve an open, democratic society, while protecting the rights of every one involved and ensuring the politically stability of said social group.