Democracy Needs Encounters - A Book Review

Many protocols are already learning this lesson with regards to governance: discussion and consensus-building is a necessary precursor to voting. Likewise, discussion of values is as important, if not more so, than the act of voting itself. A value system is fostered through storytelling and negotiation in forums of public discourse.

With technologies that can now facilitate discussion and decision-making among groups both big and small, we must ask if we can build new kinds of intermediating digital spaces, ones that provide perspective, attention, and action on shared rather than personal problems, while at the same time accommodating discussion and deliberation at local as w... See more

Perhaps leaning so hard as I have on democracy will only cause it to snap. Perhaps we need another word; perhaps the word can be refurbished and put to better use. Either way, technology is sure to be drafted in the cause. A further fruit of Langdon Winner’s reflections on artifacts and politics is an observation about the amnesia that surrounds in

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