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Hi, my name is Joe Reynolds and I have an idea I'd like to share: Democracy From Below. I hope to convince others to help build this website.
The world desperately needs change. Millions of people around the world are aware of this and working hard to bring it about. What’s missing I believe, is a way to organize those people into one cooperative community. We don't have to all agree on everything, but we need a fair way to make decisions together. Democracy, as it was designed under capitalism, allows for corruption, and rule by the wealthiest people.
The internet provides the possibility for democracy among all of humanity but, because of anonymity and the profit motive to sell data, we can’t trust websites. Communities can’t function without trust so, what we need first is a web platform which we can trust. I believe a simple mechanism can provide the solution:
A democratically controlled platform cooperative which does not allow anonymous users. Since we can’t be sure of anyone’s identity on the internet, membership on the platform must require membership in a real community organization where we know each other. In this way we can gradually build a democratic network linking our communities together in the ‘real world’.
If this idea makes sense to you, please help me find others. If it doesn’t, please tell me why because I can’t see (so far) what’s wrong with the logic. It will take many volunteers; programmers to help build it, translators to make it accessible in all languages, activists to spread the idea…and so many more. It will take time to build it, but not necessarily any more time than it took to build facebook.
Please let me know what you think.
joe[at]liberigi[dot]net
Humans are cooperative by nature but we have been unable to live cooperatively (as a species) because of the ownership of private property since the discovery of agriculture. We won’t live cooperatively again until we create a political system to organize all of humanity on an equal basis: Democracy From Below. And, we can't solve any global problems until we can work cooperatively as a species.