The Theory And Practice Of Democracy In Virtual Worlds

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  • + jeremydumont pourquoi tu cours 3 years ago
    good job
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    Welcome to this seminar about 'The theory and practice of democracy in
    virtual worlds'.

    I want to thank CARE, CRAEDO, and the Confederation of Democratic
    Simulators for inviting me to give this talk at the inauguration of
    this auditorium.

    After the presentation we will open the discussion, and I will be very
    glad to answer all your questions during our live chat.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    All the slides have a comment by me, the author, which corresponds to the relevant section of the transcript of my talk. If you would like to grab a single contiguous text of all the talk, please go to http://www.davidorban.com/
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    Through interconnected, interoperable, multiple virtual worlds, the
    degrees of freedom through which we express our opportunities will
    grow. Our challenges will match, but hopefully not exceed the power of
    these new tools of organization, analysis, and action.
    There is no guarantee, and our only choice is that of carefully but
    forcefully pursue the understanding of the power we have. Where the
    worlds collide, be they real or virtual, as long as the distinction
    makes sense, our new formal methods will propose newer levels of
    organization, and complexity. We cannot afford to forget the real
    world: no virtual world today can exist without it! Our activities in
    the virtual worlds, interconnected as they are, must benefit from and
    provide benefit to the real world we still live in.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    We live in a software world, where not only it is taken for granted,
    that better and better algorithms will serve us, but even ourselves
    are represented by our avatars. How soon will we grow comfortable
    delegating decisions to the software agents that incessantly follow us
    around? We already do so in the case of anti-spam filters!
    Our will is itself express by this cloud within which we fly exploring
    the virtual landscape.
    Let me give you a simple example:
    If we have an election every week, I can understand the issues, and
    participate. If we have one every day, or every hour, this becomes
    much less plausible. But if the issue to be decided is the style of
    music to be streamed in this Auditorium, and my likes are
    programmatically accessible, then I can without doubt delegate my vote
    to an agent representing my will, with the full knowledge that it will
    correspond to what I really want.
    How soon will we see groupings of clouds of will at the center of
    which autonomous agents express their own free choices? The complexity
    of our systems will dictate that we use as much help as possible
    managing them. As soon as one system will start employing a higher
    efficiency formation of such kind, as the previous reasoning shows, it
    will be adopted by all. We must start now understanding its meaning!
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    Here is a caveat that is worth facing right away, even more so given
    that it is an opportunity to enrich all of the online experience. If
    we choose issues that are relevant to the real world, it will be more
    and more difficult to keep the online and offline identities separate.
    For some people this is not a problem, but for others it definitely
    is, at least as the online worlds work today, where the suspension of
    disbelief in enacting the roles of ones avatar is so important. We
    will have to achieve greater flexibility in managing multiple
    identities, with a finer grained control over their interactions with
    what we are and how they shape us. At the same way we will have to be
    able and distinguish the various roles others assume. There is a clear
    opportunity here for Linden Lab to intervene, and tweak the rules
    regulating Second Life to proactively recognize this need once it
    presents itself.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    Evolution is often and wrongly equated with progress, while it is
    adaptation to a changing environment, without regard to its direction.
    However, if in interconnected systems a new complex emerges, that
    enables a given part to work at a higher level of efficiency, then the
    rest of of the entire group of systems must either evolve a similar
    efficiency, or succumb.
    These give us a perfect recipe for making sure that online democracies
    matter. First we must show that the experiments we implement have
    concrete advantages above their real counterparts. Second, we must
    select issues that touch upon the real world as well, and where the
    greater efficiency expressed can have an impact. My favourite
    example of this is the planetary environment, where the decisions we
    will soon have to make are of breathtaking risk, just as the risk of
    not taking them. How can either real-world science, or real-world
    politics decide, with insufficient powers of visualization, and
    analysis? It could very well be the case, that the tools we have in
    the online worlds for policy shaping are necessary to inform better
    decisions about the real world environment.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    The traditional role of the judiciary has been that of putting the law
    in practice through its actions. This has been a cumbersome and
    sometimes very inefficient and impractical task.
    If we can reach the goal of a more formal description of the rules
    that govern our online world, than a new role will emerge for the
    judiciary, with a much more powerful toolset, resembling that of
    programmers using modern paradigms and languages. This new role will
    be fundamental in making sure that the the practical experiments
    correspond to the implementation of the models, and the theories
    behind them. As the law is the scaffolding of reality in the virtual
    world, the judiciary will be the ones upholding it. The old excuse
    'This is a bad law, but it is still my job to enforce it' will become
    weaker and weaker, as quick revision cycles will improve the system.
    Just as legislators are the software architects of the online
    political reality, the judiciary is its quality assurance tester.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    The nature of the Legislative Power in virtual worlds is different
    than in the real world.
    With laws shaping reality, its responsibility is higher, even more so
    since the individuals subject themselves to the laws voluntarily. On
    the other hand, even more so initially when so much of unexplored
    political territory must be discovered, the rules and regulations must
    be part of bold experiments, without too much regard to negative
    consequences.
    These will be temporary, and their damage will be limited. But the
    advantage of the discovery of new tools will be unmatchable. The
    change in perspective from local to global issues, for example, is
    something that seldom is afforded by real world legislators, even when
    necessary.
  • + davidorban David Orban 3 years ago
    We have to take advantage, and practice within these new much larger
    bounds, while still human. There are numerous advantages to be had, in
    properly managing our reputation systems, which regulate so many of
    our interactions in the real world without receiving the proper formal
    analysis. Our actions in the real world shape our identities as
    perceived by others, but they are treated with the superficiality of
    the familiar. Their weight and value are not appreciated, as long as
    we don’t break some rule or regulation. Online is different already,
    and the touchy issues of privacy, and identity show how much our
    actions need to be more carefully analysed. Our traces which we leave
    online, have to become a powerful individual asset, which we must be
    able and properly leverage. The management of these assets, and their
    protection could become a primary goal of the online Polity. The
    understanding that we will derive from this will show the exercise to
    be useful and applicable. The creativity of this political landscape
    will guide new bases of emancipation, mutual enhancement, and global
    deep reach, as it will naturally lead to a transparent, tolerant, and
    diverse online society.

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Notes on slide 1

Welcome to this seminar about “The theory and practice of democracy in virtual worlds”. I want to thank CARE, CRAEDO, and the Confederation of Democratic Simulators for inviting me to give this talk at the inauguration of this auditorium. After the presentation we will open the discussion, and I will be very glad to answer all your questions during our live chat.

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The Theory And Practice Of Democracy In Virtual Worlds - Presentation Transcript

  1. The Theory And Practice Of Democracy In Virtual Worlds
      • CRAEDO Auditorium Inaugural Lecture, Colonia Nova, Second Life
      • 10 February 2007
      • David Orban
  2. What Are We Going To Talk About?
    • Objective
    • Real polity constructors
    • New choices
    • Law, and justice
    • Practice as humans
    • The cloud of will
    • Evolving freedoms
    • Discussion
  3. The interconnected worlds
    • The online worlds cannot exist without the real world, which they influence, and by which they are influenced.
    • We have to show that the activities in online worlds benefit the real world, improving its values, processes, and heightening its goals.
  4. Constructors Of Real-World Polities
    • Access to
      • Property
      • Resources
      • Knowledge
    • Acceptance of laws of nature
      • even without understanding
      • what you cannot reject
  5. Changing Definitions To Fit The New
    • Traditional definitions of democracy suffice?
    • Territory
    • Citizens
    • Deliberation/Action
    • Where is the State?
    • What sovereignty?
  6. The Legal Foundation Is Reality Online
    • Terms of service
    • Rights
      • Land lease
      • Property
    • Integration of the economy
    • Consensual reality
    • Human law, not natural law
  7. Theory Of Democracy (in VWs)
    • Falsifiable hypotheses
    • Formal framework
    • Expected results
    • Extensible
    • Non-trivial
    • Cui prodest?
  8. Practice Of Democracy (in VWs)
    • Repeatable Experiments
    • Data collection
    • Numerical analysis
    • Representative vs direct
    • Electronic voting
    • Non-unary voting
  9. Practice As Humans
    • Reputation
    • Creativity
    • Emancipation
    • Mutual enhancement
    • Reach
  10. Legislative Power In Virtual Worlds
    • Software architect
    • Bolder experimenter
    • Changing perspectives
  11. The Judiciary's Role In Virtual Worlds
    • Debugging bad legislation
    • Virtuous circle
    • Quick turnaround
    • Enforcing reality's grip
  12. Coevolution With Reality
    • Evolution is adaptation, not progress
    • Co-evolving systems diffuse good tricks
    • vDemocracy can influence rDemocracy
    • We must show value through maximized utility
  13. The Challenge Of Multiple Identities
    • The breakdown of the suspension of disbelief
    • Acceptance of finer grained differences
    • Managing what we are and what we become
  14. The Cloud Of Will
    • Avatars and agents
    • Loosely coupled decision algorithms
    • Substitute agents in the center!
    • Acceleration and efficiency requires emancipation of delegated decision making
  15. The Evolution Of Freedom
    • Interoperability
    • Interaction
    • Contrast of creation/destruction
    • Guarantee of a frontier and exploration
  16. Contacts
    • David Orban
    • 'Davidorban Agnon'
    • [email_address]
    • www.davidorban.com/wiki
    • Slides on: slideshare.net
    • Video on: video.google.com
    • On the wiki you can download this presentation and collaborate to explore the themes expressed.
    • Shared under Creative Commons Attibution 2.5
  17. Sources, credits, and thanks
    • Gianni Degli Antoni
    • Michel Manen
    • Craedo
    • Care
    • Confederation of Democratic Simulators
    • Daniel Dennett
    • Joi Ito
    • Linden Labs
    • Wikipedia
    • All images from Flickr.com: josefstuefer daquellamanera wallyg hugovk nicmcphee evanosherow extranoise alphageek mugley horizon shaymus22

+ David OrbanDavid Orban, 3 years ago

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