As I read it, Morozov's essay has two main points:
1. Propaganda is now self referential. Especially that the selling point of "Government 2.0" is an analogy to "Web 2.0" and "Open," where neither "Open" nor "Web 2.0" has any kind of meaning to begin with.
2. A specific consequence of this is, that the policy debate is no longer about the goals of a policy but about manipulation of meaningless symbols.
It is then quite interesting to read O'Reilly's comments, since he actually does not refute (or even criticizes ) Morozov's points, but only asserts again that 'Open Government' is a better way to archive some policy goals.
This is of course a highly subjective and somewhat unfair compression of an interesting exchange, but functional for my main point: I completely agree both with Morozov and O'Reilly, just on different levels. Morozov does indeed raise very good questions. On the other hand, open government is an important tool to archive some policy goals, at least for some definition of open.
It's difficult to imagine how one could have a "Gov 2.0" in analogy to a "Web 2.0" without massive decentralization and disintermediation, two critical aspects of Web 2.0. But that's not happening. Power continues to centralize in DC and we continue to step-by-step lurch ever closer to the sort of failure you get when you completely centralize all power.
At best, transparency is an enabling step towards Gov IIX, perhaps even a necessary step, but right now I see no evidence that any aspect of our Gov is actually decentralizing or disintermediating (since after all it would be disintermediating itself). Until that happens, "Gov 2.0" talk is just "Gov 1.0"'s attempts to rhetorically dress itself in the glory of the Web so it can use it as cover to grab more power while telling credulous webbies that it's actually them getting the power.
Kind of getting closer to the ideas in the original essay, the interesting question is whether the 2.0/IIX social forces will sweep away the current governmental structure even if it doesn't like it and actively fights it. Obama's election involved the left coming together in a 2.0 style to elect him, though the coalition seems to have fallen apart after that, and the Tea Party is no more and no less than the conservatives and the libertarians in temporary alliance doing the same thing, but in both cases just feeding their energies back into Gov 1.0. Neither of these forces are going away, even if they're still only starting up in fits and starts on the year scale. At some point, do they become so vital that they begin to truly control the government, and truly start forcing it to decentralize power? There are some good ways that could turn out, there are some bad (localized tyranny-of-the-majority is still a tyranny-of-the-majority). Or will Gov 1.0 finally centralize enough power in the industrialized western world to completely shut that down? (Are they "on the clock"?)
I guess a lot of blowback is coming from the fact that you decided to call it Government 2.0. It seems a bit presumptuous, guilty of the same hyperbole tech is always accused of...changing the world etc...but at the same time it's a title I would click on. It's outrageous, but serves a purpose
From this premise (and lots of other reading of the political "sciences"), I also find it easy to conclude that the internet and open source are preferable to government as methods of diffusing power.
This is pretty late in the cycle for O'Reilly to not realize that the adaptive 'algorithmic government' he is describing would result in government optimized for clicks and highly responsive to weaponized performative umbrage by groups acting in bad faith. Which is, of course, exactly what we have.
Maybe we need something stable that can maintain a functional equilibrium and act in the defence of the norms of the whole system. Responsiveness and stability are usually antithetical, and systems designed to be responsive to the immediate urges of large masses of humanity are rarely anything but monstrous.
Yes of course, I get the point of the reference, it looks super interesting, I wish I could read quickly enough for it to actually make it on my list.
I appreciate your point about political change but that's not something I view as being 'outside of government'. The political leadership and the bureaucracy are 'government' - if they are failing even primarily due to arbitrary change in direction ... then we can at least narrow the scope of where we point our fingers, but it doesn't mean that 'building a subway should be impossible' in 2020.
The US engaged and defeated the Nazis, and the Japanese, and built the first Nuclear Weapon, along with designing several new weapons and building them at large ... in the term of a single presidential cycle.
Without being overly cynical, I do believe that incentives matter, and if the bureaucracy doesn't have to produce much of real value then it just won't.
I've often observed the same thing with a different machine. It's a great metaphor for many things.
There is something about cybernetics and control theory, that, if applied to governance would be of enormous value, but I've never seen a real world application. I wonder if we'll get to see such a thing in our lifetimes.
In the cyberpunk Pyscho-Pass there exists a nice fictional account of such a system.
> You probably just need both.
Yes, today. My complaint is that this is a very crude algorithm! There has got to be a better way that represents people's true interests. My own hypothesis is that in the year 20XX there will exist a <country> with a combination of intelligence agency with a vastly expanded remit and a computer system which produces most central governance.
Did you believe/think/feel X today? Your inputs have been factored and there are Y resolution proposals! The resolution you have chosen shall be weighted against counterproposals and if selected shall be converted into contracts for activities that a new arm of the State shall spring into existence to deal with. Government functions can scale backwards and forwards in an orderly and consistent fashion with the desires/knowledge of the citizenry.
I think it can only work by illustrating trade-offs in order to keep stakeholders in the loop. As long as the system is comprehensible it should work. Pray we never fork.
We should try experiments like these on a Seastead first before we kill everybody.
This definitely has historical significance, and I find it fascinating. Thanks for sharing! Generally, I believe that more direct channels between governments and citizens will be a long term win for everyone.
I didn't say it is coherent. Systems sometimes seem coherent, which feeds simplistic conspiracy theories (also serve as a straw man counter-argument). In reality complex systems are decentralized but often are evolving according to some rules. Those rules make it seem as it is a coherent large system. Think of an ant hill, a beehive, how large organizations are structured bureaucratically.
Chomsky, for example, analyses this in respect to the media. Large media ends up acting in sync with government's propaganda because there are set of constraints and incentive s built in. From outside they often act _as if_ they are centrally controlled by a single government party.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying your comment, but it seems like a very good thing that the government continues to be people/organization centric and doesn't embrace a future where "reality is determined by computer code and people are a bit players". We should hope our democratic institutions continue to operate this way.
I think an open system is emergent, not something that can be planned around intelligent compromises. I have an intuition that planning government systems is about satisfying the shepherds that there are fences against the chaos and convincing the sociopaths there are rules to exploit.
Otherwise, it'll just turn into DnD 3.5e where every action has a rule in a book somewhere, it'll be blasphemy if you handwave it before looking it up, and yet somehow that one guy always has their character just so to skirt that same rule.
Thank you for mentioning the case of previously ubiquitous government forms. I am too young to remember them and did not factor them into my analysis. Point well-made and taken.
Well, I think that it's a relevant analogy to what an operating system does. Like an OS a system of government (like Democracy) manages a collection of physical elements (institutions) and serves as an interface between those and the end-users (citizens.)
I just find the idea very powerful - the idea that governments can be replaced by software. Voted it up, just for the title, which conveys that idea ... We folks perhaps don't need to read that article, as can imagine the possibilities.
1. Propaganda is now self referential. Especially that the selling point of "Government 2.0" is an analogy to "Web 2.0" and "Open," where neither "Open" nor "Web 2.0" has any kind of meaning to begin with.
2. A specific consequence of this is, that the policy debate is no longer about the goals of a policy but about manipulation of meaningless symbols.
It is then quite interesting to read O'Reilly's comments, since he actually does not refute (or even criticizes ) Morozov's points, but only asserts again that 'Open Government' is a better way to archive some policy goals.
This is of course a highly subjective and somewhat unfair compression of an interesting exchange, but functional for my main point: I completely agree both with Morozov and O'Reilly, just on different levels. Morozov does indeed raise very good questions. On the other hand, open government is an important tool to archive some policy goals, at least for some definition of open.
reply