IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 26

"This disposition to admire, and
almost to worship, the rich and
the powerful, and to despise, or, at
least, to neglect persons of poor and
mean condition, though necessary
both to establish and to maintain the
distinction of ranks and the order
of society is, at the same time, the
great and most universal cause of the
corruption of our moral sentiments."
-Adam Smith, 1790

Further, the associated culture
of debate and policy discussion has
drifted inexorably towards partisan,
"choose your side" pitched battles
where the point is not an agreed and
useful outcome, but largely to prove
your side is "right" and the other
side is "wrong."
These tendencies have become
entrenched in our institutions of government and parliamentary democracy. We may have reached a stage
where some new form of citizen
participation in the deliberation
of big policy and strategic choices
needs to be tested. Something like a
"citizens chamber," modeled on the
principles of deliberative or "citizen
jury" debate, might be worth trying.
Another would be a concept of
an "evaluator general," along the
lines of the Auditor General we are
more familiar with in Australia, to act
as the custodian of a more systematic, rigorous, and open flow of information, data and user, and citizen
experience at the heart of an implementation process that learns more
effectively from its own expertise
and experience. It would reflect
similar attempts at the policy and
service reform level to intrude a
much greater quotient of direct user
and human experience into the process - more capillaries, fewer and
less dominant arteries.
Of course, a focus on local initiatives and better engagement with people and communities doesn't deny the

need for levels of central authority,
sometimes in the establishment of
conventions, and even in appropriate
situations the design and enforcement of contracts. The question,
predictably, is not resolved with an
either/or choice, but with a judicious
balance between both instincts.

selfhood are drawn and patrolled that
go to the heart of both our humanity
and our humanness. Some aspects
of a new economics, reflecting some
different assumptions about the role
of corporations, or even "hyercorporations" and the role of government
as both regulator, designer, and often
creative contributor to economic performance and innovation, are being
crafted and tested.
Some of the responses - tax,
regulate, property rights - are traditional. They seek to impose constraints, or open up opportunities,
for both consumers and producers
(who are often the same people)
in the new digital and "collaborative" economy.
Other responses - blockchain,
big data and data analytics, digital
transparency, and legibility - are
harnessing the new tools of digital and technology innovation to
speculate new institutional forms
into existence. In that sense, in the
new economics, technology threatens to become the solution, or at
least a big part of the solution, to the
problems it has created. There is a
view that the debate should be less
about the need for a "new" economics than an urgent focus on using
the tools and precepts of a perfectly
serviceable "old" economics.

Politics, Economics,
Democracy and Everything
There isn't a dimension of human
and institutional life that Web Science, in one way or another, doesn't
touch. This means that the scope,
range, and mix of brave conversations that its work both implies and
requires are virtually limitless.
The conversations, for example,
will grapple with the design, conduct, and efficacy of many of our
current patterns and possibilities in
politics, government, and democracy. Big assumptions about the
distribution of power and authority
across all those domains are being
tested and challenged. How, if at all,
we can conceive of and then actually
build meaningful (i.e., broadly representative and popularly responsive)
institutions and practice that span
national boundaries and interests
remains moot.
The constitution of identity through
new modes of privacy and individuality, especially in a world drenched
with data whose visibility, intentional
or accidental, has become a defining
feature of the machine age, is going to
be dramatically different.
But there are enduring questions
about how the boundaries around
and between these big questions of

"The West's high noon arrived in 2016,
and the most important single lesson
is not to go into denial about this. So
tear up your old maps. Get out of your
comfort zone. Find new allies-or
suffer the consequences. Economic
systems are failing; old political
cartels are losing their legitimacy.
Elite populists and democrats are
duelling. The need for transformational
movements has never been greater-
and at last they are rising up."

"...rethinking knowledge now that
the facts aren't the facts, experts are
everywhere and the smartest person
in the room is the room."

https://www.prospectmagazine.
co.uk/magazine/the-new-politics-therevolution-will- be-digitised

-David Weinberger
http://www.toobigtoknow.com

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

∕

SEPTEMBER 2017

https://www.prospectmagazine http://www.co.uk/magazine/the-new-politics-the http://www.toobigtoknow.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017