Internet Activism and the Future of Democracy

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the world has been undergoing significant technological, social, and political change. With the rise of the internet, the world is more connected than ever, allowing information to flow freely around the globe. With this increase in communications, the world has also seen an increase in grassroots political movements working outside of traditional civil institutions. In the past year, leaderless protest movements have overthrown dictators in the Middle East and challenged the moral authority of neoliberalism in America. At a time when public trust in government is perhaps at an all-time low, it seems that systemic changes in our society are both possible and desperately needed. In the years ahead, the internet will allow people worldwide to organize themselves and fight for their collective interests. With a government controlled by international corporations, America needs alternative civil institutions to allow for truly democratic debate and decision-making. Using modern communication tools, these new institutions could potentially be much more efficient than traditional democratic institutions, which use methods largely designed in the 18th century. It is difficult to imagine exactly what this new society could look like, but it is clear that the internet will play a profound role in shaping the 21st century.

The combination of democracy and the internet reveals a metaphor that offers insights into why such  a merger makes sense. The essence of democracy is the rule of law, the idea that society should be governed by rules and not by individuals. Since a government more or less controls the behavior of its citizens, the laws of a government could be described as a kind of “source code” for society. The task of government is to constantly update these laws in order to maximize the public interest, just as a software developer updates code to satisfy his users. The laws of a government include its legal framework for creating new laws, which means that it can build successive layers of complexity. For example, a government may have a set of fundamental laws (like a Constitution) which specifies a process with which to create more specific laws. This ability to create layers of complexity is analogous to the hierarchical design of software, with complex functions being composed of simpler subroutines. The metaphor could be extended even further with concepts such as modularity, having autonomous sub-components, and extensibility, having the capacity for future improvements. The idea of democracy as software development has many implications, and it stands to reason that politicians could learn a lot from programmers.

The recent decline of public trust in government, which began in the Reagan era, may be related to the lack of modern technology in the legislation process. It should be no surprise that government is perceived as inefficient when their decision-making process remains at an 18th century pace. Making democratic decisions the old-fashioned way makes an institution run at a snails pace, causing it to be much less effective than a hierarchical organization with a single leader. This could explain why non-democratic institution, especially corporations, have gained so much influence in a society that claims to value democracy above all else. The “small government” movement could then be explained as a way of outsourcing our collective decision-making to non-democratic institutions, which seem to be so much more efficiently managed. The cost of this delegation of power became apparent after the 2008 financial crisis. Our government, however efficient it may be, is no longer acting in the interests of ordinary citizens. Unless you ask the most hardcore conservatives and libertarians, who think the problem is that we haven't ceded enough of our democratic power, the influence of corporations is now the greatest threat to American prosperity. Unsurprisingly, the corporations themselves have profited tremendously from this power transfer over the past few decades. It would seem, then, that it is in the interests of these corporations to prevent our democratic institutions from performing their intended functions effectively. With that in mind, it is safe to assume that the current system of government can no longer be trusted to uphold the will of the American people.

A system of making democratic decisions over the internet would have many benefits over the traditional form of democracy. The obvious benefit is that decisions can be made without having to physically gather in one location. Storing legal documents digitally instead of in print would also allow changes to be tracked using something like version control software, as well as providing functionality like searching and hyper-linking between documents. Furthermore, such a system would be usable by any kind of group, regardless of its status as an official civil institution. It would be well suited to collaboration between groups, because they would share a common decision-making framework. Finally, groups would be able to experiment with different decision-making procedures and share the most effective ones for other groups to use.

If a large portion of the public started making decision with a new system like this, it would lead to a profound change in the nature of our democracy. One might argue that ordinary citizens have no real power, and that this kind of voting would therefore be pointless, but this argument ignores the fact that there is power in collective action. This is the principle behind labor unions, which are supposed to be democratic institutions that fight for the interests of workers. As individuals, the workers have no power over their employers, but together they can force him to raise their salaries by going on strike. Collective actions like strikes are only possible on a large scale when people have some means of making collective decisions, which is why unions exist. With a new internet-based platform for democracy, this kind of collective action could be used by any group of people that have a common interest. It would have the potential to transform civil society into an army of union-like communities, all fighting for a noble cause. It would, in effect, give people the power to control, and if necessary, replace the traditional civil institutions which would increasingly be seen as obsolete.

The Death of Intrinsic Motivation

David Simon's The Wire is a wide-reaching criticism of modern society and its institutions. Many of the institutional problems experienced by the characters in The Wire represent real problems that exist in the world today. Increasingly, it seems that our law enforcement is not working to protect the public, our political parties are not fighting for the interests of their voters, and our schools are not giving our kids a good education. All of these problems share a common symptom, which has to do with the motivations of people within these institutions. More than ever, these people are motivated by personal gain.

At the heart of American culture, as well as the politics of modern global capitalism, is the idea that hard work will result in good career. People all over the world work for years in broken education systems to get jobs that they don't like, all because they either have no other choice or they believe that a few years later they will have the job that they always wanted. Every job becomes the means to another job, every day of work the means of getting another day of work. It is not surprising that people who go through this system are often disappointed when they retire and realize that they have spent their life doing work that they don't enjoy. What is missing from the system is intrinsic motivation, the idea that a job is worth doing simply for the effect that it has on the world. When one knows that their work has a purpose and a positive impact on the lives of others, it makes their job profoundly more satisfying. If our institutions were run by people with intrinsic motivations, they would be dramatically more effective.

In the police department shown in The Wire, people are driven by extrinsic motivations. The regular policemen simply need a job to pay their bills, and the leadership is motivated by career advancement up the hierarchy of command. More often than not, decisions about who to arrest and which cases to pursue are made in the interests of someone's career rather than the interests of justice. This situation also opens the door to police brutality, because it is not in the interest of police leadership to report it. In fact, it is in their interest to encourage police brutality, because it gets the job done from their perspective. If the police and their leadership were really working “to protect and serve”, they would operate much differently. It is not entirely clear how this could be accomplished, but perhaps a law enforcement institution with a less hierarchical structure would do a better job of promoting the intrinsic motivation of promoting justice.

The politicians depicted in The Wire are also driven by personal gain. Carcetti runs for mayor so he can run for governor in the future. Once he gets into office, he makes decisions based on what's good for his political career, not what's good for Baltimore. He claims to be running for the intrinsic motivations of ending crime and poverty, but he really sees these as tasks to be completed for political gain. The senator auctions off his political support, but using his “silver tongue” he appears to be doing it simply because they are good politicians, working for intrinsic motivations. The result is a corrupt and dysfunctional government that works for the elites of society. The intrinsic motivation of honest politicians is to serve the interests of the public, at the expense of the elites.

The Wire also shows a broken education system, in which schools are run for profit and teachers are forced to constantly teach to the test. School administrators are under pressure from the state, because they can lose their funding if they fail to meet the state's requirements. Teachers are under pressure from the administrators because they can lose their jobs if they stray from the official curriculum. The result is a boring and ineffective education system whose purpose is to maximize an arbitrary and inaccurate measure of knowledge. The intrinsic motivation of teachers is to educate children to solve the problems of the future, but instead extrinsic motivations have turned our schools into indoctrination centers, where the thinking of the past is presented as truths to be memorized and recited.

Restoring intrinsic motivation to its rightful place as the primary motivation for human behavior will require a radical cultural shift. One's status in society should be defined by how much one benefits society, not how much money and prestige one is able to amass for himself. We need more people like McNulty, who investigates police cases outside of his responsibilities, simply because he feels an obligation to pursue justice. The idea of intrinsic motivation seems hard to believe and even laughable to other cops around him, who make comments like “What are you, some kind of Democrat?”. We have become so accustomed to working for our own personal gain, it seems foolish to do otherwise. This taboo is precisely what needs to be changed. Once it becomes clear that people can either work for themselves or for others, it will become socially unacceptable to be motivated by extrinsic rewards. This may be the only way to restore our public and private institutions to their proper roles as promoters of the public good. Until then, we will be trapped in the pointless game of capitalism, like hamsters on treadmills chasing ever-receding pieces of cheese.

The Conflict Between Formal and Effective Power

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unpredictable and self-organizing. From the explosion of information technology to the dominance of “free-market” economic policies, the development of our civilization seems more than ever to be beyond the control of any single leader or institution. While presidents and CEOs wield significant influence, they are subservient to larger forces like technology and, perhaps most importantly, capitalism. While one might expect to be worried about the uncontrollable world that is being created, many embrace our loss of control as the natural and desirable way for the world to progress. Libertarians and free-market conservatives believe in an idealized vision of the world that is both naive and dangerous. To ignore the many systemic problems faced by the modern global capitalism, which are becoming more apparent each year, is to engage in wishful thinking for the sake of preserving obsolete ideas and assumptions.

Embracing the current system is particularly dangerous because the system tells us that we, as individuals, need not worry about systemic problems at all. The message sent by mainstream media and popular cinema is “be yourself” or “live a full life”, but not “question authority” or “change the world”. There is usually a clear narrative with a black-and-white struggle between good and evil, rather than a struggle against a broken system in which everyone is a loser. We are taught to fight corrupt individuals but not corrupt institutions. So the conservatives are defending a system which not only has failed to solve the world's problems, but prevents us from even trying to solve those problems. In order to understand the world's problems, we must have a better understanding of how society is organized. Specifically, we need to understand the how power functions today, and the difference between formal power and effective power.

Power, which can be defined as the ability to influence the behavior of others, can be divided into two categories: formal and effective. Formal power is derived from titles and status within an abstract power structure, while effective power is derived from the actual capabilities of individuals to influence each other. For example, a king has formal power because he is at the top of an abstract power structure, but he may also have effective power if he is strong, persuasive, or rich. Similarly, someone who lacks any formal power may still have significant effective power if he is able to influence the behavior of others through whatever means. When such an imbalance between formal and effective power is widespread, the true organization of society becomes difficult to identify. When the wielders of formal power are effectively powerless, their decisions are either inconsequential or corrupted by the interests of those with effective power.

There is a kind of feedback loop in society between formal power and effective power. Formal power influences effective power insofar as it can control the distribution of resources, wealth, information, and status. However, effective power also influences formal power, either directly, through bribes or threats, or indirectly, through its influence on other individuals. This two-way interaction is constantly going on, giving rise to distorted politics that are often more complex than they appear. The populist rhetoric of a modern politician is an effort to reconcile the idealism of formal power with the reality of effective power. In other words, politicians are forced to speak in a way that satisfies both his electorate, the source of formal power, and his campaign donors, the source of effective power. The more conflict there is between the interests of voters and the interests of money, the more distorted, deceptive, and corrupt politics becomes. It is also possible for effective power to change formal power much more abruptly and radically than formal power can change it, because effective power is material while formal power is merely abstract. This is what happens in a coup or a revolution, after which the formal power of the past becomes meaningless.

The problems faced by the world today, which have at their root a crisis of global capitalism, are the result of an excess imbalance between formal and effective power. We live in a formal power structure that claims to be democratic and egalitarian, and yet our society (and the distribution of effective power within it) is more unequal than ever. When our politicians protect the interests of corporations against regulation and control by the government, they are attacking the ability of formal power to influence effective power. At the same time, with the Supreme Court ruling that “money is speech”, corporations have more influence on politics than ever. The result of this imbalance is that our formal power structure has been co-opted by a small number of individuals that wield enormous effective power. Politicians no longer work for the public interest, but rather to convince the public that the corporate interests are also their interests. This situation is unsustainable, and will likely be resolved in one of two ways: either the formal power structure will be changed to more accurately reflect the effective power structure, or the holders of effective power will be brought back in line by a restored formal power structure that acts in the true public interest. In political terms, this means the difference between a new kind of corporate fascism and a “New Deal”-like reaction to corporate dominance.

When the stakes are this high, it is important that we, as a nation, maintain control over our future. Without a formal power structure that acts in the public interest, those with the most effective power are free to shape the future to their advantage. The solution to a corrupt government is not an ineffective government. If you're in a car that's driving in the wrong direction, the solution is not to rip off the steering wheel. Instead, you should kick the driver out of the car and turn it around completely. What the world needs for the 21st century is a radical restoration of formal power structures to their intended purposes.

American Politics: A Parody of Justice

The idea that America is a meritocracy, a nation where people get what they deserve, is central to our cultural identity and political rhetoric. In economic terms, this idea means that people who work harder and more skillfully will earn a higher salary. Although this may be true for some, personal wealth is increasingly determined by the economic and social status of one's upbringing. For many Americans, it seems that no amount of effort or skill can lift them out of poverty. While our lack of economic justice is a very serious problem, there is another side to inequality in America that is perhaps even more serious. Citizens at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder suffer not only from a severe lack of opportunity, but also from a disproportionate amount of legal suspicion and punishment. While the poor earn less and the rich earn more, the poor are punished more and the rich are punished less. These two trends are two sides of the same coin, the increasing stratification of American society into distinct classes.

The accountability of our elites has been in decline since Ford granted a pardon to Nixon, and it may be at its lowest point right now. After it became clear that the phone companies helped the Bush administration violate American civil liberties, Congress simply made those actions retroactively legal. When the financial system collapsed due to the short-sighted and often fraudulent activities of Wall Street, the culprits remain unpunished. These rich executives not only avoided legal repercussions for their destructive behavior, they were “bailed out” with remarkably favorable terms. Many of them even  gained powerful positions in the government, allowing them to steer public policy even further in favor of the corporations. The aftermath of the financial crisis was not really a rescue of Wall Street by the government, but rather the collection of ransom from the government by Wall Street. These companies are smart; they must have known what was going to happen. They knew that they would be able to get whatever they needed from the government because the entire economy was at stake, and they were already in a position to influence the government's response to the crisis.

What America needs is the change that Obama promised but never fulfilled. If Obama had pressed charges on both the Bush administration and the top Wall Street corporations, it would have sent a message to all Americans that justice would be restored. Instead, Obama has embraced the very same structures of power that he promised to change. He tried to be a compromising president when we needed someone unafraid of challenging the status quo. Obama has all the right rhetoric, and he claims to be limited by the Republicans in Congress, but this is just a facade. In reality, neither of the two dominant parties are willing to challenge the status quo. They simply want to steer the metaphorical ship of state slightly to the left or the right, when it should be turned around completely. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until the 2016 elections to have a chance at a leader willing to make real change. Until then, it seems that nothing short of a revolution could make America once again a land of “liberty and justice for all”.

Citizens United: The Legalization of Corruption

The United States, perhaps more than any other nation, defines itself as a protector of democracy and self-determination. The idea of America as an “arsenal for democracy” is central to both our cultural identity and our foreign policy. Despite our self-esteem as a nation, democracy in America has been under threat for decades and is now in danger of collapse. The growth of inequality in the United States has been gradually eroding the foundation of our democracy, the middle class. But in recent years, the problem has become a crisis. As corporate wealth skyrocketed, American politics moved into the era of “small government” led by Ronald Reagan. The result was an alarming growth in corporate political power, which became undeniable after the passing of “Citizens United”. Corporations are now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns while remaining completely anonymous. If left unchecked, this trend will ultimately lead to a fascist-like state that is explicitly controlled by corporations.

In addition to being unjust in principle, corporate control over politics leads to destructive policies. When corporate lobbyists outnumber government-funded environmentalists lobbyists ten to one, the government cannot make unbiased decisions on environmental issues. Similarly, the government is unable to make sound decision about its long-term financial future when Wall Street lobbyists can provide massive returns on investments with laws that benefit financial corporations in the short term. Corporations, by definition, make decisions in the interest of profits. To allow corporations to control government policies is to allow the extraction of the real wealth of America from its citizens.

To avoid the total collapse of our democracy, America needs campaign financing reform. At the very least, corporate contributions to political campaigns should be transparent. But to give the public interest a fighting chance, what we really need is a strong system of public campaign financing. If all candidates had access to equal amounts of government funds for their campaign, elections would be decided by the best ideas and not the deepest pockets. Conservatives are sure to make a big deal about how this would waste taxpayer money, but it would be a worthwhile investment to ensure the long-term prosperity of our nation. Furthermore, public campaign financing could be funded by taxing corporate campaign contributions. If this tax was raised to 100%, the government would be able to ensure that the public interests and the corporate interests had the same amount of influence without spending tax money from the average American. Citizens United is often defended on the grounds of “freedom of speech”, but in reality it suppresses this cherished right. If corporations want to use a megaphone to spread their political message, it is only fair that they give the people an equally loud megaphone. If they don't, the people will be forced to take the corporate megaphone away for good.

America Needs Radical Education Reform

One of the most alarming ways in which the United States has fallen behind its global competition is in education. In a country filled with internationally renowned private universities, our public education system is fundamentally broken. After countless reforms have failed to produce results, we resort to blaming the apathy of our youth or the laziness of our teachers. The flaws in our education system are due to its obsolete structure and its increasingly business-like leadership. The only solution to these problems is radical reform to the entire system.

The American education system is obsolete because it is based on a model that was developed in the industrial era. Students are grouped into batches that come out of the system once per year, as if they are identical goods to be mass-produced. Students are taught primarily according to textbooks, which tend to be 5 to 10 years old. In the 1950's, it may have been acceptable to use a 10 year old textbook, but in the 21st century knowledge progresses much faster than that. Compounding the problem is the fact that science and technology will change even more between the time that they read the textbook and the time that they actually use that knowledge, if they ever do. Schools should adopt modern technology and teach students from the most accurate and comprehensive source of information that we have: the internet.

The way that our education systems groups students into classes is counterproductive towards learning. To assume that all students of the same age have the same academic abilities and needs is like assuming the same for all students of the same height. Instead, students should be grouped by their experience and interest in particular subjects. Within boundaries, students should have the freedom to learn about things that interest them at the pace that suits them. This could be accomplished by changing the nature of the classroom from being time-based to being subject-based. This would give students the ability to move back and forth between different rooms depending on what subjects interested them. It would naturally group together students with similar needs, and would also allow the classrooms to become richer learning environments by being devoted to a single subject. Finally, this change would do a lot to help the issue of severely stressed students, because their schedules would not be so busy.

Another important problem with the education system is the influence of business in its leadership. Universities and even primary schools are increasingly being run as for-profit corporations. Although this strategy may have good intentions, the effects are clearly detrimental. When unelected school boards make decisions to cut spending, the quality of student life suffers. When they decide to close schools that are losing money, entire communities suffer. We must come to our senses and end corporate control over education, which is a human right and not a product.

Fractals, Chaos, and Complexity: The Mathematics of African Culture

In the Western world, mathematics is praised as one of the pinnacles of our cultural achievements. We see mathematics as a source of universal truth and even beauty. Our veneration of mathematics has influenced our culture so strongly that we assume we have a monopoly on mathematical culture. Although knowledge of simple arithmetic is understandably common in all cultures, we tend to assume that modern industrialized society is the only culture that has its  foundation in a profound understanding of mathematics. This is, however, not the case for many of the indigenous tribes of Africa. In fact, African culture has a strong tradition of mathematical thought which is entirely distinct from its European counterpart, and there is evidence that Africans were well-aware of certain mathematical concepts centuries before they were discovered in Europe. Nearly all elements of African culture, from its architecture to its art and religious philosophy, are influenced by the mathematics of fractals, complexity, and chaos.

Traditional African art is full of examples of fractal geometry. Fractals are shapes that have the property of self-similarity, meaning that they look the same on many scales. This property is clearly visible in many African paintings, sculpture, clothing, pottery, and jewelry. The abundance and complexity of fractal patterns in African art shows that they are used deliberately, they are not made unwittingly for aesthetic appeal. Fractals can also be found in African music, which contains complex syncopated rhythms that are self-similar on multiple scales. Even African hair styles, which consist of a variety of braiding patterns, are often fractal. A simple rule is used to produce each braiding pattern, allowing the patterns to scale for any size head. The presence of fractal geometry in African art indicates a strong cultural influence from mathematics.

The practical applications of fractal geometry were also known to the indigenous Africans. Fractal patterns can be found in African architecture, from the design of individual buildings to the layout of entire villages. In places like Mali and Niger, the indigenous people build huts with straw walls using a fractal scaling technique to maximize efficiency. When constructing the walls, they use long pieces of straw at the bottom and progressively shorter ones towards the top. This technique maximizes the tradeoff between the faster construction time of the longer pieces and the better wind protection created by the longer pieces. An analysis of the scaling technique revealed that scaling factor of the straw pieces was almost exactly proportional to the increase in wind speed at different heights. This kind of practical application of fractals also exists on larger scales in African villages, including the layout of the village itself. It can be seen, even in modern urban areas, that development occurs in fractal patterns on a large scale without any intention or top-down control. The fractal design of African settlements, however, is often fractal by design. This is often the result of repeated expansions on a progressively larger scale, which function as the iterations of the fractal pattern. The scaling properties of fractals allow the design of the settlements to be scaled up as the settlements grow in size. While Europeans were discovering the applications of Euclidean geometry, fractal geometry was already widely used by indigenous Africans.

Perhaps the most interesting example of mathematics in African culture is the use of deterministic chaos in religious practices. Deterministic chaos describes a system that is unpredictable despite being governed by precise rules. Weather systems, stock markets, and even brains are all examples of such systems. While European culture sought to reduce the complexity of these systems to simple rules, African culture embraced deterministic chaos as the ultimate explanation for the universe. This can be seen in religious practices such as the Ifa divination beads and the Bamana sand divination. These practices consist of using a set of rules recursively to produce an unpredictable sequence of codes and symbols. These symbols could then be interpreted as prophecies, similar to the predictions of a Tarot card reader. In addition to being a simple and elegant method of producing religious predictions, these practices are in contrast with Western monotheistic tradition. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all provide a deterministic and predictable view of the universe, which has a clear beginning and end as defined by their respective holy books. This struggle for certainty distinguishes European culture from African culture. However, African culture also differs from other indigenous cultures in this area, such as the Native Americans. Religious myths in Native American culture, like in African culture, emphasize the unpredictability of the universe. However, their stories differ from the Africans' because their uncertainty is due to true probabilistic randomness, not deterministic chaos (this explains why gambling is prevalent in Native American culture). Deterministic chaos can even be found in African games such as Mancala, in which the effects of players' choices become unpredictable after simple rules are applied repeatedly. The combination of determinism and unpredictability is a distinguishing characteristic of African culture, and is one of the most profound examples of mathematical influence on African culture.

Understanding the influence of mathematics on African culture (and indigenous cultures in general), will provide insight into how the basic world view and philosophy of Africans differ from those of Westerners. They see the world not as a single entity with a single fate, but as a collection of interacting parts whose future is unpredictable. Their view of society is not one of a homogenous block controlled by a single leader, but of a complex system with organization on multiple scales. This difference in world view may explain the catastrophic consequences of colonization, the often violent meeting of Western and African cultures. The bottom-up organization of tribal African peoples was forcefully replaced by a top-down division of the continent into European-style states, whose borders often crossed ethnic boundaries. The lesson to be learned from these insights into African culture is that colonization was not the conquest of science and reason over primitiveness and nature, but rather the conquest of European mathematics over African mathematics (loosely speaking, ignoring the influence of India and the Middle East on mathematics). It is not clear to what extent mathematical knowledge enabled the domination of Western culture over so much of the world, but in any case, the achievements of African culture in mathematics should not be overlooked.