Problem: lack of common people's ability to self-organize to achieve their goals and too high dependence upon money, which leads to their manipulation by other people through monetary system, and to a danger to democracy.
Solution: web-based people's self-organization tool (PSOT) enabling social innovators - authors of the new ideas beneficial to the majority of people reading the Internet - to accelerate the realization of the preferred ideas by the public, by making it easy for the readers of the texts of original ideas to give their support towards content of even an individual aspect of an idea contained in a fraction of the texts during their reading process online.
Description of an instance of self-organization and goal achievement process as I envision it through creation of this serivce:
0. The process involves idea author and the general public (the readers).
1. The idea author describes his or her idea in either a text or video or other form of media in the common HTML format. 2. The idea author then logs into the PSOT website, registers a label for the idea by entering it's name or alias. 3. The idea author then sees a code to be embedded into the original HTML code nearby each paragraph or sentence of concern. 4. The code embedded into the original HTML text then appears as a click-able object within the text. Some of the possible designs of the object are easily recognizable simple closed geometric shapes (△◇〇) with a question mark inscribed inside them, and a number showing the number of people that have already showed their interest to take part in realizing the idea if this were to start happening. For example, if one chose a circle, the mark "〇123" would signify that there are 123 people already joining the idea. 5. The reader who wants to participate clicks the circle. In case the reader is already logged-in, the number turns to 124, otherwise the reader is asked to register. 6. The reader who is registering can optionally fill-in some information about his skills and areas of competences available. 7. The idea author then is able to view all the participants in the list, as well as every other participant can view it by logging into the PSOT website with their account.
This leads to an emergence of a group of people with the same interest, informed about each other's existence, and thus able to realistically think of realizing one or another idea of their interest (possibly, using only their time and efforts to achieve it), as opposed to working for money where they are forced to doing not necessarily what they want to, in order to get the things they have needs for.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 Original text... http://docs.google....dgmnqtp2_37dz7tpg6w [Inyuki, Jan 21 2008] Realization... http://inventions.w...ool_%28invention%29 [Inyuki, Jan 30 2008] By the way, this is one of the ideas that seems to be so easy to realize and potentially having so powerful positive influence, that I would want to realize it myself, but I put it here, because I think it may take up too much time to realize it by myself, and I think it may be so important that I wish that someone did actually realize it before me, for the common good and happiness.
It's open for your comments and critic. Thanks.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 I don't see it. How is the PSOT different from, say, Google or the DMOZ Open Directory Project? Because it keeps membership lists?
How does the PSOT make money?-- phoenix, Jan 21 2008 Why do you think money is necessary for anything to exist? There are things people like to do not for money. For example, people like to create new tools and machinery for their own convenience, to make their life easier. This would let people organize themselves for larger projects to create things that are useful not for a single person, but for a group of persons, make their lives more comfortable.
In order to make life better it is not necessary to make money. It can be made by making time. More free time for everyone.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 DMOZ is a directory edited by people, kind of directly.
Google is a search engine.
This seem to not exist yet.
The closest what exists, is perhaps the Digg.com, which, however, doesn't organize people into groups (such as a mailing list to some degree does), and doesn't provide easily accessible information about the competences and skills of the person involved.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 So this is essentially a way of starting/facilitating an open-source project.
For an open source project to succeed it must hold the interest of a sufficient number of people who are sufficiently talented to build toward the project's goal.
Although the user interface is important in any open-source project, it is only a very small component of whether the project will succeed or fail.-- xaviergisz, Jan 21 2008 And eventually, people's projects may produce goods, which may have a price, perhaps evaluable by money if and only if there is anyone wanting to buy and sell them.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 [xaviergisz], yes, I think it could well serve for this purpose.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 //Why do you think money is necessary for anything to exist? There are things people like to do not for money. For example, people like to create new tools and machinery for their own convenience, to make their life easier.//And the raw materials for these tools and machinery just appear out of nowhere?//In order to make life better it is not necessary to make money. It can be made by making time.//And who feeds, clothes and houses you while you're doing this? In order to live you must either produce something which other people are willing to exchange for food, or become a parasite. There are no other options.-- angel, Jan 21 2008 First, you've got to have a steady supply of good ideas from your community, which won't be as easy as you think. Then, having people express an interest in an idea is not the same thing as actually getting commitment from those people to do something and spend some of their time and money on that idea. Then, when you've got a set of committed people, you've got some way to go before they're sufficiently organised to have a chance of producing anything resembling the original idea. Just having a collaborative tool with what might or might not be a slick User Interface (which is what your idea focuses on) doesn't get you very far.-- hippo, Jan 21 2008 [angel], raw materials come from environment, which is abundant of materials. Especially, the land, the rights to using which is of high importance to personal independence from money.
The contributors would simply contribute their free time still doing something else to support themselves.
[hippo], this tool certainly wouldn't get us very far itself, but it's hard to deny it's potential helpfulness for facilitating the processes of people's self-organization leading to easier realization of the ideas of common people. It's certainly not a final solution creating the independence of from money, but a tool potentially reducing this too high dependence upon them, as written in the first paragraph, and creating more freedom.-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 I took the idea as a way for people to find like-minded people. I can do that with Google. I can do that with DMOZ. Since the PSOT is a web site, and a web site requires material things (such as a computer, software and electricity) to exist, someone will have to pay for those things. If you expect them to be contributed, that's not clear from your description.
Neither is it clear the intent of the PSOT is soley for the creation of open source projects. How will that be enforced? Who will pay for the enforcement? Will that be donated, too?-- phoenix, Jan 21 2008 So, like the Half-Bakery, but motivated to actually do stuff.-- Noexit, Jan 21 2008 [erlehmann], blog is yet another thing.
[phoenix], if you can compile a list by hand, it doesn't mean it is more efficient (just think how much time would it take for a common person to compile a list of people interested in realization of every good idea on the Internet).
[Noexit], yes, however, it would be a tool usable on any web page - be it a news portal or a personal blog - no matter where you put your ideas online... though, I guess in persent Half-Bakery that wouln't be possible to use, because we here cannot use HTML in our posts (except for several of it's elements).-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 //tool usable on any web page //
Now you lost me. I saw this as a central meeting site for people to drill down to find ideas they find interesting. i.e. USA > National > Voting > Altering Voting Rules, etc. So you could find varied ideas and views on a topic and if your view finds support, possibly then join a group that is aligned with your views. Now it sounds something like del.icio.us.-- MisterQED, Jan 21 2008 [MisterQED], if you think a directory could solve the described problem better and more efficiently, can you describe, how you understood or imagined it before realizing it's something to embed into any HTML page?-- Inyuki, Jan 21 2008 This is probably baked somewhere but what I was thinking was a site laid out like HB, except a lot more branching based and named “wikiactivist”, “wikiargument” or something. The site would just be a central branching system to find points of contention and then link to other media expounding different sides of the arguments or different solutions for the problem. The layout would probably start geographically and thematically and then branch down. Keep the site mostly text based so the server overhead is manageable and just lead people to the other data and to other groups that align with their views. Each entry would be limited in size to try to keep most of the info in the external links.
So you could go on and click North America > USA > NJ > Government > Senate and find who your state senator is, who their opponents are and what are the points of contention, find out the present guy wants to sell off a local park and then join a group that wants to keep the park. Or maybe find out that the park is really just a crime magnet and the company who wants to buy it will employ thousands and build an even bigger park outside of town. The idea is to keep the site itself unbiased and let the submitters battle it out.
This is certainly nothing that you couldn’t find with a good Google search, but maybe you wouldn’t know to look unless you saw the options. It also sounds like a horrific nightmare to manage as people will continually snipe outside of their areas and the topics will very quickly steer to the extremes.-- MisterQED, Jan 22 2008 One thing is certain. Government in its current execution could / (should?) wholly fundamentally be remodeled given the right mix of Web 2.0 tools.
I wonder if a Greek model of more direct democracy could overcome its historical practical hurdles. Perhaps some form of 'wikimocracy.'-- RayfordSteele, Jan 23 2008 [RayfordSteele], I also believe it could be, and perhaps even direct democracy could be achieved with the right web tools.
What I can imagine with this tool is a democratic creative process, where a group of people can make democratic decisions the first step to do to realize an idea, followed by their actions until the step is completed, and the same way making the decisions about the following steps until the idea is realized.
Of course, in reality, not always one does accomplish the 1st step in one's plan as 1st step, but this apparently wouldn't overcomplicate the process, because it is possible to change the step 1 into something else until it is consistent with what it is possible to do right away...-- Inyuki, Jan 23 2008 //Seriously, this idea is way too idealistic to come to fruition.//
Why? It's basically a different take on a search engine. Instead of searching for your endpoint, you walk a path that takes you there. This isn't some site that would have monsterous overhead (YouTube) and the endpoint websites would probably provide a lot of the content. The big bitch is laying out a managable central structure and managing the interconnects to make reasonable choices possible and unreasonable choices impossible. i.e. a discussion on abortion could link to religion and adoption, but shouldn't link to donuts or zoning. (I had a list of ideas it shouldn't link to and then thought of reasonable reasons to link to them. Maybe there is one for Donuts or zoning, but I can't think of them.)-- MisterQED, Jan 24 2008 [UnaBubba], how do you make this prediction, when saying 'It may take 70 years to figure that out but it will eventually fall victim to the avarice of people.'?
I was thinking of possibility to multi task on such a system to satisfy people's needs quicker, but ended up thinking that it may be better to decide and accomplish each step one by one, sticking to slower/better (as opposed to faster/cheaper) philosophy.
By the way, [UnaBubba], I think there is a way for people not to fall victim of their avarice (such as connecting their brain so well, as our left and right hemispheres are connected through the corpus callosum, so they wouldn't feel they are different entities...), but that certainly would require many problems to be solved.-- Inyuki, Jan 24 2008 [rcarty], the rich people would have nice chances to invest into the ideas that have sufficiently many participants, which would happen naturally as people would read the web.
Of course, the power of money may decline because of people's conscious activity. Greedy rich people could fear losing their power, but philanthropic rich people could find happiness in thinking of and presenting new ideas exciting for the public, and participating in their realization.-- Inyuki, Jan 24 2008 Some version of this seems like a good idea. For small projects, just helping people connect would be enough. For larger projects, though, transparent ways of voting on priorities, managing financial contributions, etc. would also be useful. Google "social escrow" for a somewhat related idea.-- Ford, Jan 24 2008 [Ford], if we try to avoid manipulation by money, I think "social escrow" principles have certain limitations.
I think this tool could work better if people simply participated for actual things to be created or done on their leisure time, making contributing to interesting projects and ideas a form of a hobby, relaxation and self-actualization.-- Inyuki, Jan 25 2008 I'm a web-based person, and any tools I might use to help organise myself would come in most handy.-- zen_tom, Jan 25 2008 //I'm a web-based person//
Best tell [blissmiss] then.-- skinflaps, Jan 25 2008 random, halfbakery