politics

Iceland Turns to the People for Constitutional Reform

- Adam Clare

Iceland is a fantastic place that the rest of the world can learn from. They get 99% of their energy from geothermal power and have perhaps the most open government the world has ever seen. Recently they turned to the power of social media to rewrite their constitution!

In many ways then, the new Iceland constitution was the first to ever be born completely in the public eye. Sure, constitutional assemblies are often open to some sort of public scrutiny, but Iceland’s was broadcast on the internet. Council members regularly interacted with commenters, and every week the latest drafts of the various chapters (or the work related to their writing) were shared via a public website. Live broadcasts of the open council meetings were shown every Thursday via their site as well as Facebook. There was even a regular e-newsletter. Iceland used the web like never before to open up their process to the world and attract the attention of their public.

Yet the enthusiasm from the public hasn’t exactly been stellar (maybe they didn’t like the singing?). Despite the historic nature of the constitutional elections, little more than a third of Iceland actually voted (83,531 or 35.95% of the ~230,000 eligible voters). That election, by the way, was deemed invalid by the Supreme Court of the nation due to problems with voter privacy, and the parliament had to eventually appoint the same elected candidates to the Constitutional Council in order to get things rolling. It’s unclear how that debacle tainted the opinion of the council in the eyes of the Icelandic public. While the social media presence has been active during the writing of the constitution, the main website only garnered about 1600 comments. That’s certainly a lot for the Council to wade through, but I’m not sure you can call it a mandate from Iceland’s people – especially when you consider many comments were made from interested parties from all over the world.

Read the full article at Singularity Hub

New Ways to Poll Public Opinion on Politicians

- Adam Clare

Traditional pollsters use the telephone to try to figure out what people’s opinion on politicians happens to be. I’ve asked around to see if anybody I know has been called by a pollster and the number is a giant zero. I attribute this to the fact that you can’t tele-market to cellphones in Canada (or some similarly good regulation), so essentially anybody who doesn’t have landline won’t be counted in the polls.

This means that polls are missing a large chunk of the population and are not truly representative of the true population. How many people under 30 have a landline? Now there are a few companies trying to make polling relevant again by using popular web services to augment their measurements.

Layton’s tweets reached 322,305 people last week, according to the firm’s data. Ignatieff’s tweets reached 270,218 people and Harper’s had an audience of 156,536.

At first glance, those numbers seem to be at odds with the fact Harper has tens of thousands more Twitter followers than either Ignatieff or Layton.

But, Navigator’s Will Stewart says this is likely because of differences in the parties’ social media strategies

Read the rest of the article.

Disclosure: someone from Klout forwarded this to me.

Project Democracy

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Canadian democracy has been ridiculed lately and rightly so. Under Harper’s pathetic leadership we have seen the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, the largest deficit this country has ever seen, the attempted dismantling of a working financial economy and Canada’s international reputation erode to meaninglessness. That on top of the Conservative’s repulsion of anything remotely environmentally friendly.

All of this has got a lot Canadian really angry at their current leadership (if you’re not angry about this you really should be). Now a bunch of Canadians have launched Project Democracy to rid Ottawa of the worst prime minster that Canada has seen this century.

I encourage every Canadian to vote out Stephen Harper’s Conservatives across the country!

When was the last time you saw good news posted here about action that the Conservatives have taken in Ottawa? It’ll be a great news day when we announce that Harper is no longer Prime Minster of Canada!

Project Democracy is a tool to help you determine if there is a way to “amp up” your vote and stop a Harper majority. By using a riding by riding election prediction model based on the most up to date public opinion research, we can tell you which Party is best positioned to defeat the Conservative in your riding. Just enter your postal code in the box to the right.

Check out Project Democracy now.

Bookstores are Still Places for Change

- Adam Clare

In Beijing there stands a bookstore that does more than just sell books – it’s bringing more culture and more discourse to the city. Books are an invaluable way to share ideas and as a result bookstores tend to create a culture around them that encourages critical thinking.

However, the Bookworm is more than just a bookshop with a library, bar and restaurant: it’s a hot house of discussion, creativity and ideas in one of the world’s most happening cities.

Its big book-lined rooms, free Wi-Fi, hip music and good food have made it a magnet for expats and young, English-speaking Chinese alike.

But it’s the Bookworm International Literary Festival that has put it on the map for top international authors curious about China: Americans Dave Eggers and David Sedaris were here for events in January. This month, Toronto’s Emma Donoghue and 70 other writers from 19 different countries celebrated the festival’s fifth year, which wraps up Friday.

Read the rest of the article.

Soros Funding New Ways to Think About the Economy

- Adam Clare

Billionaire George Soros has provided $50 million to establish the Institute for New Economic Thinking that looks to rethink how modern economies work. Modern capitalism is need of a complete overhaul given the ongoing global struggles countries are having running and improving their economies – let alone improving the lives of their people.

It’s good to see that even the people who profited from modern capitalism see it’s failures and want to fix them.

What does the institute aim to achieve?

A radical reorientation of economic theory. Exactly what shape it will take is impossible to predict, but I hope it will recognise the fundamental uncertainties in our economic system. These uncertainties have been ignored for the past 25 years.

Wouldn’t it be better to eliminate the uncertainties, so we can avoid a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008?

We will never be able to do that. There will always be a threat of instability – it’s built into the market. You can’t avoid it, but you can be aware of it. Perfection might be unattainable, but we can become less imperfect by recognising the imperfections.

Tell me about some of the projects that have been selected for funding by the institute.

I am encouraged by the fact that INET is embracing multiple disciplines. The first round of grants have been given to people with backgrounds in law, history, medicine and science, as well as economics and finance. Several projects are taking concepts directly from science, such as the mathematics behind the spread of contagious diseases, and applying the principles to financial markets. During the financial crisis we saw instances of contagion – how a relatively small number of infected institutions made others sick.

Read the rest at the New Scientist.

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