Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Behind the scenes of: ‘How do you compare with Theresa May?’
‘How do you compare with Theresa May?‘ is a new collection of questions we launched yesterday. In this post I aim to explain how we went about creating it, some of the challenges doing so poses and how we plan to answer those. What we did To create the collection ‘How do you compare with…
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Introducing… Collections (aka: how to make a quiz on Represent)
Yesterday we launched a collection of questions that allowed users to compare themselves with the views and policies of the, now, UK prime minister Theresa May. We’ve done a few comparison quizzes like this before, for the London Mayoral elections and for the EU Referendum. Crafting these first quizzes was was a little time consuming…
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One X is not enough to determine your future.
So what next? TL;DR: Democracy is being updated at https://rep.roundbear.org — the world’s first online peer-to-peer governance platform. Get involved. Ultimately, after the denial and amazement, this is our opportunity to make Great Britain do bold, brilliant, and inspiring things. We have no one holding us back, and no one to blame. The future is ours to…
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Your UK polling day toolkit – everything you need to get to the polls and vote
Polling stations across the UK will be open today from 7am until 10pm today. We’ve put together everything your need to make your voice count. Find your polling station If you have your polling card to hand your polling station should be clearly marked. But, life is not always that simple. Find your nearest polling…
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How do we make delegative democracy a reality? or “What do points mean?”
Delegative democracy (aka ‘liquid democracy’) is what most people invent when answering the question “How do we make politics better?” We start at “well we should all be able to vote on everything”, but then realise we don’t want to vote on everything and also probably don’t know enough detail to trust ourselves. So we…
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What we’ve been working on: sort by consensus, Android & iOS apps, improved design, and more
It’s been a productive few months for us. With the new design you can now easily access the full power of Represent: location-awareness, topics, groups, comparing to other users, and far fewer distractions. We also added an iOS app to join our Android app, so you can ‘do the citizen thing’ rather than scrolling endless…
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“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
I’ve just been reminded of this excellent snippet from So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish “On [this] world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,”…
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Will there be a European Spring? Or an Arab Summer? We’ll find out in 10 days.
How do the attitudes of young people in Tunisia, Egypt, libya, Algeria, Morocco compare to those of young people in the UK? And how do those differ from the older people in those countries? That was the question given to us a few days ago by the British Council and Bootstrap Company for a presentation at…
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We’re growing!
Member snapshot as of today. 47,373 answers 838 people That’s an average of 57 votes per person. Not bad when you realise that you’ll only vote 14 times in general elections.
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Successful participatory democracy experiment is actually quite boring
A common first reaction to the idea of more participative democracy is that dangerous and radical things will happen – ie the “we’ll bring back hanging” cliché. So it is that I love this finding an experiment by our friends at Loomio reported on Civicist. At the end of the four weeks, after five discussions consisting…
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Good things to read
Inspired by the #SummerOfTech alternative summer reading list for MPs (and everyone) here are our picks, and some other good things we’ve been reading here at Represent. Our favourites: More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First by Steve Hilton Blueprint for a Revolution by Srdja Popovic Betterness by Umair Haque Rebooting Democracy by Manuel Arriga Hardcore…
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Things we’ve been reading recently
25% of Estonians electoral votes are cast online. Laws have been updated to address the issues of privacy, security and trust, without reverting to isolation and protectionism. Manuel Arriaga, author of the excellent Rebooting Democracy discusses the possibility of a “Citizen’s Chamber” as an additional political entity in Foreign Policy. “Being able to affect how things are run in…
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This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind
via Bloomberg There are two main points to take from this graph. 1. Change is happening faster – that much is obvious. 2. Compassion is changing. This one’s a little harder to discern, but either: a) Our ‘circle of compassion’ is expanding to include more people who aren’t like us, or b) Our ‘circle of social…
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8 ways online democracy changes everything.
The chances are you’re not going to get the MP you voted for — but that might not matter for very much longer. There is a quiet revolution taking place in democracy, bringing new thinking to how we take decisions together. For the first time ever, what you want — your preferences, values, and ideas — can be heard locally, nationally,…
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Can you help? Are you in a group which wants more people involved in decisions?
What we’re looking for: We’d like to hear from groups who can help us test and improve our new features for decision making within an interest group. Examples include: Businesses who want to engage employees in decisions and get ideas from across a large team Should we have more vegetarian options at lunch? Shall we try to…
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7 steps to a political system we can all be proud of
One of the worst things about elections is that we all go along with a lie which none of us believe: “This is the best we can do.” We can do far better, and if you’ve ever shouted at the radio or watched the Leaders Debate without believing that they are amongst the smartest people…
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5 Predictions for the 2020 General Election
1. It may not be in 2020. The outcome of the 2015 elections is not going to be a stable parliament. The coalition leaders are not acquainted to working as effective, mixed teams; and the media will insist on reporting division and personality. This, coupled with the scale and importance of the critical decisions we citizens need them to lead…
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We’re for .everyone
You may have read Martha Lane-Fox‘s call for: A new institution could be the catalyst we need to shape the world we want to live in and Britain’s role in that world. Today, we’re letting big commercial technology platforms shape much of our digital lives, dominating the debate about everything from online privacy to how…
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How to make important decisions: locally, regionally, globally.
Represent exists to map the world’s opinions and values so that we might find better ways of working together for the greater good. But if we’re to represent people globally, we are going to need some really good maps and really clever data manipulation. Which is why I am so incredibly proud of our tech team…
Got any book recommendations?