Tree of Knowledge

Steven Clift’s idea that we need to build in ’sidewalks for democracy’ in government websites (ie social forums - moderated comments sections, social networking tools etc - that allow citizens to interact with each other while they are interfacing with government online) was still fresh in my mind when I re-read the following section from Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody:

“Every webpage is a latent community. Each page collects the attention of people interested in its contents, and those people might well be interested in conversing with one another, too. In almost all cases the community will remain latent, either because the potential ties are too weak… or because the people looking at the page are separated by too wide a gulf of time, and so on. But things like the comments section on Flickr allow those people who do want to activate otherwise-latent groups to at least try it.” (Shirky, Here Comes Everybody; The Power of Organising Without Organisations, 2008, p. 102).

I think this is a good way of looking at online citizen engagement. The premise of Shirky’s book is that as a result of the flood of new social media tools that have emerged recently, the transaction costs of forming groups or communities of interest have collapsed. As a result, we can now form communities around a whole range of subjects that in the past simply wasn’t worth the effort. For policy makers keen to increase government’s responsiveness and its ability to ‘listen’ to its citizens, these latent communities of interest could be an information god send.

It’s likely that there are hundreds of latent communities revolving around a specific government activities waiting to be engaged. A great example of this in practice can be seen on the US Transportation Security Administration blog which has recently successfully activated latent communities revolving around travel security requirements and the administration of different airports. If we can engage latent communities around issues as prosaic as airline security processes at your local airport, I can imagine there would be literally hundreds more waiting to be engaged.

Brendan Nelson demonstrated the depth of the Coalition’s economic policy shambles during his doorstop on the Garnaut Report today by stating:

Anyone that doesn’t think that $1.70 a litre is a price signal is living on a different planet from the one that the rest of us are trying to drive around on at the moment.

Fair enough you might say. The problem is that that’s not the tune the Coalition has been singing to date, with their Environment Spokesman, Greg Hunt making statements like the one below on a number of occasions:

In economic terms, petrol is largely inelastic, which means that as price rises there is only a small change in driving behaviour but a large effect on low-income families.

The Coalition can’t have it both ways. Higher petrol prices either send a price signal that causes people to drive less as the Leader of the Opposition seems to be saying, or they don’t, as the Environment Spokesman has been saying for the past months.

As Josh Gans has noted here and here, there is clear evidence that petrol is a reasonably elastic good and that people do respond to increasing prices by decreasing consumption (so Nelson is right).

But given that the design of a national ETS is the biggest economic policy debate going in Australia at the moment, isn’t it more than a little embarrassing that the Leader of the Opposition and the Environment Spokesman seem to be contradicting each other on a basic economic question underpinning the design of the policy?

Doesn’t this call their economic credentials (further) into question?

Did anyone else think there was something odd about Brendan Nelson’s doorstop on the Garnaut Report:

Well the Opposition welcomes the release of Professor Garnaut’s draft report into climate change. There are a number of key principles for Australia and indeed for the Opposition. Climate change is real and we take the view as does Rupert Murdoch that we have to give the planet the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t view Rupert as the evil megalomaniac that many seem to, but it does strike me as rather odd that third sentence from Brendan Nelson’s mouth on Climate Change is ‘Rupert Murdoch agrees with me’.

Just saying.

“The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change. The outsider to climate science has no rational choice but to accept that, on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream science is right.

There are prominent dissenters on this matter, gathered under the rubric of ’sceptic’. For the most part ’sceptic’ is a misnomer for their position, because these dissenters hold strongly to the belief that the mainstream science is wrong.…..

Australia has a larger interest in a strong mitigation outcome than other developed countries. Our location makes us already a hot and dry country; small variations in climate are more damaging to us than to other developed countries. We live in a region of developing countries, which are in weaker positions to adapt to climate change than wealthy countries with robust political and economic institutions. The problems of our neighbours would inevitably become our problems. And the structure of our economy suggests that our terms of trade would be damaged more by the effects of climate change than would those of any other developed country……

By mid century business as usual is likely to see irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin lose half of its annual output. The Great Barrier Reef will be effectively destroyed.

By the close of the century, business as usual, at the median
of the probability distributions of mainstream science’s assessment, is likely to have ended irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basin. Depopulation will be under way.

The increased incidence of heatwaves and hot days is likely to lead to about 4000 more deaths across Queensland annually. The rise in temperatures is likely to have caused the end of snow-based tourism.

HT: Peter Martin

A few people have emailed me about the new ABC series ‘The Hollowmen’ that started this week suggesting I have a look. While I haven’t seen the first episode, I’ve seen the promotional material and there was plenty in it that got me back up.

Maybe I’m just being sensitive as a former ‘adviser’ myself, but I think this kind of stuff is pretty unfair:

“We feel that politicians and advisers are incredibly hollow, in the sense that they can argue any cause,” says Tom Gleisner….. “If the focus group says they should argue A, they’ll argue A and do it extremely well, very convincingly. …. That’s just what they do, and after a while, you get so good at it you don’t realise you’re lying any more. That’s the sort of world we’re stepping into.”

“(The characters) lose their perspective,” says Sitch. “When you’re that focused on outcomes you sometimes forget how ridiculous the things that you’re saying are. Certainly my character is so focused on results that, in one episode, I walk in and everyone’s waiting for me and I know there’s a crisis and I say, ‘Oh, not another cabinet leak?’. And they go, ‘No, there’s been a massacre’. And I go, ‘Oh, thank God for that!’ And that sort of sums it up. It’s not naivety and it’s not stupidity, it’s just when it’s that much intensity, you don’t even hear yourself.”

Having worked in politics for a few years, I can say that from my experience this kind of popular cynicism is both inaccurate and damaging for the health of Australian democracy. I can honestly say that I never met anyone in all my time in Canberra, on either side of politics, that fit this description. There were plenty of people with an unhealthy obsession with politics and plenty of people with a cynical eye. But at the end of the day, nobody gets into politics (as either a staffer or a politician) unless you believe in it. 90% of the evil ’staffers’ could be earning substantially more in the private sector in a far more pleasant work environment. Think about it, would you sign up for spending two weeks out of every four in Canberra, dealing with phone calls at 5am in the morning from radio stations/press offices and working in an intensely high-pressured environment for half of what you could earn in the private sector unless you had an acute case of true believerism?

It’s clear though that the show’s cynicism isn’t just limited to staffers, it extends to the entire political process:

“What interested us was that it doesn’t matter which party the prime minister’s in,” says Sitch…..

“I’m hoping at the end of it people will say, ‘Hang on, I didn’t even realise whether the guy was left or right’,” says Cilauro. “In many ways there’s no difference between left or right when all you’re trying to do is become re-elected.”

Again, this is totally unjustified. Speaking as someone who was there in the worst days of Labor opposition, we desperately wanted to win government. But that wasn’t the end, we wanted to win government because we were unhappy with what the Howard government was doing to the country and thought our ideas were better. In light of the Rudd government’s actions on climate change (anyone remember signing Kyoto?), the Apology, the withdrawal from Iraq and the repeal of Workchoices, does anyone really believe that there is ‘no difference’ between Labor and the Liberals? The gulf might not be as big as some people want it to be, but it’s absurd to say there is ‘no difference’ between the parties. People said the same thing about Bush and Gore in 2000 and look how that turned out.

Beyond this cynicism, there were a whole range of factual errors in the promo material that seriously undermine the believability of the show:

We also noted that a lot of these advisers could work for either side. Some do, informally. They’re kind of laundered.”…

I have NEVER heard of this before – I can’t imagine it ever happening in practice. Similarly,

Rather than the public service running the Prime Minister, now the Prime Minister and his advisers run the public service, so in a way the power flip has been complete and total.”

Huh? Unelected staffers worse than unelected public servants? Staffers are paid to implement a politician’s agenda. Wasn’t the whole joke in Yes Minister that the public service was impeding this?

It’s not just personal indignation that makes me point this out; there are real consequences for democracy when those who work in politics are ritually treated with contempt. In fact, there’s a growing body of academic literature in the UK looking at the impact of ‘The Age of Contempt’ on the health of democracy:

We do not live in a corrupt country, we are not ruled by money-grabbing, power-hungry autocrats. And yet the notion that politicians are honest, honourable individuals doing their damnedest to make their country a better place does seem faintly odd in today’s media environment.

The corrosive effect of this continuous drip of cynicism applies equally to those who might aspire to a career in politics. Our democratic system depends on a body of bright, motivated individuals wishing to become political representatives and aspiring to govern.

But why should anyone be motivated when they see only vitriol, scorn and derision as the reward for a political career? Compared with the possible financial rewards and celebrity status of a career in journalism, what is the appeal of £60,000 a year and a lifetime of vilification?

There’s a lot of truth to this IMHO. There’s no doubt that those working in politics should be carefully scrutinised and make plenty of mistakes that deserve criticism. What they don’t generally deserve is to have their motivations and integrity impugned. I love Working Dog and I expect that the series will be a laugh, but the whole Machiavellian staffer meme is both unjustified and pretty unhelpful for Australian democracy….

The UK government is asking the public to suggest ways of improving the provision of public data, and it’s putting its money where its mouth is:

The UK Government wants to hear your ideas for new products that could improve the way public information is communicated. The Power of Information Taskforce is running a competition on the Government’s behalf, and we have a £20,000 prize fund to develop the best ideas to the next level.

Even better, the government has also put its data where its mouth is, and has made literally gigabytes of data and APIs available for entrepreneurial data crunchers:

To provide you with some ideas we have linked to literally gigabytes of new information here. You have:

• Mapping information from the Ordnance Survey
• Medical information from NHS Choices
• Neighbourhood statistics from the ONS
• Pretty much all Offical Notices (bankruptcy, official appointments, etc) from the London Gazette
• A carbon calculator from Defra

It’s clear from statements like the following that the initiative builds on the increasingly influential ideas in “Government Data and the Invisible Hand“:

We’re confident that you’ll have more and better ideas than we ever will.

I’m keen to see what comes out of it….

Here’s TechPresident’s take.

Given the overwhelming strength of Obama’s organisation, this strikes me as a particularly bad sign for the McCain Campaign:

It’s not just that Davis is being replaced by Steve Schmidt as campaign manager. They are reportedly also scrapping their system of 11 largely autonomous regional managers to run the campaign, an approach to running a national campaign that I do not believe has ever been tried before.

That sounds a lot like they’re scraping the whole operation and starting again from square one, thus squandering the huge advantage they got by sealing up the nomination months in advance of the Democrats.

Via Talking Points Memo.

Brian Costar re-emphasises his pre-election view that the Nationals would comfortably hold Gippsland and that would mean very little:

the responses to last Saturday’s by-elections for the federal seat of Gippsland and the Victorian state seat of Kororoit have been breathlessly extreme.

We are told that the Rudd government is “reeling” from the “backlash” it suffered in Gippsland, where it took a “savage swing of 6.5 per cent.”….

The result in Gippsland was totally predictable…..

According to the latest count, the final vote in Gippsland is Nationals 62.3 per cent to Labor 37.67 per cent. This was a good result (+6.4%) for the Nats, and so it should have been. In the current climate the party that has held the seat since 1922 was not going to let it slip away. They had a good local candidate, ran a good campaign and spent money on it. But that swing also depended on the Liberals marshalling preferences for their Coalition partner.

HT: LP

Due to Queensland’s glorious victory in the State of Origin decider this morning London time, I’m really in no state to write coherently about anything at the moment.

Incoherently however, I could go on at quite some length about how amusing it is that Queensland’s pivots were twice as good as NSW’s even after Scott Prince broke his arm, but I think it’s best for everyone that I nip this ramble in the bud.

Lex Loser’s retreat from the public stage has prompted much mirth on the internets and I’ve been receiving a stream of indignant emails about his farewell interview with Janet Albrechtsen.

Some highlights:

JA: “parliament has just lost one of its towering figures of the past two decades”

Wag: PUKE.

Ok, so not a particularly sophisticated start, but let’s push on…

AD: “We ended the civil war in Bougainville. We played our part in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not try to fix up Cyprus as well?”

Wag: He’s going to ‘fix’ Cyprus like he ‘fixed’ Iraq and Afghanistan? Is that a threat?

Still pretty cheap I guess, let’s try another one:

AD: ‘”No posturing. No spin. Just practical solutions to real problems. The Howard government intellectualised policy and rejected symbolism.”

Wag: Yep, the Pacific Solution was one of the greatest practical solutions to a real problem in Australian history. And sending in the SAS in response to the Tampa was a purely military call – no symbolism involved in Aussie troops violating the laws of piracy.

Some people have LONG memories, how about something more topical..

AD: “I told the Americans they should establish an international criminal tribunal to try President Mugabe and his cronies for their crimes, just as there was one for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia,” he says. “They were very taken with the idea and were going to do some work on it.”

Wag: ‘The Americans’ are such a receptive audience for more ad-hoc tribunals aren’t they. And totally nooooo legal issues re applying Int Crim Law to what’s going on in Zimbabwe.

Come on, Lex has been a long term supporter of international law and he’s always known how to read the crowd…

AD: “I think people’s concern about climate change is declining, by the way”

Wag: Yeah, I can feel the tide turning on this one too… of course it might just be the polar ice caps melting.

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of Lex’s mediation of the Cypriot issue; it’s got almost as much comic potential as Mike Moore’s intervention into the Greek/Macedonian conflict…

The commentary at Road To Surfdom is also amusing in this respect…