This bit of infor-mation, together with recent research showing biased search results can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters,10 points to the need to start asking questions about the degree to which such curation and ranking sys-tems can affect democratic processes
Algorithmic accountability
DATA GOVERNANCE
la Data Governance fa pensare ad una Pubblica Amministrazione come unico organismo pensante e decisorio. Un concetto facile da metabolizzare, ma che non rispecchia spesso l'architettura reale delle PA di grandi dimensioni come i Comuni capoluogo, ad esempio.
La Data Governance parte da una PA che ha progettato o implementato la sua piattaforma informatica di 1) gestione dei flussi di lavoro interni e 2) gestione di servizi erogati all'utenza, in maniera tale da eliminare totalmente l'uso del supporto cartaceo e da permettere esclusivamente il data entry sia internamente dagli uffici che dall'utenza che richiede servizi pubblici agli enti pubblici. La Data Governance può essere adeguatamente ed efficacemente attuata solo se nella PA si tiene conto di questi elementi anzidetti. In merito colgo l'occasione per citare le 7 piattaforme ICT che le 14 grandi città metropolitane italiane devono realizzare nel contesto del PON METRO. Ecco questa si presenta come un occasione per le 14 grandi città italiane di dotarsi della stessa DATA GOVERNANCE, visto che le 7 piattaforme ICT devono (requisito) essere interoperabili tra loro. La Data Governance si crea insieme alla progettazione delle piattaforme informatiche che permettono alla PA di "funzionare" nei territori. La Data Governance è indissolubilmente legata al "data entry". Il data entry non prevede scansioni di carta o gestione di formati di lavoro non aperti. La Data Governance nelle sue procedure operative quotidiana è alla base della politica open data di qualità. Una Data Governance della PA nel 2016-17-... non può ancora fondarsi nella costruzione manuale del formato CSV e relativa pubblicazione manuale ad opera del dipendente pubblico. Una Data Governance dovrebbe tenere in considerazione che le procedure di pubblicazione dei dataset devono essere automatiche e derivanti dalle funzionalità degli stessi applicativi gestionali (piattaforme ICT) in uso nella PA, senza alcun intervento umano se non nella fase di filtraggio/oscuramento dei dati che afferiscono alla privacy degli individui.
voters have little incentive to vote at al
Key problem that includes "the DAO"
“I don’t like big government,” Sundeyeva said. She made two circles with her thumbs and forefingers and pressed them against each other so they touched, like binoculars. This Venn diagram represents the interests of people and government, she said. “They don’t have very much in common.”
It's my firm belief that "big" vs "small" government is a juvenile argument. It's much more productive to ask what things government does well and what things it doesn't. Make it as large as necessary to handle the things it does well.
While a statement like "I don't like big government" basically renders this person's politics dismally weak to me, I'll try to read the rest of the article anyway.
It is the third bucket that contains the most ambitious applications: “smart contracts” that execute themselves automatically under the right circumstances. Bitcoin can be “programmed” so that it only becomes available under certain conditions.
In other words, it can facilitate a deferred payment system that works when the payer provides payment in escrow, like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding systems. It could manage deposits on purchase-and-sale agreements and handle escrows on legal judgments, without a third party holding title to the money. The core financial system itself could hold the money.
Could it be made into a complete deferred payment system for managing loans, mortgages, and coupon bonds? I don’t know how, since the source of those payments is outside the bitcoin system and generally doesn’t exist at the time of the loan or bond purchase. But imagine if a financial system was entirely built around a programmable trust system, then financial instruments themselves become a part of the logic of a company’s assets and liabilities. When a corporate bond coupon comes due the company treasurer doesn't create a transaction, instead the coupon payment is automatically transferred to the holder of the bond by the financial system itself. That is, the structure of the bond has been integrated directly into the financial system for automatic execution.
If a future government were to implement blockchain technology and legislate its adoption throughout the financial community (perhaps as an option, in parallel with the pre-existing system), it could 'write the code' for legally certified instruments like corporate bonds, mortgages, car loans. It could further write legally permissible derivatives of those instruments (yes, derivatives have tremendous value in reducing risk, when used wisely).
At that point, financial companies like Vanguard or Fidelity could issue mutual funds whose prospecti assert that the only kind of instruments held by the fund were those certified by the government to use the legislated systems. This could reasonably allow safe and less expensive adoption of powerful financial instruments with far less risk to the system.
Sure there are plenty of flaws and dangers in this kind of a system. But could they be worked out to create a safer, less expensive, more transparent and more accessible financial system than we currently have? Would it help engender some of the trust that has most recently been lost?
This has implications far beyond the cryptocurrency
The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.
Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.
I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.
How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?
Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.
Canada is unique in the world in that it is the only country whose national government has no authority in education;
Though it may be taken for granted by actors in the sphere of learning in Canada, this factoid can have a large impact in terms of “Canadian Exceptionalism”.
And claims about the magical powers of tax cuts are often little more than a mask for the real agenda of crippling government by starving it of revenue.
This part I absolutely agree with. However, most of these people would, I suspect, vociferously deny being anarchists, but also claim to be patriots. Perhaps it's worth asking why, if governance itself is not an issue, why these people seem to believe that government cannot scale. It's hard to govern large areas effectively, and in the public interest, but it's not clear that it's impossible.
I have been worried for a little while now about the construction industry in Australia turning their apprentices (heavily subsidised by Govt) into "sub-contractors" once there is no more subsidy available when the apprenticeship is completed.
It means that (often) young people are turfed into the business world with little business acumen, still treating themselves as "employees" of the company/tradesman who indentured their skills learning. Unable to negotiate their own income and terms because of limited financial planning skills.
If apprentices are to be shoved into this world, they are doomed to fail unless they are provided with the adequate business governance learning and advice. Understanding their legal and fiscal obligations as a sub-contractor is vital and being able to say NO to companies who demand rights to monopoly over their contractual services is imperative.
However the Internet changes how governments work, I’m optimistic that it’s a good thing for governance.
However, we have to be extremely wary of importing too many things from the technology world into governments. "Move fast and break things" is great when you can just roll out a patch, but not so good when it costs a generation their education or health care.
Governance has to adapt to global catastrophes and individual suffering at the same time. It’s hard.