Here is a possible thought about what to host for the next designing open democracy conference. Maybe have a panel where moderators from various political debates can discuss on their strategies in keeping the peace in a debate.
One person to potentially invite to such an event is Tony from Q&A (His signature quib is "we don't cross examine our questioners", "I'll take that as a comment")
We had an hour presentation at Linux Users Victoria under LUV November 2018 Main Meeting: Computerbank / Designing Open Democracy https://luv.asn.au/2018/11/07 where we gave a quick overview on the current state of democracy reform organisations in Australia.
Copy of the slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Jy-X4vp_sVMt5dq8mS97GMsx5HYRglXPK45SNlwYCOc/edit?usp=sharing
It went well. We talked about Flux, MiVote, sortition, and opens source voting.
We also pitched ourselves:
Speakers Planned For 2019
Topics future speakers could touch on:
If you can present any of these topic let us know!
https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_politicians_with_randomly_selected_people
This is an interesting talk about sortition at TED, which we have covered in a previous presentation event by Nicholas Gruen and Huburtus Hofkirchner.
https://discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/t/citizens-democracy-presentations-and-q-a-monday-august-21-2017/70/1
RMIT University Melbourne Saturday 5th May from 9am – 6.30pm Not Affiliated with Designing Open Democracy
Free Tickets At EventBrite. Click Here To Register
Designing Open Democracy would like to inform anyone in Melbourne about a democracy related event called "Digital Democracy Forum - Distributed politics and governance" to be hosted in RMIT University (Melbourne) on 5th May from 9am - 6.30pm.
While this event is not affiliated to us, it may still be of interest to those interested in electronic voting. This inaugural conference between MiVote and RMIT University showcases the latest talent in Australian entrepreneurship and innovation in collaborative decision-making and digital democracy.
Further details from the RMIT and MiVote team in: https://digitaldemocracyforum.wordpress.com/
Cheers, Designing Open Democracy Team
Max from Flux has a detailed response to Nick's analysis "Evaluating Democracy Reform Proposals"
(Originally posted in https://nmerange.github.io//politics/evaluation/cause%20prioritisation/evaluating-democracy-reforms-working/ ), last updated May 1, 2018
Author: Nick Merange
There are several promising democracy reforms being developed at the moment, some based on technology while some are not. This is not a comprehensive list, but rather an overview of the most significant efforts I'm aware of after being exposed to several as part of Designing Open Democracy. The descriptions, evaluations and summaries here are rough and open to further revision, readers are encouraged to provide suggestions as to what things should be included and excluded in the following summaries or how I might consider adjusting my evaluations and why.
The primary goal here is to provide a rough evaluation of these interventions, their relative strengths and weaknesses in comparison to each other and our existing democracy according to certain criteria of what we're after in a good democratic system. The following comprises a list of interventions I'll be considering here.
Professor Gillian Triggs presented a public lecture on Friday 23 March 2018 on the topic, "The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in a Post-Truth Era".
Audio Recordings: https://echo360.org.au/media/4fec6400-94d7-421c-96c9-566bd4b2cbd2/public
Notes: http://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2727113/Professor-Gillian-Triggs,-The-decline-of-parliamentary-democracy-in-a-post-truth-era-a-Charter-of-Rights-for-Australia.pdf
http://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/mls-video-gallery/public-lectures-and-events/the-integrity-jim-carlton-lecture-23.03.18
A Charter will also allow Australia to meet its international obligations and resume its leadership position globally and regionally as a good international citizen. Above all,
Australia could return to the rule of law and to the principles of legality upon which
our democracy is based.
Australia’s first Open Government National Action Plan 2016-18 comprises 15 ambitious commitments that promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. This website contains information on our Plan and progress towards its implementation.
Details in
https://ogpau.pmc.gov.au/2018/02/12/open-government-forum-meeting-22-february-2018
This may be of interest to the Accountability Round Table group as they are interested in combating corruption.
Rationale & Vision Designing Open Democracy so far has centered on the niche topic of “Democratic System Reform” and is a gathering of minds to think about ways that our current system could be improved, without endorsing any particular system.
While this topic is very interesting, we are at a juncture where we are trying to work out exactly what is group is and what we are trying to do. We are also aware that there are other groups with similar goals and we want to carve out a niche which teams up with rather than double ups existing efforts.
This could go in any number of directions: * A. Are we just fans of the idea who just want to talk about it for our own enjoyment? or * B. Are we trying to actually change the current system?
Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 6:00 PM to Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 9:00 PM AEDT Beer Deluxe @ Fed Square
2 Swanston St Melbourne VIC 3004 · Melbourne
https://www.meetup.com/designingopendemocracy/events/246894356/