I personally found it to be an alienating and extractive experience. You're a face in a box. When you attempt to make a short, coherent comment, you're trying to jam in your words before your face box is closed--that is the stressful impression I was left with. For me, it was almost the opposite of the transformative power of connection and collaboration that seem to be a main strength and hallmark of citizens assemblies? I guess the goal of this deliberative poll is to try to efficiently gather collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds simultaneously and as quickly as possible? But there was no trust built, so I left not feeling like I had been able to see or hear others, and I, myself, felt unseen to the point of being misunderstood. Extractive/alienating, vs. empowering?
Claudia Chwalisz's latest DemocracyNext newsletter describes what I found to be lacking in the Deliberative Polling® experience:
"There is no magic shortcut to solving the deep trust problems underpinning the breakdown of social cohesion, the growing polarisation, and people’s sense of alienation and lack of belonging. Technology can’t fix them for us, and we can’t skip them either.
It’s why I defend the value of longer-form deliberative processes and spaces like Citizens’ Assemblies that typically last 4-6 days, often longer, over many months. Sometimes people ask if there are lighter-touch ways — like whether a day or two, or doing the process online — would create similar effects and outcomes. It depends on your goal. If you want to strengthen trust in a lasting way, this takes time. If you want people to be able to feel more open and vulnerable, to be willing to get into the hard conversations respectfully, and to come up with genuinely thoughtful and ambitious propositions that don’t shy away from the complexities and trade-offs of an issue, and carry legitimacy for implementation, then the short answer is no."
Does anyone reading this have a video examples of what good collective intelligence deliberation looks like? I’m willing to sit for a couple hours and watch one, but I’d like to come away from it with several ideas for how good deliberations differs from debate. Basically, a filmed version of a great citizens’ assembly. Thanks in advance!
Totally fascinating and revealing section, Terry. That people actually research and do experiments on this sort of stuff is encouraging. Have you ever read the book Crowdocracy? It tries to formulate actually using the wisdom of crowds to do politics.
The wisdom of crowds kind of aspires to a middle position, which is assumed to be the best political decision. But this is obviously a problem with much of policy today, if not in the past also. Almost all yes/no decisions by definition don’t have a middle position. And as you say, groupthink out competes individual decisions most of the time.
It seems that it is EXTREMELY important to put policy questions to decision makers that are constructed to have a possible middle position that is acceptable and correct enough to not destroy the planet. I think only deliberation is the way to do this. Right now, at least in the US, most policy is formulated by partisan think tanks or individuals, and so the decisions made are skewed to these interests, either way.
Btw, since I sub, often in elementary school, I see groupthink and deference to the “experts” all the time. Ask a question to the class, and someone, usually correct, will blurt out the answer. Others just mimic them. The best is when that answer is wrong. I usually ask the class to vote on the right answer, and groupthink happens there too.
Again, great writing!! I’m reading a book now that describes an issue —so-called invasive species — that the policymakers and most people got wrong, and mostly still refuse to see that. Science is littered with these issues, almost by definition. The scientific method — basically asking and deliberate process of give and take — is theoretically the proper answer, but it has also been hijacked by partisan and corporate interests.
Long comment here. Just wanted to add my personal perspective to Fishkin's Deliberative Poll®. I participated in the First Global Deliberative Poll® about a year ago. https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/results-first-global-deliberative-pollr-announced-stanfords-deliberative-democracy-lab
I personally found it to be an alienating and extractive experience. You're a face in a box. When you attempt to make a short, coherent comment, you're trying to jam in your words before your face box is closed--that is the stressful impression I was left with. For me, it was almost the opposite of the transformative power of connection and collaboration that seem to be a main strength and hallmark of citizens assemblies? I guess the goal of this deliberative poll is to try to efficiently gather collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds simultaneously and as quickly as possible? But there was no trust built, so I left not feeling like I had been able to see or hear others, and I, myself, felt unseen to the point of being misunderstood. Extractive/alienating, vs. empowering?
Claudia Chwalisz's latest DemocracyNext newsletter describes what I found to be lacking in the Deliberative Polling® experience:
"There is no magic shortcut to solving the deep trust problems underpinning the breakdown of social cohesion, the growing polarisation, and people’s sense of alienation and lack of belonging. Technology can’t fix them for us, and we can’t skip them either.
It’s why I defend the value of longer-form deliberative processes and spaces like Citizens’ Assemblies that typically last 4-6 days, often longer, over many months. Sometimes people ask if there are lighter-touch ways — like whether a day or two, or doing the process online — would create similar effects and outcomes. It depends on your goal. If you want to strengthen trust in a lasting way, this takes time. If you want people to be able to feel more open and vulnerable, to be willing to get into the hard conversations respectfully, and to come up with genuinely thoughtful and ambitious propositions that don’t shy away from the complexities and trade-offs of an issue, and carry legitimacy for implementation, then the short answer is no."
Does anyone reading this have a video examples of what good collective intelligence deliberation looks like? I’m willing to sit for a couple hours and watch one, but I’d like to come away from it with several ideas for how good deliberations differs from debate. Basically, a filmed version of a great citizens’ assembly. Thanks in advance!
Totally fascinating and revealing section, Terry. That people actually research and do experiments on this sort of stuff is encouraging. Have you ever read the book Crowdocracy? It tries to formulate actually using the wisdom of crowds to do politics.
The wisdom of crowds kind of aspires to a middle position, which is assumed to be the best political decision. But this is obviously a problem with much of policy today, if not in the past also. Almost all yes/no decisions by definition don’t have a middle position. And as you say, groupthink out competes individual decisions most of the time.
It seems that it is EXTREMELY important to put policy questions to decision makers that are constructed to have a possible middle position that is acceptable and correct enough to not destroy the planet. I think only deliberation is the way to do this. Right now, at least in the US, most policy is formulated by partisan think tanks or individuals, and so the decisions made are skewed to these interests, either way.
Btw, since I sub, often in elementary school, I see groupthink and deference to the “experts” all the time. Ask a question to the class, and someone, usually correct, will blurt out the answer. Others just mimic them. The best is when that answer is wrong. I usually ask the class to vote on the right answer, and groupthink happens there too.
Again, great writing!! I’m reading a book now that describes an issue —so-called invasive species — that the policymakers and most people got wrong, and mostly still refuse to see that. Science is littered with these issues, almost by definition. The scientific method — basically asking and deliberate process of give and take — is theoretically the proper answer, but it has also been hijacked by partisan and corporate interests.