Foresight Engine

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Participatory budgeting initiatives on a large and wired scale could help enhance citizen engagement and make city services more responsive

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Decline in citizen identification with national and local government institutions as well as local communities.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

Adaptation of the innovations. Large number of elderly people who are not used to use technology.

Recruit young people (volunteer or paid) to help elderly adapt to new technologies

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

cities open all data, share all documents about all urban systems and provide help to any citizen who needs

Free-for-all open urban planning & data strategy leads to tragedies of the commons, lawsuits, security problems

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Momentum in response to:

In an era of mobility, globalization and flexible labour markets, harder for people to feel like they have a stake in their community.

Civic tensions of "locals" (majority who strongly identify w/ local region) vs "globals" (mobile) worsen (like London-UK tensions x 20)

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

"Vote-weighting" algorithms for more- vs. less-informed citizens and lawmakers.

Who determines the politics of the algorithms and what counts as informed? Major tool of hegemony there.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Worry about valuable aspects of "traditional" civics institutions are most likely lost & not replaced by focus on civics innovation?

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

The people asked to deliver the innovations at the frontline are at the brink of change overload. Change is done to them, not with them.

Maybe new career paths specifically for frontline civic service innovation leaders needed

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Adapt carbon emissions trading for necessary civic ills. Citizens trade "sin credits" to even out pro-social inputs. Derivatives not allowed

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

perhaps no governments, but what about governance? more of an art than science it would seem.

For any "positive future", there will be winners & losers. Governance/civics aim is to manage winners/losers relationship over long-term

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

Monetizing (or quasi-monetizing) pro-social behavior may encourage unnecessary ills. Think Catholic indulgences.

Community could set and enforce high and low end caps on the trading for each participant

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

who decides what a 'sin' is and how much a 'sin credit' is worth?

The trading is a social management process that doesn't set the fundamental values that go into it. That's for a civics debate process

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Momentum in response to:

what are some necessary civic ills?

Behavior using civic infrastructure in ways that are legitimate but don't consider collective good. E.g. SUV commutes vs public transport

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

How do you include low-income folks who are holding down 2-3 jobs?

could sort level of participation by socio-economic group/profession etc.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

Randomize selection of MPs (like Athenian democracy)

Makes political system highly volatile and unreliable + loss of political skills/capital

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

Juries are subject to voir dire by attorneys & power of judge. And political representation is a bigger, more complex job.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

Juries are subject to voir dire by attorneys & power of judge. And political representation is a bigger, more complex job.

Deliberative democracy w/ jury-style selection may be solution 4 some policy contexts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_democracy

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Investigation in response to:

Why do winner and losers need to be manages?

To avoid collapse of the social contract that holds the polity together. E.g. the welfare state, the Bill of Rights....

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Investigation in response to:

Democracy and long-termism don't play well together.

So which form of government does play well with long-termism? Or is Churchill's quote that democracy=the least worst valid here?

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Momentum in response to:

We don't have a choice on which governments we use. We only choose the people that are put in it.

Democracies do change their government processes e.g. Governance of UK has changed in major ways over the last few decades

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Investigation in response to:

How about a private/public partnership "commons" colony on Mars to prototype new governance models! Insert Dator's 2nd Law here!

Interesting but even with incentives, how to ensure diversity of backgrounds, personalities etc.? Would there be a "pioneer" skew?

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

it seems it's becoming a fashion. Also the White House launched its own version: petitions.whitehouse.gov

petitions.whitehouse.gov is just for communication; no real legislative purpose. You don't have to be a US citizen or adult to participate

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Publicly-funded tradition of Borgen-style alternate reality game/reality TV shows where citizens act out ongoing govt. policy scenarios

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Uncertainty /confusion/disputes over what innovation means and how to evaluate innovation processes and outcomes (including negative).

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

Policies and initiatives with built-in expiry dates.

Sunset provisions are ancient & used today (e.g. US assault weapons ban) but rare. Universal sunset use would make long-term planning harder

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Antagonism in response to:

Existing democracies fall back on tactics and opportunism, over any kind of thoughtful strategy. Permanently fighting fires.

Why suppose tactics/opportunism is special to democracies today? Strategy/foresight should accommodate/harness tactics/opp. not eradicate

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Civil/personhood rights, inspired by corporate personhood rights, extended to ecosystems, wildlife, sacred sites etc. ( good & bad effects)

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Adaptation in response to:

Get rid of liberal/general requirements in College

New Liberal Arts movement/redesign. Liberal Arts originally designed to produce free empowered citizens. Redesign needed for 21C citizens

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Civics can be thought fundamentally of in terms of boundaries: insiders vs outsiders. To what extent should civic innov. include outsiders?

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Selectively extend voting on certain local government policy areas to local community teenagers.

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

Momentum in response to:

Extend municipal voting rights to all residents of the city (i.e. remove national citizenship requirement).

This already happens with Commonwealth/Irish resident voters in all UK elections & EU in local elections. City identity may be stronger even

played almost 8 years ago by zhanli

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