Foresight Engine

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Hard for local social networks to cross the threshold of active participants to become self-sustaining.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

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

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

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

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Give points and rewards for civic engagement to citizens who vote, participate to the community life such as polls, public enquiries…

Tyranny of the time-rich and the middle classes?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Insights from big data and informatics accelerates the concentration of power in the hands of a few, entrenched interests.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Critical Imagination in response to:

What are the barriers to creating these new civic innovations?

Dispersal of unfocused attention and political capital results in innovative capacity being spread too thinly; a thousand flowers wilt.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Is this about democracy and foresight not playing well together?

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

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Daily/weekly/monthly referenda via mobile apps would target citizens individual and shifting interests and may recreate the agora.

Or could lead to information overload, choice paralysis, apathy and exhaustion.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Totes agree, how do we change this? Longer-terms? Better thought out transition periods?

Staggered elections? Ombudsmen for future generations? Roleplaying, gaming, and simulation?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Basic guaranteed income, creating a safety net for entrepreneurial, volunteer and non-market activities.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Ombudsmen who are elected but stay for much longer terms to oversee how future proof current policies and initiatives are?

Couple of examples already out there. Hungary has one.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Force politicians and decision-makers to livestream, with regular Q&A sessions with the viewing audience.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Link?

Have a poke around: http://ajbh.hu/allam/eng/index.htm

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Would that include stay-at-home parents?

Very much so. Could lead to better, more equitable parenting?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Crowdsourcing: Iceland opened up constitution rewriting process to the public. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uJOjh5QBgA&feature=youtu.be

But constitution only adopted if approved by government and legislators.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Create "kickstarter" fundraisers for community projects that can't get funded by local taxer money.

Brickstarter! http://brickstarter.org #YIMBY

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Increased transparency via streaming meetings is great in theory, but "shady" deals will still continue off camera

There is no "off-camera." #orwell

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Drones.

Community-controlled drone fleet monitoring flood damage, traffic, etc.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Paid time for civic engagement can ensure everyone can participate

But would incentivize 'shallow' engagement. Too easily gamed.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Network of local community hackerspaces / incubators / critical infrastructure hubs, as an innovation & resilience multiplier.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Since basic income disconnects from work, work transforms into a creative process, thus leading to more innovation

Fewer penalties for failure: fail faster, fail better, learn, move on to the next thing.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Do you feel that we're progressing into a big-brother state via tech, social media, etc?

I think we have choices, and that sousveillance (surveillance from below) needn't be an entirely negative thing.

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Do you feel that we're progressing into a big-brother state via tech, social media, etc?

That said, things like behavioural economics, big data, and automated bots, could, if applied less than mindfully, have negative knock-ons.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Who controls?

Local schoolchildren.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Lonely people could identify other lonely people through GPS tracking in mobile.

And murder them.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Who trains?

Veterans.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Rate contributions before attributing awards

Who rates?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Haven't we eradicated war? Veterans of??

FEMA's war on climate change.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

ADVANCED CURRENCY SYSTEM - One that electronically 'pays' each of us based on the social value we individually give to our social network.

Who determines the criteria for 'social' value?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

ADVANCED CURRENCY SYSTEM - One that electronically 'pays' each of us based on the social value we individually give to our social network.

Systematic denigration of introverts and the isolated.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Sorry, what do you mean by "FEMA's war on climate change?" While climate denialists are certainly not constructive, it's not really a war

I'm envisaging a PeaceCorps style, volunteer-staffed effort to combat and contain climate-triggered crises, as per #occupysandy.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Students to give anonymously feedback online from teachers. Possibility to rate teachers.

Teachers cowed, too busy trying to appear popular to deliver course content.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Lobbyists are driving lawmaking. How can we control them?

We can't. But we may be able to compete with them. Crowdfunded lobbyists, advocating on behalf of their citizen-donors?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Increasing virtualization reduces in-person community, leading to more impatience and balkanization into tiny groups of People Just Like Us.

ChatRoulette.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

high taxation for bad habits versus taxation reduction for healthy habits

Coercion by another name.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Use existing, anonymized EBT data to track food deserts and predict public health food issues.

Then automatic deployment of government-subsidised hydroponic shipping container vegetable farms.

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Smart kitchens are connected to grocery stores to determine what is needed and recommend to users how much to buy in order to waste less.

Russian cybercriminals DDoS your fridge.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Over-reliance on technology as a silver bullet to most problems.

Roaming 'appropriate technology' task-force.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Google StreetView cars fitted with infrared cameras to detect poorly insulated buildings in residential/commercial zones. Compile online.

Accidentally uncover network of cannabis grow-ops.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Whose "appropriateness" will they measure by?

At a guess, E.F. Schumacher's?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Compiling best practices about green roofs and urban agriculture for building operators/developers to utilize

Where?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Politicians & civil servants become mobile workers, distributed thru community: visible, super-responsive, constantly connecting people.

Resented as interfering, intrusive, paternalistic.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Could prototype this with other habitat-development projects. Public/private Antarctic research colony?

And, more broadly, a range of intentional communities. Clusters of people with similar ideas as 'experiments in living'.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Private Property.

Collectivize everything?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Engage citizens via think tanks focused on a variety of collected topics (think [optional] jury duty) to benefit from differing perspectives

Great idea! How would the topics be chosen?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

A MMO video game to simulate and test democratic models amongst a sample population (i.e. SecondLife for political system development)

Why not try it out in meatspace? Randomised control trials in certain cities or neighbourhoods.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Why not try it out in meatspace? Randomised control trials in certain cities or neighbourhoods.

Though, on second thoughts, that does sound a little bit Stanford Prison Experiment.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Hacking, data theft and vigilantism (ie Anonymous, Lulzsec).

Networked vigilantism as an alternative to police? Open source policing and intelligence?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Free mobile device Applications that holds peoples health records, so that they have it on hand with them at all times.

For those with persistent health issues, this could feel like carrying your own death sentence, particularly if you lack medical literacy.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

As corrective, not destructive, to official system?

There'd be tax savings, for sure. The question is how to make sure it wouldn't be abused. Sousveillance?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Citizens may not want to risk realworld quality of life if the systems dont work. Perhaps conduct a "parallel" test system without risk.

Just concerned the results from an 'as if' playtest wouldn't be representative of reality. Lessons from LARP, maybe?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Antagonism in response to:

Work hours allotted for citizens to discuss politics: government policies, campaigns, etc. at work encouraging civic engagement.

Risk of (soft) workplace discrimination as a result of expressed political views?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Fork the government!

A game runner marked this card Super Interesting.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

As corrective, not destructive, to official system?

Smart (pitchfork-wielding) mobs. Rough justice. Effective, but probably not pleasant.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

The most driven I imagine would be to have centralized think tanks (that may already be in place) outsource to solicit input from the public

TEDx-style? I'm no fan of TED, but they've got a mighty effective franchising infrastructure.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Rephrase: think of sustainability as how to have our luxuries sustainably, not how to toss the luxuries (which most won't want to do).

Like Bjarke Ingels' idea of 'hedonistic sustainability'. Bright green, not deep ecology.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Haiti launches first completely automated government overcoming corruption and inefficiency in one stroke.

What are the inputs?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

People are promoted to postions of power based on the time they have worked there and not due to their ability to hold that position.

A recipe for small-c conservatism, yes, but also allows time for acculturation. What's the alternative?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Momentum in response to:

Community science labs to supplement the disruptive trend of online education.

Premium on experiential, spatial, and kinaesthetic learning. Get out into the field; get your hands dirty, etc.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

The will of the people is a barrier to innovation. Do they really care? They would if it was farmville.

What if it was Farmville?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Anticipatory Assemblages - connecting and leveraging specialized social nodes to imagine alternative futures in societies, orgs.

Nice. Who organises, who administers?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

Accountability. Truly making those in power accountable for every action they take.

As in, criminal liability?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Positive Imagination in response to:

What civic innovation can you imagine to improve our communities?

Policies and initiatives with built-in expiry dates.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Environmental issues should not be decided by national governments but by international laws.

Alternatively, translocalism! (e.g. integration of Californian and EU carbon trading markets)

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Adaptation in response to:

Re:policies with built-in expiry dates, w/ubiquitous computing, could there be built-in renewals if real-time data shows policy is working?

Technically possible, but what kinds of criteria would be judged sufficient?

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Investigation in response to:

What does this mean? That the people "vote" mostly in response to short-sighted goals/needs?

That most democratically-elected politicians have an eye on their future re-election, or not enough time in power to get things done.

played 4 months ago by justinpickard

Played

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