The purpose of a Cooperative Zone is to see two problems that are looming in our culture solved.

Problem 1: We cannot discuss opinions and ideas in a meaningful way.

Social media and article comments sections are primarily echo chambers where the only interaction between people of differing views is antagonistic. By this I mean that nearly 100% of the comments on any site echo the same talking points. Users compete with each other to get the most “likes” for a comment that echos other peoples opinion. Occasionally “trolls” will ignite conflict. The problem is that none of these things help us learn, help us understand new things or bring us to the point where we work together.

I have worked with hundreds of people on complex projects, and there was never a time when any two people agreed on every detail. Complex societies function only when people find ways to find common ground and common goals.

Problem 2: We have no effective rapid feedback method to communicate our will to governments.

The system we have actually works pretty well in normal times. We vote every 4 years or so and vote against candidates that have generally done things we don’t agree with. We vote for people who we hope will do things the way we would. The problem is that when we are in rapidly changing times, the current system doesn’t help at all.

The example that keeps bouncing around in my head is the CHAZ then CHOP thing in Capital Hill district Seattle. There were 30,000 people who lived in the zone and every one in America was arguing about what the federal government should do, what the national guard should do, what the state governor should do, what the mayor should do. What I didn’t hear often, and what I felt was the most important thing, is what do the Capital Hill citizens want. I don’t know what they wanted, no one does, but if they wanted to approve the CHOP/CHAZ protest because they supported both the message and the method, then they have the right to do that. Had that been expressed the police could feel good about pulling out, the mayor could feel good about letting it play out, because they would have been giving the people they serve and represent what they wanted.

If, on the other hand the people had wanted the occupiers to go away, then the political decision to do that would have been much easier. The mayor could have had them removed, knowing that she could always say “that is what the people wanted”.

So having effective ways for “the people” to communicate with government would make things better no matter what their choice was.

Currently the fastest solutions is recall elections, which are not fast, cost a lot of money, and don’t usually work because not enough people are willing to go to a polling station. Another is being visible at City Council meetings or doing a protest. The issue with that is that even if 1000 people protest something, that is only 0.5% of the 175,000 people that live in the Clearwater Zone. This means that a politician can ignore this completely, especially if the people protesting are going to vote against them no matter what they do. The loudest person in the room doesn’t necessarily represent everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, by all means do those things, they are the solutions available, and need to be used.

Solution to problem 1 and 2: Moderated discussions about relevant topics followed by community internet voting.

I recently read a global warming comment blog where scientists were talking about temperature trends in the last 20 years. About 1/2 of the people thought that the data showed that temperatures were clearly rising, about 1/2 of the people thought that the data showed that the temperatures were clearly falling. The most interesting thing about this discussion is that people with both opinions were respectful and actually explaining why they felt the way they did. The thing that allowed this to happen was strong moderation.

This sounds like censorship, but censorship is removing the ability for a person to express themselves. The moderation policy will be to allow any opinion about the topic to be expressed, but will not be posting comments that say the same thing already said. There will be no ‘like’ button because that encourages people to compete to accurately parrot other peoples opinions. We all want to hear your opinion. Posters will also be anonymous because giving your opinion is in many cases is causing retaliation from people on the other side of the red/blue divide.