(UPDATED 16 November) A group of 1,200 Icelanders considered statistically representative of the population was brought together Saturday for the first time in an attempt to “harvest the wisdom of the crowd”.
The group of people aged 18 and over were picked randomly from the national registry to be invited to attend the event at Reykjavik’s Laugardalsholl arena, along with 300 representatives of organisations and institutions.
They were asked to name the values Icelandic society should be based upon, as well as their vision for Iceland’s future and possible ways of action to rebuild the country’s economy and society. The results are freely available to anyone who wants to take part in the rebuilding effort.
A summary of key results is already available in English here.
The event was a privately-organised grassroots event, although a week ago the government decided to invest ISK 7 million in the project. Other funding comes from businesses and individuals.
Similar groups are regularly sampled for polls and surveys; but never before have they been brought together in person in this way.
Organisers, many of whom have strong political and business links, plan to work with all present to formulate a 52-week national recovery plan with a tangible goal for the nation to achieve every week.
The motto of the National Meeting organised by a group calling itself The Anthill is, “a date with the future”.
Where will the results be published in English?
IWR should have the highlights:
http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/11/live-from-the-national-assembly.html
>The event is a privately-organised grassroots event, although a week ago the government decided to invest ISK 7 million in the project. Other funding comes from businesses and individuals.
Not sure if you writing this news wire can even * see * the contradiction in the above statement refer to it as ” grassroots ” event.
It looks to be as ” grassroots ” as the so called Raddir Fólkins ” Voice of the People ” meetings in Novembmer 2008.
What is funny ( not funny ha ha ) is that for example we still do not know who did pay for the renting of the halls for those meetings.
( They were held in Háskólabío concert hall and Iðnó Theatre. )
“The group of people aged 18 and over were picked randomly from the national registry to be invited to attend”
This is like the jury system — picking people ” randomly by lot”.
But all it does is ensure that there is less likely to be bias. What this has to do with them having good ideas I do not know.
The ” crowd ” and the ” mob ” does not have wisdom.
All this is likely to do is act as big focus group for government idiots. To kind out what the Icelandic people’s main attitudes are to things.
And here is good article on the effort :
http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2009/11/13/in-iceland-trying-to-reprogram-government.aspx
Here is example of why this will not work ( did Alexander E not have ideas that included all people instead of this misguid attempt to ” fix ” represanetative democracy )…
http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/10/power-to-the-ants.html
“The name Anthill refers to the fact that anthills have some sort of collective wisdom that each individual ant does not have. For example if an anthill is located on the edge of a river and the riverbank starts to erode, the ants will collectively start moving the hill – even though no individual ant can actually see that the riverbank is eroding, much less give the command to start moving. Similarly, the organizers believe that the collective wisdom of the Icelandic nation can give us some sort of direction into the future, where single individuals fail.”
Ants are terrible model to apply to human being. Ants have instincts and nothing more. The fact they are a collective and act collectively is fine for them — for ants. But it is pretty clear to any thinking man that humans are individuals not collectivists. They have each a mind if they choose to use it.
Only socialists view mankind as ants.
It is obvious that individuals can think for themselves and decide things.
Some people have more experience and simply clearer reasoning abilities. That was where idea of represenattive democracy originally come from.
But choosing people randomly by lot ” randocracy ” is not the way to get better ideas. If you are lucky by chance you happen to have chosen some brilliant clever fresh people in that group.
But it is not the way to get new ideas or even to find out what are the best ideas.
It might get the most popular existing ideas. But that isn’t what the aim of this get to gether is meant to be.
The ” crowd ” and the ” mob ” does not have wisdom. History shows that again and again.
If you want to see a good example of what happens in situation were there is selection by lot, watch ” 12 Angry Men “:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)#Plot
It desribes the whole situation very well.
Okay, this thing is: “privately-organised”; well-funded (they’re flying people around!) because the “government decided to invest ISK 7 million”; the main backing seems to be from businesses — “Other funding comes from businesses”; and the organizers “have strong political and business links”.
This sounds like the exact opposite of “grass-roots”!
Thanks, Fisy, that you remember the idea
http://alexander.blog.is/blog/alexander/
I’m also 100% sure this “national** meeting” is just a wishful thinking as best.
The claim that Anthill has more wisdom that individual ants might have a reasonable grounds.
But organizers of the meeting did exactly the opposite to what they preach – instead of getting all “ants” together they selected just a few.
But this doesn’t matter – selecting, electing or appointing – my or your “representatives”. I DON’T ask anyone to represent me. Maybe because I’m not an ant? :-)
**claiming this “national” is very much overstatement. A football game attracts more people. Or rock concert…
50% women and 50% men?
Me and my wife saw it on TV last night. It looked like the worst team building exercise in the world….
Flygill’s take on the results is less than optimistic (comment 6):
http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/11/great-national-assembly-flawlessly-organized.html#comments
It was an exercise – cause it was manage by “team building” experts. It would be strange to expect them to run it any other way :-)
@Bromley – Flygill is a horse.
I enjoyed reading the opinions here on the ant analogy. To me, its weakness is that “wisdom of crowds” model works best for optimising an estimate of a variable’s true value. More precisely, it effectively elicits a set of estimates that, when averaged, tend to accurately predict a variable’s true value. Obtaining an accurate quantitative estimate is, however, very different from the qualitative topics in this national meeting. This doesn’t mean the meeting’s methods were poor, but it does mean that the ant analogy was a little overextended. Focusing on ants is a distraction!
>@Bromley – Flygill is a horse.
That would explain it. I doubt there was anything in there about extra oats for all.
I’m waiting to see a detailed English report, but from the first results it does appear to be a bit of a fluffy love-fest. Still, maybe it will inspire people.
http://www.thjodfundur2009.is/english/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin
Balkanson – So, the meeting reminded you of Bakunin’s anarcho-collectivism?
Jim wrote :
>More precisely, it effectively elicits a set of estimates that, when averaged, tend to accurately predict a variable’s true value. Obtaining an accurate quantitative estimate is, however, very different from the qualitative topics in this national meeting.
Yes I think this is some thing we can agree on.
This is one big focus group / opinion polling get together.
Which is not what this Anthill has been put across as being for. But that’s all it is.
http://www.thjodfundur2009.is/english/
Nice creative presentation of website and hall course but would expect no less from Icelanders.
>“The purpose was to hear the voice of the people and we think that the results reflect that.” said Larus Ymir Oskarsson, one of the spokesmen of the National Assembly, which took place at the Laugardalsholl today.
The voice of the people currently is heard most loudly come from these things called elections.
Second to that is coming from this things called referendums ( or ” the direct democracy of the plebiscite ” ).
Social Democrats did like the elections when they did opportunistically break they coalition end of January with Independence Party.
But now they do not want another one for 5 years.
And they certainly do not what referendum like they should have given for EU member ship joining.
So instead of those kinds of things we have this ” Þjóðfundar ” focus group instead.
Not exactly a meaning full subsitut is it ?
My opinion to the “results” of this Assembly in short- LOL.
Naive at its best…
naive perhaps, but i’ts a start, and a start for people in power to take notice, because what has happened isn’t exactly going down well, rules must change.