There is research that shows that better
decisions are taken by independent actors in a democratic manner, as compared
to decisions taken by single individuals. Daniel Kahneman gives an overview of
research behind this conclusion in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. I am a
stout believer in the democratic process and in collective decision-making. I
sometimes have trouble choosing in my everyday life and I often waste time
obsessing about different options.
When I was younger I read the novel The
Dice Man by George Cockcroft (1971). That book kept fascinating me and I kept
thinking about it through the years, though I never considered to try it. I was
scared by the lack of emotional attachment in the decisions.
Today I asked twitter if I should go
running or not. A friend on twitter encouraged me and off I went. During the
run I thought of all the good it does us to hand over uncomfortable decisions
to democracy instead of having to always assume responsibility. I thought of
the debate of making it a democratic decision to split the parental leave
according to parental rights to their child rather than as a family support (I
guess you see where I lean in this question). Then I thought that maybe the
superiority of democracy is valid also in very private situations, and I
thought that my twitter account is an excellent way to investigate this.
I have spent the last years posting
outrageous tweets that have scared away almost all people that don’t think like
me. I have also generously blocked people that I dislike (which I have later
unblocked, but who no longer follow me). I have been so dreadful that only
people that are basically very sympathetic towards me have managed to stay on.
It is amazing that this number amounts to over 2300 people. These people (of
which I know very few irl), would not lack emotional attachment in the advice
they would be giving me. These people can be the democratic support I need
every I have a question where I hesitate. I just became single, so I hesitate a
lot these days.
I would ask people of what to eat, how to
dress, when and how much to exercise. And primarily how to interact with people
in my private life.
What will this do for me? How will I
evaluate this? Firstly participation; are people at all willing to participate?
In what questions? Will they care about the detailed, unimportant questions, will
they be disgusted by the power in the more personal decisions? So, primarily I
want to investigate participation.
Second, there is the question of if my
decisions get any better by outsourcing them to twitter. Each decision will
have to be scored. I expect a much more cautions approach to everything as
compared to what I would otherwise do, but hey, my followers might surprise me.
Third; will I be happier if I have twitter
to make my decisions for me? I will be the judge of that.
Technically the experiment is designed as
follows:
I remove all the people with whom I have a
personal relationship with, whom I suspect would not act in an independent
manner. Then I lock my account so only people that already follow me can
interact with me. I am planning to keep
the experiment running until next Sunday (7 of June) but I might interrupt earlier
if there is a lack of interest. The rules for the decision-making are as
follows:
1)
My followers can only chose
from the alternatives I give them
2)
You can not spread any
information from my account outside my followers for the time of the experiment
since it will concern third parties who have obviously not given their consent
3)
I chose what questions to pose
4)
The alternative with most votes
win. Votes are counted exactly 1 hour after the question was posed
5)
I will completely submit to
your decisions with no regrets
So, if you follow me on twitter, enjoy or
be disgusted, whatever you chose. For the rest of you I will try to keep the
blog updated, but all questions will be deleted before I open my account for
access again.
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