Simulations and Self Governance

Beyond what Jon Udell describes as citizen ads and citizen analysis lies citizen simulations.

My thinking suggests that our society is moving toward simulations of what candidates and organizations propose can be accomplished and what evidence they have and the dynamic principles in play (data, data sources, logical reasonings, and calculations) that affect it.

By simulations I mean an interactive, digital, playable, visual representation model of the conditions and dynamic forces at work in the area of concern. Simulations would be compared with each other, forced to merge or interface with each other, and eventually proven true or false (or even which parts of the simulation are true or false). One can't speak of global warming w/o referencing simulations of nature and industry. Eventually these simulations will leak out of the ivory towers and think tanks and become a democratized medium of communication thanks to Moore's Law and distributed peer Volunteer Computer Grids (ala Human Proteome Folding Project and Amazon EC2) and the help of proxy organizations representing us. Then the simulations can generate the stories or vision which we choose to believe and support or which we choose to reject.

Talk is cheap, even in TV/internet ads. Simulations can be made to lie like statistics can (such as pumping them with too much marginally relevant information), it's just harder for simulations to maintain a lie over time under public scrutiny. Simulations can be explored at whatever level of detail a citizen is comfortable with, and they can still come away with a useful understanding of what's at risk.

Simulations might tell us what we know, but more importantly, might tell us what we really don't know. We may have to make decisions on a hunch, or a hunch provided by the wisdom of the crowds. But, we should know that it's a hunch.

I suspect even the governing process itself will be subjected to the same simulation process and analyzed for effectiveness and thereby new possibilities simulated and proposed. Perhaps we are our data and our data becomes us.