Politics is about compromise and deal making yes, but it should also be about looking at the problems that plague society and trying to find a solution that does the most good while incurring the least harm.
But when decisions are made that significantly affect the lives of a group of citizens is there any effort made to consult with them? Or do they just get to find out when their life get's turned upside down?
How much of the process is about what's convinient for who's currently in power or currying favour with them than trying to take apart problems that affect the citizenry and make a best effort at a solution?
Part of my thinking on this came from reading about and hearing how vTaiwan was used to try and decide how to legislate how Uber would be treated there.
Full disclosure, I've only read around the topic, I may get details or points wrong. I'm only mentioning it here because I've not spotted it being discussed and I think it's relevant.
An overview is here for you to look at [0], however please read around it yourself if you want more detail =)...
At a high level, they broke the process down into several stages: 1) Contact the stackholders and inform them a decision is being made and provide a place for engaged citizens to participate. This encompases fact finding as well as translating complex areas like legal information to be understandable to the general public. 2) Allow people to air concerns and highlight potential issues. Try and understand what groups exist and what they want, ensure that participants who will be significantly affected have a proportional voice. Treat this as a period of relflection so people can get a deep understanding of where things are. 3) Take subject matter experts as well as appropriate voices in industry and have them study what was produced in the prior stage, then have them put together a series of briefings and Q/A sessions designed to dispell common misconceptions brought up during the prior stage and put together a series of clear proposals that can be enacted outlining the pros and cons as such as feasible. This will help educate the public as well as give them a much clearer idea what the state of possible outcomes are. At this point the public are actively able to question and ask for more detailed information around the proposals on offer. 4) Take the proposals that were the outcomes of the prior stage and turn draft it into a law.
Note that I'm not saying tech is the solution here, just that we might want to think more broadly about what the problem is.
And now it's way past my bedtime, I'll respond to any replies after I get up =)...
- [0]: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/building-co...