The process.

I agree with @alandavison that very few people will vote for a DD government at this point. Firstly due to lack of awareness of the option but also due to the unknown of what policies created through DD would actually look like.
This is a huge step into the unknown and too much of a leap of faith for most. For that reason @lbjoum my vision of the transition goes a little more like this:
1). Create an open wiki platform for people to contribute and form theoretical policy in all areas of governance.
This would serve 2 purposes: a) Act as a mirror to hold up against current governments and show how different current policy is to how the population would self-govern, thus a useful tool to pressurize reform. b) As and when the time comes to enter global elections, people would know exactly what concrete platform they are voting for. The policies would continue to evolve but it would remove a large portion of the unknown.
2). Enter the platform in all possible elections around the world to gain awareness and hopefully even win some seats.
3). If/when the system gains traction, I can envision a time when the online system is run in tandem with a representative system. The representatives job is simple to enact the will of the wiki.
4). From this point I think that it wouldn't be long until people realized that the politicians are actually redundant in the system and it can become a truly decentralized self-organizing system.

@alandavison

Is this discussion about Loomio in particular or “the process” of distributed democracy in more general terms?

Although loomio could be used to conduct DD I don't think its present design is suited to the task; so I see this as a discussion in general terms.

One of the main problems we have is that only a very small number of people (proportional to population) are actually even considering this

I agree. But every time I describe the idea to someone, they love it.

I think it would be useful to create a list of current candidates around the world who are working towards or willing to take on this mantle.

We NEED a global conversation. All the small pockets of activity need to collaborate. This would also mean that we need a common understanding/agreement about the design. Perhaps this is more difficult. Therefore I see the need for a platform that individual organisations / politicians / parties can customise to their preference.

@directadmin

i would like to invite other people into this discussion if someone could message me and tell me how.

Get them to join loomio and this group -
Global Direct Democracy Working Group. The group is open so they might be able to read our conversations without joining.

but we need to be clear and have a blueprint we can stand behind.

Yes. We will be able to agree on a rough outline but people will not agree on all the details. This is similar to how people think loomio should have different features.

@robhayward I agree that we need something 'real' that people can 'see'.

One of the ways direct democracy can work is to reduce the jurisdiction of each. People fear that all consuming direct democracy (or any big govt) would swallow the world.

It's a fear I have too.

What i think is

1. Underpinned rights and constitution. This is common law and rights for all.

2. Local direct democracy. Small zones that are self sufficient in power, food, water and jobs. The ability have local edicts that cannot break rights or constitution. It is hard to get agreements among millions of people. But by using small zones we can get a more even flow to democracy.

3. Interconnected zones. For shared direct democracy amongst the small zones. Sometimes all people will need a say on some topic

4 media changes. The media is the enemy of the people. It can easily be used to sway an opinion. And any direct democracy needs real accurate information in the public eye or it becomes another controlled system.

If we can avoid building one big global government and instead join together local communities in governance we will get far more support.

Everywhere Westminster democracy exists we need to be. Our current masters use Westminster as the tools to enslave us.

I'm going to have a webinar to lay out my work so far. It's only my starting point, so I'm not trying to bulldoze this movement. But I'd like to get input from as many as possible.

I think there are many great ideas out there and once we work out our format for change we can make a real start on something crowd sourced.

@directadmin I totally agree with your point about localised direct democracy. It makes the most sense as a starting point, far easier to achieve and it's better to solve glitches at a small scale before aiming for anything larger. Even if a larger system evolved from it I personally see small communities being the foundation of a broader network

I came across this link, I haven't read the book yet but am about to start reading the 50 free pages that are online - will report back when I am in a position to comment...

Rebooting Democracy - The Book

Browsing the Reboot Democracy Web Site they describe themselves as follows...

We are an international, nonpartisan network of citizens campaigning for a more democratic future.

We are taking the first steps in an exciting, ambitious journey to bring about the kind of change politicians always promise—and never deliver. We count on you wanting to be a part of it.

I can edit my previous post but lost the ability to include attachments so I will "attach" the first 50 pages of the book to this post. And for completeness I should mention that the book was written by Manuel Arriaga, a visiting research professor at New York University. He was previously on the faculty at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School, where, for several years, he conducted research and taught courses on how organizations and individuals can become more effective decision-makers. His work has been published in leading management journals and academic reference volumes. An award-winning teacher, he continues to lecture at Cambridge.

I would think that this is exactly the kind of person that should be invited to this debate..