OpenOrg meeting, 24 October 2002
At Royal National Theatre, 24 October 2002, 19.30
Present:
BenjaminGeer,
Jamie King,
RichardMalter,
ToniPrug
BenjaminGeer had written another draft of the
IntroToOpenOrg, attempting to deal with the problem raised by
RichardMalter: it was not clear that OpenOrg is the expression, in term of organisational principles, of fundamental values. He had therefore tried to describe these fundamental values as ethical principles, and show how OpenOrg principles follow logically from them.
The consensus was that we don't yet have the theoretical tools to define basic ethical principles, and that any attempt to do so would likely create endless debates with those who would be interested in using OpenOrg. Rather than tackle such a huge philosophical task, it would be better for us to justify OpenOrg more functionally, by simply pointing out benefits which our target audiences are likely to appreciate, leaving the ethical justification implied rather than stated.
RichardMalter demonstrated that, for example, we can justify open participation in a few words by saying that (1) it allows us to make full use of all available talents and energies, and (2) it allows people to get directly involved in decisions that affect them. We agreed that in the next version of the intro, each organisational principle will be followed by a brief justification along those lines.
Jamie brought up many objections to OpenOrg that we would be likely to hear from activists. We sketched out responses to these objections, and decided that we should write a 'Q&A for activists'. The basic points are summarised in
QAForActivists.
BenjaminGeer had attempted to begin the intro by pointing out the current global crisis of democracy, and explaining why something better than liberal representative democracy is needed.
RichardMalter felt strongly that our core arguments should be about what we want to create, rather than about what is wrong with existing systems.
[Here's a text that explains in some detail the logic for this:
PositiveTermsIdeas].
We agreed to write a separate 'Q&A for adherents of liberal democracy' to deal with these issues.
Tasks:
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BenjaminGeer - 25 Oct 2002
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