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General Will 2.0 and Glen Weyl

Oct 06, 20245 min read

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nishio.iconCan you explain Glen Weyl’s thoughts on this context?

gpt.iconGlen Weyl’s ideas are unique compared to Hiroki Azuma’s “General Will 2.0” and Audrey Tan’s approach to digital democracy in that they focus more on economic and political system design, while still utilizing technology. In particular, his ideas of “Radical Markets” and “Plurality” explore new forms of democracy and overlap with Dong and Audrey Tan, but with different perspectives.

Below is an explanation of Glen Weyl’s ideas in relation to “General Will 2.0” and Audrey Tan’s approach.

  1. “radical market” approach

    • In Radical Markets, co-authored with Eric Posner, Weyl proposes new ideas for reshaping our economic and political systems. At the core of his ideas is the goal of overcoming the limitations of traditional market principles and democratic systems to find fairer and more efficient ways of decision-making. Key among these are the concepts of “Quadratic Voting (QV)” and “Quadratic Funding (QF).”
    • Quadratic Voting (QV): Weyl’s “QV” is a system that allows voters to vote according to the strength of their will, rather than the traditional “one person, one vote” system. Specifically, the system allows for multiple votes based on the strength of one’s “for” or “against” a particular policy, and the cost of a vote is calculated based on the law of squares. This makes it easier for opinions that are strongly held by a minority to be reflected, and is said to reflect the will of society as a whole in a fairer manner.
    • This “QV” responds to the question “how to reflect the will of the whole” similar to Hiroki Azuma’s “General Will 2.0,” and differs in that it focuses on the strength of individual opinion and conscious declaration of intent. While “General Will 2.0” attempts to extract will from unconscious data, “QV” takes into account conscious statements of will and their strength to reach consensus.

  2. emphasis on “Plurality” and cooperation

    • Weyl’s “Plurality” focuses on getting people to make decisions more cooperatively through technology. It aims to design cooperative systems that leverage emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain to solve problems in existing democratic and market systems.
    • It is similar in some ways to Audrey Tan’s “participatory digital democracy” in that it consciously engages citizens in the decision-making process and supports consensus building through the power of technology. Just as Audrey Tan emphasizes the process of creating empathy by providing a forum for dialogue through “vTaiwan” and “Polis,” Weyl’s “Plurality” focuses on implementing new systems that encourage cooperation and consensus building through digital technology.
  • 3.Application of market mechanisms to democracy.
    • A hallmark of Weyl’s philosophy is the application of “market mechanisms,” which combine economics and political science, to the decision-making process of democracy. For example, “Quadratic Funding (QF)” is a funding for public goods method that determines the allocation of funds by reflecting the strength of will of the donors. This model of QF is said to allow for a more equitable and efficient allocation of resources than traditional majority rule or the competitive mechanisms of capitalism.
    • Whereas “General Will 2.0” is a model that extracts overall will from big data, Weyl’s “radical market” approach expresses the strength of will and willingness to fund through market mechanisms in a conscious and strategic way. It focuses on how to incorporate conscious and strategic behavior into democracy, rather than relying on unconscious behavioral data.
  1. balance between unconscious data and conscious action
    • Glen Weyl’s philosophy is unique compared to Hiroki Azuma’s “General Will 2.0” and Audrey Tan’s digital democracy in that it emphasizes the importance of conscious will and its strength, but also aims for more equitable consensus building through the use of technology. While General Will 2.0 seeks to form the will of the whole from unconscious data, Weyl seeks to reform the mechanisms of conscious action and voting to improve the efficiency and fairness of the democratic process.
    • As such, Weyl’s philosophy lies somewhere between consensus building through unconscious data and consensus building through conscious dialogue and cooperation, exploring the potential for technology to enhance people’s conscious actions and create new forms of democracy.

In general, Glen Weyl’s “Radical Markets” and “Plurality” are oriented toward consensus building with an emphasis on conscious and strategic action, unlike Hiroki Azuma’s “General Will 2.0” use of unconscious data. Also, like Audrey Tang, they are characterized by their approach to citizen cooperation and empowerment through the use of technology, while proposing a restructuring of democracy from a unique perspective, such as reforming market mechanisms and voting.

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