Big Data and Collective Bargaining
The big data trend thus begs the question: if effective big data could be represented in politics, would it be used to craft policy that reflects public sentiment? Would big data instead be used only to shape campaigns to maximize voting? The foundation for this question rests in the big data discussion of whether such data practices can confidently represent any disaggregated behavior. The trend of the discussion tends toward that such representation is possible. The trend reinforces the ethical discussion of what individuals should seek for the use of their data, and their agency over it. How often is policy based on public sentiment instead of market interests? Public sentiment is most often the instrument of electoral campaigns. For data to shape policy, we will need convene / construct a system that utilizes our data to affect markets. I presume this is the new (marketized) form of collective bargaining. I propose it will happen via
- a ‘reddit-like’ mechanism that
- reveals operational checksums,
- verify-able from the open source code, via
- monitoring by a high-reputation party like
- the EFF +
- independent (probably academic) researchers.
In the USA, with such zeal for market governance based on common-law case precedents, I think this outline for a system is the closer and more realistic form of non-representational republic. Authentic agency has its roots in educated opinion. Perhaps sadly, it almost goes without saying that our people have a more educated opinion on consumer forces than civic trends.
