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互聯網文明時代何時來臨 The internet’s age of assembly is upon us

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I was fortunate to witness the birth of the world wide web up close. Initially, there were only pages of text connected by hyperlinks, but no people. So I formed one of the first internet start-ups, Ubique, with the mission of adding people to the web by developing social networking software which offered instant messaging, chat rooms and collaborative browsing.

互聯網文明時代何時來臨 The internet’s age of assembly is upon us

我很幸運地近距離見證了萬維網(world wide web)的誕生。當初,網上只有一些由超鏈接聯接在一起的文本頁面,並沒有人。所以,我創立了最早的互聯網創業型企業之一Ubique,希望開發出提供即時通訊、聊天室和協同瀏覽功能的社交網絡軟件,把人接入到網絡中去。

Since then, internet civilisation has mushroomed. According to a report published last year by the International Telecommunications Union, there are now 3.2bn internet users worldwide. But what kind of civilisation has it become? Imagine that 300m Twitter users wanted to change its rules of conduct, or that a billion Facebook users wanted to change its management. Is this possible or even thinkable?

自那以來,互聯網文明已迅速發展起來。根據國際電信聯盟(ITU)去年發佈的一份報告,當前全球互聯網用戶達到32億人。但互聯網文明已變成了何種文明?想象一下,假如3億推特(Twitter)用戶想要改變推特的行爲守則,或者10億Facebook用戶想要改變Facebook的管理方式,這是可能、或者退一步說,可以想象的嗎?

In 20 years, the internet has matured and has reached its equivalent of the Middle Ages. It has large feudal communities, with rulers who control everything and billions of serfs without civil rights. History tells us that the medieval era was followed by the Enlightenment. That great thinker of Enlightenment liberalism, John Stuart Mill, declared that there are three basic freedoms: freedom of thought and speech; freedom of “tastes and pursuits”; and the freedom to unite with others. The first two kinds of freedom are provided by the internet in abundance, at least in free countries.

20年間,互聯網就已成熟,進入了相當於中世紀的階段。互聯網上有無數大型封建社區,社區“統治者”控制着一切,還控制着數十億沒有公民權的農奴。歷史告訴我們,中世紀之後是啓蒙時代。偉大的自由主義啓蒙思想家約翰•斯圖爾特•密爾(John Stuart Mill)宣稱,世界上存在三種基本自由:思想與言論的自由;“趣味和志趣”的自由;以及與他人聯合的自由。互聯網提供了大量的前兩種自由,起碼在自由國家是這樣。

But today’s internet technology does not support freedom of assembly, and consequently does not support democracy. For how can we practice democracy if people cannot assemble to discuss, take collective action or form political parties? The reason is that the internet currently is a masquerade. We can easily form a group on Google or Facebook, but we cannot know for sure who its members are. Online, people are sometimes not who they say they are.

但是,如今的互聯網技術不支持集會自由,因而也不支持民主。因爲,如果不能集會進行討論、採取一致行動或組建政黨,我們如何能踐行民主呢?原因在於,目前互聯網是一個假面舞會。我們可以輕易在谷歌(Google)或Facebook上組建一個團體,但我們不確定團隊成員到底是誰。在網上,人們的實際身份有時跟他們聲稱的不一致。

Fortunately, help is on the way. The United Nations and the World Bank are committed to providing digital IDs to every person on the planet by 2030.

幸運的是,援手即將到來。聯合國(UN)和世界銀行(World Bank)致力於到2030年爲地球上所有人提供數字身份(ID)。

Digital IDs are smart cards that use public key cryptography, contain biometric information and allow easy proof of identity. They are already being used in many countries, but widespread use of them on the internet will require standardisation and seamless smartphone integration, which are yet to come.

數字ID是智能卡,該卡使用公鑰密碼,包含生物特徵信息,可以輕鬆地證明身份。數字ID已開始在許多國家使用,但要將其廣泛地應用到互聯網上,將需要進行標準化和無縫的智能手機融合——這一點尚未實現。

In the meantime, we need to ask what kind of democracy could be realised on the internet. A new kind of online democracy is already emerging, with software such as Liquid Feedback or Adhocracy, which power “proposition development” and decision making. Known as “liquid” or “delegative democracy”, this is a hybrid of existing forms of direct and representative democracy.

另一方面,我們需要問:在互聯網上可能實現何種民主?隨着Liquid Feedback或Adhocracy等支持“提案制定”和決策功能的軟件的問世,一種新型網上民主已開始出現。這種民主被稱爲“流動式”或“代表式”民主,是現有的直接民主和代議制民主的混合體。

It is like direct democracy, in that every vote is decided by the entire membership, directly or via delegation. It resembles representative democracy in that members normally trust delegates to vote on their behalf. But delegates must constantly earn the trust of the other members.

它有些像直接民主,每次選舉都由全體成員投票決定,直接或者通過代表投票。它跟代議制民主相似的是,成員們通常委託代表替他們投票。但代表們必須不斷地爭取其他成員的信任。

Another key question concerns which voting system to use. Systems that allow voters to rank alternatives are generally considered superior. Both delegative democracy and ranked voting require complex software and algorithms, and so previously were not practical. But they are uniquely suited to the internet.

另一個關鍵的問題關係到使用何種表決制度。允許選民爲候選者排序的制度通常被認爲是優越的制度。代表式民主和優先選擇投票制都要求複雜的軟件和算法,所以之前並不可行。但這兩者都特別適合用於互聯網。

Although today there are only a handful of efforts at internet democracy, I believe that smartphone-ready digital IDs will eventually usher in a “Cambrian explosion” of democratic forms. The resulting internet democracy will be far superior to its offline counterpart. Imagine a Facebook-like community that encompasses all of humanity. We may call it “united humanity”, as it will unite people, not nations. It will win hearts and minds by offering people the prospect of genuine participation, both locally and globally, in the democratic process.

儘管如今世界上在互聯網民主方面的嘗試屈指可數,但我認爲,智能手機適用的數字ID將最終帶來各種民主形式的“寒武紀大爆發”(Cambrian explosion)。隨之而來的互聯網民主將比線下民主優越得多。想象一個包含了所有人類的Facebook社區。我們或許會稱之爲“聯合人”(仿照“聯合國”——譯者注),因爲它將把人類、而不是國家聯合到一起。它將向人們提供在地區和全球範圍內真正參與民主進程的可能性,從而贏得人們全心全意的擁護。

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