Conceptual chat - Open_Politics Lab Brasil

< Jorge Guberte >
As an effort to achieve a feasible personal concept of the Open_Politics lab, me and a friend had this chat.
I'm naturally immersed in brazilian politics, as i live in Brazil, so it was somewhat the main focus of the conversation.
Hopefully it'll open the curtains for me to further develop some concepts that i have in mind right now, and that aren't quite well formed yet.

P is Paulo - my friend - and J. is me.

P: Voting sounds like an idea, but the population needs to produce great candidates.

J.: Do you have a political view? Anarquist, Libertarian, etc?

P.: I'm Green. And Libertarian, i suppose.

J.: Cool. I like the pirate party, but i hate parties. I hate the system that's established.

P.: I think i'm deeply anarchistic, but i'm a bit too vicious to act like one openly. I want to pervert the system, and change it s-l-o-w-l-y. I hate violence and radical changes; i believe people only learn if they want, can't force it . So, it is fostering existing forces, focusing

J.: Even if voting is mandatory [it is in Brazil] , i don't go. I'd rather pay the fine than vote

P.: Hey, i'm really sorry, but I really dont know anything about politics in brasil. It would take me ages to know national politics, no ?

J: I'll explain in a nutshell

P.:Ok, go for it.

J: We pay one of the higher taxes in the world, and we get a crappy public service. Why? because the government is so pathetic and uneffective to handle public services. Why else? because the politicians that are elected steal all the money that was supposed to go back to the population, as services.

The Economit published a good article about it too: http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13998624

P.: I don't mind if they have a good time with your money, if in return they give you a good service.

J: exactly, i wouldn't mind either

P.:: But as you said, public service is crap, so their life should resemble or depend on this same public service. What solution do you think of ? Better public services OR worst lifestyle for them ?

J: good question

P: better public services right ? If they are fat, it is their problem. I believe people can coordinate the state from more local initiatives, bottom up. So i rather feed ground up initiative, rather than fighting the fat politic bastards.

J: Horizontally in some decades. Or modularly, organically.

P: They live in a different world, they don't understand what we are talking about, so I wouldn't involve them, unless they decide to support.

J.: If we put effort on them, we lose the focus. Why put effort in something not benefical?

P: That's my point of view. Fighting against politics is loss of time; finding solutions that short circuit their authority is more productive, like inventing our own economies and technologies.

J.: Then theirs become obsolete.

P.: we dont fight them, we make them redundant. That's my opinion on the political context you describe. Activist becomes avery undirect activity. It is not activist against the politics, it is activist towards a vision, that can bring in something better than what politic scene offers, as a lifestyle.

J: Do you think the activists become leaders - not government leaders, but local leaders - as the subsystem evolves?

P.: I hope not...i hope there is a position of leadership that people are able not to be attached to, not be called by your function, be called by your name, as you are a human. Maybe the leadership can be circulated depending on the issue that needs solving. So I'm talking about atomising leadership to the specialist function. As far as I know this is called Adhocracy. I like the model of Object Oriented Politics  (Bruno Latour 2006) too.