Upgrade USOS, the United States Operating System
Doc Searls, Harvard, 2008: “Note to selves: a lot of what Larry Lessig wants here is what Britt Blaser and friends are working on.”
12 years later, we can see the obvious next, potentially final, step:
USOS upgrade: Committees make the laws:
Mike Bloomberg’s Senate Loyalty Terminals
What Americans want to hear from Mike Bloomberg:
Since 1982, I’ve prospered by helping people who buy and sell corporate ideas and promises, who call themselves “traders”.
•Traders call corporate ideas “stocks”.
•Traders call corporate promises “bonds”.I’ve helped traders by selling Bloomberg Terminals to their employers, now installed on traders’ desks all over the world. Bloomberg Terminals organize an ocean of public data so traders can make the best choices for their clients.
Families care about traders’ decisions because it’s how they make retirement funds more valuable. When a majority of traders agree on which companies’ ideas and promises are better than others, your retirement fund grows in value.
American voters care as much about their senators’ ideas and promises.
But they don’t always know it because there’s no Senator Loyalty Index: public data to track senators’ loyalty to their voters.
I’ve decided to fix that, because
•Senators call their ideas “Bills”.
•And call their promises “Laws”.Americans care about bills and laws because one law can allow your kid to be murdered in her classroom and another can allow her injury to wipe out your retirement fund. Those are just two of many examples that are so scary most voters don’t want to think about them, and why so many senators just ignore their voters’ real concerns.
A modified version of the Bloomberg Terminal could help senators and their staffers make better decisions for their voters, and prove their loyalty when they do.
So I asked myself, “Why not? It’s precisely the same service!”
What will Senator Loyalty Terminals do?
If Senators choose to serve their state’s voters as loyally as traders use Bloomberg Terminals to serve their customers, they’ll do what most voters want: pass smart, popular bills into law by such strong margins that they’d overwhelm lobbyists’ and corporations’ objections.
The best way I can help voters support their senators’ best ideas and promises is to put a Loyalty Terminal on the desk of all 100 senators and their policy staffers.
Assuming 20 policy staffers each, that’s 2,000 Loyalty Terminals, but I’m willing to double or triple that number. There will never be a charge to senator or the government for their loyalty terminals or for voters to influence them through LoyalVoter.US.
Why now?
Before the Bloomberg Terminal was released in 1982, every individual trader and firm tried to analyze billions of reams of public data with little guidance, analyzing printed reports before the Internet and Google.
Elected senators and their staffs are still in the same tough spot, even though they act like they know what they’re doing, as trader did in 1981.
Senate Loyalty Terminals will focus on well-researched voter sentiment data specific to each senator’s state: Their voters’ policy preferences, constantly reminding every senator of their voters’ “kitchen table” priorities that party leaders, interest groups, talking heads, and lobbyists hide from them.
Every Loyalty Terminal will display their state’s most popular current voter insights on specific issues, through thousands of separate, focused feeds.
The system will record the entire history of every custom feed that’s been presented to each senator or staffer, available for instant replay of the stream of documentary evidence:
What your senators knew and when they knew it.
What if senators don’t want free Loyalty Terminals?
That’s between the senator and a state’s voters: a conversation featured on the general news feed at LoyalVoter.US/holdouts.
That should be fun to watch!
Why will Voters get involved?
The easiest answer is that they’ll be paid to do so, but they’ll stay involved for better reasons: mattering to their senators, to their neighbors and to America, because the loyalty runs both ways. Senators who act on their voters’ interests can earn vote pledges from them, and up to 6 years of loyal activism.
I’ve brought together like-minded philanthropists to join me to reward any U.S. resident who is verified as a constituent using Sovrin.org’s guidelines. We’ll keep rewarding them as they take specific actions to guide their senators to do what the voters want, but not on a partisan basis:
• When you join your senator’s feed, earn a New Member point bonus.
• When you’re verified as a constituent, earn even more points.
• When you contribute at your senator’s loyalty forum, you get points.
• When you comment on an item, you get points.
• When you join an issue discussion group, you get points.
• When you rate an item or an author or a comment, you get points.
• When you receive positive ratings, your points are more valuable.
• When you invite your neighbor to join, you get A LOT of points.
• And even more when they accept.
• Etc.And we’ll actively support senators who have the highest Loyalty ratings, to protect them against primary challenges from unproven challengers. Paying citizens for constructive engagement to enforce democracy is an upgrade to the idea of a Basic Income Guarantee. In our model, income is a reward for having an impact on your politicians, as only constituents can.
How much money can a voter earn?
At launch of the service, a reasonably active member of LoyalVoter.US could earn about $600 per month, based on 20 hours per month. That could double, to $1,200 per month for a more active member at about 40 hours per month. There’s no limit because every action accumulates points and, of course, a single household may have 2 or more Loyalty members.
Three kinds of actions fuel every organization, so loyalty points encourage members to be active in all the ways that matter:
1️⃣ Contribute content: write, argue and upload files
2️⃣ Recruit new members
3️⃣ Contribute or raise money to support loyal politiciansHow can Loyalty Terminals be non-partisan?
Member rewards are based only on members’ Loyalty points, not the content of their activity, in the same way that the stock market rewards a company’s level of activity, not its industry sector.
Senator Loyalty Points
1️⃣ Contribute content
Rate a blog post…………………………………………25
Comment on a blog post……………………………….50
Create your value profile……………………………..250
Edit your value profile………………………………..150
Contribute an item……………………………………100
Write an essay (a long post)………………………….250
Pledge your vote to a loyal senator.…………..……1,000
2️⃣ My People — community-building
Invite a prospective member…………………….…200
An invitee accepts……………………………….….200
Accept an invitation (to an event, group, etc.)……150
Welcome a new member (act as a Greeter)……….200
A new member responds to your greeting…….…..200
A new member accepts your invite…………………500
Join a specialized discussion group………………..300
Form a specialized discussion group………………500
3️⃣ Money Matters — Support your loyal senators
Pledge to raise money…………………………….250
Raise money……………………………………….800
Contribute money…………………………………400
Create a challenge…………………………………500
Respond to a challenge……………………………250
