Introduction
Many Minds is a democratic process where you can suggest, debate, vote, or delegate your votes (using a process called Liquid Democracy) on global policies* – policies to tackle our most urgent global challenges. It takes place online using an app called Sovereign. Sovereign is built using blockchain technology by the Democracy Earth Foundation. Many Minds also take place at globally networked street demonstrations and at Earth Citizen Community meet-ups.
*Global Policies will not be formally approved, but will remain provisional, a work in progress, until sufficient nations have agreed to co-operate, via referendum, to implement them alongside one another. In this way, (A) newcomers can still participate in the democratic process and (B) the policies remain open to improvement and adaptation in a changing environment.
International competition
Long-term measures to tackle our greatest planetary challenges seem to be either out of reach or too ambitious for any nation to take on alone (see: International Divide-and-Rule). There is a perceived risk to international competitiveness and therefore to national interests. The excuse of inaction is removed as governments around the world can now act together in a cooperative, synchronised way. We are paving the way for this to happen.
Global scope
Its about creating policies which will impact the whole world, not policies which are local or national in scope. (See Potential Global Policies).
Open to everyone
It will be ensured that communities everywhere are able to participate in the process. As the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee says “access to the internet should be a human right.”
50-50 gender equity and power redistribution.
In order to overcome thousands of years of male-dominated hierarchical power structures, our democratic process will initially lack gender equity.
We are strongly encouraging Earth Citizens to prioritise asking women, or people who identify as women who are taking action on the front-line of global challenges to be the first to propose global policies.
More detail
How will the Global Policies be Chosen?
- Global Policies* will be chosen from the top of the list of proposals with the highest number of votes and the highest percentage votes they have received.
- They will be celebrated at Global People Power events.
- Amendments can be suggested and challenges made to the list to ensure that policies do not conflict with each other – in order to avoid sub-optimisation (see below “Interrelated problems and solutions”). It will probably be necessary to aggregate policies into fewer themed global-agreements. This will enable us to focus clearly on the essence of our mission.
Interrelated problems and solutions
Global Policies will develop into a range of interrelated measures to tackle a range of interrelated issues. For example, Earth-Citizens might suggest a policy such as International Monetary Reform to tackle boom and bust economics and joblessness by generating funds to kick start a Green Industrial Revolution thus mitigating the effects of climate change and mass extinction.
How will the global policies be implemented?
- Through referendum, nations and devolved regions can decide to co-operate via Global People Power, or not.
- If they vote in favour, governments can then implement the Global Policies according to their needs and to their democratic will. Left or right leaning governments will find different ways to implement the policies.
- In the meantime, as the global democratic movement grows, and as Earth-Citizen’s global proposals develop into a coherent set of policies, nations will become morally obliged to act immediately to lay their foundations. Earth-Citizen’s policies will have more democratic legitimacy than existing global policies created behind closed doors.
- Political parties joining our movement will have a greater chance of winning elections. They will be evidencing that they have systemic global solutions to systemic, global challenges impacting voter’s daily lives.
- All participating nations will be legally bound to implement the Global Policies to the same degree over time.
- People in non-democratic nations but with internet freedom can participate and experience global democracy. In time, we expect all nations to take part as it is already in everyone’s long-term interest to cooperate to tackle global challenges.
- Earth-Citizen’s global policies will conform to Global People Power’s Constitution and will not conflict with anyone’s Universal Rights.
Global justice framework
Global justice policies to tackle climate change and re-balance global economies in fair and pragmatic ways already exist; ways which also support the economies of developing nations. These cutting edge ideas simply lack a framework of global cooperative to be workable.
Minority rights
To ensure that the global majority does not restrict the Universal Rights of minority groups, any group will be able to register their interests on our Minority Interest forum. In doing so they can seek to have the proposal amended or they can attempt to block it.
Thinking tools
Groups of people with different needs and values have different ways of seeing the world. We have therefore adapted two thinking tools, Systemojis and Empathemojis to facilitate systemic thinking and to enable understanding between people with diverse world views. They are to be used like emoji faces within text or to be called out within face-to-face discussions.