Thirty family members and friends of the MixedInk team recently came together to test our software. It was very exciting to finally see MixedInk in action at this scale after much hard work and internal testing. Watching an interesting discussion take shape and participating in the eventual synergy that emerged over the five-day period was an extremely rewarding experience.

Together the participants addressed the following question: Is the US government ever justified in using torture? Why or why not?

(We chose this topic because we know people feel strongly about it. Having a topic that encourages vigorous discussion makes testing our software and concept easier).

Participants wrote, edited, and recombined responses to the topic throughout the test. With a total of 44 responses and 296 ratings in the end, the group had a vibrant brainstorming session and a fascinating exchange. Through a process of mixing and rating each other’s responses using MixedInk technology, the test participants collaboratively sculpted a collective opinion on the selected topic.

For those who are curious, we’ve pasted the text of the collective response below.

This is a major moment for MixedInk – this test provided definitive proof of our concept. We learned a ton from the test and are now tweaking old features and adding new ones based on the test and on the feedback we received. At this point, we plan to continue testing it with different and bigger groups – let us know if you’d like to help shape MixedInk by getting involved in future tests at testing@mixedink.com. We’d love to get your input!

No to Torture

In the wake of 9/11, we have begun to speak a new language. “Patriotism” means blind devotion to any government policy; to “support the troops” means to never question an interminable war; and “torture” means making the world safe for democracy. (heh, heh, heh). We are living in a world of contradictions and are facilitating it with a language of opposites. It is easier to accept an unwarranted war, corruption, and torture when they are cloaked in words like democracy, strength, and safety. But eventually we will run out of platitudes and be left with nothing but the bare truth of our actions.

Torture has fallen prey to the cover of new speak. By saying we’re protecting our way of life from terrorism, we have become terrorists ourselves and what once was abhorrent to Americans has become acceptable. The question in real speak, though, is what security do we truly gain from the use of torture? Of the multitude of tools in our security arsenal, torture is one that has been shown to fail — people will say anything to get themselves out of the situation. This is particularly true in the case of terrorism, where people are often motivated by martyrdom, and just a bit more courage as a tortured prisoner can earn a handsome payoff in the afterlife. In embracing torture as a society, we therefore lose not only our honor, but also our precious resources as we waste time and money following false leads.

Even if torture were shown to be an effective information-gathering tool, however, it still would not be a sound security policy. When we commit torture against prisoners, we place our own soldiers at great risk as we forego our authority to demand protection for them. Today other countries can easily follow our lead in playing semantic tricks to determine where the Geneva Conventions apply. If that were the case, and our soldiers were being tortured at the hands of another countrys interrogators, be sure that this discussion would need not occur; our collective outrage would be unanimous.

More importantly, we cannot discuss torture without examining what it means to be part of a society that allows it. Many claim that we need to rethink our domestic policies, and even internationally-accepted norms, given the new threats we face. We disagree. In fact, it is only at times when we are scared for our safety that we must recall the importance of our civil liberties. It is during these times that it is easiest to forgo our most important ideals for the illusion of safety and expedient answers to complex challenges.

The American justice system relies upon the idea that a person is innocent until proven guilty. And we have a very high bar for guilt; a jury must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. The implicit understanding is that we, as a society, would prefer to let a guilty person go free than wrongly punish someone who is innocent. We depend upon our right to due process of law to ensure that our government does not overstep its bounds. When we allow torture of someone suspected of a crime (or suspected to be privy to critical information), we corrode this deep foundation of our country by exacting punishment based on mere suspicion. Not only does it undoubtedly lead to the torture of many people with no, or little, connection to terrorist networks, but it also leads to a dangerous temptation to blur the distinctions. And just like that, we begin down a slippery slope of disintegrating civil liberties.

Nearly everyone agrees torture is generally wrong, but there is still a great temptation to allow torture as a last resort in extreme cases. Torture, however, is not an acceptable government policy even in these scenarios. We have seen time and time again that seemingly normal people can do awful things. We saw it during Milgrim’s famous psychology experiments, we witnessed it during the Holocaust, and we stood speechless more recently when we learned of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. If we condone even a single case of torture, how will we then stop it from expanding? Who is to be the judge? Any policy that allowed torture would be subject to abuse. Enforcement is extremely difficult to imagine, given that these prisoners would be punished without the benefit of being tried in court, and an interrogator could always argue there was good reason to believe the prisoner had valuable information.

There is a short list of countries that permit torture, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, and Uzbekistan. It is not a club that the

United States should wish to join. As we seek to remain a world leader, we must remember what it means to be American and the moral authority it could command. We should not throw it all away in exchange for nothing more than a second-rate intelligence tool. It’s time to speak clearly and realize that torture debases not only the victim but also the core of all we, in real talk, hold precious in America.

As is clear from this example, the group of our friends and family that created this lean to the political left. Note that MixedInk is emphatically nonpartisan. Our tool will be available to any group wishing to express itself together regardless of its opinion.

If Miles Davis were here today, we bet he’d be proud of the part he played in inspiring the current internet movement. From unconferences to open source software, musical tendencies have been interwoven in what has come to be called “web2.0.”

Jazz musicians are masters at improvisation to the point of seeming telepathic. Pre-written music and carefully crafted songs are catalysts for experimentation, not ends in themselves. Musicians also seek to blur the line between the audience and presenter and build a community around their concerts, with the belief that increased participation will enrich the experience as well as the music. And we cannot forget the open source movement pioneered by the Grateful Dead – the band encouraged taping of concerts, with the only rule being that tapers could not sell tapes for profit.

On the internet today, we similarly seek new avenues for collaboration that allow for cumulative creativity and the ability to use others’ ideas as springboards. Where jam sessions are an ‘aggregation tool’ for musicians, the web 2.0 movement seeks its own mechanisms with which to speak with one voice and capture collective wisdom. We see quintessential web 2.0 websites like Digg and Facebook dependent upon a symbiosis among community members not so different from the connection between musicians in a band. And at an “unconference,” blurred lines between the audience and presenter and a belief in improvisation allows anyone to present and the whole group to decide which subjects will be covered on the fly.

Such unstructured and decentralized solutions to otherwise complicated problems (such as planning a multi-day conference) has become the basis for the next step in the evolution of the internet. The MixedInk collaborative writing platform is inspired by the world of music. It allows people to come together spontaneously and fluidly to improvise and innovate, build on and improve upon what has already been started, and create a unified output that reflects the energy and nuanced views of each of its participants.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the second annual YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, where over 1500 members of the “progressive netroots” – a term that encompasses Democratic bloggers and internet activists – gathered to celebrate their successes and discuss what comes next. The conference provided the opportunity to meet some of the leading voices in the left half of the blogosphere as well as a chance to see some fantastic panels and presentations on what we can look forward to, technologically speaking, in the campaigns of the future.

As we hoped, it also turned out to be a great way to introduce MixedInk within the political sphere. We believe our platform could have a major impact on politics; the people I spoke with seemed equally excited. Looking back a year from now, I think we’ll find that the seeds for several pivotal partnerships were planted in Chicago.

Not surprisingly, one of the coolest moments of the conference was the candidate forum, where 7 of the 8 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination took questions from moderators and the audience on domestic policy, foreign affairs and general personal and political philosophy. The fact that this forum attracted such a high profile group of leaders speaks to the power that the progressive netroots have accumulated.

Regardless of one’s political outlook, a presidential primary debate like this is guaranteed to be compelling theater; there’s a 50% chance (or greater, if you believe current polls) that you’re watching the next US president. But this was no ordinary presidential debate.

The moderator, Matt Bai of The New York Times Magazine, opened by saying, “We do normally ask that applause and reactions be kept till the end. We’re making no such request today [laughter]. I fear it’s too late, but I’m gonna ask you to remember that we are on a tight timeline and trying to get along with the program, and to the extent that you could limit the interruptions we would appreciate it…” This narrow opening was all the crowd needed.

Bai would soon regret having given the crowd free reign, and said as much joke that he was losing control [updated based on Matt's comment - see below]. This group refused to play the role of the passive audience. People acted pretty much the same as they might while watching an event like this on TV in the comfort of their homes – only now, the candidates could actually see and hear them.

Applause, laughter, jeering, hissing and booing all flowed freely. Senator Edwards, a crowd favorite, was constantly interrupted by applause, though he didn’t seem to mind. At one point, when facing a tough question, Senator Clinton made a stalling remark as she tried to come up with the right to say, and the crowd laughed at her outright! It was the sort of the remark a candidate might slide by with in a typical debate without someone to call it out, but this crowd wouldn’t tolerate even a hint of evasion. And Senator Dodd was booed loudly when he tried to explain his vote for Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The crowd even broke into song at one point – it was announced that Senator Obama was celebrating his birthday, so the audience serenaded him with a poorly coordinated (though very affectionate) rendition of Happy Birthday.

At first, all of this struck me as highly undignified. It was like a vaudeville show instead of a presidential debate – I half expected people to start throwing rotten tomatoes! Did the audience want our candidates to be treated like entertainers? We Americans are used to debates where candidates speak in paragraphs comprised of neat little sound bites memorized in advance, moderators tightly control the conversation, and audiences are powerless to interfere. Traditionally, they are opportunities for the candidates to tell us their positions on the issues and to compare and contrast their views with each other, without any interference from voters.

Gradually, I began to see the merits of this more participatory format, as I realized it was an offline translation of the blogosphere’s core principles. This crowd of online activists rejects the model of candidate as untouchable, deity-like avatar and instead treats its candidates as real people. If there’s no TV screen between us, why must we continue to act like we are separated from them by sound-proof, one-way glass?

The existence of the political blogosphere itself is premised on the notion that citizens should have a right to express opinions that matter – beyond merely voting once every four years. Flowing from this, the crowd seemed to stake the claim that we have the right to interact with our politicians through direct conversation, whereby they observe our reactions and respond in real-time – conventional notions of debate etiquette be damned. The netroots believes we can learn more about who a candidate is in this type of interactive format than from the canned speechifying that is a conventional debate.

This re-imagining of the debate structure is part of a seismic shift in our politics (and our media, and our consumption patterns, and…) toward a technology-enabled, two-way exchange of perspectives. We envision MixedInk as another tool in citizens’ arsenal – along with participatory debates like this one, blogs, YouTube videos, and a range of other platforms – to make their voices heard and to ensure their voices matter.

You can find video from the event, along with plenty of other YearlyKos footage, here.

An edited version of this post was published as a diary on Daily Kos

UPDATED: Matt Bai was kind enough to respond with an email. He gave me permission to republish what he wrote:

Hey David, thanks for the kind words and for sending me the link. I love what you wrote. I take strong exception to only one thing, which is your assertion that I regretted my announcement to the crowd and said as much. Couldn’t be less true. I was a big proponent of letting the crowd express itself, and I thought (and still think), as you do, that it was one of the best things about the forum. I completely agree with you–this is exactly the kind of wall the Internet helps us break down, and while some of my colleagues in the media found it “creepy” (I think that’s what Ana Marie Cox quoted someone as saying), I thought it was really fun and a lot more interactive. It also made me feel more at ease on stage. I did joke that I was losing control at one point, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Thanks for writing.

In addition to being a terrific writer, Matt Bai is part of a small minority of journalists that understands the transformation that’s taking place. It’s no wonder he was selected to moderate the YearlyKos forum as a representative of the mainstream media.

MixedInk is founded on the premise that citizens/consumers/members/employees want to tell the people in charge, and other members of their group, what they think. That’s why people vote, blog, comment, write letters to the editor, sign petitions, rate products, respond to surveys, etc.

And politicians and executives want to hear from us – or at least, they make a big show of saying so. The thing is, sometimes it seems like they want credit for giving us a voice without actually allowing us to be the final arbiters of what we can express.

On the political side, the next Democratic presidential debate on CNN is taking the innovative step of letting voters submit their questions to the candidates by uploading a video to YouTube. This seems like a move toward a more democratic primary process, and it certainly is an improvement on just having Brian Williams or Tim Russert (or their staffs) write the questions.

The problem is that ratings and comments have been disabled on the site where you view questions that have been submitted. So, we (the voters) can’t register our support for questions or tell how popular a question is. CNN gets to choose which questions to ask from among thousands, and they don’t have to choose the ones we like best. They’ll be able to find questions they would have asked anyway, more or less, only the questions will come out of the voters’ mouths.

On the corporate side, a recent survey found that 57% of senior marketers found user-generated media to be “very” or “somewhat” important – a sign that things are headed in the right direction. Yet only 22% said they were “very willing” to give their consumers more control. The pollster explained, “Despite the increased awareness of the power of consumers in a digital age on brands and sales, marketing executives are reluctant to loosen their grip on marketing content, unwilling to give too much control to these empowered consumers.” General Motors’ first foray into consumer-created advertising is a great example of what can go wrong for marketers.

But the answer is not for companies to institute top-down solutions. The marketing department should not simply choose which ads they think are best and which are inappropriate – as XLNTads, MasterCard and others would have marketers do. Instead, they could use better aggregation and voting mechanisms, limit participation to trusted contributors, disallow certain words, and/or enable trusted users to flag inappropriate material. And they need to be transparent about how any final content is selected.

We have no doubt that citizens and consumers will ultimately come out on top, as the more transparent, democratic efforts to collect content from users will attract more, higher quality contributions. But in the short term, in the absence of standards for soliciting bottom-up content, corporate and political marketers will do everything they can to create the illusion of incorporating our input.

A high school teacher named David Colarusso has created a new site called Community Counts, which provides the functionality missing from YouTube off-site, allowing viewers to vote on the debate question videos submitted via YouTube. The site has benefited from James Kotecki’s (and others’) promotional support and has already collected thousands of votes.  As bottom-up, innovative side-steps like this one gain increasing traffic and attention, hopefully corporate, media and political organizations will begin to understand that we won’t settle for partial control of our collective voice.

We have to keep the pressure on them, with efforts like Community Counts, to institute truly democratic systems for their users to express themselves. If they want to reap the benefits of our free labor and ideas and our commitment to their products and policies, they have to earn it.

You guessed it – that’s where MixedInk fits in