Radical Transparency and Society
In “Radical Transparency to improve resilience,” John Robb posts about Chris Anderson’s ‘radical transparency:’
Think about how these tactics can be applied to societal resilience:
- Show who we are.
- Show what we are working on.
- “Process as Content.”
- Privilege the crowd.
- Let readers decide what is best (aka: wisdom of the crowd)
- Wikify (this another way of saying: open the storehouse of background information) everything.
I think it’s a fascinating perspective on what frustrates so many of us about the Bush Administration. In their dragging us to torture prisoners, jail Americans without trial, secret laws and secret programs, they have implemented a program of radical transparency. What it shows about their souls is particularly unpleasant.
Related to ‘opening the storehouse,’ the New York Times reports that “U.S. to declassify secrets at age 25.” There’s fascinating commentary about how “The Bush administration could have said, ‘This is a Clinton thing,’ and abandoned it.” Nice way to look at laws. Process as content, indeed.