One of panocracy's perceived problems is expected to be engagement.
Most people are not interested in politics (even though politics is interested in them) but we're surprised when our household bills or our taxes rise; we’re surprised when new regulations interfere with our private lives - like having to register your pet budgie.
To most people these impositions seem like being hit by an earthquake, a storm or a flood – forces of Nature over which we have no control. And yet the undesirable outcomes in our lives are simply the whim of politicians and very much ought to be within our control.
Which brings me to Geoff.
I'm not particularly interested in cars – except my ageing diesel which gets me from A to B on the odd occasions when I need to.
I say this because I've been watching YouTube channels that feature work by creators who might be described as ‘ordinary’ people. One of them is Geoff Buys Cars.
Geoff seems like a good bloke who hails from Worcestershire-shire (as he calls it) and his channel covers the ground around cars (as you might expect) with asides into politics and philosophy.
He's a skilled presenter – lucid, humorous and with opinions on many issues. There are thousands or perhaps millions like him on YouTube and other social media who have discovered that they have something to say and now have the means to say it.
These are the kind of people that our credentialed class turns its collective nose up at. Geoff's analytic tools are common sense and a wide experience of reality.
You don't need a grasp of Bayesian probability, tort law or mediaeval French grammar to know there are problems with our society and Geoff regularly exposes some of them.
Geoff is of course biased – he prefers ageing diesel Volvos to new electric vehicles; he pours scorn on low and ultra-low emission zones and their anti-social consequences. He’s not a fan of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London.
You may not agree with some of Geoff's views but they're delivered with an endearingly lighthearted style.
The Geoffs of this world are hugely encouraging for Panocracy. If we think that panocracy's RFC system would wither from indifference, then Geoff and an army of content creators are already here to set us straight.
Having said that, we may need to extend the ways in which citizens of the panocracy engage with it to make their policy contributions. Perhaps personal audio or video statements should be included. One obvious objection is that even more technology would be required. Any thoughts?
Of course, other channels take exactly the opposite point of view to Geoff. This is Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' in action although it is somewhat perverted by the tendency of platforms like YouTube to steer viewers using their own biases in the direction of increasing advertising revenue by presenting them with videos with adverts it thinks they'll click on.
Various biases - such as confirmation bias or in-group bias - are a serious problem in our current democratic systems simply because the few in power suffer from them at least as much as the many outside it. Indeed, the coherence of a political party or a government agency depends on such biases.
Bad ideas are echoed, amplified and protected rather than expunged.
By contrast, the multitude of Geoffs out there will not automatically conform to some groupthink inspired delusions. They will each bring their own biases to the debate, whether led there by YouTube or not, and the resultant will be a vast improvement on the kind of nonsense that's inflicted upon us now.
The take-home message is clear: give people a chance to say what they think without fear or favour and they'll say it.
However, the recent UK court case of someone being gaoled for a nasty tweet highlights the problems of free speech. Many questions surround this case (and similar cases involving foul speech and recent street protests) and its interpretation by a legal system apparently under government influence.
In a panocracy, legal guidelines around free speech would be drawn up and debated by the citizenry rather than just the credentialed classes.
I suspect that the non-credentialed classes who are used to more down-to-earth ways of talking would be somewhat more lenient. Living in the real world gives them a better grasp of the difference between irresponsible words and violent actions.
You may see this as a deficiency of panocracy – please let us know in the comments if you do!