I was fortunate to witness the birth of the world wide web up close. Initially, there were only pages of text connected by hyperlinks, but no people. So I formed one of the first internet start-ups, Ubique, with the mission of adding people to the web by developing social networking software which offered instant messaging, chat rooms and collaborative browsing.

我很幸运地近距离见证了万维网(world wide web)的诞生。当初，网上只有一些由超链接联接在一起的文本页面，并没有人。所以，我创立了最早的互联网创业型企业之一Ubique，希望开发出提供即时通讯、聊天室和协同浏览功能的社交网络软件，把人接入到网络中去。

Since then, internet civilisation has mushroomed. According to a report published last year by the International Telecommunications Union, there are now 3.2bn internet users worldwide. But what kind of civilisation has it become? Imagine that 300m Twitter users wanted to change its rules of conduct, or that a billion Facebook users wanted to change its management. Is this possible or even thinkable?

自那以来，互联网文明已迅速发展起来。根据国际电信联盟(ITU)去年发布的一份报告，当前全球互联网用户达到32亿人。但互联网文明已变成了何种文明？想象一下，假如3亿推特(Twitter)用户想要改变推特的行为守则，或者10亿Facebook用户想要改变Facebook的管理方式，这是可能、或者退一步说，可以想象的吗？

In 20 years, the internet has matured and has reached its equivalent of the Middle Ages. It has large feudal communities, with rulers who control everything and billions of serfs without civil rights. History tells us that the medieval era was followed by the Enlightenment. That great thinker of Enlightenment liberalism, John Stuart Mill, declared that there are three basic freedoms: freedom of thought and speech; freedom of “tastes and pursuits”; and the freedom to unite with others. The first two kinds of freedom are provided by the internet in abundance, at least in free countries.

20年间，互联网就已成熟，进入了相当于中世纪的阶段。互联网上有无数大型封建社区，社区“统治者”控制着一切，还控制着数十亿没有公民权的农奴。历史告诉我们，中世纪之后是启蒙时代。伟大的自由主义启蒙思想家约翰•斯图尔特•密尔(John Stuart Mill)宣称，世界上存在三种基本自由：思想与言论的自由；“趣味和志趣”的自由；以及与他人联合的自由。互联网提供了大量的前两种自由，起码在自由国家是这样。

But today’s internet technology does not support freedom of assembly, and consequently does not support democracy. For how can we practice democracy if people cannot assemble to discuss, take collective action or form political parties? The reason is that the internet currently is a masquerade. We can easily form a group on Google or Facebook, but we cannot know for sure who its members are. Online, people are sometimes not who they say they are.

但是，如今的互联网技术不支持集会自由，因而也不支持民主。因为，如果不能集会进行讨论、采取一致行动或组建政党，我们如何能践行民主呢？原因在于，目前互联网是一个假面舞会。我们可以轻易在谷歌(Google)或Facebook上组建一个团体，但我们不确定团队成员到底是谁。在网上，人们的实际身份有时跟他们声称的不一致。

Fortunately, help is on the way. The United Nations and the World Bank are committed to providing digital IDs to every person on the planet by 2030.

幸运的是，援手即将到来。联合国(UN)和世界银行(World Bank)致力于到2030年为地球上所有人提供数字身份(ID)。

Digital IDs are smart cards that use public key cryptography, contain biometric information and allow easy proof of identity. They are already being used in many countries, but widespread use of them on the internet will require standardisation and seamless smartphone integration, which are yet to come.

数字ID是智能卡，该卡使用公钥密码，包含生物特征信息，可以轻松地证明身份。数字ID已开始在许多国家使用，但要将其广泛地应用到互联网上，将需要进行标准化和无缝的智能手机融合——这一点尚未实现。

In the meantime, we need to ask what kind of democracy could be realised on the internet. A new kind of online democracy is already emerging, with software such as Liquid Feedback or Adhocracy, which power “proposition development” and decision making. Known as “liquid” or “delegative democracy”, this is a hybrid of existing forms of direct and representative democracy.

另一方面，我们需要问：在互联网上可能实现何种民主？随着Liquid Feedback或Adhocracy等支持“提案制定”和决策功能的软件的问世，一种新型网上民主已开始出现。这种民主被称为“流动式”或“代表式”民主，是现有的直接民主和代议制民主的混合体。

It is like direct democracy, in that every vote is decided by the entire membership, directly or via delegation. It resembles representative democracy in that members normally trust delegates to vote on their behalf. But delegates must constantly earn the trust of the other members.

它有些像直接民主，每次选举都由全体成员投票决定，直接或者通过代表投票。它跟代议制民主相似的是，成员们通常委托代表替他们投票。但代表们必须不断地争取其他成员的信任。

Another key question concerns which voting system to use. Systems that allow voters to rank alternatives are generally considered superior. Both delegative democracy and ranked voting require complex software and algorithms, and so previously were not practical. But they are uniquely suited to the internet.

另一个关键的问题关系到使用何种表决制度。允许选民为候选者排序的制度通常被认为是优越的制度。代表式民主和优先选择投票制都要求复杂的软件和算法，所以之前并不可行。但这两者都特别适合用于互联网。

Although today there are only a handful of efforts at internet democracy, I believe that smartphone-ready digital IDs will eventually usher in a “Cambrian explosion” of democratic forms. The resulting internet democracy will be far superior to its offline counterpart. Imagine a Facebook-like community that encompasses all of humanity. We may call it “united humanity”, as it will unite people, not nations. It will win hearts and minds by offering people the prospect of genuine participation, both locally and globally, in the democratic process.

尽管如今世界上在互联网民主方面的尝试屈指可数，但我认为，智能手机适用的数字ID将最终带来各种民主形式的“寒武纪大爆发”(Cambrian explosion)。随之而来的互联网民主将比线下民主优越得多。想象一个包含了所有人类的Facebook社区。我们或许会称之为“联合人”（仿照“联合国”——译者注），因为它将把人类、而不是国家联合到一起。它将向人们提供在地区和全球范围内真正参与民主进程的可能性，从而赢得人们全心全意的拥护。