Slashdot Mirror

A survey of internet user in China done by the Chinese Academy of Social Science found that Chinese people are quite interested in using the internet to engage in political discussions and interact with their government. Among the findings:

* 71% of Internet users and 69% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to express their political views.

* 79% of Internet users and 77% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people a better knowledge of politics.

* 79% of Internet users and 73% of non-users agreed that the Internet will give government a better understanding of the views of its citizens.

* 60.8% of Internet users and 61% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to criticize government's policies.

Maybe the Chinese government does have something to worry about.

Here's an excerpt describing the Markle grant: "This Fellows program is designed to support the next generation of public intellectuals who foster fresh ideas and contribute to the national and international dialogue on these issues."

The end of TiVo is worthy of national and international dialogue?

Whatever.

Markle is a philanthropic organization that did some work with Maxis quite a few years ago to develope SimHealth. The purpose of the project (as I recall) was to show policymakers the complexity of the environment in which their decisions would be executed. From their website (towards the bottom of the page):

Markle worked with Maxis and Thinking Tools in 1993 to produce SimHealth, a computer-based simulation of health care policy in the United States.

I agree that the individual games and the specific examples might seem strange... but think of how strange the concept of a flight simulator (for a real pilot, not for your PC) seemed 25 years ago. Researchers have been spending a great deal of energy attempting to simulate the interactions of a complex world, with a great deal of success. It will only be a matter of time before we have believable (and probabalistically accurate) simulations of some real life situations. (Note that believable is different than predictive, I am attempting to separate the possible outcomes in a simulation separate from what actually happens.)

Just a few days ago we had an interesting article about DeCSS, DVD, corporate interests and personal involvement. The rant went along the lines: "It's very difficult to have any say about corporate policies. Let's create a fund and buy shares to be at least heard on shareholder meetings." Many people agreed that it would be a great idea. (Now, I don't know how many actually did something, but that's another story).

And here we are today... Someone else paid their money just to make sure that your voice can be heard. What a nice way to say thank you. So what if you can't directly change policies? It's not like you have direct influence on what laws are passed in Congress. Life sucks, get used to it. Your opinion can be heard and it just might keep people with power within reasonable boundaries.