Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader quotes the Chronicle of Higher Education: A majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents think higher education has a negative effect on the country, according to a new study released by the Pew Research Center on Monday. The same study has found a consistent increase in distrust of colleges and universities since 2010, when negative perceptions among Republicans was measured at 32 percent. That number now stands at 58 percent. By comparison, 72 percent of Democrats or left-leaning Independents in the study said colleges and universities have a positive impact on the United States... In the Pew Research Center's study, distrust of colleges was strongest in the highest income bracket and the oldest age group, with approval levels of just 31 percent among respondents whose family income exceeds $75,000 a year and 27 percent among those older than 65.

An anonymous reader writes: According to Pew Research Center, there's an increasingly growing fear among Americans about cyberattacks. In fact, it's the second most feared entity to them, the first being ISIS. The terrorist group is scary by design, relying on propaganda videos and ultra-violent attacks to spread fear and project power. But coming in second right after the terrorist group was the prospect of country-on-country cyberwar: a digital raid to steal another government's information, for example, or a large-scale attack on a nation's electrical grid. Cyberattacks are a major threat in the minds of 72 percent of Americans, and a minor threat to another 22 percent. Cyberwar hasn't been on Americans' minds to this degree since 2013. That year, for the first time, Americans ranked cyberattacks as a top threat, placing it second after the threat from Islamic extremists like al-Qaeda. But in the intervening years, Americans turned their attention to nuclear threats.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple may not have the public's support in its legal fight with the FBI, according to a recently published Pew report. In a survey that reached 1,000 respondents by phone over the weekend, Pew researchers found 51 percent of respondents believed Apple should comply with FBI demands to weaken security measures on an iPhone used in the San Bernardino attacks, in order to further the ongoing investigation. Only 38 percent of respondents agreed with the company's position.

Limiting the sample to respondents who own a smartphone only improved the numbers somewhat, changing them to a 50-41 split in the FBI's favor. Among those who own an iPhone, the numbers are even closer, but still in the FBI's favor 47 to 43 percent.

cstacy writes: A poll by the Pew Research Center suggests that Snowden's revelations have not much changed the public's favorable view of the NSA. Younger people (under 30) tend to view the NSA favorably, compared to those 65 and older. 61% of people aged 18-29 viewed the NSA favorably, while 30% viewed the NSA unfavorably and 9% had no opinion. 55% of people aged 30-49 viewed the NSA favorably. At the 65+ age bracket, only 40% of people viewed the NSA favorably.

Nerval's Lobster writes "More than half of Americans believe that the federal courts have failed to limit the U.S. government's collection of personal information via phone records and the Internet, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. But that's nothing compared to the 70 percent who believe that the government 'uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism,' according to the organization's summary of its survey. Another 63 percent of respondents indicated they thought the government is collecting information about the content of their communications. The Pew Research Center surveyed 1,480 adults over the course of five days in July. 'The public's views of the government's anti-terrorism efforts are complex, and many who believe the reach of the government's data collection program is expansive still approve of the effort overall,' the organization's summary added. 'In every case, however, those who view the government's data collection as far-reaching are less likely to approve of the program than those who do not.' Some 47 percent of those surveyed approved of the government's collection of phone and Internet data, while 50 percent disapproved. Among those who thought the government is reading their personal email or listening to their phone calls, some 40 percent approved of the data collection, even as 58 percent disapproved. There's much more, including how opinions of government surveillance break across political party lines on the Pew Research Center's Website."

Nerval's Lobster writes "More than half of Americans believe that the federal courts have failed to limit the U.S. government's collection of personal information via phone records and the Internet, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. But that's nothing compared to the 70 percent who believe that the government 'uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism,' according to the organization's summary of its survey. Another 63 percent of respondents indicated they thought the government is collecting information about the content of their communications. The Pew Research Center surveyed 1,480 adults over the course of five days in July. 'The public's views of the government's anti-terrorism efforts are complex, and many who believe the reach of the government's data collection program is expansive still approve of the effort overall,' the organization's summary added. 'In every case, however, those who view the government's data collection as far-reaching are less likely to approve of the program than those who do not.' Some 47 percent of those surveyed approved of the government's collection of phone and Internet data, while 50 percent disapproved. Among those who thought the government is reading their personal email or listening to their phone calls, some 40 percent approved of the data collection, even as 58 percent disapproved. There's much more, including how opinions of government surveillance break across political party lines on the Pew Research Center's Website."

An anonymous reader writes "While the tech media has gone wild the past few days with the reports of the NSA tracking Verizon cell usage and creating the PRISM system to peer into our online lives, a new study by Pew Research suggests that most U.S. citizens think it's okay. 62 percent of Americans say losing some personal privacy is acceptable as long as its used to fight terrorism, and 56 percent are okay with the NSA tracking phone calls. Online tracking is fair less popular however, with only 45 percent approving of the practice. The data also shows that the youth are far more opposed to curtailing privacy to fight terror, which could mean trouble for politicians planning to continue these programs in the coming years."

ZeroSerenity was one of many to write with news of a survey from the Pew Research Center which sought to find out how Americans feel about science and contrast that with the opinions of actual scientists. The study showed that "nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84% of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that." 27% of the respondents said that the advances of the US in science are its greatest achievement, down from 44% ten years ago. The study is lengthy, and it contains many more interesting tidbits. For example: scientists decry the level of media coverage given to science, and they also think research funding has too much influence on study results. 32% of scientists identify themselves as Independent, while 55% say they're Democrats and 6% say they're Republicans.

ZeroSerenity was one of many to write with news of a survey from the Pew Research Center which sought to find out how Americans feel about science and contrast that with the opinions of actual scientists. The study showed that "nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84% of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that." 27% of the respondents said that the advances of the US in science are its greatest achievement, down from 44% ten years ago. The study is lengthy, and it contains many more interesting tidbits. For example: scientists decry the level of media coverage given to science, and they also think research funding has too much influence on study results. 32% of scientists identify themselves as Independent, while 55% say they're Democrats and 6% say they're Republicans.

ZeroSerenity was one of many to write with news of a survey from the Pew Research Center which sought to find out how Americans feel about science and contrast that with the opinions of actual scientists. The study showed that "nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84% of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that." 27% of the respondents said that the advances of the US in science are its greatest achievement, down from 44% ten years ago. The study is lengthy, and it contains many more interesting tidbits. For example: scientists decry the level of media coverage given to science, and they also think research funding has too much influence on study results. 32% of scientists identify themselves as Independent, while 55% say they're Democrats and 6% say they're Republicans.

ZeroSerenity was one of many to write with news of a survey from the Pew Research Center which sought to find out how Americans feel about science and contrast that with the opinions of actual scientists. The study showed that "nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84% of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that." 27% of the respondents said that the advances of the US in science are its greatest achievement, down from 44% ten years ago. The study is lengthy, and it contains many more interesting tidbits. For example: scientists decry the level of media coverage given to science, and they also think research funding has too much influence on study results. 32% of scientists identify themselves as Independent, while 55% say they're Democrats and 6% say they're Republicans.

A few years ago, more than 90% of all American households halted work and play every evening to catch the evening news. Now, millions of younger Americans never watch a commercial TV newscast, and are turning to new forms of media, many generated on the Net. Cable and newspapers haven't been hit as hard as commercial TV yet, but the generational media divide is now measurable. The Net is redrawing the mediascape.

These kids devouring information online are re-working the mediascape in cyberspace, creating an enormous generational information divide. Although we often talk of technology in sweeping terms, when it comes to real-world changes, technology-driven changes are highly selective. They sweep away some forms of media like a tidal wave, and inexplicably leave others standing unchanged. In the case of commecial broadcast news, dying for years, the Net is polishing it off.

A new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press documents two significant trends: Internet news is becoming ever more mainstream, yet growing numbers of Americans are losing the news habit altogether. Fewer people say they enjoy following the news regularly, at least as news is traditionally defined; more than half pay attention to national news only when something important is happening. More Americans than ever watch the news with remote control in hand, ready to flee stories they consider boring or irrelevant. This finding underscores the importance of that little wireless zapper, proving it to be one of the most political pieces of technology ever.

Regular viewership of network news has fallen from 38% to 30% in the past two years, while local news viewership declined from 64% to 56%. Yet fully one in three Americans go online for news at least once a week, compared to 20% two years ago. And 15% say they receive daily news reports from the Net, up 6%.

Among younger, better-educated American news consumers, the Internet's impact is even more dramatic. Many more college graduates under 50 hit the Net daily for news than regularly watch a nightly network newscast. In fact, the Pew survey finds that people who are interested in the news and go online tend to watch less TV news all the time (The rise of Net news and related formats have less impact on non-broadcast news, apparently. The Pew Center found little evidence that Net news significantly drives down regular use of cable news, daily newspapers or radio news.

It stands to reason, though, that as many of these traditional news media appear on the Net and Web themselves, their use among younger Americans is also likely to decline.

The survey underscores the impact of two powerful factors that drive Net news: interactivity and the rise of Open Media news outlets.

Younger Americans who've grown up using interactive technologies -- the zapper, Sega and Nintendo systems, cable channels, the Net -- are increasingly accustomed to tailoring their news consumption: they want information of particular interest to them, at the times they choose to receive it. They demand the right to alter the media they receive. Older Americans raised on passive, pre-interactive media -- papers, newsmagazines, TV news that offer few choices and little control -- are much more likely to stick with traditional news. Thus, the across-the-board aging audiences of TV, newspapers and many magazines.

The growth of Net news has had a stunning impact on the way Americans, particularly those with access to technology, get information on business and financial matters. According to the Pew study, for active investors -- those who have traded stocks within the past six months -- the Net has largely supplanted traditional media as the leading source for stock quotes and investment advice. Here, the power of Netizens to tailor their own media is enormous and profound. 58% of active traders told Pew pollsters that they have customized stock portfolios online.

This is a staggering statistic -- such portfolios didn't even exist a decade ago. Now they're one of the primary tools for a completely new kind of financial transaction -- e-trading. And a significant percentage of financial sites online also offer breaking news and commentary, reflecting and affecting the markets they deal in.

The generational divide concerning media has been speculated about for years, but it's now quite measurable: Fewer than one in three young adults (31%) say they enjoy keeping up with the news, while more than half (57%) of those age 50 and over say they do. Though younger consumers say they don't like the news as much, they say they do like having a wide variety of information sources from which to choose. Older Americans say they often feel overwhelmed by the increasingly crowded media landscape.

(Caveat: I think serious terminology problems arise when it comes to describing younger Americans' tastes in news. Just as many pollsters and journalists don't consider gaming a significant part of culture, entertainment and technology often aren't considered news. My own belief is that younger Americans, especially those on the Net, are actually information junkies, but the kinds of news they like and the form in which they receive it is very different from their parents' tastes and from the way news is defined by journalists and educators. The kids I encounter online devour enormous amounts of information on a daily basis. That makes sweeping descriptions of their information habits suspect.)

Commercial broadcast news has less function all the time; its looming demise should have been obvious for years. Cable, much more interactive, offers many more options, often in the informal, even satirical (you could watch the convention coverage of Comedy Central's "the "Daily Show" every night and learn much more about the political conventions than on any network), and flexible format that interactive news consumers expect and, increasingly, have grown up with. With news their primary offering, cable-news channels don't have to toss out expensive entertainment programming or advertising to present news. Cable news also pays less homage to outdated anchor formats that have suffocated traditional news presentation for years.

Open source, though a movement in software rather than media per se, has sparked much of the evolution of successful open media, because it introduced the idea of information sharing online. The Net, however, is spawning many new kinds of news media: Web logs, specialized sites like this one, information-sharing exchanges from Napster to Gnutella, messaging services relaying one-to-one news; wire service- like news providers like C-Net. Some are not considered "news" in the traditional sense. But they are very journalistic. They do offer news and information, not only daily but continuously, and about everything from finance to culture to quilting to pet care.

Since the dinosaur-like TV anchors ruled the media world a decade or so ago, the mediascape has become unrecognizable, a rapidly changing work-in-progress. The past decade demonstrates that nobody can predict the media future, only try to hang on and watch while it continues to evolve, and while younger news consumers construct a radically new kind of information system for the first time in centuries.

Last week you asked online activist Scott Reents about his organization The Democracy Project, about online political action, about the worth of political involvement in general. He's obliged with some lengthy, thoughtful answers. If nothing else, his words should give you pause when you vote -- or don't.

Query
by Modern_Celt

Considering the speed of internet communication is this going to make it even more difficult for those in the Western states to care about the election? After all, most of the networks already predict a winner LONG before the poles out west close.

Scott Reents: Internet or no Internet, your individual vote is mathematically meaningless in determining the outcome of an election anyway, and exit polls already exist to remind you of this fact.

Still, the speed of the Internet is an important factor in our overall participation in politics. For example, MoveOn was able to organize and channel millions of people opposed to Clinton's impeachment in a matter of weeks. Normally, organizations can't mobilize their membership around pending legislation or regulations, because the window of opportunity before they are enacted is too small. This makes a truly grassroots organization an impossibility without the Internet, because there must always be organizational management to serve as proxies to (hopefully) represent their members interests.

How does the medium change the message?
by Squirrel Killer

I think most of us have a pretty good understanding of the ways in which the Internet affects the method of political communications. Instead of phone banking and lit drops, you can use e-mail lists and Web sites, to cite just two examples.

However, the more interesting question, in my mind, is how the Internet, as a medium, affects the message. How do you view political content changing as a response to the new methods available? Will political content move more to the extremes, since politicians can target more effectively, or will it move more mainstream, since more people are brought into the political arena.

Beyond the message, how will the internet affect political outcomes? Are there any potential policy options that become possible with the new methods available?

Scott: Will the Internet affect the "message" of political communication? Absolutely.

The medium is the message, which is to say that the characteristics of the Internet imply that certain messages work and certain messages do not work. The fact that there is so much choice on the Internet means that messages that are pure rhetoric and are not informative do not work; users can and will click elsewhere. The fact that hyperlinking is so common means that messages that don't link to supporting material are assumed to be hiding something. The fact that online publishing is so inexpensive means that users won't accept superficial explanations of positions and values.

Politicians CAN continue to make Web sites that are nothing more than glorified brochures, but who will visit them? Right now, I think that people visit them for the novelty, and because they don't really know what to expect, but that will not last if they continue to treat their users like fools.

Now, you raise an interesting point about the impact of politicians being able to "target" more effectively. To talk to most Internet marketers/campaigners these days, you'd think that "targeted" communication was the essence of the Internet, and was the highest form of interactivite communication. Wrong. Targeted communication is not of the Internet. It is of direct mail. It's a method used to improve response rates (like, from 3% to 4%, a 33% improvement!), to save money on postage, to hit the right hot buttons, blah, blah, blah. And it's not interactive; the communication is essentially as one way as broadcast television -- just more accurate.

Which is to say that I agree with your suggestion that targeting results in more extreme messages and a more stratified electorate, and I think that's dangerous.

It's also the way that the Internet politics space will move if left to develop by itself. In the last 12 months, sites like Grassroots.com ("Your political action network"), Voter.com ("Delivering democracy to your desktop"), Speakout.com ("Speak Out. Be Heard."), Vote.com ("Your vote will always be sent where it counts"), have all started with the premise of being able to aggregate site users and then sell targeted access (via e-mail, banner ads, etc.) to political campaigns, a prospect that I think is unhealthy for democracy.

That's why I wrote the essay -- to describe the way that political campaigns SHOULD be using the Internet for communication, and to try to set a higher standard for what people expect online. I don't think that an Internet of primarily targeted political messages is an inevitability, but it certainly is a possibility.

Will candidates ever really do this?
by El Volio

Interesting article. As a fairly neutral U.S. citizen, it occurs to me that, to many, the ideas expressed here are applied versions of general democratic ideals. Most voters would like to see more information about what candidates actually are proposing, and many want objective comparisons from unbiased sources.

But that's not politics. Never has been, and probably never will be.

So here's the question: Do you think that candidate sites are ever actually likely to provide objective data? Or do you think there will ever be a truly unbiased, trusted source (perhaps like the way the media should be) where specific information about tax cut proposals and so forth will be located?

Scott: You've exposed the dirty little secret of my essay, which is that I expect that 90% (at least) of politicians currently running would ignore my advice, should they read and understand it. So you're right in once sense; there are very few candidate sites today that remotely do what I prescribe, and most political advisers would consider such steps suicide because they violate the most important rule in their book: don't give up control.

But I don't think that means that it won't happen, any more than the fact that Microsoft hasn't supported open software means that open software isn't happening. My argument is simply that the traditional mode of campaigning doesn't work very well on the Internet, and so those that continue in the traditional mode will have to do so somewhere other than the Internet. And as important as this medium is becoming, that is a more and more unsustainable strategy.

And there are examples of candidates who are doing the right things. Ventura took some baby steps in the right direction with his e-mail lists. This Congressional candidate in Idaho is doing a very good job of running a citizen-centric campaign on the Internet, and so far succeeding. I'm sure there are others, though they are still few and far between. You will see more and more of them, and if you don't, you should consider starting your own. There are also 6,700 unofficial candidate sites put up by individuals that could potentially do things that the candidate would never allow his official site to do.

Let me also clarify one point, which is that I'm not suggesting that candidates build sites that are purely unbiased presentations of information. No, there is clearly still a role for opinion and leadership and values, but the best sites will present these in the context of information that people are looking for.

Candidates would be smart to try to emerge as reliable framers of issues -- the ones that attempt to set the scope of the problem, identify relevant evidence, outline competing values, etc. This is one of the most powerful positions to be in, but you can only do this if respect opposing viewpoints and treat them fairly. Frames are never the Congressional and state level, that people will be able to demonstrably say that the Internet had a measurable impact on the outcome of elections.

More importantly, the 2000 elections are key because they will begin to set the standard for political communication on the Internet. Millions of dollars is being invested in building online political resources -- campaign-oriented, commercial, nonprofit, government, etc. -- and the way that that is invested will have a tremendous impact over the way the political Internet develops over the next 20 years.

Will it be a commercial Yahoo model of aggregating lots of users and then auctioning off access to them to the highest bidders? Will it be a broadcast model, trying to attract as many eyeballs without giving up any real control? Or will it be a civic model, empowering citizens to take a more meaningful role in the running of the government?

If it is the latter, I believe that it could have far-reaching impacts on many facets of politics, from the two-party system to the role of soft money and PACs to the types of legislation that gets enacted.

detailed content
by geekpress

One reason, in my opinion, that politicians don't provide detailed content on their Web sites about policy proposals is the concern that what they say will come back to bite them, a la "No New Taxes." Concrete policy proposals can be used against them once in office, for it is easier to measure someone's actions against written statements than soundbytes and speeches.

So, given this strong incentive to keep proposals vague, what other incentives can we offer politicians to pony up the details of their plans for us?

Scott: You're absolutely right, that politicians are wary of detailed proposals coming back to bite them, although I'd say "no new taxes," was missing some of the elements of a detailed proposal (like, detail).

Getting politicians to offer more detail requires that citizens have a way of demanding more. Imagine if there were a forum open to all candidates who agreed to abide by the rules of the forum -- citizens ask the questions, are allowed follow-up questions, and candidates can answer or not, but the entire forum is aware of what you answer and don't. Well, no candidates would come, because candidates insist on control over the information they have to give up. What if, however, the forum contained 10%, 20%, or even 50% of the likely voters. I bet you'd see a lot more interest. There would be the credible threat that at least one candidate (particularly the one who was trailing in the polls) would show up, and then all candidates would be forced to show up. I propose that that forum can be built on the Internet, and I bet some of you are smart enough to come up with a way to figure out which questions to ask.

Politicians are opportunistic; they will do what they need to do to win. So, the answer to getting them to pony up more information is to make it a necessary component of winning.

The truth is, there is a subtle collusion between politicians and traditional media. Traditional media want to make money from politicians showing up on their talk shows, buying ads, granting interviews, participating in debates, and they don't care deeply about making these things particularly meaningful. Thus, politicians hold the upper hand -- as long as they can deliver entertainment (ala sound bytes, debate one-liners, etc.) -- they do not have to give up any real control. Politicians give media what they want; media gives politicians what they want.

Is Internet driving a societal shift?
by Noel

In your essay you say, "the expectations of people on the Internet are different and more demanding than citizens' expectations in general."

Are these higher expectations a result of being on the Internet, or does Internet access self-select people that have higher expectations?

Will the influx of people onto the Internet raise the expectations of the general populace, or will it dilute the expectations of the Internet community?

Scott: It's a little bit of both. However, I believe that higher expectations is more a result of the medium than of the particular people who have chosen to use the medium. I'm not saying that the Internet improves people -- makes them more critical, more involved, more interested in learning, better judges of argument -- but I am saying that on the Internet a message transplanted from "traditional media" doesn't look right to most Internet users.

In my research into Internet behavior, I've found that there is about am 18-month period of acclimitazation online, after which people are much more likely to do more "sophisticated" activities (e.g., personalizing information, registering, purchasing, changing default start-up pages, etc.), and this observation holds true as much for the people who first went online in 1996 as it does for the people who just went online last year.

This suggests to me that people's expectations and use of the medium is not set when they come online, but rather evolves over time. I believe that this increased sophistication comes with an increasing degree of impatience: people understand what types of sites work and what type don't, and they leave sites that don't.

Why are libertarians better represented on the net?
by Russ Nelson

So why do Internet political polls always generate results which are more skewed towards the libertarian philosophy? Is it because they don't "count" and so people feel more free to vote how they feel? Or is it because people who are drawn to the net value freedom more than security?

Scott: Most Internet polls do a very poor job of being scientific, so I would be very wary of concluding that Harry Browne's apparent popularity among Internet users is real. The most important factor, in my opinion, is that non-mainstream parties like the Libertarians do better in Internet polls because these marginilized groups feel a greater desire to participate in these polls, as a way of generating awareness for their movements.

Still, there is certainly a more libertarian ethic on the Internet, and in the same way that I think that people become more sophisticated with time, I think that people begin to value the freedom of the Internet with time. In my experience, the strongest advocates of regulating speech on the Internet are those who have the least amount of experience with it. However, if you look at party affiliations, voting behavior, etc. of Internet users, it's what you'd expect from a group of people with above average education and income (Pew Research has done some nice, though a bit dated research on the subject).

Realistically, does the net matter?
by neowintermute

Can we realistically say that the Internet is making a difference in the political process? Can a basically unknown candidate like Ralph Nader get a resonable number of votes thanks to just his web site? Or are people really just going to the Web sites of the candidates they hear about on television? In the closed capitalist mind space we inhabit, big monetary interests determine the range of possibilities people think are viable.

According to a recent IBM/Altavista study, even on the net the big money sites like Yahoo "basically control the flow of information". So can we really think that the net is going to suddenly bring us democracy despite the nondemocratic nature of our entire economy/political system?

Scott: I wouldn't go so far as to say that our economic-political system is nondemocratic. I'd be the first to say that there are aspects that don't work as well as we'd like, but these are easily outweighed by the institutions and processes that are democratic.

Still, the degree to which information is controlled by corporate interests is disturbing. Ralph Nader is unlikely to get many votes just because of his Web site, and he's someone with actually quite a bit of promotional muscle behind him. One of the main reasons is that the traditional method of finding information on the Net, the search engine, tends to reinforce the hierarchies of offline power structures

To me, this says that the Net will not matter if left to develop in its "natural" commercial fashion. Because this is an election year, there is a unique opportunity for efforts that define the political Internet outside of this commercial environment. Millions are for the first time looking for political information and interaction, which means that it's not nearly as difficult (ie, expensive) as it has been/will be to get a site that captures a fair amount of this traffic. And if done correctly, ie, in a citizen-centric fashion, such a site should be able to use this jump-start to create a community that endures and matters. Anyway, that's the bet I've taken in leaving my .com job (and stock options) to start the Democracy Project.

I'm sure most of you are cognizant of the power -- commercial, political, spiritual, whatever -- that slashdot has. In pitching the Democracy Project to foundations and other "civicly-minded" folks, I almost always point to slashdot as an example of the potential power of the Internet.

Slashdot gives the average person the ability to address a forum of hundreds of thousands of people. I contend that that is unique in the history of the world, and that development is revolutionary in the way that Gutenberg's printing press was revolutionary.

What about a Slashdot for politics? Is there a space for something like this? Absolutely. In fact there is probably room for many Slashdots for politics. In its own way, Slashdot is arguably already a Slashdot for politics, with the discussions about Columbine, digital copyright, CDA, etc. Now, I know that the idea of Slashdot as a political forum is a controversial one, so I'm not saying that Slashdot should be more political. I'm just saying that the model has already shown that the Internet has the potential to effect meaningful change on the way our political system works.

noted
by jbarnett

It has been noted that Al Gore is popular among geeks for many reaons, for example he invented the Internet, runs Linux on his Web site and hides cool little things in his HTML source. What do you think other Presidential candidates have to do or are doing to "compete" with Al Gore for the Geek vote?

Bill Clinton raised a lot of votes by "reaching out" to the Youth of America, do you think Al Gore will continue to "reach out" to the Geeks of America in the same aspect as Clinton did a few years back?

In your personal opinon who is the more 31337 hAx0r: Gore or Bush? And Finally the question everyone is dying to know the answer to: If pited against each other in a roman style caged deathmatch, who would win, Gore or Bush?

Scott: I certainly hope that geeks will base their voting decisions on more than what operating system a candidate's Web site is running. In all likelihood, Al Gore had nothing to do with that decision, and the fact that his Webmaster hides cool things in his HTML will not have any impact on what Gore might or might not do as president. These things are almost entirely symbolic, which isn't surprising since the majority of discourse among the presidential candidates is symbolic rather than substantive.

Of course, Al Gore will "reach out" to the youth of America, but the question is, will he do it in a way that matters or will it be mostly about posting pictures of Al in front of a computer on his Web site? Bush, too. I see them in a dead heat for last in truly reaching out to the YOA.

Now, as for the roman-style caged deathmatch, do you mean Catharginian or Syracusean rules?

'Ender's Game'
by ZetaPotential

A system very similar to what you advocate has been described in some detail in Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game. In that book, Card describes online bulletin boards where people "share information, organize and build consensus around issues," to quote your essay. A central part of this book is that two genius pre-teens write intelligent posts and counterposts in a way that manipulates public opinion on crucial political issues, for their own advancement.

So, my question is this: If someday the majority of people formulate their political opinions based on what they read in forums similar to Slashdot, will it be possible for individuals or organizations to manipulate the "public discourse" in such a way that advances their own agendas? If so, what type of steps would you advocate to reduce this type of "political trolling"?

Scott: A friend showed me Ender's Game, and I agree that what I'm advocating has a lot in common with that vision of political discourse. Clearly, there are some very difficult questions about how you preserve the sanctity of an online "townhall," and I'd be lying if I said I knew all the answers, but I do have some thoughts.

One thing they didn't do in Ender's Game was to verify that each participant on the boards was unique. There should have been a way to verify that people were unique individuals in such a way that still allowed them their right to anonymity. This would have kept Peter and Valentine from using fake identities to serve as foils and practice posters. This kind of anonymous authentication would be an important feature of an online townhall.

Ultimately, however, the real threat they posed is was a result of their geniuses and proclivity to manipulate. There will always be demogogues, and keeping them from masquerading won't keep them from manipulating. Caveat emptor.

There are lots of other vulnerabilities in an online townhall, but I think the most dangerous is the power that the "management" has to use the rules of the townhall to serve their own interests. Absolute vodka, er power, corrupts absolutely, as they say. There need to be safeguards to ensure that the people who set the rules are ultimately accountable to the people who use the site. For example, at the Democracy Project we are designing our site to have as little management involvement as possible. There are certain management powers that exist on Slashdot (e.g., bitchslapping) that we don't think belong in an online townhall. We have also organized ourselves legally in such a way that we will allow registrants on our site (after it has critical mass) to remove the management in a vote of no-confidence. We don't expect this to be a regular event, but it's a safeguard that provides a last resort of accountability.

Candidates and their records
by Remus Shepherd

You talk about what the political parties should do to improve their Web sites, but don't mention what people outside political circles can accomplish. The Web sites you list in your article do *not* have what everyone says they want: An unbiased checklist of issues referenced to the candidates and their voting record.

Forget the political parties for a moment, as I don't believe they'll ever report unbiased information. That leaves us, the people.

Do you think there is room for a grassroots organization to collect the voting histories of candidates and publicize their records? If so, why doesn't such an organization already exist? Could such an organization thrive, or would it be besieged by political candidates who don't want their true voting histories known?

Scott: First, there are already sites that collect and report the candidate's records. I recommend USA Democracy, Project Vote-Smart, and THOMAS as excellent sources of info on candidate positions, voting records, and public statements.

But your broader question is important, because I think that as valuable as these and other political information sites are, they leave a gap that could (should) be filled by a grassroots effort.

The unbiased checklist of positions is a good, but incomplete way to make voting decisions. It's unlikely to include references to the most current, relevant issues. It overly reduces the complexity of how legislators make voting decisions (the best policy makers are generally not dogmatic and are good compromisers). And the list of issues is defined and arbitrary, which makes you wonder who got to decide which issues to include on the list.

So, the gap to me is the open, online townhall, an alternative source of information and political deliberation, an example of which we've described at our Web site, and are currently developing. This would allow everyone the opportunity to offer their own checklists, or point to others who have developed checklists that they agree with. But in addition, it would allow discussion of the most current events, and more importantly, the competing values that underlie policy proposals, neither of which will ever be adequately addressed by a position checklist.

Can such an organization thrive? I believe so. Grassroots organizations draw their strength from their membership, and so are not dependent on the approval of candidates in order to exist. So long as such an organization could provide a valuable service to its membership, it could endure. In fact, I'd say that such an organization would HAVE to be grassroots, because it must be independent of the political players in order to be effective. Lack of grassroots support is one of the reasons why it's unlikely that USA Democracy, Vote-Smart, THOMAS, and the commercial sites discussed above will realize the full vision of the Citizen-centric Internet.

Thanks all. If you want to be alerted when we launch our site, sign up here

Scott

www.democracyproject.org

Last week you asked online activist Scott Reents about his organization The Democracy Project, about online political action, about the worth of political involvement in general. He's obliged with some lengthy, thoughtful answers. If nothing else, his words should give you pause when you vote -- or don't.

Query
by Modern_Celt

Considering the speed of internet communication is this going to make it even more difficult for those in the Western states to care about the election? After all, most of the networks already predict a winner LONG before the poles out west close.

Scott Reents: Internet or no Internet, your individual vote is mathematically meaningless in determining the outcome of an election anyway, and exit polls already exist to remind you of this fact.

Still, the speed of the Internet is an important factor in our overall participation in politics. For example, MoveOn was able to organize and channel millions of people opposed to Clinton's impeachment in a matter of weeks. Normally, organizations can't mobilize their membership around pending legislation or regulations, because the window of opportunity before they are enacted is too small. This makes a truly grassroots organization an impossibility without the Internet, because there must always be organizational management to serve as proxies to (hopefully) represent their members interests.

How does the medium change the message?
by Squirrel Killer

I think most of us have a pretty good understanding of the ways in which the Internet affects the method of political communications. Instead of phone banking and lit drops, you can use e-mail lists and Web sites, to cite just two examples.

However, the more interesting question, in my mind, is how the Internet, as a medium, affects the message. How do you view political content changing as a response to the new methods available? Will political content move more to the extremes, since politicians can target more effectively, or will it move more mainstream, since more people are brought into the political arena.

Beyond the message, how will the internet affect political outcomes? Are there any potential policy options that become possible with the new methods available?

Scott: Will the Internet affect the "message" of political communication? Absolutely.

The medium is the message, which is to say that the characteristics of the Internet imply that certain messages work and certain messages do not work. The fact that there is so much choice on the Internet means that messages that are pure rhetoric and are not informative do not work; users can and will click elsewhere. The fact that hyperlinking is so common means that messages that don't link to supporting material are assumed to be hiding something. The fact that online publishing is so inexpensive means that users won't accept superficial explanations of positions and values.

Politicians CAN continue to make Web sites that are nothing more than glorified brochures, but who will visit them? Right now, I think that people visit them for the novelty, and because they don't really know what to expect, but that will not last if they continue to treat their users like fools.

Now, you raise an interesting point about the impact of politicians being able to "target" more effectively. To talk to most Internet marketers/campaigners these days, you'd think that "targeted" communication was the essence of the Internet, and was the highest form of interactivite communication. Wrong. Targeted communication is not of the Internet. It is of direct mail. It's a method used to improve response rates (like, from 3% to 4%, a 33% improvement!), to save money on postage, to hit the right hot buttons, blah, blah, blah. And it's not interactive; the communication is essentially as one way as broadcast television -- just more accurate.

Which is to say that I agree with your suggestion that targeting results in more extreme messages and a more stratified electorate, and I think that's dangerous.

It's also the way that the Internet politics space will move if left to develop by itself. In the last 12 months, sites like Grassroots.com ("Your political action network"), Voter.com ("Delivering democracy to your desktop"), Speakout.com ("Speak Out. Be Heard."), Vote.com ("Your vote will always be sent where it counts"), have all started with the premise of being able to aggregate site users and then sell targeted access (via e-mail, banner ads, etc.) to political campaigns, a prospect that I think is unhealthy for democracy.

That's why I wrote the essay -- to describe the way that political campaigns SHOULD be using the Internet for communication, and to try to set a higher standard for what people expect online. I don't think that an Internet of primarily targeted political messages is an inevitability, but it certainly is a possibility.

Will candidates ever really do this?
by El Volio

Interesting article. As a fairly neutral U.S. citizen, it occurs to me that, to many, the ideas expressed here are applied versions of general democratic ideals. Most voters would like to see more information about what candidates actually are proposing, and many want objective comparisons from unbiased sources.

But that's not politics. Never has been, and probably never will be.

So here's the question: Do you think that candidate sites are ever actually likely to provide objective data? Or do you think there will ever be a truly unbiased, trusted source (perhaps like the way the media should be) where specific information about tax cut proposals and so forth will be located?

Scott: You've exposed the dirty little secret of my essay, which is that I expect that 90% (at least) of politicians currently running would ignore my advice, should they read and understand it. So you're right in once sense; there are very few candidate sites today that remotely do what I prescribe, and most political advisers would consider such steps suicide because they violate the most important rule in their book: don't give up control.

But I don't think that means that it won't happen, any more than the fact that Microsoft hasn't supported open software means that open software isn't happening. My argument is simply that the traditional mode of campaigning doesn't work very well on the Internet, and so those that continue in the traditional mode will have to do so somewhere other than the Internet. And as important as this medium is becoming, that is a more and more unsustainable strategy.

And there are examples of candidates who are doing the right things. Ventura took some baby steps in the right direction with his e-mail lists. This Congressional candidate in Idaho is doing a very good job of running a citizen-centric campaign on the Internet, and so far succeeding. I'm sure there are others, though they are still few and far between. You will see more and more of them, and if you don't, you should consider starting your own. There are also 6,700 unofficial candidate sites put up by individuals that could potentially do things that the candidate would never allow his official site to do.

Let me also clarify one point, which is that I'm not suggesting that candidates build sites that are purely unbiased presentations of information. No, there is clearly still a role for opinion and leadership and values, but the best sites will present these in the context of information that people are looking for.

Candidates would be smart to try to emerge as reliable framers of issues -- the ones that attempt to set the scope of the problem, identify relevant evidence, outline competing values, etc. This is one of the most powerful positions to be in, but you can only do this if respect opposing viewpoints and treat them fairly. Frames are never the Congressional and state level, that people will be able to demonstrably say that the Internet had a measurable impact on the outcome of elections.

More importantly, the 2000 elections are key because they will begin to set the standard for political communication on the Internet. Millions of dollars is being invested in building online political resources -- campaign-oriented, commercial, nonprofit, government, etc. -- and the way that that is invested will have a tremendous impact over the way the political Internet develops over the next 20 years.

Will it be a commercial Yahoo model of aggregating lots of users and then auctioning off access to them to the highest bidders? Will it be a broadcast model, trying to attract as many eyeballs without giving up any real control? Or will it be a civic model, empowering citizens to take a more meaningful role in the running of the government?

If it is the latter, I believe that it could have far-reaching impacts on many facets of politics, from the two-party system to the role of soft money and PACs to the types of legislation that gets enacted.

detailed content
by geekpress

One reason, in my opinion, that politicians don't provide detailed content on their Web sites about policy proposals is the concern that what they say will come back to bite them, a la "No New Taxes." Concrete policy proposals can be used against them once in office, for it is easier to measure someone's actions against written statements than soundbytes and speeches.

So, given this strong incentive to keep proposals vague, what other incentives can we offer politicians to pony up the details of their plans for us?

Scott: You're absolutely right, that politicians are wary of detailed proposals coming back to bite them, although I'd say "no new taxes," was missing some of the elements of a detailed proposal (like, detail).

Getting politicians to offer more detail requires that citizens have a way of demanding more. Imagine if there were a forum open to all candidates who agreed to abide by the rules of the forum -- citizens ask the questions, are allowed follow-up questions, and candidates can answer or not, but the entire forum is aware of what you answer and don't. Well, no candidates would come, because candidates insist on control over the information they have to give up. What if, however, the forum contained 10%, 20%, or even 50% of the likely voters. I bet you'd see a lot more interest. There would be the credible threat that at least one candidate (particularly the one who was trailing in the polls) would show up, and then all candidates would be forced to show up. I propose that that forum can be built on the Internet, and I bet some of you are smart enough to come up with a way to figure out which questions to ask.

Politicians are opportunistic; they will do what they need to do to win. So, the answer to getting them to pony up more information is to make it a necessary component of winning.

The truth is, there is a subtle collusion between politicians and traditional media. Traditional media want to make money from politicians showing up on their talk shows, buying ads, granting interviews, participating in debates, and they don't care deeply about making these things particularly meaningful. Thus, politicians hold the upper hand -- as long as they can deliver entertainment (ala sound bytes, debate one-liners, etc.) -- they do not have to give up any real control. Politicians give media what they want; media gives politicians what they want.

Is Internet driving a societal shift?
by Noel

In your essay you say, "the expectations of people on the Internet are different and more demanding than citizens' expectations in general."

Are these higher expectations a result of being on the Internet, or does Internet access self-select people that have higher expectations?

Will the influx of people onto the Internet raise the expectations of the general populace, or will it dilute the expectations of the Internet community?

Scott: It's a little bit of both. However, I believe that higher expectations is more a result of the medium than of the particular people who have chosen to use the medium. I'm not saying that the Internet improves people -- makes them more critical, more involved, more interested in learning, better judges of argument -- but I am saying that on the Internet a message transplanted from "traditional media" doesn't look right to most Internet users.

In my research into Internet behavior, I've found that there is about am 18-month period of acclimitazation online, after which people are much more likely to do more "sophisticated" activities (e.g., personalizing information, registering, purchasing, changing default start-up pages, etc.), and this observation holds true as much for the people who first went online in 1996 as it does for the people who just went online last year.

This suggests to me that people's expectations and use of the medium is not set when they come online, but rather evolves over time. I believe that this increased sophistication comes with an increasing degree of impatience: people understand what types of sites work and what type don't, and they leave sites that don't.

Why are libertarians better represented on the net?
by Russ Nelson

So why do Internet political polls always generate results which are more skewed towards the libertarian philosophy? Is it because they don't "count" and so people feel more free to vote how they feel? Or is it because people who are drawn to the net value freedom more than security?

Scott: Most Internet polls do a very poor job of being scientific, so I would be very wary of concluding that Harry Browne's apparent popularity among Internet users is real. The most important factor, in my opinion, is that non-mainstream parties like the Libertarians do better in Internet polls because these marginilized groups feel a greater desire to participate in these polls, as a way of generating awareness for their movements.

Still, there is certainly a more libertarian ethic on the Internet, and in the same way that I think that people become more sophisticated with time, I think that people begin to value the freedom of the Internet with time. In my experience, the strongest advocates of regulating speech on the Internet are those who have the least amount of experience with it. However, if you look at party affiliations, voting behavior, etc. of Internet users, it's what you'd expect from a group of people with above average education and income (Pew Research has done some nice, though a bit dated research on the subject).

Realistically, does the net matter?
by neowintermute

Can we realistically say that the Internet is making a difference in the political process? Can a basically unknown candidate like Ralph Nader get a resonable number of votes thanks to just his web site? Or are people really just going to the Web sites of the candidates they hear about on television? In the closed capitalist mind space we inhabit, big monetary interests determine the range of possibilities people think are viable.

According to a recent IBM/Altavista study, even on the net the big money sites like Yahoo "basically control the flow of information". So can we really think that the net is going to suddenly bring us democracy despite the nondemocratic nature of our entire economy/political system?

Scott: I wouldn't go so far as to say that our economic-political system is nondemocratic. I'd be the first to say that there are aspects that don't work as well as we'd like, but these are easily outweighed by the institutions and processes that are democratic.

Still, the degree to which information is controlled by corporate interests is disturbing. Ralph Nader is unlikely to get many votes just because of his Web site, and he's someone with actually quite a bit of promotional muscle behind him. One of the main reasons is that the traditional method of finding information on the Net, the search engine, tends to reinforce the hierarchies of offline power structures

To me, this says that the Net will not matter if left to develop in its "natural" commercial fashion. Because this is an election year, there is a unique opportunity for efforts that define the political Internet outside of this commercial environment. Millions are for the first time looking for political information and interaction, which means that it's not nearly as difficult (ie, expensive) as it has been/will be to get a site that captures a fair amount of this traffic. And if done correctly, ie, in a citizen-centric fashion, such a site should be able to use this jump-start to create a community that endures and matters. Anyway, that's the bet I've taken in leaving my .com job (and stock options) to start the Democracy Project.

I'm sure most of you are cognizant of the power -- commercial, political, spiritual, whatever -- that slashdot has. In pitching the Democracy Project to foundations and other "civicly-minded" folks, I almost always point to slashdot as an example of the potential power of the Internet.

Slashdot gives the average person the ability to address a forum of hundreds of thousands of people. I contend that that is unique in the history of the world, and that development is revolutionary in the way that Gutenberg's printing press was revolutionary.

What about a Slashdot for politics? Is there a space for something like this? Absolutely. In fact there is probably room for many Slashdots for politics. In its own way, Slashdot is arguably already a Slashdot for politics, with the discussions about Columbine, digital copyright, CDA, etc. Now, I know that the idea of Slashdot as a political forum is a controversial one, so I'm not saying that Slashdot should be more political. I'm just saying that the model has already shown that the Internet has the potential to effect meaningful change on the way our political system works.

noted
by jbarnett

It has been noted that Al Gore is popular among geeks for many reaons, for example he invented the Internet, runs Linux on his Web site and hides cool little things in his HTML source. What do you think other Presidential candidates have to do or are doing to "compete" with Al Gore for the Geek vote?

Bill Clinton raised a lot of votes by "reaching out" to the Youth of America, do you think Al Gore will continue to "reach out" to the Geeks of America in the same aspect as Clinton did a few years back?

In your personal opinon who is the more 31337 hAx0r: Gore or Bush? And Finally the question everyone is dying to know the answer to: If pited against each other in a roman style caged deathmatch, who would win, Gore or Bush?

Scott: I certainly hope that geeks will base their voting decisions on more than what operating system a candidate's Web site is running. In all likelihood, Al Gore had nothing to do with that decision, and the fact that his Webmaster hides cool things in his HTML will not have any impact on what Gore might or might not do as president. These things are almost entirely symbolic, which isn't surprising since the majority of discourse among the presidential candidates is symbolic rather than substantive.

Of course, Al Gore will "reach out" to the youth of America, but the question is, will he do it in a way that matters or will it be mostly about posting pictures of Al in front of a computer on his Web site? Bush, too. I see them in a dead heat for last in truly reaching out to the YOA.

Now, as for the roman-style caged deathmatch, do you mean Catharginian or Syracusean rules?

'Ender's Game'
by ZetaPotential

A system very similar to what you advocate has been described in some detail in Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game. In that book, Card describes online bulletin boards where people "share information, organize and build consensus around issues," to quote your essay. A central part of this book is that two genius pre-teens write intelligent posts and counterposts in a way that manipulates public opinion on crucial political issues, for their own advancement.

So, my question is this: If someday the majority of people formulate their political opinions based on what they read in forums similar to Slashdot, will it be possible for individuals or organizations to manipulate the "public discourse" in such a way that advances their own agendas? If so, what type of steps would you advocate to reduce this type of "political trolling"?

Scott: A friend showed me Ender's Game, and I agree that what I'm advocating has a lot in common with that vision of political discourse. Clearly, there are some very difficult questions about how you preserve the sanctity of an online "townhall," and I'd be lying if I said I knew all the answers, but I do have some thoughts.

One thing they didn't do in Ender's Game was to verify that each participant on the boards was unique. There should have been a way to verify that people were unique individuals in such a way that still allowed them their right to anonymity. This would have kept Peter and Valentine from using fake identities to serve as foils and practice posters. This kind of anonymous authentication would be an important feature of an online townhall.

Ultimately, however, the real threat they posed is was a result of their geniuses and proclivity to manipulate. There will always be demogogues, and keeping them from masquerading won't keep them from manipulating. Caveat emptor.

There are lots of other vulnerabilities in an online townhall, but I think the most dangerous is the power that the "management" has to use the rules of the townhall to serve their own interests. Absolute vodka, er power, corrupts absolutely, as they say. There need to be safeguards to ensure that the people who set the rules are ultimately accountable to the people who use the site. For example, at the Democracy Project we are designing our site to have as little management involvement as possible. There are certain management powers that exist on Slashdot (e.g., bitchslapping) that we don't think belong in an online townhall. We have also organized ourselves legally in such a way that we will allow registrants on our site (after it has critical mass) to remove the management in a vote of no-confidence. We don't expect this to be a regular event, but it's a safeguard that provides a last resort of accountability.

Candidates and their records
by Remus Shepherd

You talk about what the political parties should do to improve their Web sites, but don't mention what people outside political circles can accomplish. The Web sites you list in your article do *not* have what everyone says they want: An unbiased checklist of issues referenced to the candidates and their voting record.

Forget the political parties for a moment, as I don't believe they'll ever report unbiased information. That leaves us, the people.

Do you think there is room for a grassroots organization to collect the voting histories of candidates and publicize their records? If so, why doesn't such an organization already exist? Could such an organization thrive, or would it be besieged by political candidates who don't want their true voting histories known?

Scott: First, there are already sites that collect and report the candidate's records. I recommend USA Democracy, Project Vote-Smart, and THOMAS as excellent sources of info on candidate positions, voting records, and public statements.

But your broader question is important, because I think that as valuable as these and other political information sites are, they leave a gap that could (should) be filled by a grassroots effort.

The unbiased checklist of positions is a good, but incomplete way to make voting decisions. It's unlikely to include references to the most current, relevant issues. It overly reduces the complexity of how legislators make voting decisions (the best policy makers are generally not dogmatic and are good compromisers). And the list of issues is defined and arbitrary, which makes you wonder who got to decide which issues to include on the list.

So, the gap to me is the open, online townhall, an alternative source of information and political deliberation, an example of which we've described at our Web site, and are currently developing. This would allow everyone the opportunity to offer their own checklists, or point to others who have developed checklists that they agree with. But in addition, it would allow discussion of the most current events, and more importantly, the competing values that underlie policy proposals, neither of which will ever be adequately addressed by a position checklist.

Can such an organization thrive? I believe so. Grassroots organizations draw their strength from their membership, and so are not dependent on the approval of candidates in order to exist. So long as such an organization could provide a valuable service to its membership, it could endure. In fact, I'd say that such an organization would HAVE to be grassroots, because it must be independent of the political players in order to be effective. Lack of grassroots support is one of the reasons why it's unlikely that USA Democracy, Vote-Smart, THOMAS, and the commercial sites discussed above will realize the full vision of the Citizen-centric Internet.

Thanks all. If you want to be alerted when we launch our site, sign up here

Scott

www.democracyproject.org

In the past couple of decades, anti-technology has become something of a trendy national political movement, especially among journalists, politicians, academics and other intellectuals. But a new survey says the vast majority of Americans are profoundly optimistic about the next century, and technology is the reason why.

Technology has become the national conversation since the explosion of networked computing the Net and the Web; a central political and social issue, reality that splits the country into distinct camps: those who look forward to the future, and those who don't.

The subject has become so important that it increasingly plays a dominant role not only in how people feel about machines themselves, but about what lies ahead.

Americans used to be unequivocally upbeat about technology. "If you can dream it, you can do it," was one of Walt Disney's favorite exhortations to his beloved corps of Imagineers.

"When I visited the General Motors Futurama Exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, I believed that I was truly looking at 'The World Of Tomorrow,'" wrote Samuel Florman, the engineer/author, in "The Existential Pleasures of Engineering."

Florman remembers believing that he was literally looking at the "World of Tomorrow" and that it was a better place. "It would have to be," he recalls, "with its superhighways, its sleek cars, and its sparkling cities."

Americans are vastly more sophisticated about technology now, wary and perhaps chastened by the tidal wave of new technologies and their often unforeseen consequences. Superhighways, sleek cars and sparkling cities all came to pass, but so did pollution, congestion, noise crime and enormous social dislocation.

Although the rise of computing suggests worries about technology is a relatively modern concern, it really isn't. Benjamin Franklin was a geek through and through, and he always understood that technology was a mixed blessing, bringing both triumphs and unpleasant surprises.

In more recent times, amateur technologists like Disney were sometimes drawn into Utopianism, convinced that technology alone held the key to a brighter tomorrow.

Judging by the moral outrage and near hysteria about technics in modern politics and media - cracking, Y2K, pornography, perversion, isolation, addiction - it might seem that Americans had completely abandoned the idea that technology could, in fact, herald a brighter future.

That assumption would be wrong.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center on how Americans feel about the 21st Century shows they are profoundly optimistic about the future, and technology is the primary reason why.

According to Pew's nationwide survey, a staggering 81 per cent of adults are optimistic about what the 21st Century holds for them, and 70 per cent believe the country as a whole will do well. Eight in ten Americans describe themselves as hopeful about the year 2000. A significant majority anticipate that the new millenium will usher in the triumph of science and technology over some of humanity's most enduring plagues and problems, from AIDS and cancer to environmental degradation.

Americans' view of the promise of technology, in fact, is distinctly brighter than their feelings about their fellow human beings. Nearly two-thirds of Americans anticipate a serious terrorist attack on the United States within the next 50 years, and more than half say an epidemic worse than AIDS is likely. Significant numbers expect a major earthquake in California, foresee increased global warming and predict a severe energy crisis by the middle of the 21st century.

What's striking about the survey is that although Americans expect some problems to worsen, their overall outlook about the future remains optimistic. And technology is the reason. Americans believe that science and technology will expand their horizons, create a better future for them, provide longer lives, even allow routine space travel.

Americans, the survey demonstrates, are forming their own views of technology, apart from the moral outrage expressed by so many public figures about a host of techno-driven social plagues, and the cost, inefficiency, intrusiveness of technology in general. Perhaps as a result of their newfound ability to access information and opinions via the Net and Web, Americans are becoming more rational and far-sighted than their elected representatives.

Fewer than half of the respondents now believe a Messiah will return to the Earth in the 21st Century, for instance, but but 81 per cent believe cancer will be cured.

As Florman, a civil engineer, and other writers about technology have pointed out, anti-technology has become something of a national movement among the so-called intelligentsia in American life. Intellectuals often fear that new technologies - from the Internet to cable TV and cell phones - are dumbing down the young, isolating individuals and destroying traditional notions of civilization, literacy and culture.

Some of these attitudes arose during the 60s, when technology got the blame for creating nuclear weapons, napalm and other lethal killing devices, and for de-spoiling the environment. The explosive growth of the Internet - which has freed up so much information and endangers the privileged positions and monopoly over information formerly held by politicians, journalists, stockbrokers and academics - has generated even more unease about technology.

Lawyers worry that the public will access their own legal documents on the Web. Doctors fret about the sudden dissemination of medical information. Journalists worry about who will vouch for the accuracy of information, political scientists fear an anarchic electorate, which votes instantly and without knowledge or deliberation, and academics are traumatized by the notion that slobs in Kansas with computers and modems will get to pass their ideas around, too.

But technology is, in fact, an idea whose time has come. It's no longer the exclusive province of engineers, geeks and nerds either. The Net has brought tens of millions of Americans into very personal contact with technology as a powerful social and economic force and political tool. So far, at least, and despite its many problems and flaws, they like it.