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Making Technology Democratic
A century and a half ago, the visiting French critic Alexis de Tocqueville described a politically exuberant United States whose citizens didn?t let booming technologies like the steam engine distract them from enthusiastic personal involvement in public affairs and community life.
"If an American were condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence; he would feel an immense void in the life which he is accustomed to lead, and his wretchedness would be unbearable," de Tocqueville observed.
That description sounds more than 150 years out of date. As was apparent last week, politics is increasingly wretched and unbearable -- an arcane, irrelevant exercise carried out by media, political, lobbying and special interest groups in Washington. Individual citizens grow more apathetic all the time when it comes to civics and government, while politicians and their parties compete furiously to see who can do less and spend less. The average citizen has almost nothing to do with this process, so understandably pays less and less attention to it all the time.
It's impossible to draw even a bare majority of eligible voters to participate in a presidential election any longer, or to blame them for ignoring it. What rational person could be expected to pay attention to these pre-installed nominees, programmed mediafests and infomercials that masquerade as democratic gatherings? Last week, a Democratic party official on CNN announced with a straight face that his party's L.A. convention was "interactive" because webcams were running live in the make-up rooms where speakers checked their pancake before delivering their exhortations. And there seemed to be as many Apple logos as American flags on display in L.A., as the party was desperate to appear forward looking and original. The iMacs didn't work.
Political conventions may make journalists feel important and allow exhausted politicians to appear democratic, but fewer citizens get fooled each time around. By now, only a fraction of the public is paying attention at all.
New technologies like the Net have always held great promise for re-connecting citizens to the political process, and re-democratizing democracy. Some of the early Net pioneers and cyber-gurus believed they were creating a political, not a commercial or technological revolution, when they designed the Net.
But those fantasies have not materialized. In fact, many social critics blame technology for this. The idea that technology isolates and alienates people is widely held to be the reason for America's growing political apathy and disconnection, even though there's little evidence or logic to support that argument. Richard Sclove, an author and director of the Public Interest Technology Policy Project, argues that new technologies promise convenience, productivity and economic growth, but deliver disturbing hidden costs: deepening inequality, social alienation, community dissolution and political disempowerment.
"Contemporary technologies contribute indirectly to diverse social ills," he writes in a collection of essays called Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information. In particular, he argues, they conspire in subtle ways to significantly hinder participatory decision-making.
That idea is widely held by critics and members of the so-called intelligentsia, even though it's rarely explained and dubiously supported.
It's hard to see why technology -- rather than elitist, unresponsive political parties, government agencies and media institutions -- deserves the blame for political alienation. Online, technology has given new energy to the idea of free speech, fostered individual participation in discussions, created new kinds of vigorous communities with shared interests, and encouraged the spread of diverse opinions.
Still, Sclove argues that alternative technological strategies and designs might help sustain democratic community, civic engagement, and social justice. He agrees that the point isn?t to reject technology outright (is that even an option any more?) but to become more discriminating in how we design and use it. He suggests, for example, "barrier-free" designs for the Internet in much the same way "barrier-free" equipment and public spaces have been created for the disabled. Politically, the goal would be universal access to information, discussion and voting. Instead of being heard mostly through opinion polls -- perhaps the primary force behind contemporary politics and political journalism -- the people could simply speak and vote for themselves, using computing and the Net.
Sclove writes that if women were more actively involved in technological design, for example, they might promote more shared neighborhood facilities such as day care and laundries, or closer location of homes, workplaces and commercial facilities. (For that matter, men might want the same thing). This smaller scale use of technology and politics could work. A block or neighborhood chat room might work well to sort out community issues, even if most threaded discussions and chat rooms online are a nightmare of hostility and confusion. If you're chatting with your neighbor about draining problems, you're more likely to be civil and coherent.
Still, good luck. If technology itself isn't out of control, the people who design it and decide how we use it are. Human gene maps get rushed to completion so that bio-tech corporations can mass-market perfect humans, while some of the country?s best scientific minds are holed up in think tanks creating gizmos that allow us to get sports scores in our cars.
Technology that supports democracy and civic engagement? Nobody wants to pay to develop that at the moment, nor is there much evidence that anybody wants to buy it. Politics has an increasingly bad (and richly-deserved) rep and most research and development people in the tech world don't want to go anywhere near it.
Sclove's solution is to "open, democratize, and partly decentralize pertinent government agencies, create avenues for worker and community involvement in corporate R&D and strategic planning, and generally strengthen societal capabilities to monitor and, as needed, guide technologies' cumulative political and social consequences."
It's a fine, even noble idea. America's technology elite is particularly contemptuous of people it perceives as "clueless," (aka technologically inept). This increasingly powerful elite seems to lose touch with the non-tech world more with each passing day.
So using technology to revitalize democracy is a powerful idea, especially when the elephants and the donkeys are demonstrating once more just how dramatically the political process has changed since de Tocqueville dropped by.
Technology could surely make voting easier and more appetizing to citizens who could vote from their home or work computers. It could indeed encourage grass-roots decision making. We could start small. The Net, for example, could be deployed for communal discussions of manageable local issues -- crime, vandalism, barking dogs or trash pick-up. Citizens could use technology to get information about local budgets or follow legislation. They would have an easier way to communicate with lawmakers and officials. Moderated discussions could precede electronic voting, which could bring majority rule more directly to bear on stalemated issues, from the local school budget to town highway repairs. On a grander scale, such discussions might eventually foster progress and models for resolving intractable national issues like the environment, school vouchers, abortion and gun control, many of which rarely come directly to voters for resolution but get eternally debated by special interests, lobbyists, and politicians.
Is any of this likely? Probably not for a few years. The people who have been meeting in Philadelphia and Los Angeles show no signs of wanting to share the process with citizens, however they pretend to. But interactivity has brought a sense of empowerment to all sorts of groups, from computer geeks to online shoppers and music lovers to people seeking legal and medical information. Sooner or later, institutions like politics will get hit just as hard as the music industry.
Yes, us youngsters are going to save the world. We are going to unleash the power of the net and make the entire world a better place. And then we'll change the name of the U. S. of A. to Shangrila and everyone will get a free iMac.
The problems with the current political landscape are more the fault of TV media than anything else. The Lincoln-Douglas debates went on for days and every American that could read eventually read a copy of them. Nowadays all the average American knows about the politics is what they hear in the 30 second soundbites between television commercials. Americans have become addicted to the "quick fix," and would rather burn cars and trash coffee shops than go through the painful effort of politics.
The good news is that for the people that are actually intelligent enough to vote the current system works just fine. Special interest groups get what they want out of the system because they take the time to vote. It's quite simple really.
As for the rest of the article, it's clearly ridiculous. Neighborhood chat rooms? Are you joking? Heck, I can walk right out my front door and actually talk to my neighbors (and frequently do). And politics is still an important topic amongst Americans. The last thing that the U.S. needs is one more barrier between the people in our communities. The Internet is great for creating artificial communities like /., but there is no reason to make artificial communities out of our actual communities.
And as for your idea of voting from our PCs, quite frankly that is the last thing that I want. I am all for having political information be net-accessible, but I think that the actual voting should require that you take some time out of your day. After all, the problem isn't that we need more voters, the problem is that we need more informed voters. If voting were easier all we would do is increase the importance of things like the physical appearance of the candidate and how well he forms "sound bites." People would sit down at their PC and vote for the candidate that looked the "coolest."
Eventually the Net generation will realize that they need to vote (and be active in politics) to be heard, and they will get out and vote. They will give up their scruffy clothes, and their organized acts of violence in the name of "protest" and they will instead simply walk down tho the local elementary school and cast their vote. They will especially pay attention to the local elections because they will have learned that that is where they have the most influence, and where they can make the biggest impact. Of course, by then they will be Senior Citizens, but that is the way of things.
It isn't technology that has ruined Democracy: it's Lobbyists, and special interest groups, all looking after their own little patch, instead of looking at the big picture. The perfect case in point is the MPAA's support for the DMCA - extremely damaging to the person on the street, but ideal for the movie studios who pay for the lobbying.
Democracy used to be of the people, by the people, for the people. Nows its of the lobbyist, by the lobbyist, for the lobbyist.
Quark
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I've got green eyes, red hair, and I'm left handed. A hundred years ago, I'd have been considered in league with the De
But the issue is really technology and democracy. I'm neither a Luddite nor a technocrat happily, as even a cursory reading would show..My own notion here is that the 2002 campaign will change things..that this will be the first election in which people who grew up on the Net and the Web will run for office, a la Jesse Ventura..when that happens, people will have a leader to follow and an agenda that make sense. Any thoughts?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
...I've ever seen on Slashdot are down below in this discussion..it's really worth trolling past the shitheads to read this stuff..some of it is amazing,a real testament to what discussions on
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Jon Katz is correct in identifying one of the reasons so many people feel disconnected. Both wings of the Corporate Party (Democrat and Republican) are indeed disconnected from the public, unresponsive to their desires, and all too eager to take priveleges, liberties, and even rights from them in the name of some popular, pet cause.
People on both the left and the right sense something is very wrong, despite our unprecidented prosperity, but few can put their finger on exactly what it is. Even my mother, who is a (misguided) ardent supporter of the War on Drugs comments on the shrinking relevance of the constitution and the rights it was supposed to protect.
With most issues already decided by the corporate and industrial movers and shakers to whom both branches of the Corporate Party are beholden to, there is little rhetoric to differentiate the candidates from one another (pro-choice vs. pro-life, perhaps, and possibly pro-healthcare reform vs. status quo) and even less practical difference, as neither branch of The Party is known for ever keeping its promises if such should disrupt the status quo.
To reconnect, we need to break free of the myth that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote! This myth is the single most destructive and counterproductive mindset the voters have.
If you dislike the Corporate Party's policies (Democrat or Republican), then voting for them (and thereby vindicating the very policies you oppose) is a wasted vote. Worse, it is a vote counter to your conscience and desires, which may help to explain why so many people chose not to vote at all, rather than vote for something or someone they abhore. Of course, if those were the only choices, I probably wouldn't bother to vote either, and who could blame any of us!
But there are other choices, other parties, some with very good candidates for both president and congress. In particular, Ralph Nader of the Greens, and many of the Libertarian candidates for congress, are quite good options, and there are others.
As Ross Perot demonstrated by putting the budget deficit back on the political agenda, despite the Corporate Party's respective branches unwillingness to even discuss the issue, a candidate or party doesn't have to win in order to affect change in public policy. We have a balanced budget today in no small part because Ross Perot got 20% of the vote in 1992 and shamed both branches of the Corporate Party into addressing the issue (and demonstrated in no uncertain terms that it was an issue many people cared about).
If you cast your vote for candidates who represent your views on an issue, be they socialist, libertarian, consumer advocacy (Ralph Nader), or whatever, two things will result"
one: your vote will have a much bigger impact than if it were cast for one of the Corporate Party candidates. Each percentage point a "third party" candidate wins has a disproprotionate affect, simply because it is so surprising to the powers that be. Frankly, it scares the hell out of them (why do you think Ross Perot, a demonstrably viable candidate, was frozen out of the debates in 1996?) and this fear is an effective tactic to get politicians to listen, and quite possible adopt, the very issues the losing candidate is trying to address.
Even if the vote is split among several third party candidates, can you imagine the power the message of discontent would have if 15% or 20% of the voting public voted for none of the Corporate Party candidates?
The only truly wasted votes are the ones which are either never cast, or cast for a candidate the voter does not like. The only weak vote is one cast for the status quo, be it Republican or Democrat.
The most powerful vote is the one cast in opposition, not because the candidate necessarilly wins, but because it empowers the losing candidate to be heard, and (if enough people vote for them) makes them impossible to ignore. Your single vote, alone, is much more likely to tip Ralph Naders percentage up by one, than it is to tip the balance between Al Gore and Dubya Bush.
In short, get out there, vote your conscience, and don't let the powers-that-be convince you that voting in opposition to them is a waste of your vote. It isn't. It is the most powerful thing you can do with it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Somewhen in the past fifty years freedom has become confused with democracy. Certainly it is one facilitator of freedom, giving the common man the franchise. But it is not sufficient for freedom, nor is it really necessary. Hitler was elected into office by a majority of adult voters. Need I say more?
What is necessary for freedom is a limit on government. Where and how this limit is to be drawn pretty much defines political parties. A balance needs to be made between a government with too little power and one with too much.
It doesn't much matter to me if technology aids democracy. History has shown that a government by the people can be every bit as corrupt as a government by an oligarch or monarch. What I want is technology that aids freedom. I want technology that makes me independent of the need for government, and technology that can protect me from abuse of government.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Have you ever gone to see/hear a political candidate speak? I mean really listen to the words, observe the gestures not just hear the soundbites? It is a very different experience from a ten second clip on the television or the net. I do look up what the different candidates say in many speeches on their websites. However, I don't cast my vote until I've actually heard both candidates speak twice, once in front of a positive audiance and once in front of a receptive but not overly positive crowd. The web is a great aid but it doesn't convey the full experience. How many readers can claim to really have observed Clinton so closely? If people had actually listened to Dole, he would have done much better.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
This in turn gets around the "tragedy of the commons" in large populations. In small communities one's reputation with the neigbours is important, but in large ones you don't often meet the same people twice, and hence have no incentive to be nice to those you do meet, or to let them see how civic you are.
The Advogato metric has its problems, but its still pretty interesting.
For that matter, Slashdot has its +1 bonus for those with over 20 karma. If you consistently post nice things, your postings get more attention. Same principle.
Can we build a trust metric which can help us identify and reward civic-minded people? What would such a system look like? Any ideas?
Incidentally, "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling includes a rough outline of just such a system.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
It is much easier to be involved in the US political process now than it has been in my almost 40 years of life.
The reason fewer people involved is because they DO NOT WANT TO BE INVOLVED!
Why this is such a burr under the saddle of those that are involved is beyond me. Sounds suspiciously like self centered arrogance on the part of the political hobbyests and pro's alike.
Just because *I* enjoy or view as important a particular activity does not make others lesser people because they are interested in different things.
When you get down to it, once you get past your local elected officials, the DC based wonks do not have much of a day-to-day impact on the average person. Looks like most people have realized that, since they now have a chice to watch something else *besides* a convention (in contrast to the 1960's) during this season. They are not forced to watch the president on every channel whenever he has the whim to call a press confrence, etc.
So, political hackers, just chill (including me), because other people have other things to do that THEY feel is more important. Anything less would be Stalinist, or at least Chilaian(sp?).
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I used to work at Houston City Hall and I took it upon myself to convince my boss (a councilmember) to use the net as a communication tool for her office. It wasn't exactly an easy task to accomplish, but once I got her to accept the simple fact that more of her constituents could participate in our forums and neighborhood meetings, she had no problems with me implementing the idea. I know that I was very fortunate to have worked for her because of her open mind towards technology, but, at the same time, other councilmembers who I thought weren't as open towards the idea were asking me how they could set something like that up in their offices.
All it takes is one person to get the ball rolling, and others will follow. Anyone out there who is working in a governmental office needs to work on getting their offices to embrace the technology we have available to us because the net is a wonderful way for local government to become less of an ethereal object and more of a tangible leadership.
Involvement is all that's missing from the political arena here in the US. Something like net-based forums would help get people involved in their local governments, and from there, it can only grow. One of the biggest problems facing all governments here is that people are too afraid to get lost in the bureaucracy. The office I worked in took some of that bureaucracy away by letting our constituents get in direct contact with our councilmember. If we start locally, I think it would logically follow up to the state and (eventually) national levels.
Just my $0.02 on the issue.
djx
the only trail worth taking is the one you blaze yourself
It's one thing to say, "Hey, look at us, we have webcams!" It's another to say, "Hey, look at us, we're using the technology to supplement our concerns over the issues people care about." It really doesn't matter how much of a technocrat a candidate is, that's not why someone gets voted into office. It's the issues that matter the most. Using the technology in your favor isn't as important, but you had better believe that it can help.
Remember Jesse Ventura? His appeal to everyone out there was that he a take-shit-from-nobody kind of guy. He spoke his mind on the issues, and made no apologies for it. Some people didn't like what he had to say, but they have him credit for having the balls to say what he said. That's the main reason why he was so successful in Minnesota. What also made him successful was his JesseNet. It's really nothing more than a glorified mailing list, but it was certainly able to band together Ventura supporters to go out and promote the guy.
It doesn't matter if you're a technocrat or not, being one doesn't guarantee victory. We don't elect people because their website has the most webcams or java applets. We elect people because of their concern (or lack thereof) of the issues we care about most. I doubt Ventura is a big technocrat, yet he still won over two established candidates. And it was because of the issues. As soon as candidates start listening to and focusing on issues people care about most, then maybe more people will get involved with the political process.
And on an unrelated note, I'm surprised Al Gore isn't embracing the technology in his campaign. C'mon, he did invent the Internet, right?
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
If I had to nail down your perspective neatly, I'd simply have to conclude that you're simply a habitual complainer.
There is no such thing as a "USian". People who live in the United States of America are called "Americans".
Other people living on the same continent (like Canadians and Mexians) can be referred to as "North Americans", but not "Americans", because the contintent they live on is "North America", not "America". Many Canadians and Mexicans are proud of being Canadians and Mexicans and would prefer you don't think of them as "Americans".
For the entire history of our nation, beginning when we opened a can of whoop-ass on King George's redcoats, we have called ourselves "Americans". Your "politically-correct" revisionism is not going to change that.
Now stop being so pretensious.
Unfortunately in capitalism people are seen less as individuals with their own special contributions to make,
Seen by whom? Certainly not by corporations. Corporations are artificial economic constructs. They don't "see" anything. If there is a failure of perception it is yours, in that capitalism has proven to be more favorable to the individual than any collectivist system, for the obvious reason that capitalism is not collectivist.
than as parts of an assembly line, valued for little more than what they produce.
Unlike socialism, where people are valued for... what they produce. Or communism, where people are valued for... what they produce.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The trouble with the argument that technology is to blame for a lack of interest in politics is that these are issues that don't really have a direct causal connection - it's not fair to say that because technology is improving people are paying less and less attention to politics.
But, it cannot be argued that the increasing march of technology has, in general, turned people away from the old USian small community ideal where people knew all of their neighbours. Indeed, this is not so much a problem with the US, although its effects are seen here to a greater degree than anyone else (perhaps due to its corporate-orientated economy in which people tend to get pushed into second place), but it is a global problem that has been ongoing for centuries.
Technology has made us less and less able to relate to other people, and indeed to want to relate to them. In fact, whilst it has improved our conditions of living and made the transition from hunter-gatherer subsistance possible, it has also allowed us to concentrate on acquisitiveness at the cost of others, the roots of modern capitalism. And today, with the final death of any opposing systems, capitalism is seen as being somehow "right" for us. And capitalism is firmly linked to technology, made possible by such innovations as mass production.
Unfortunately in capitalism people are seen less as individuals with their own special contributions to make, than as parts of an assembly line, valued for little more than what they produce. Indeed, modern economics treats everything as capital, including people. Is it little wonder that people are disaffected and unhappy, when their sole worth is considered to be what they produce?
As people get less and less happy with their situation, they are of course going to become jaded and disullusioned. And politics is going to be seen as the root cause of this, since politicians have the perception of power, if not the substance.
Why would people care about politics in this situation? In fact, they're more likely to come to mistaken views about the evils of "Big Government" than the true evil - capitalism, and it's partner technology.
Technology is not disconnecting the people from the political process. What is happening in American politics is that:
1. The party machines and lobby groups are growing more sophisticated and are extending their control at the expense of that of the private citizen;
2. Government has over the past decades extended its reach into areas of private and community life that were previously left alone because it is frequently felt that increasingly complex matters require increasingly detailed regulation;
3. The success of the US economy has increased national and average personal wealth significantly, and this has inevitably engendered a sense of guilt and social responsibility towards the less fortunate. This manifests itself in a consensus that public welfare provision should be expanded (by whatever degree) - inevitably, this means more government, more funds, more scope for manipulation, and decreased political diversity as the consensus on political acceptability narrows.
Each of these leads to a more complex government apparatus, which is of course going to attempt to preserve its own livelihood. It also means more jobs & influence for the mayor's/governor's/president's buddies, so the average politician is going to be disinclined to suggest radical reform.
The range of choices open to the voter diminishes, and so fewer voters bother to cast their ballot (or even register to vote)
This process has nothing to do with technology. It happened in Europe in the early part of the 20th century, and is now happening in America. It took Britain 50 years to build a complex welfare system that imposed (and still imposes) a huge drain on the national economy, and it took another 40 years to realise that it had to be reformed and scaled back. This is still going on, and will continue for years to come.
It is of course possible to arrange for frequent county, state and federal plebiscites on a variety of matters, and it is easier to do this using the internet than with formal voting stations. However, the idea of representative democracy is that the elected representatives of the people make the decisions on their behalf, and such widespread popular voting would make this system irrelevant. In any case, would you want to have to vote three times a week every week?
The cause of the problem is not technology. The answer is not technology. The cause is bigger government, and the answer is smaller government. Government at any level should only be doing what (a) only government (and not the people themselves) can do, and (b) to do this only when it is actually necessary (and not just desirable).