Slashdot Mirror
Cyberdemocracy And The Public Sphere
Any discussion of the revitalization of democracy, especially via cyber-democracy, starts with the public sphere -- the crossroads where citizens gather to discuss and conduct civic affairs. In America's earlier days, the public sphere was the New England town hall, the village church, tavern, union hall, park or street corner.
Those places still exist, but they no longer serve as centers for political discussion. Political scientists have argued for years that the media -- especially TV -- have replaced those spaces as the country's new public sphere. Until the l980's, that made sense; the vast majority of Americans received their political information via one of the three commercial TV newscasts -- ABC, CBS or NBC. Now only a fraction of Americans (recent Pew Center for Media Research surveys suggest about 18%) watch network newscasts regularly. Few younger people watch them at all.
My belief: As it grows, the Net is already replacing conventional media as our new public sphere, the new national gathering place. Roughly half the country's population is now wired, according to the most recent data, and computing is becoming more readily available in offices, factories, homes, libraries and schools. A number of companies -- Ford, Delta, Intel -- have begun offering computing equipment and free Net access to workers. And the price of computing is eventually expected to drop.
Cyberdemocracy could, theoretically, re-democratize politics and media, giving each citizen the opportunity to research, talk, speak and vote online from his home or office. The Net has already undermined a number of taboos and institutions, from restrictions on sexual discussions to investing. In fact, it seems inevitable politics will be transformed. At that point, our notion of civic discourse will change completely. So, perhaps will such outmoded ideas as having only two significant political parties, or considering all issues from the journalistic and political vantage of a "left" or a "right." The corporatization both of mainstream media and national politics could also come under challenge in so individualized a medium.
Much of the little civic discussion we've heard about the political impact of the Net has focused on crime (thwarting theft or online predators), security (encryption), the rotting of young brains, intellectual property and commerce along with the usual predictions of impending chaos.
Such issues are too narrow, suggests Mark Poster, who teaches at UCLA/Irvine. His essay, "Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere," appears in one of the best collections of techno-writing -- "Internet Culture", published several years ago, edited by David Porter and published by Routledge Press.
Though the Net works with and extends existing social functions, Poster writes, "What are far more cogent as possible long-term political effects of the Internet are the ways in which it institutes new social functions," don't mesh easily with contemporary organizations and institutions.
Existing politics and ideologies appear restrictive and antideluvian, especially in the face of cyberspace, which breeds diverse points of view, individual expression, and the kind of free flow of ideas almost nonexistent in Washington's Media/Politics machine. Political theorists and cyber-scholars argued a decade ago that traditional political authority and conventional two-party politics couldn't withstand so much individualistic thinking and grassroots participation. It's still not completely clear whether that's so.
But if the ongoing presidential campaign provides any indication, that day may be drawing closer. The approximately 78 million Americans aged 21 and younger now account for 28% of the population. What TV was to Boomers, computers are to their kids. This striking new reality appears largely lost on the candidates, their parties and the media that cover them. Politicians prattle on about Net obsession and and violence-inducing pop culture, while that culture has never been richer and violence among kids has plummeted in recent years.
So far this fall, months of campaigning and tens of millions of dollars in marketing, research and advertising has yet to produce an original or significant idea, let alone a rational solution to any political issues. Poster writes that the terms "left" and "right", which form the boundaries of the co-produced nightmare Americans call politics don't derive from ideology, but from the seating arrangements of legislators during the French Revolution.
Will the Net change any of this? Maybe. The Net disrupts many basic assumptions about politics. The Net is a vast de-centralized communications system. As a historian, Poster says he finds nothing about the Net more fascinating than its emergence from a collection of cultural communities that had little in common: The Cold War-era Defense Department, which promoted decentralized communications to survive a nuclear attack; "the counter-cultural ethos" of computer programmers and engineers, with its aversion to censorship; and "the world of university research, which I am at a loss to characterize."
Poster might have connected the Net to the early "tavern" model of civics. Both involved small communities coming together; both were fractious, even hostile in their style of discourse. He might also have added several other founding streaks; cyber-gurus and hippies, spin-offs of the demoralized 60's idealists who saw their revolution fading after the end of the Vietnam war, and the heady moral glow of the civil rights era, and who fantasized about utopian and electric communities. And most importantly, the hackers, perhaps the most political of all, who adopted the then-profoundly radical idea that information want and ought to be free. It turned out to be one of the truly revolutionary social impulses, and one that's proving true.
But although the Net's political implications of the Net are potentially enormous, we don't even have a social context in which to think about them. "The only way to define the technological effects of the Internet," Poster writes, "is to build the Internet, to set in place a series of relations which constitute an electronic geography. Put differently, the Internet is more like a social space than a thing..." That's why it's real implications are passed over in political discussions in favor of exploitive issues like moral values and child safety.
But as Poster points out, the issue at the heart of any discussion of a re-democratization of democracy is civics. Questions of "talk," of meeting face-to-face, of "public" discourse get confused and complicated. If "public" discourse exists as pixels on screens generated at remote locations by individuals one has never met and probably never will, then how will public communications be distinguished from private and personal ones? This isn't, of course, unique to the Net.
If the Net becomes the new public sphere, then everyone with technology will have new opportunities to participate -- but not in the personal, way that once characterized politics. This may not prove as big a chance as it appears. Once the town meeting gave way to the TV network, politics had already become impersonal and elitist. TV raised some of the same issues, sans interactivity and linkage.
For some time, national politics have been a co-production of Washington politicians and lobbyists and Washington journalists. The public has been relegated, reduced to anonymous polling figures and truncated sound bites. In recent years, a third party -- corporations, now the primary funders of politics -- have entered the equation, further diminishing the public's role and its interest in the process. As media has also become corporatized, conventional politics seems almost to have cleaved away from much of the populace, an incestuous ritual that seems closed off to most of us, even though we still have the right to vote.
The Net can only increase citizen interest and participation in politics, as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's successful online gubernatorial candidacy demonstrated. Online politics is inclusive, participatory, interactive and convenient. Political Web sites teem with discussion and commentary. It would be simpler to register and vote from a home or office computer than in the conventional way, especially if cyberspace becomes the public sphere. If it's a less personal style of politics that existed a couple of hundred years ago, it may be more inclusive and interactive than the current process.
The Net is much closer to the original model of the civic sphere --the tavern/union hall cohort -- than political scientists might think. Weblogs like camworld, myvideogames.com and kro5shin.or are the digital equivalent of taverns, are sites from chickclicker.com to advogato.org, everything2.com, even my.marijuana.com. CNN and Usatoday.com might be the equivalent of the town hall, Slashdot a busy village watering hole where people come to trade information and brawl. Slate, Salon and Inside.com are the rarified, genteel taverns of the Old Guard. People are often raucous, discussion chaotic, but those are signs of interest and vitality as well as trouble and dissonance. And the new taverns are hyper-linked to one another, a completely new reality.
The "magic" of the Internet is that it is puts "cultural acts, symbolizations in all forms, in the hands of all participants; it radically decentralizes the positions of speech, publishing, film-making, radio and television broadcasting..."
One change likely to arise from cyber-democracy is that the nature of authority will change. The Net discourages endowing individuals with inflated status. Just look at scholarly research, being challenged and reformed by the dissemination of texts via the Net. Political authority, Poster argues, will be reformed in much the same way. This argument is a bit problematic. Corporations are a lot more powerful and politically effective than academics. They manipulate politics and the law all the time, as the Microsoft experience and the free music wars have amply demonstrated.
Cyber-democracy is as good a term for that process as any. Day by day, the Net is becoming the primary, increasingly universal public sphere in the United States, and will likely be for much of the rest of the world. Given the relentless decentralization of the Net, the moral and political authority of Washington-style politics and conventional media may be replaced by a more informal, rational, accountable system. No utopia, and the cybersphere will raise as many problems and challenges as it resolves. But week by week, the Jurassic-era Bush-Gore-Nader/media proceedings may be among the the last of their kind. Good riddance.
But maybe it could be...we could have massive town meetings on an online forum. THat would be sort of cool, of course...there would be problems...it would be a neat thing to consider though.
The anti-salmon
Glad to be a dutchman.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Some context... CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere is here: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/writings/dem oc.html
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
Wouldn't it be great if we could get Bush and Gore in #politics on irc? I'd love to see 15,000 people in a chat room doing 1 of 3 things. $p34|I|\|G 1|\| 31173 $p34k, Nuking Bush, or Nuking Gore.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Prior to the net, if your politics were outside the mainstream, be you a Gus Hall loving Commie or a die hard Joh Bircher, you had a lot of trouble finding kindred souls unless you moved to Cambridge, Mass or Montana. Now, you can instantly electronically commune with similarly disaffected souls.
I think it's inevitable that politic groups will splinter into thousands of smaller groups, though I don't know if this is good or not. It may be okay for a smaller country like France, Italy or the UK to have lots of small political parties that govern by coalition, and can fall overnight with a call for new elections, but that might be hazardous for America and world security.
The world looks to America for stability, and the world likes knowing that whatever president we elect will be for a strong military, pro-corporate democracy and the mass media. The world likes knowing an American president will stay in power for 4 years, ome hell or highwater.
If America starts acting like one of those second rate NATO countries that change government monthly, there might be less security and more unrest in the world, and that would be bad.
Thanks,
One might argue quite a bit that Slashdot would count as a Public Sphere, if more folk would take the information obtainted here and DO something about it.
Little doubt that this is a source of information for many, but the question stands, is it a source of influence?
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
He's an asshole who thinks cyber democracy is meaningful. YOu people should get off your asses and out from in front of your computers for a little while.
--
You quoted Mark Poster's essay "Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere", Is your
article opinions formulated upon reading his essay? I will like to know so that I can read
the essay and seperate his thoughts from yours. Anyway, like you said, "Cyberdemorcracy
could, theoretically,
Pratically will anything change? Take a look at slashdot for instance, when there is
something that requires an action such as going out in the real world, contacting a senator,
How many of us actually take the effort in engaging in such actions? You also mentioned
that the nature of authority will change. but how will it change? I have only seen it
get worst, as authority tries to gain more control. I hope for the best tho, and will do
my part.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
From Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere "The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people's public use of their reason (öffentliches Räsonnement). In our [German] usage this term (i.e., Räsonnement unmistakable preserves the polemical nuances of both sides: simultaneously the invocation of reason and its disdainful disparagement as merely malcontent griping" (27). [Like the English word, "Reflection" = thought; satire.]
... It is just too bad young people often do not take an interest to it. You kids can accomplish more in your community by attending Church than you ever will by getting on some little chat room.
I think just about every church in this nation is trying to come up with ideas at attracting the younger generations. The problem we have, obviously, is the secular media influence (which says church is not "cool") and the fact attention spans have diminished on an exponential basis over the past couple decades. Many churches are taking the wrong steps to attract our youths. By trying to sacrifice Spripture for Rock & Roll or loud visual displays. I do not think this is the way to do it. Instead, pastors should refocus on going OUT into the community, such as we have.
To be honest, I have Saved countless more souls OUTSIDE of the Church than inside!
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
But Republicrats have a self-perpetuating method of limiting choice. When ISP's can veto websites based on commercial favoritism... and when Cable companies can unfairly exclude local television channels at their monopolistic whim... we need more freedom of choice!
In the words of Jesse "the Gov'ner" Ventura, "What good is it to have just one more choice than Russia?"
Vote Third Party. Vote Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke.
Dead last.
The power structure doesn't want to accept the net. Why should we expect to see a change?
I believe something similar to what Mr Katz suggests will happen in the next 15 years. I don't believe it will be the current Internet that does it, though.
----------------------
OMG i think that hell is gona freze over!!!
To be serious, you have some good points but how are you going to make shure that not just the middle class and the upper class will not be the only ones represented?
Sanchi
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
Bush could deny that he wants to hook the rich up with the best tax cuts and then Gore could point to Bush's budget plans online and show the world where the numbers are not fuzy but actually exist in Bush's plans.
Michael
http://www.buymeasportscar.com
http://www.buymeasportscar.com
No, really! I'm serious!
You really need to be careful where you get your information from on the internet.
Check to make sure it's a valid source and not just some propaganda bullshit. Unfortunately, the net makes it very easy to spread untrue information just as easy as it is to promote validated facts.
Sure, there is freedom of speech, but don't believe everything you read on the internet, what may look like valid news may actually be nothing but rumour mongerers spreading their bullshit.
For an example, check out The Drudge Report. Facts or rumours? Make sure you know who you're getting your news from.
Here in Britain we have an initiative called E-Government. Its an attempt by the powers that be to get the whole of the governments proceedings online and 'web-enabled'. The main push of the idea is to save some cash, but as a secondary it is also an attempt to get politics into the average householders head. So far its not been very much, the project was launched 5 years ago, and most people in the UK don't seem to have heard anything of it, but its gathering momentum. Recently Blair announced that everything the government does will be online by 2005. Everything single form, paper, bill and act will be available over the net. Its a pretty exciting time.
This kind of venture is a fantastic way of giving power back to the people. A forum for every voting person, and one in which it'll be easy to track which politician is doing what, is supposedly just around the corner. Maybe it'll fail hopelessly. I sincerely hope it works.
The official web site of the 'Office of the E-Envoy' (E-Government) is at http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/egov_index.ht m.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
If they had an online Presidential Debate, Gore would be patting himself on the back for his great invention: The Internet.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
Out of your examples Italy is the only country that has a coalition government that changes all of the time. And the world doesn't look to the US for stability. Please give one example of US imperialism which has actually stabalised anywhere in the world.
And where is the connection between the size of country and optimum number of political parties?
I'm not flaming, or whatever, I'm just interested in hearing some justification for all of that.
Most things in this world are they way they are for a reason. Rare is it when everything suddenly changes just because some technology was introduced. Rare is it when an issue is so simple as to only have one bad guy (i.e., "government", "corporations", "religions", etc.) Of course, Katz probably already knows this. He probably doesn't care, because making silly predictions of doom and gloom or hope is his stock and trade. First, by making these predictions Katz can target the malcontent groupthink niche that resides here on slashdot (being the only ones that'll look past your mediocre style). Second, if, by god, Katz happens to actually be even approximately right on one of these predictions he gains fame--few will remember the thousands of failed prophecies he has made.
I really wonder sometimes. Doesn't he ever want to be anything more than a hack? He may pull the wool over many slashdot kiddies eyes, but it must ring hollow, for both himself and the slashdot editors. Why can't slashdot just bite the bullet and admit that Katz is nothing but a cheap money making ploy? I can't speak for the powers that be at slashdot, but if I were them I'd want to do something that makes a positive contribution to this world, even if it is a little less profitable. Selling brain candy is not productive. Entertaning? Perhaps, but the popular media that slashdot loves to criticize does the same thing. Of course, if it's popular it must be a good thing, right?
Years ago, people relied on newspapers for their news, or at least, for news outside of their town or district. In any community, there is a percentage of people that actually get involved with local politics, and this percentage is fairly small. Most people go about their day to day lives without much interaction with the local political community. A person could read a paper, and believe that he/she was informed about politics, when in fact, he was just rehashing a summary of events.
Television brought the same thing. By having a direct connection to the news in the form of a person speaking to you with the white house in the background, you felt like you were a part of it. You could then talk about it with other people, and feel assured that you were on top of things. After time, we began to feel that it's our right to know, and it is, but it's really a right to find out. Granted, if you want to live a normal life, and have a job and a family, you don't have time to go crusading around, and digging up everything that you feel is relevant about politics today, so that's where the news comes in.
The net can be even worse, in that the sheer volume of information is staggering. But how many use the net to really exercise their democratic rights. Reading headlines and blurbs doesn't cut it. Our perceived right to information is filled if we log on to our news site every morning, and read about what john doe senator said about x situation. That's great. Ten days later, some other headline dominates our mind, just as it dominates the paper, or news channel or web site.
The net isn't going to revitalize our feelings of democracy, or incite us to become involved. It's natural progression of mediums. In the electronic age, or whatever this time period is going to be called, the net replaced the television. But people can still read good newspapers and be just as informed. I think that the people that read about news, but never actually wrote a letter to their representative, will still read the news online, and still not do anything.
The average american views the net as a tool anyway; a fancy newspaper if you will. By clicking on things, we can believe that we're getting the information that we want, not the information that's being given to us. As such, it doesn't really draw us into politics. I don't think the net is going to instill social conscience; it's just a new way to fill the void of inactivity, and this is from someone that loves computers and the internet.
The notion that a free for all cyberdemocracy would be much different is crazy. Our founding fathers warned of the tyranny of the masses and a cyber democracy could prove to be just that.
Fanatic individuals have the ability to yell louder than the next man making their voices more powerful in the political realm. IE The right to lifers only represent a minority of republicans yet a candidate can not be nominated without being pro-life!.
The shift to Cyber-Democracy would only make these lobbies go Cyber as well. Lobby Spam could sway many politicians and recruit fellow zealots the same as today.
What is lacking in politics is the ability to create equal time and exposure to political ideas. In order to do that, large funded campaigns would have to be limited to the amount of exposure they recieve on the web to equate with smaller poorly funded 'Grass Roots' movements.
But this would mean that we are back to square one because a committe would have to approve which candidates or issues are viable limmiting the masses to the same A,B(maybe c and d too) vote.
The only solution to fair government is a Super Cyborg designed to govern compassionatly and without bias!
Typically I refrain from discussing politics in Taverns, it interfers with beer drinking. I usually discourage it by repeatedly changing the subject (What about them Yanks? I still say they suck.) Political discourse, as I've seen it on the internet (before there as a "The Web") rarely stayed on topic and usually drove people from discussion, requiring the invocation of Godwin's Law at some point.
IMHO the true value of the Internet and Web is for research. I can access candidates pages, League of Women voters on proposals, and visit sites (like Vote Smart) which reveal the true voting records of incumbants.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is it's like trying to get an ever increasing number of people to agree on pizza toppings. At some point, polls take over and some people are happy, others not happy and still others opt out for Gang Phed with tofu.
It's like... a virtual Clinton! (gasp!)
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
aren't bad either, neither is the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal is written for the moneyed class who control America, so it's important that they get accurate information. It tells the truth, though from a definitely pro capitalistic viewpoint.
I hear the Christian Science Monitor is real good, though I don't read it.
The BBC has always had a good reputation as a news source, they may even publish the Dubya abortion story. The British journalists have almost always taken the higher road wrt reporting, and rarely tarnish their reporting with the tits and ass common in American media.
The model of the public sphere was developed by the German Philosopher Jurgen Habermas. It defines strict conditions under which a given forum can be viewed as a Public Sphere. Of possible interest, and relevance to Jon Katz's piece, is that I critique Poster's analysis of the internet (albeit a different essay, The Net as a Public Sphere), arguing that some of what Poster sees as flaws actually enhance the public sphere role of the internet.
Andrew
I'd rather go down in familiar flames than be lost in that endless blue.
And here I though the impetus for supporting the Nazis and rearming Germany came from the Krupp's, IG Farben and all the other German industrialists.
Try reading some William Shirer instead of the web. Heck, anyone can put up a web page, even Matt Drudge.
As more and more people get online, the political spectrum will begin to look just as centrist as most of America is.
The web's early adopters were affluent white males with mostly libertarian leanings, and they are over represented online.
The web will become just as centrist as the rest of America...
--
DigitalContent PAC
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Slashdot links to other websites for their news, that's the news of the website. It more likely than not links to trustworthy news sites.
The posts on this website, on the other hand, should not be used a sole source of information.
You misinterpreted the original poster. I took it as meaning that all websites are not created equal. Take a look at the Christian Coalition Website for example, that stuff is not trustworthy "news", but rather religious psycho-babble passed off as "news" and "facts", when it is actually coming from a biased point of view.
Come on, you can't actually believe that you trust the Drudge Report for news, do you? He's gotten slapped with so many lawsuits for posting incorrect information as "news", that it's sickening. He is a threat to journalism, posting anything on a whim as "news", whereas slashdot atleast links to news sites.
I certainly hope you don't mistake the posts on this websites as "news".
You won't see a change today. Probably not tomorrow either. Change is slow in politics.
Politicians will learn to respect electronic forms of communication, espically after we vote for the ones that respond better. I'm talking about a local elections. We don't elect the president, but we elect the people that elect the president. It's up to us to pay attention and make informed votes.
$ finger #timmy
invalid use of finger
...and your point is?
But!!!
Carnivore logs all access to it and that will be put in the court records.
And who brings the records to the court?Well?!?!?! thats the FBI isn't it?
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
Katz is just following dramatic form.
The first act was The Last Days of Politics where he performed his exposition, telling us things were in transition and times would be a'chaingin'.
The second act is usually more depressed as our hero (democracy) goes through the wringer at the hands of the villian (corps). It consisted of Should You Voce? and Messages From Democracy's Ghosts.
Finally we have the third act where we discover if this little play is a tragedy or if there's any hope whatsoever. Will our hero triumph? Read Cyberdemocracy And The Public Sphere and find out!
I don't know how Katz did his research.
This is another view of the world.
Never mind the environmental problems, such as global warming -- now that half the north pole is going people are starting to realize that it's no joke. What about the "environmental crisis" that the mass media perpetuated on our culture? Teachers can't educate kids in schools because they're burnt out on TV. Most of us are going to die in a nursing home because family structures have been destroyed by college educations and corporate jobs that move us around the country and the world, and the television set that raises children instead of their parents.
We got into this mess because the decision makers in our society make decisions for their own personal good, not the public good. We can only get out if the people take power back. Because we're on the edge of an economic and ecological crisis which is only going to get worse if we do nothing, I think "the establishment" will find itself in a weak position and will have to let us win.
Needless to say, a lot of activists are getting involved these days, both in things like the protests that have happened in Seattle, Philadelpha, LA, Boston and Saint Louis, but also in more "square" things like the Nader campaign. If you'd like there to still be a planet to live on, you should get involved too.
I have two counterpoints to make:
1. Nothing on the net is new. SSDM (Same Shit, Different Media)
2. Use of the prefix "Cyber" in front of any English word should not get past the Slash lameness filter. Katz has been writing in this forum long enough that he ought to know how ignorant he sounds when trying to coin a term like "Cyber-democracy". Yuck!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
To steal a page from Kurtzweil (sp?), it's a Really Good Thing that government doesn't change with the speed of fashion or business. We may call it "Gridlock" or whatever, but it's slow moving by design.
Imagine if laws could change with the speed of opinions (or popularity) on /. Eek.
-C
It seems to me that everyone wants to use Gov. Jesse Ventura as an example for just about everything that is right or wrong with the political process. As a (sadly) former Minnesotan who did in fact vote for Ventura, I have to say that his online capaign (there WAS one?!?) had little or nothing to do with his election to the post of governor.
Rather, I think it has everything to do with average folks feeling disenfranchised and finally taking an iterest because there was actually a choice.
Maybe the Net will help this along. Maybe there will spring up a spirit of community that will bring some real choices to the polls...
But I think that the true root cause of change will have more to do with the serious lack of choices and less to do with whether or not you are jacked in.
As always, I could be wrong.
hmmm...
Despite popular opinion here, I like this article, and some other of Katz' writing.
What is slashdot, except a never-ending, online meeting of the geek community? Now, I know that it is not totally representative, but in concept, that's what it is. I can see a time when there are huge meetings like this one for certain interest groups, as well as smaller ones for geographical locations, and maybe even physical communities.
Online communities represent a new media that simply can't be bought out by any corporations. I think this is an amazing idea, and will change lots of things. I'm excited to be alive in this time, and witness to these changes.
Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
I read ;on the BBC a few weeks ago that 50% of the US voters base their opinions on Saturday Night Live and other similar "political" shows, and it jumps up to 80% for the under 30s. Yes, they seem to be deserting the traditional news sources, but don't assume they are flocking to rational debate on the web.
While Jesse Ventura did have a web site that was more than 'vote for me' and 'send me a check' that was likely not the deciding factor. The traditional campaign methods were.
Here's my experience:
First hearing Jesse Ventura is running.. and thinking "Oh, brother, an ex-pro wrestlier? Nutcase. Next."
But then I started hearing radio interviews with the candidates.. and one was making a lot of sense. It was only at the very end that I found out the sensible one was named Ventura. He also did soemthing else amazing. When someone asked him about something he didn't know about, he came right out and said he didn't know know about it. No bluffing, no BS, just a very honest answer. The press was stunned into silence for a moment.
He made few campaign promises, and wouldn't let the press badger him into making more. It was fun to hear him ask a reporter what part of "no" he didn;t understand. Jesse explained that he only made promises he knew he could keep.
And then I heard a debate. Both the Republican and the Democratic tended to respond with "You're right, Jesse, but..." and then went at each other. Jesse didn't step in. There was the issue of public funding for a new Twins stadium. The Republican wanted to fund it one way. The Democrat wanted to fund it another way. Jesse suggested that maybe they could "..build there own damn stadium." And right there I stopped wondering if I should I vote for him.
By election day the polls showed each with roughly 30-33%, taking into account the margin of error. It was a real three-way race. And then the only polls that really matter opened... and it wasn't so close any more.
The Big Two parties took away one lesson from this: Don't let a third candidate into your debates. They did NOT learn the lesson the voters wanted them to learn, which is that we want someone who is honest (love him, hate him, think he's an idiot, you never doubt where Jesse stands - he tells you and doesn't give a damn if that bothers anyone), who understands that the government's role should be to get out of the way. (One major party says they want to get government out of my wallet. The other major party says they want to get out of my bedroom. I want government the hell out of both places.)
I have net access almost every waking hour. I didn't visit his web site until very late in the campaign, if at all before the election. But Jesse got out. He went to the small towns. He got on the local cable shows. He got on public radio. He got the word out, himself, the "old fashioned" ways. Maybe the net helped, but it was far from the only thing.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Oversoul
Dammit, if I had the money, I'd post a bounty to get them to go public. Dubya is such a hypocrite.
No it is not. Fundamental change in this world is rare. Consider how many Katz-like "predictions" there are per actual change. It's 1 million to 1.
On a Katzian scale, it doesn't even register. After the television or radio was introduced, did politics make a sudden change? Did it shift suddenly towards or away from the people? Did corruption and backroom dealing suddenly leave or join politics? The answer is a resounding no. Politicians may have dressed a little different. Politians may have need to be a certain height, look a certain way, etc. They may have felt the need to do and say certain things, but it's still fundamentally the same world; what little significant change has happened over an extended period of tim (i.e., the trend towards soundbite media).
Katz doesn't give a carefull and balanced analysis of anything. It's either biased by very good or very bad. In short, it's alarmism. He's feeding the kiddies desire to scream and shout about something, nothing more.
Whether you like it or not, this great nation was founded upon Christian Beliefs and any attempt to deny that it completely futile.
.... It was the Lord who put into my mind ... that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies ... I am the most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy... No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if ... the intention is purely for His holy service." Amen!
Even as far back as Columbus, we see an important message (his purpose was... as described in his log):
to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens.
You may have succeeded in forcing the church out of much of politics, but you shall NEVER succeed in taking politics out of the Church!
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
The problem I have with this Katz article, like the problem I have with many Katz articles, is the implication of inevitability. The Internet could have a democratizing influence, but is by no means assured.
For example, Katz talks about the "taverns", "town halls" and "churches" that exist on the Internet. But a serious concern is the extent to which these spaces are true public spaces, in the sense that they reflect the true diversity of public opinion. The Internet is at least partly attractive because it allows people to only encounter the information, people and ideas that they want to, to filter out what they might consider noise, to exclude those views that they find distasteful. But this is dangerous. In the real world, the messiness of randomness and shared physical spaces -- like the guy handing out pamphlets in the town square or your neighbors' diatribes at the school board meeting, or even the 30 minutes of Tom Brokaw on television -- keep us from truly blocking out information and viewpoints that we don't have a natural affinity for.
My question is, does the Internet truly promote public conversation, or does it promote private conversations among groups of like-minded people (e.g., slashdot users)? And if it is the latter, what are the implications of this for the strength of our national community? And, if we recognize that this would be, ultimately, bad for democracy, how can we encourage the development of true public spaces? Rolls http://www.quorum.org
I don't believe that it is useful to try to categorize Katz's remarks as 'doom and gloom' or 'hope'; he is simply expressing his opinions and observations. The fact that so many readers respond angrily just means that his views hit close to home. His remarks about the media aren't JUST criticism, but a way of highlighting the evolution of the civic sphere in our time versus that of the more 'town-meeting' oriented time. I don't know many people who aren't dissatisfied with the media's handling of current political events; the growth of political discussion groups on the Net can be seen as an outgrowth of that dissatisfaction. It is with relief that I see so much discussion on the Net about the political climate. If more people continue to involve themselves in this way, the Net can truly become the new civic sphere, one in which the individual can once again feel involved and responsible.
This past Friday a dozen former "Nader's Raiders" held a press conference and told Ralph Nader to drop out of the presidential race and throw his support to Vice-President Al Gore. Concerned about Gore's faltering numbers in the polls, they argued that votes for Nader might well lead to the victory of George W. Bush.
- ---------------------
It is not an original argument. But the problem with it is that they are asking the wrong candidate to quite the race. Had they thought it through, they would have demanded that Al Gore quit the race and throw his support behind Nader.
Think about it.
Vice President Al Gore has now had three 90 minute mano a mano debates with George W. Bush. His campaign and related soft money groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on political ads to convince Americans to support him. He has received an overwhelming amount of press coverage, much of it sympathetic. He is a household name across the nation.
Yet here we are less than two weeks from election day and Al Gore still is not ahead of George W. Bush, arguably the least impressive and most unqualified candidate for president in U.S. history. Many polls find him trailing
Governor Bush. And there is little hope for a turnaround, as Bush has twice the money Gore does to bombard the nation with TV ads. Were a politician the caliber of Bill Clinton running against W., he would mop the floor with Bush's
carcass, and lead him by 15 points in the polls.
Al Gore has failed. For whatever reason, people just don't like the guy, and the more they see him, the less they like him. The voters have made it clear they might not elect him even over such a numbskull as George W. Bush.
It seems pretty clear why Gore cannot expose Bush for the fraud he is. Bush is owned lock, stock and barrel by the huge corporations and the wealthy. As president, Bush will reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and eliminate those remaining regulations that protect the environment, consumers and workers. He will also give the green light to anti-competitive corporate mergers and consolidation. A Bush Administration will make the Republican administrations of the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s look like socialist states.
But Gore cannot attack Bush on these obvious points. Why? Because Gore is pretty much in hock to the same crowd, and the Clinton-Gore administration has been pursuing similar policies, albeit with a different grade of rhetoric to dress it up. So the debate is a lot of insincere focus group tested sound bites or a lot of mumbo jumbo on a bunch of incomprehensible policy programs. No one is advocating positions that tackle the extreme inequality of wealth and
power in the United States directly, and the total corruption of our governing system by big money.
Since there is little of substance to debate between them, those voters who haven't fallen asleep are making their choice between Gore and Bush on the basis of which they think has a better personality. On that score, whether it is
fair or not, Gore is a sure loser.
Ralph Nader is not the reason Gore's campaign is struggling. Gore has has ample opportunity to make his case before the American voters. Gore had a ten point lead in some polls in September. As that lead disappeared, most of the votes shifted to Bush, not Nader. In fact, surveys show that a significant percentage of Nader's supporters -- perhaps a majority -- either would not vote or would vote for someone other than Gore were Nader not in the race. Most of those
sympathetic to Nader but scared about a Bush presidency have already decided to vote for Gore.
Al Gore, and Al Gore alone, has blown his golden
opportunity.
In fact, that Gore has laid such an egg is damaging Nader's effort to reach the five percent threshold and earn matching funds for the Green party in 2004. If Gore were doing as
well as he should be doing, he would win the election handily and Nader could get 7-10 percent of the vote with little effect on the outcome. But Gore has indeed laid an egg, and party hacks are desperate to find a scapegoat.
If Democrats are truly concerned about the fate of progressive politics, the rational solution would be for Gore to quit and throw his support to Nader. Gore can't win. Nader can.
Without hardly any money and worse media coverage than Andrei Sakharov got from Pravda in the 1970s, Nader has drawn the six largest crowds in the campaign -- ranging from 10,000 to 15,000 people -- and these were paying audiences
no less. When people actually hear Nader's message they respond, and they respond favorably. Nader can galvanize the citizenry in a way Gore cannot. He is the smartest, most competent, and most honest figure in public life today. He
is a national treasure.
In leaving the race, Gore should demand that George W. Bush have three 90 minute debates mano a mano with Nader in the final 10 days of the campaign. Without Gore's dreadful semi-Republican record, Nader will easily expose Bush for
the ignoramus that he is. Let's see Bush serve up his banalities about favoring "small government" and "returning power to the people" in the face of Nader's command of the real record of massive corporate welfare that Bush supports.
Those genuinely concerned about the fate of progressive ideals should urge Vice President Gore to withdraw from the race immediately. Only Nader can defeat Bush. All that progressives stand for -- the Supreme Court, a woman's right
to choose, the environment -- is on the line. The sad truth is that on November 7 a vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.
-----------------------------------------------
If you are interested in urging Gore to drop out and endorse Nader, please send a message to him at townhall@algore2000.com. Here is a sample message:
Dear Sir / Ma'am,
As a concerned progressive, I'd like to as you to please encourage Mr. Al Gore to drop out of the presidential race. I fear that he may draw away soft support from Ralph Nader of the Green Party,
the only candidate consistently articulating pro-worker, pro-environmental, anti-militarist positions.
Thanks for your attention to this matter. We cannot afford to miss an opportuntity to create a real alternative to the failed Reagan-Bush-Clinton era policies.
the main problem i have with the net being a space of democracy is that it offers the opportunity to be whatever your not, since there is no physical limitations to what you can see and hear - hence alter ego's and the like. if everyone had the same aims it could be democratic but i dont see that happening at all - net communities (*usenet*) are the net equivalent of real-world minority groups - both exclusive and excluded. theres lots of opportunity here but i don't see anyone using it to the full.(*endofrant*)
...for the /. serialization of the new book.
/. ID is lower than the real Bruce Perens'.
Bent rules, broken promises, much verbiage, little info. Thanks a lot, KatzBot.
The real Threed's
--Threed
Why do we even have politicians my name is Wayne Smoot come and lock me up or assasainate me if you want to for saying this but why do we need an electoral college to vote for us, this is not the 1800's. We don't need politicians anymore if you care about a law then you go online and vote on it one way or the other whatever you believe as an individual. Yes it with take up our precious TV time but it will also give us the knowledge that we are the only ones to blame if there are hormones in our food, children are without school supplies or someone is dumping trash in our backyard. I'm tired of hearing about politicians selling my health and buying things (from thier buddys) with my money for way to much. If I knew how to make this a main discussion topic I would but I am new to slashdot. If you think this would be approved or possible or if you just agree with this idea and have theories on how to impliment it give me an email at nos@visual-e.net. Some government is vitally important, politicians a obsolete. Politicians are also bad influences on todays youth.
You do (I hope) realize that the Bible is not grounded in historical fact? It's a collection of stories intended to teach those who choose to follow it.
I know I'm a little late in responding to this, but I always twinge when I read or hear someone saying that the Bible is the end-all-be-all of knowledge.
Got hup?
Every library I have been to in the past 5 years has an internet ready computer. Virtually everyone who has access to a town with polling booths has access to a computer. The cost of the programs necessary to ready society for internet voting pales in comparison to the cost of polititions constantly raping us
Every so many years, SciAm publishes an article about why America always has 2 strong parties. Here's my summary of the salient features.
First off, let's remember that US citizens vote directly for President, and as we know, the President has the most power in government. He (or maybe one day she) sets the agenda for Congress, stops most contrarian action using the veto, and indirectly helps determine how the Constitution is interpreted by nominiating Supreme Court judges. So, essentially, the citizens vote directly - and all at once - for the government once every 4 years by voting for 1 person.
It doesn't make any sense to talk about any other form of government, unless you're talking about changing the Constitution. Good luck.
Given that reality, the outcomes are as follows:
1. The 2 party system is the most "fair." By fair, I mean that you maximize the "intent function." Did you intend this outcome? If 51% of the voters choose Gore, and 49% choose Bush, and Gore wins, then you've satisfied 51% of the voters intent. On the other hand, if 46% of the voters choose Gore, 49% Bush, and 5% Nader, then Bush wins and you've satisfied 49% - so the intent function is lower by 4%. There's a well-known way to solve this: ask voters for they're 2nd choice. (You get n-1 choices for n candidates.) This is great, except that it's not reality, so we can ignore it.
2. The 2 party system is the most stable. Voters are pretty smart, and they realize that point (1) is true. So they work hard to make sure that they're on the winning side of the mathematics I just ran though. Every time somebody gets screwed by being on the losing side, they "re-invent the party" around some issue or another. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 elections, but in the end the party that was almost dead somehow is magically revived.
3. New parties can be created, but you have to be willing lose a *lot*, maybe for as long as a generation. All the while you're trying to create the new party, the other parties are trying hard to bleed of some of the electoral "steam." Campaign finance reform? Global warming? I don't see any issues important enough to enough people to suffer through 20 years of losing bigtime. We might see such a divisive and wrenching issue in our lifetimes, but frankly I hope we don't.
Now, there are other reasons to have 3 or 10 parties - and that's to get new voices and ideas heard. Often the primaries serve this function (McCain, Bradley). Also, at the local level, where there aren't so many voters to convince, and the local issues can be pretty divisive, new parties can make a lot of hay. Go for it. Just maybe you'll get lucky on the state level. (Or just maybe you'll get Jesse for governer.)
But in terms of setting the national agenda, when you get to choose between TweedleDum and TweedleDee, my advice is to suck it up, mutter something about the paucity of choices, and pick the lesser of two evils. Under the American system of government, that's your job. Get to it.
Friday, the 20th.
Start here, or search deja for it.
Honesty! That is what is wanted. When I first learned that Jesse Ventura was Minnesota's governor - I thought to myself, "Where have I heard that name...?". Of course, it soon struck me as to where - and I wondered who would vote in a professional wrestler for their governor...
Then I heard him speak...
And I thought: "Here is an honest and intelligent man."
I keep wondering when such an individual will be president...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I just HATE it when the story begins with words,words, words and more words.Ruins my whole day.Couldn't Katz act like the reast of the /. crew?
* European cars are built with safety in mind.
* Asian cars are built with efficiency in mind.
* American cars are build with football in mind.
Cases in point: Only Honda and Toyota have petro-electric hybrids on the market at this time. Only Volvo and Mercedes offer solid roll-cages and side-airbags as standard equipment. Only the Ford Pinto explodes on impact.
This actually makes a lot of sense, if we think about it. The attitude behind the products of each of these cultures reflects the history and constraints of that culture.
Europeans have had war after war, century after century, roll back and forth across the continent. They (individual countries at least) insist that the lives of their citizens are important, and after years of industrial progress, safety is a requirement. After all, if all their citizens die in car crashes, there won't be anyone left to fight in the next ethnic war to come along.
Asians live in overcrowded conditions where optimal use of resuorces, especially for the Japanese, is of remarkable importance. People are plentiful, steel is expensive - so hoods and fenders are made thinner and lighter. It is not honorable to put ones self before the community, and so a car that flattens into a pancake is more respectable than one with pollutes the community air.
Americans like car races, big explosions and the individual pursuit of happiness. The faster happiness can be pursued, the better. If that means shoving someone else off the road with the running board of a big SUV, then so be it... If you can't keep up with the Joneses, or ride off into the sunset then you are weak and deserve to die in a fiery crash.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life