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Public Net-work
Steven Clift writes "I've written up an article titled E-Democracy, E-Governance, and Public Net-work. It illustrates how governments can do more with the Internet to meet public challenges. While the big bad government should be viewed skeptically in terms of censorship and regulation, it also does a million good things related to the non-techie parts of our lives. The question is not whether the government should use the Internet to involve people in meeting their public mission, but how to apply technology in the most effective way."
The conclusion was: To be involved in defining the future of democracy, governance and public work at the dawn of the information-age is an incredible opportunity and responsibility. With the intelligent and effective application of ICTs, combined with democratic intent, we can make governments more responsive, we can connect citizens to effectively meet public challenges, and ultimately, we can build a more sustainable future for the benefit of the whole of society and world in which we live.
It sounds eerily reminiscent of many dotcoms who tried to get into the government services market. There's a good documentary about one of them.
No reason to lie.
What the government already does online is good enough. You can renew your tabs online, file your taxes, and download forms, and probably a few more things. Anything beyond that will involve national ID cards, electronic voting, and everything else that you could possibly not want. Do you really want to trust the government to put your life online? Haven't you looked at the laws that have been passed lately? Does it make you think they have a clue yet? How about in 50 years? Somehow I don't think I'd even trust them then. But then again, by then it will be inevitable. They will be too tempted to use this power to ignore it. So I guess it's a good thing then, being that it's inevitable and all.
Obviously there are a boatload of issues with security that, hopefully, could be addressed someday. However I have a dream.
That dream is for the day where I, as a voter, get to make my voice heard directly on as much or as little of the government's operation as possible, without one catch-all representative doing it for me. Issues come up for voting, and there would be a place where I could go and see the most popular arguements on both sides and the views of critics and pundits and politicos of my choosing regarding the issues in question if I like, and vote directly on the issues. Or, if I am busy, perhaps I could earmark my representatives by expertise. Perhaps I want to earmark a respected doctor as my representative for medical issues, greenspan as my economic representative, nader as my consumer rights representative... and have their votes count for mine as default unless I actively change my rep for a particular issue or earmark an issue as "manual".
We'd still need a president to handle emergency decisions, diplomacy, and sometimes to override popular views that just are plain bad. But congress and the house of reps could go away completely. The "house of reps" would simply be whoever the people respect enough, either overall or within their area of expertise, at any particular time, to trust with their own vote. No terms or limits or re elections or smear campaigns. Just issues and discussion and participation, directly, on a one person one vote basis.
Maybe someday..
I like the *ideas* presented in this guys article, but at this point in time I think its still a bit of a pipe dream. Mostly due to the lack of familiarity with the technology by non-technical people and the paranoia of those technical enough to understand what is going on behind the scenes.
Also, trying to communicate anything meaningful in a public electronic forum is next to impossible any more. There is just too much noise. The only good way to reduce the noise is to make people accountable for their comments and suggestions. But, as we all are well aware, the only good way to make people accountable is to take away their anonymity....which kinda defeats the purpose in the first place.
is that any half-baked nonsense can be published to the world. fortunately, most people ignore it.
The problem with slashdot is that half baked nonsense gets posted on the front page, and people think that since it made it past the janitors, it is useful substance.
Usually it isn't.
The structure is layed out very well, but I have some additions to recommend. Along with citizens should be "special interests", "big corporations". Included with government should be "alterier motives", "barred entrance via campaign costs". These X factors cannot be ignored, granted the scope of this paper isn't a digression on flaws in government, I do believe that flaws are big enough that they cannot be ignored.
I really like the E-Democracy conceptual model. It shows the cyclical role of citizens as they are applied to various facets of leadership.
All in all though I believe that a lack of communication is not the core of the problem in the government. Infact in a democracy a great majority of people don't care to give feedback (vote). Are you suggesting that if voting goes online more people will vote? If this is the case, the government may or may not be ready to embrace it for that reason alone. That's an interesting question.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Sure, democracy is great, isn't it?
Imagine if we had direct voting all along. Blacks would still be slaves, women wouldnt be able to vote, children would still legally be property. Maybe you'd enjoy a society where you have to think, act, and live like everyone else, after all, you are here on slashdot.
My point is, the right decision isn't always the most popular one. That's why the USA is a Republic.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Many people are not terribly considerate when online. People are quick to judge, are too sensitive, anger too quickly, they resort to flamewars or trolling, etc. when online. It's easy to do. There's very little accountability online. The reason? Anonymity. Put your picture and a name/address/phone number alongside online behavior, and the 'Net will become a very polite place very quickly. Occasionally, in a large group of people, you will run into a fearless troll, but they can quickly be shunned by the majority and rendered mostly ineffective. Online, trolls can be more effective at disrupting communications. Slashdot works for those that read regularly. Moderation dies off after several hours of posts to a piece of news. For the readers that catch up occasionally, their chance to be heard and moderated up are slim.
-- No sig for you!
National security being the obvious, but far from only one.
Market economies work a lot better if there are mechanisms for maintaining transparency, and individuals dont have enough influence over markets to make it happen. Even aggregated individuals working through market means (such as through market funds with analysts and so on) cant do it; there is too much power (and profit) to be gained by inside players willing to obfuscate the market. This is inevitably a government task, or markets end up breaking down.
Individual playeers in a market economy have strong incentives to externalize costs. Now, we all carry each others external costs to an extent, but an effective market economy (and its accompanying society) MUST have effective mechanisms for equitably distributing external costs whenever possible(hopefully onto those who benefit from externalizing those costs in the first place).
Just these two imperatives account for a lot ("a million?") of good things government does for us, that we can NOT do for ourselves.
There are others that might be less agreed upon... countering the tendency of capital (and its accompanying power) to accumulate through generations, providing an effective political balance to the power inherent in capital, and so on.
And these are just the economic issues.
Yes, government can (and sometimes does) go too far. Thats why we need good citizen checks on our government. But what's the alternative?
Because mob-rule (pure democracy) is a bad idea.
Direct democracy does not have to mean "mobocracy" or pure majoritarian rule. Individual freedoms and minority rights can indeed be respected and protected in reconciliation with community interests. Beware the hobgoblins of mob rule, for their existence can be entirely attributed to the deep-seated fears of an arrogant ruling class, their devotees and back-door power brokers.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Community networks such as this could be a great thing. Meaning, if implemented properly, a virtual town hall type server storing information about community events, problems, ideas, etc. as well as a controlled way to get in touch with community officials and representitives, would be an excellent thing for nearly every community. The main problem however is immediatly evident: How to get every member of the community access to it, even if they do not choose to utilize it. One could argue that the solution is quite simple, at least in my mind. Setup wireless accesspoints in key positions throughout a town, creating a wireless mesh network connecting to a central gateway which would host most of the information. In theory, this is great idea, give everyone a cheap terminal-style computer, at a cost of about $100 per station per home. The terminals could be specialized in such a way that they could only be used to send and get information at the central server, make voting work through this, I bet it'd drive voter "turnout" up if people wouldn't have to leave their homes to vote in a referendum or whatever. People could be more adequatly informed of all the issues, the wireless connection could be used to broadcast informational radio as well, meaning people who do not wish to read up on what's going on around them, can still get that info if they want. This is purely an idealist scenario, and I'm sure it would never happen, but I can imagine the pros and cons of such a setup. Security would be an issue, but just don't give the network access to the Internet. Allow other machines to operate on the network, but filter mac addresses at the server end to only accept data from the terminals. Password authenticate, or some other form of authentication, but don't go so far as thumbprinting or cameras. If such a device could be as readily, and affordably, available to so many people it could really take off. But, alas, it'll never happen, only a utopian society could get it to happen, and no such society exists as of yet.