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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."
People... getting together... to solve problems. This sounds like it might end up in a bloody revolution! Better put a stop to it now before it's too late. Don't want this democracy thing to get out of hand.
Envision government running like "The Price is Right," with the audience screaming out the policy decisions. =)
I haven't finished the article yet, but I don't have much hope that there is a proffered reasonable solution.
Part of the orginal justification of representitive democracy was that it was logisticly impossible to have everyone vote on every topic. But now that electronic voting is an option why do we still need representatives?
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
If your local governments started putting public information online in a searchable format. Do a simple search on your local govt web site to get minutes of committe meetings, forclosures, law changes, heck, just put all the local laws and requlations in a database that is easily searchable. That would make it much easier for people to find laws and regulations. In my town at least, you either read about the town meetings in the local, and very crappy newspaper, or you have to trudge down to city hall and ask to see it. Not to mention putting on these websites who these elected and appointed leaders are, and what they have voted for and against. Nationwide, any state, county or city.. Would make it much easier to decide who to vote for, and what they have stood for in the past..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Where I work, we just did a test-run with the "VClass" software. My boss is big on the idea that such all-in-one software (voice conferencing, whiteboard, app sharing, etc) could be useful for making "Virtual Townhall" meetings, where community members can participate without having to physically show up.
It would make sense to start this government information technology (GIT) revolution on a small scale and work slowly up, ironing out bugs along the way. Who knows, eventually countries might even use the Internet to host referendums for government policies?
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..
precisely because it is not feasible for everyone with a vote to be informed on every decision.
your representative has a team of highly specialized and highly dedicated aides whose job it is to know the entire issue.
they have the training and the time to do so. you or i, do not. not reliably, and not for every subject. are you going to pretend that having citizens directly vote on every contract extension for every union is a good idea? or how about directly voting on the budget, or social spending plans?
the collective doesn't have the same burden of responsibility. yes, representative democracy has a flaw (susceptible to corruption) but it also has enough benefits that it's a worthwhile system. it also has a large check (term limits, reelection) to ensure that the citizens have a measure of control over the graft.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Unfortunately, one goes with the other. You let government do "a million good things" for you and its natural instinct is to do even more. For your own good of course. That includes censorship and regulation. Government thinks you can't handle your own affairs, so it'll just have to do it for you, you stupid clod.
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.
In the tech group, it's easy to say that the Gov't does the "regular daily stuff" ok. However, ask a PETA person, or a Greenpeace person, or any other focus group that is as knowledgable about their topic as we are about tech, and they'll say, "oh the gov't handles tech fine, but as far as MY topic, they're crappy".
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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!