Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Goes Political: Announcing politics.slashdot.org
With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot. Please submit stories directly to the section for consideration.
As with all sections on Slashdot,
there will be stories available within that section that don't get posted to the main page, so please visit the section if you are interested in more coverage.
We'll do our best to be fair with story selection. We think we can do a good job since the Slashdot editors represent a diverse spectrum of political ideologies. The discussions are up to you guys. Here's hoping the experiment works!
Every discussion has some sort of political slant to it. You are somehow labeled as "right" or "left" depending on the whim of the moderators or random members of the community. People routinely claim you are some sort of radical communist just because you don't support the paying-off of public servants to create laws that benefit only the corporations. Obviously this is just one small example but it certainly reflects a good bit of what I experience here... We might really want to think about how the normal Slashdot moderation system is handled on this side of the site.
;-)
If anything Karma changes should be eliminated due to politically motivated moderation in this section. Some serious damage could occur to someone's account that is diametrically opposed to the rest of the Slashdot mentality.
I have been scouring books, articles, and random conversation for some intelligent and fair discussion about the state of politics today. I doubt that I will find too much "intelligent discussion" and I know we won't find any fairness here on Slashdot but we can always have hope
Here come the flames...
Can we please ban the editorials from /. editors to any political stories?
We think we can do a good job since the Slashdot editors represent a diverse spectrum of political ideologies.
Perhaps some examples are in order.
At least they did a better job with the colors/logo than the nasty IT section... ;)
Slashdot went political a long time ago...
Seriously though, congrats guys, this should make for some more really good discussions on slashdot.
Not having to see the IT color scheme again in my life won't bother me one iota.
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
Why didn't the "IT" section get the "Politics" nicer colors?
I'm surprised that the bar in this section aren't:
Red-FadingTo-White-FadingTo-Blue
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
A new subsection that doesn't burn the eyes! Who would have thought?
Good God, folks, would it hurt to at least try and make things a bit balanced? Important things happen in the world that don't have to do with the USA. There are a lot of people here who would be interested in hearing about it.
why an american flag for the /. graphic? there *are* countries outside america that practice politics. typical shortsightedness.
... that as long as people are writing posts that inform and explain their viewpoint, they won't be modded down, even by people who disagree. A one sentence-post espousing an unpopular viewpoint, yes, is basically a troll or flamebait. A paragraph or so explaining why the author has that viewpoint and some of the facts/reasoning behind it shouldn't be. These are the kinds of posts that make for stimulating discussion that enriches us all, even if you don't agree.
It's possible I'm just a rosy-glassed optimist, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope.
My guess is that there will be many otherwise-unremarkable posts which will be moderated up simply because they express a popular point of view forcefully, and, as always, meta-moderators are encouraged to mark lame upmods as Unfair. If a post isn't any more Insightful than average, but gets moderated that way, then rigorous meta-moderation will help the system, next time around, give mod points to someone else who deserves them more.
I think the +5 funny was due to the fact that you think that having a "diverse spectrum of political ideologies" means you will "do a good job".
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Why is it US-centric?
Because the section is for political coverage between now and the upcoming US election.
Because politics does MATTER, you twit. How do you think things like the PATRIOT act got through? I believe that had more "geeks" to use the term liberally, gotten out and voiced their opinions that things like the PATRIOT act or new wire-tapping laws were BAD (or at least had some negative and poorly thought out sections), things may have ended up for the better.
Just because politics can be boring doesn't mean they don't matter. Get off your swivel-chair and go register then excersize your right to VOTE. Maybe if all of the US slashdot readers did the same, we wouldn't have HALF the legal problems we do now and our country wouldn't be so bass-ackwards.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
It boggles my mind that there are people that base so much of their self-worth on a hidden int on a faraway server.
Until that is fixed, we will be making a concerted effort to not put any but the most obviously worthy politics stories on the mainpage, because people cannot filter them out. I realize this also means, however, that you will get politics if you have sectioncollapse selected in your prefs. And I know that sucks. Sorry. We do want to fix it ASAP.
Slashdot had become a sanctuary, free of (government-oriented, American) politics. Since - as you say - we are approaching the election, the entire media is awash in news of the elections. Blogs, magazine, ezines, newsletters, toilet graffiti. This is understandable, but certainly exhausting. To know now that even slashdot will be splashing stories on American politics makes me just want to log out and live in some glorified hole on a Carribean island. BenHill
Why only politics based on the US elections? Isn't it better to have permanent world/global politics section? /. through this many years.
I'm thinking here of many political themes which are quite represented on
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
I think what's sad is politically active people who need robotic partisan uniformity. America's huge, diverse population has worked together for hundreds of years by finding compromise acceptable to the majority, even when that majority spanned many ideologies and parties.
--
make install -not war
Of course! You guys run the whole spectrum. From outright Socialists through the Deaniacs ending at slightly left of center Democrats with a couple of Greens/Nader fans for added diversity. Beyond that is howling madness, no need to represent any of that, right?
/. editorializing and there certainly isn't a lack of editorializing.
Been reading here for years and I have never seen a hint of Republican or Libertarian views expressed in
Democrat delenda est
Why is it that slashdot is getting involved in politics? shouldn't slashdot be focusing on matters of tech, stuff thats important to nerds? STUFF THAT MATTERS? who cares about politics? lets discuss the latest thing that could be made into a beowulf cluster or debate on what would happen if we were in soviet russia or even ways of making PROFIT!
Slashdot has become much more political in since 9/11, especially in the last year. I'm glad that there will be a politics section for me to post in, and maybe it will keep some of the political flamewarriors out of the techie topics.
I have no doubt you have a diverse political spectrum - for an American. I doubt you have a very diverse spectrum in general, though.
There are more commonalities between a republican and a democrat than there are differences.
-Adam
And as you point out Garcia, politics have been part of not only the editorializing but also the comments and moderation system since day 1 (which for you was even before me, with your 4-digit UID). Slashdot was never really just News for Nerds, it was also Stuff that Matters, and to an even moderately educated nerd, politics does matter, even outside of DRM and Your Rights Online.
I think the admission by the editors that there is a desire for a politics category is a positive thing. I generally think the idea you propose, however, which is eliminating Karma effects of moderation is not a positive step. With no consequences, the amount of trolling and flamebait posts you will see will increase substantially. Respectful rational argumentation does occur here, but it's easy for discussions to degenerate, and your proposal won't help.
While I agree that sometimes posts are moderated specifically for their political views, it's more often the case that they get moderated for the way they express their radical political views. We should stick to the same standards of civilized discussion you'd expect with a gathering of real people in the real world. I'd rather deal with blatantly political down-moderation in meta-mod and add a facility there to tackle this problem. As for the problem of people getting modded up for expressing popular political points of view (nerd populism?), I don't think there's any problem with it, and there's even less that can be done about it.
Anything that can be done to excise politcal diatribes from technical discussions is fine by me.
It had gotten to the point where I avoided even looking at some Slashdot topics I suspected might lend themselves to degrading into political rants. That sorely broke my heart.
I'm glad you guys are helping out. I know that there are no promises but I'm happy that, at least, my chances of reading about Bill Clinton's use of cigars while learning about a new ReiserFS enhancement or George Bush's "lies, lies, lies" while hearing feedback about a Linux roll-out somewhere are reduced.
You can make that political forum lean as far left or as far right as you like because there's no damn way I'm going to even take a peek.
--Richard
PS: Yeah, I know that technology is
intertwined with politics but you
know what I mean. Less is better and
you just do what you can.
Lemme guess, you are legally blind aren't you?
I haven't seen much EXCEPT for libertarian drivel, with maybe occasional bit of free market gospel from econo-neo-cons for "balance".
That's an interesting point about Karma, but I'm not sure how a slashdot article would work without it. The whole system depends on good comments getting modded up and stupid ones down. Perhaps we need some sort of dummy moderation message that doesn't affect score, but does allow people to register their agreement/disagreement with the opinions of the statement. Of course that might necessitate reconsideration of the existing Troll, Overrated, Underrated, and Flamebait tags.
I've been asking for this section for a while. News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters doesn't just mean tech stuff. For sure people have been trying to talk politics on many an occasion. Here's hoping this section incorporates significant current events as well. For instance, even slashdot covered the trade center bombings, but at the time they happened politics was a minor concern - disseminating news of the event being the primary one.
While they're at it, they should make a general "Entertainment" section as well to let all you fanboys rant and rave about your favorite series (yay Farscape) without having to subject everyone to things few people care about (boo Firefly). Only the really big shows need to make the front page, but that doesn't mean there aren't other things people want to cover.
Can anyone think of any other sections that should be added? I feel like I'm forgetting one that I thought of before...
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
American flag?
I'm Canadian You Insensitive Clod!
(just kidding... but seriously what about non-Americans?)
Get your Unix fortune now!
It's a US based website, run by people in the US, and we all know that, from a USian pov, the rest of the world doesn't matter.
Best Slashdot Co
But there are just as many who feel that the US should just pull out from the rest of the world. Become isolationist and let the rest of the world see how good it was when we dominated them.
No...we think you have a diverse spectrum of left wing political ideologies.
I think the normal moderation system should not apply for the politics section. We don't need to make it all too easy for someone with strong political views and mod points to go through marking Troll on every opinion they disagree with. We get enough of that on the stories that are only semi-political.
I believe that /. started out as very much a technology-oriented news aggregator. The addition of a politics section is just another sign of the maturation and diversification of the site as "nerds" move more and more into the mainstream of society.
a world in progress...
get a clue you fucking commie bastards.
Shouldn't slashdot be better than that? If one party decides to use (overuse) the American flag then the slashdot logo will look like it talks only about that party.
PS: In my observation most parties who use the patriotism argument are the ones which care least about the people. In France for example the one party who claimed the French flag as a symbol for it's own party is the most racist and biggoted party.
Don't forget their are 50 states in the Union and the EC system ensures that the smaller states get a voice in presidental elections just like the 2 senators from each state, regardless of population, is suspose to insure that each state gets it's uniqure issues heard.
The electoral college was originally designed to make sure that the President was selected by the land owners, and not by the mob.
Today's electoral college (which resembles the original electoral college in name only) is used in conjunction with the winner take all states to ensure that the 2 political parties which hold power cannot be defeated by a grass roots candidate.
You don't seem to understand our election system. I suggest you research it.
People on the internet, and Slashdot in particular, tend to lean more towards the European mainstream than the American mainstream.
Except, of course, on civil liberties issues, where Europe's left-fascism makes the police-state folk in the US Justice Department envious: the UK's got CCTVs everywhere, issues "antisocial behavior orders" prohibiting people from (in one instance) making sarcastic comments to their neighbors; France bans movies that criticize its bloody colonial wars, and so on.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"with us or against us" evil politics, characterized as best by the guys who don't vote the way I do. :-)
This is my sig.
That's not entirely correct. While they may claim to be Green and Libertarian, they are in fact quasi-green pseudo libertarians. Nowhere else besides Slashdot will you find people claiming to be Libertarian while advocating increased tax funding for NASA, or claiming to be Green while strenously arguing against mandatory software warranties.
While I don't expect anyone to ever follow their party's planks one hundred percent, Slashdot editors seem to be the types that only pick a party because someone told them they could get laid.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Why have the candidates not been asked for a slashdot style interview? Someone high up on the slashdot chain should invite both the candidates to do an email interview like what has been done in the past with interesting people. I am sure with the millions of hit that are here they might be interested.
I'm guessing from the logo of the section that this will be a 'No', but will there be coverage of Non-US elections as well?
:) I have nothing against patriotism or anything but after a point the sheer quantity of stars and stripes I see around tends to get a little annoying.
Ack, I hadn't even noticed the logo there, nothing against Americans but as a Canadian I have to say that I already see quite enough of your flag
Now I can see the reasoning behind US-centric stories for the next few months, what with the election and all, but there is certainly a lot else going on in the world, even a story already in the new section on The Australian Prime Minister. Also note all the stuff currently going on in the EU relating to patents and IP, China with it's massive population and strict media control, not to mention countless other events going on all over this planet. While the majority of the IP's that hit the front page might be from the US I'm sure anyone who reads the comments can attest to a strongly international presence that shows up. I feel that using a clearly pro-American logo not only incites the "I'm not an American" trolls (seriously do they want to make this a trollfest?) but also causes the perception that the politics being discussed are isolated from the rest of the world and people outside the US can neither affect nor are being affected by it, a perception which is extremely dangerous. Politics is a truly international affair, as a Canadian I can say that I'm much more scared by who might win the US election then by any of the candidates in my own, as well American's should be greatly interested by events all over the Middle East as well as what happens in the EU and China for a variety of reasons. I'm not sure what a good logo would be but clearly an American flag is highly improper for a wide variety of reasons.
I stole this Sig
I know this has been said, but I want to add my $0.02. This will only generate thread upon thread of flame fests with people on both sides throwing barbed verbage at each other. It is best to stick with individual issues that are tech related (I said TECH related) than to open up a whole forum on politics. The only thing that slashdot should care about Nader/Kerry/Bush is their stance on tech issues, not Iraq. Other issues should be tread on lightly. For instance, the economy should only be an issue as it relates to tech companies and tech jobs. Now, I'm going to duck.
Yeah, but weren't the swift boat guys outted as complete liars, and didn't Bush himself say we should be proud of Kerry? I'm tending to side with Bush on this one.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Been reading here for years and I have never seen a hint of Republican or Libertarian views expressed in /. editorializing and there certainly isn't a lack of editorializing.
If you lowered your threshold to -1 you would have seen my conservative replies.
Slamming Bush will get your Score to 5:, Interesting but refuting it will get you a score of -1:, Troll.
This is a left-leaning board. It is what it is.
While I don't see any problem with the fact that lots of the statements are logical fallacies (this isn't a right/wrong test, it's to measure your responses to the statements, even when logical fallacies), I just don't see how some of them are really either right or left socially or economically. Is the concept of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" really a politically conservative concept, or a religious expression of the human desire for revenge? Is optional classroom attendance for minors really a libertarian point of view? Is eugenics politically conservative, or just a bit nutty? If you like to keep busy with cheerful things when you are troubled, does that make you a social liberal (or conservative? I can't even figure this one out)?
I started taking that test and gave up on the 3rd page. Almost every question is phrased as a false dilemma and has an obvious left slant. It is apparerently intended to make you believe you are a liberal.
I had the same reaction. Half those questions are logical fallacies, and the rest are left slafted. But our politicians all speak in logical fallacies so I kept going, and it scored me at 0.0 on the left-right thing and at -5.38 on the authoritarian-liberterian axis. Which is pretty much where I see myself. I believe strongly in freedom for people and business, but don't object to fairly applied taxes for schools, libraries, a safety net, and legal* system.
*I don't support the current legal system in the US, but I still think we'd need one in an ideal society. I think we should go back to the old Icelandic tradition of having the Speaker of the House read all the laws of the land to the other members of Congress over the course of every three years. It's sort of like the Jewish tradition of reading the torah over the course of each year, except congress is free to eliminte a law for every other law they add, and are free to go home after they hear the text.
I stopped after the first question:
If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.
Economic globalization is inevitable. Humanity and "trans-national corporations" aren't an either/or choice as beneficiaries.
That question is just another version of "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Mmmm.. Donuts
An article about the Australian Prime Minister is US-centric content, trust me.
>Been reading here for years and I have never seen a hint of Republican
The GOP mainstays are piss-poor areas of the US where the chances of being a nerd with various gaming machines and enough free time to post on a webboard is pretty low.
Modern day Republicans are closely related to theocrats and the exteme right, thus having a very maginalized platform. Most of the genx/y types who frequent this site really don't see the logic in the GOP's current platform of driving the US back to the 30's both economically and socially.
What is "Republican" today? It gets redefined everytime Bush opens his mouth. The party of small government and fiscal responsbility is no more, thus "Republican" is a blind partisan defense of today's talking points.
Libertarianism gets a lot of play here, but its whatever you want to define it as. Very few bother with the US Libertarian party.
A lot of people would welcome well written conservative views, but like I wrote earlier they don't exist in the Republican world.
Lastly, the genx/y generation is skeptial, doessnt share dad's bigotry, doesn't share dad's religious views, etc thus you're going to get a lot of "crazy leftists" with "crazy" views like those held by the founders of the US, which the Republican seem to despise. Just read their 2004 convention platform: fuck gays, fuck the economy, fuck your complaints about the war, more PATRIOT ACT legislation, and blame Democrats for everything.
Perhaps, these views aren't popular for a reason? No conspiracy needed.
Or, for that matter: the DMCA or the INDUCE act. These are acts passed through the process of politics but have the potential to affect all computer users - American or otherwise. Any overhaul of software patents in the US too will be reached by political, not technical, consensus. Achieving the consensus one wants requires a broader understanding of politics than just the technical problems it presents.
:)
In the UK we have the RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) act, the EUCD (European Copyright Directive - Europe's DMCA) and now software patents are being proposed by the EC. Australia had the trade agreement that may require a DMCA-esque regulation as part of the agreement. These have all been proposed and approved through the political process.
Fighting these changes is hard work, and requires effort; but most importantly it requires political nous. If you want to convince your representative, you have to know how to convince your representative. What will make your objections appealing to him? How can your representative convince his colleagues that you're right?
An understanding of politics is absolutely essential to getting these concepts through to an individual who must first be elected to stand for a position by his party before he's elected "by the people". If you're unable to convince your representative - through politics - that at the very least his standing with his party won't be harmed, you have a snowballs chance in hell of convincing him to listen to you.
I would, however, disagree that politics is boring. It's frustrating, it's annoying, it's usually hypocritical and amoral, but it's rarely boring
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
Wrong Section.
Perl vs. Python isn't Politics, its Religion.
Linux is not Windows
That "quiz" is just a list of Libertarian issues, formulated by Libertarians. The political compass is also slanted towards Libertarianism, but less grossly. The whole 2d model with social and economic axes is Libertarian in spirit.
A conservative or socialist would pick other axes to plot viewpoints.
Because we live in a democracy where everybody (well, a lot) has one vote each, the mistaken belief that everybodys opinion is worth the same is widespread. For technical issues, many people (but not enough, judging by the /. comments) realize that they they have insufficient insight to contribute anything worthwhile. But for politics, such a lack of insight is not stopping them.
Until you realize the simple truth that Bush is a Republican, and will say whatever looks good to voters on TV running up to an election, then do whatever perpetuates profits for the corporations to whom he must answer every day. That's spokesmodeling. Kerry answers to a lot of backers, some with conflicting interests, so he must find a sensible middle ground. That's management.
:).
When you find that your party does not represent you, and goes beyond ignoring you to using you by talking your talk, but walking someone else's walk, quit the party. If you find another, you're in luck. Otherwise, why bother? Who wants to vote in a primary for a club of scammers? Save your attention for the actual election, which actually affects your life. And put your "party time" towards a focused organization representing your interests, or towards your favorite beverage
--
make install -not war
See the South Park episode on this.
Cartman: I learned somethin' today. This country was founded by some of the smartest thinkers the world has ever seen. And they knew one thing: that a truely great country can go to war, and at the same time, act like it doesn't want to. [a shot of the crowd] You people who are for the war, you need the protesters. Because they make the country look like it's made of sane, caring individuals. And you people who are anti-war, you need these flag-wavers, because, if our whole country was made up of nothing but soft pussy protesters, we'd get taken down in a second. That's why the founding fathers decided we should have both. It's called "having your cake and eating it too."
Randy: He's right. The strength of this country is the ability to do one thing and say another.
"This is a left-leaning board."
p.s. that seems to have been written by an american, so you can translate it to "this board isn't quite conservative enough"
If you're willing to accept the (flimsy) evidence against Kerry, you should also be willing to accept the (slightly less flimsy) evidence against Bush. Not that it matters what happened 35 years ago. I'd prefer to judge the presidential candidates on their records and positions than try fruitlessly to figure out exactly what they were doing 35 years ago.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
It makes otherwise intelligent people complete closed minded idiots.
It's a well established fact that people seek out information which confirms their current opinion and actively screen out information which challenges it. Look at a programmer struggling with a bug or a user with a user interface and you can see it. Politics takes this natural human cognitive strategy and infuses it with emotion, value judgements and ego identification. This means that while in most situations people will eventually begin to take new information into account, in politics this practically never happens. The more we are confronted with truths that challenge our political positions, the more strongly we warp our sense of reality to suit our predjudices.
Any reasonable person from another planet would immediately come to some obvious conclusions:
On the economy, Bush got smacked down by an overdue correction in the business cycle and 9/11. His tax cuts probably gave the economy a short term stimulus. However, the long term effects of his policies are debatable.
Kerry has a realtively normal legislative career. He sometimes votes for one version of a bill and against another one, or for a particular thing by itself but against it when it's lumped with a bunch of other things he doesn't like. However, his career as a legislator is rather undistinguished.
Mr. Impartial Observer would also label Michael Moore a propagandist, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth a bunch of vile political hatchetmen.
External validation feels good, but it is not intellectually honest. If the moderation system could be tweaked to encourage people to reevaluate their positions and look at the truth, it would be a great acccomplishment.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Mostly it is, yes. But it is an American site and their have a special political section leading up to the American election. What's the problem?
And it's true -- these are two topics that are sure to get people's blood boiling.
Finding God in a Dog
Although I know that this remark is not intended to be *mean* (well, i suppose it could be...) this kind of crap never helps any debate. Do you really think that there is no way that a bush supporter could be intelligent? Even though I am not necassarily a Bush supporter I find it personally offensive that you would call an entire group of people stupid for supporting the President. While there is a lot of desicions that Bush has made that I don not support there are some that I do. I am sure that there are many Bush supporters that do not support 100% of Bush's decisions, and that they have a good reason for supporting him. Many decisions that Bush has made can be good or bad based on opinion, do you really think that a personal opinion different from yours is a reason to call someone stupid?
I do think that the mods here should get a spanking for modding that comment insightful, at best it was funny
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
In still other words, Kerry represents a fairly broad collection of interests, with access open as scenarios change. Bush represents a certain few interests, which never change, regardless of situation. Kerry is republican democrat, and Bush is just a republican - democracy need not apply.
I'd remove "fairly broad" from the first sentence. He represents a collection of interests, and can be bought when necessary. He has no loyalty, which, in a leader, is as bad as blind dogmatic loyalty (Bush). They both represent interests, rather than ideas or ideals, which makes them both scum from a political standpoint. Kerry is a political mercenary, Bush is a political fanatic. Neither have a conscience to speak of.
You can't have a republic without democracy. It's an extension of a broader idea. The distinction between republican democrat and republican is non-existent.
They're both from the same party, they just belong to different camps. Neither are interested in republican democracy, as far as the classical definition goes: all power stemming from the individual with strict confines upon what power the State can wield.
Neither Kerry nor Bush are republican in that they do not believe in constraints upon governmental power. A "republican" form of government is one where rights exist apart from and superior to the power of the government.
Neither Kerry nor Bush are democratic in that they support the perpetuation of the idea that power stems from the government, and all rights are beholden to the whim of that government. A "democratic" government derives its authority solely from the people, who may revoke that authority should they so choose.
Well slashdot was created by a US citizen inside the US. It is a US based website. Now if slashdot feels like going internation then good for them. But by no means should slashdot belt felt required or pushed to go international just because people from other countries decide to read it of their own free will. So how about next time ask them politely and recognize it is a decision they do not have to make if they don't want to instead of demanding they do so like it's required.
Obviously you don't understand democracy.
It is not that all opinions have the same value, but all people have the same right to express their opinions.
The merit of the opinions are decided by the politicial process, if you are arsed to transform those opinions in policies and actions and if your peers think your opinions can improve society then yes, your opinions will raise above the rest.
Or what is your alternative? That only opinions of experts, annointed ones, the people in the know, are the only ones we should be listening to? Like G. Bush, T. Blair and their incompetent intelligence agencies?
Thanks but no thanks.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.