Slashdot Mirror
Saving Democracy With Web 2.0
Wired is running a piece about how "Web 2.0" (still hate that buzz word) can save democracy this upcoming election date. Web 2.0 hyperbole aside, the piece itself covers the extent of the different mapping tools, get out the vote, finding who funds a candidate and other election candies. Good round-up story.
Nothing for you to see here... move along.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Really, this is no different than initial utopian claims about how the internet will change everything, bring people together, cause world peace, eliminate hunger, and usher in a new era of universal well being.
More tools are great, and making information easily accessible is a Good Thing. Calling politicians on their sources of funding is always positive, and holding politicians accountable for the things they say and the promises they make is fantastic.
But no matter how available you make the information, it only matters if people care enough to find out. That's the advantage the traditional media have: given US culture, it's a push medium. It brings information to people, rather than wating for people retrieve the information. The implication of an article like this is that the threat to democracy is unavailability of information, which isn't true - or at least, is far from the whole story.
The real threat to democracy is people who don't really care about what's going on in government. People who have voted straight ticket in every election since they were 18 (and are proud of the fact!) are the problem. People who consider themselves members of a Team Republican or Team Democrat are the problem. People who don't know who's on the ballot until they show up to vote are the problem. It's a combination of apathy, cynicism, and misguided loyalty that is the problem.
This "web 2.0" phenomenon that the article discusses is, in a sense, the same as the "get out the vote" initiatives that come out every election cycle. When you come right down to it, if someone's only going to vote because MTV told them to, it's probably someone that shouldn't be voting*. If someone doesn't care enough about the process to know who stands for what and to take the time to go vote without being harangued by some celebrity, then that person should have just stayed home; we might as well roll dice to determine who gets elected.
All the tools that are now available for information disclosure are great tools, and they make the job of a responsible voter easier. But they won't make someone who doesn't care in the first place suddenly care unless the information is forced in front of him - which is exactly the information model that the web doesn't match up to. Helping informed voters become better informed is a great thing, but it's not going to save democracy.
*No, this doesn't mean I would ever advocate any kind of system to "validate" voters. Every citizen gets to vote if he wants to, and anything that begins to change that is abhorrent to the very idea of democracy. Nor would I restrict the right of any person or group to encourage people to vote. But that doesn't change the fact that the people who only vote because the TV told them to are very likely to cast unconsidered votes, which is not an ideal situation. Then, of course, there's the problem that any group pushing people to go vote is, almost certainly, pushing people to go vote the way that group wants them to - and the people being convinced don't even know that they're being pushed to a specific political position, rather than just being encouraged to exercise their franchise.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
FTA: Many Americans believe that our political system is broken, and that money is to blame. Legislators are beholden to donations from special interest groups. Regulators pass through a revolving door to take jobs in the very industries they used to regulate. Big campaign donors somehow land big government contracts, despite arcane public bidding processes.
This is exactly the problem. I wonder if this will help though. Beware the media/government/corporate complex and interlocking directorships.
When does Web 2.1 come out?
HRESULT WinAPIGetSystemProcessThreadMetricsMenu...
LibraryVolumeModuleHandlePtrEx(PHSPTMMLVM PHndl);
What good do all of these tools do if we cannot protect the mechanisms of voting? Transparency is a good thing, but it only goes so far. I do not understand why so many places are moving to electronic machines after decades of success with other devices. (I am personally a big fan of mechanical lever machines.)
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
How the Blink Tag Can End the Two-Party Duopoly.
After 236 years of elections, both fair and foul, we need Web 2.0 to save deomcracy?! Sounds like a bunch of soon-to-be unemployed Republican policy wonks looking for a new angle to sell their snake oil.
How can Web 2.0 change the fact that lots of votes go through easily rigged voting machines?
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
... web 2.0 just makes it prettier...
* Solve world hunger
* Cure cancer
* Revive the dead
* Talk to God
* End poverty
* Find your soul mate
* Kill Chuck Norris
What else am I missing? Help me out, people!
Love sees no species.
The real good news is that the web gets around all those pesky laws stopping you from telling lies about the political subjects or canidates you dont like.
In fact, there's nothing stopping me from saying things like Mesure A (a public transit initiative where I am) will kill babies, and all who support it will feast on the baby meat!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The main inhibitor to the efficiency of democracy (at least in the U.S.) is not -- you're correct -- a lack of information. It's the outdated system by which information is *legitimated.
That system, which in a nutshell is "media conglomerates tell the unwashed masses what is true" can and will be outdated by decentralized tools. I don't think mySpace is going to save the proletariat, but the fact is that empowerment-in-general grew with the free flow of information, and it will grow again with reliable, objective (and egalitarian!) ways of sorting the good information from the bad.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Stopping Slashdot Dupes
My one major wish for this election is for the mainstream press to give some breakdown numbers that show precinct-by-precinct-by-ballot-type totals. Does Diebold seem as party-neutral as other electronic tally machines? Do paper-trailed machines disagree strongly with pull-lever machine totals? Does optical scan seem to lean to the Preservatives? Does punchcard seem to go to the Libertines?
Even if everything looks mostly kosher with regards to the final vote totals, it would plant the seed that shows that it's not just what you vote, it's who counts your vote.
[
Web information and discussion can help people be informed,
but with a stale two party system, people mostly vote for "the lesser of two evils".
Only with some kind of runoff voting system will there be results more true to the public choice.
"Instant runoff" means that you that you can have some backup choices in case your first choice fails.
There are some different ways to do instant runoff,
but they are all more democratic than the dual party system in place now.
Not until you get your electoral system fixed first.
n tation
e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_represe
Deleted
Good rule of thumb for anyone who invests in or works with technology:
If it's in "Wired", you know it's crap.
Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever
been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property:
and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent
in their deaths.
-James Madison
That is why our country was founded as a Constitutional Republic where FREEDOM, not democracy, was the ideal. Unfortunately, we are drifting away from freedom towards democracy, which has given us a bigger, more instrusive, and more corrupt federal government.
I saw a T-shirt at a science fiction convention with a quote from Ben Franklin: "Democracy is a sheep sitting down with two lions; liberty is one well-armed sheep."
Democracy is just tyranny of the majority. A 51% vote by the people still doesn't give them moral authority to take my land. Government only has power which people give it and people can only give power which they themselves hold. This includes defense of life, liberty, property, and little else.
Web 2.0 is not on our side! Look at Web 2.0's track record:
Web 2.0 has done nothing to protect the environment. Under Web 2.0's watch our harmful green house gas emissions have INCREASED!
Web 2.0 has never prosecuted violent offenders!
Web 2.0 failed to vote for a resolution that would put child molesters behind bars!
Web 2.0 funnels millions of dollars through thousands of corporations and special interest groups. There have even been ties to Phillip Morris (big tabacco)!
Web 2.0 stood by doing nothing while America went to war!
Gotta love the campaign season commercials.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Eh. Voting machines are just another distraction from the real problem: democracy is dead in the US. There are only two parties even allowed to be on the ballot in most states, and many states even throw away write-in votes. At this point, it's like voting for Coke or Pepsi. There is no real choice, but people like to think that they have a real choice to make a real difference. It's 100% bullshit. The Democrats and Republicans are just playing good cop/bad cop. They're both happy as long as they can have half of the power and money, and the people are contented enough to think that they actually have a choice.
I setup UtahDebate.org in order to allow candidates to run without a lot of money and still get their message across. People don't need to spend millions of dollars on campaigns and therefore do not need to take 'loans' from special interest groups to run. All of these other laws really just interfere with free speech and make it harder for candidates from smaller parties to run.
Who cares about Web 2.0 saving democracy...
I can't wait for the pr0n on web3d!
NB: Web3D is being copyrighted by me, right now, you all saw it!!
We still have districts, which are arbitrary geographic regions often with little common interests. They're chopped up based on population, nothing more. That's how we have all of these little fiefdoms. The ultimate blow to incumbents would be when like-minded people could vote for any candidate in the state who represents them. When I lived in Virginia's 6th district, we had Congressman Goodlatte, the guy who drafted the gambling ban. The SOB did NOT represent me as a libertarian, conservative Christian or software developer, nor did he in practice represent most of his district. He was so unchallenged due to the fact that voters in his district could only choose him, rather than choose a better Virginia Republican or anyone else. I'd have voted for Wolf, the Republican up here in Northern Virginia over Goodlatte any day if given the chance! So yes, we still have districts, still have usually only two "real choices" and we are to believe that "democracy is being saved." Bah. Few people really want to "save democracy." The changes are too extreme and most people in this country wouldn't understand them. Try getting one of those retards who couldn't handle the Florida ballots with their super-advanced hole punching mechanism to understand that they can now vote for any candidate in the entire state that they like. These are the people who can't understand the proper usage of a hole puncher. A friggin hole puncher! I'm sorry, I forgot. If you want to "save democracy," than add "disenfranchise the 'demagogue bait' voters" to the short list of things that must be done.
That t-shirt missed the point of the jest. The lions/sheep have to be voting one dinner.
"Benjamin Franklin observed that democracy is two wolves and a sheep holding an election to decide what to have for dinner, and that liberty is a well-armed sheep vigorously contesting the election result."
The problem with that statement in today's government is that if you were to do so, you would be labeled a domestic terrorist. You would be detained, your rights to habias corpus stripped, shipped overseas, tortured, and then locked away.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
No, the direct democracy that you describe is worse. It means only activists with lots of free time get a say. People who are always busy and tired get very little influence. Being always busy and tired is more common among the poor than among the rich, so the poor get vastly underrepresented.
What you need is politicians who are regular people, close to the rest of the people; media that first and foremost scrutinize everything the politicians do, well aware that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance; and a people who are aware enough to buy such media.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Apparently you don't vote. There's many referendums every year, and I'm sure there's still a lot for your personal state, city, district.
If you don't vote don't complain, if you don't know the issues you vote on, don't complain, but you've had the opportunity even if you didn't know. The fact you know nothing about the voting process isn't an excuse.
While this is representational democracy for the most part, you don't vote once every four years, if you actually care you vote EVERY YEAR! If you belong to a party you vote in primaries. It's not even hard to know when a vote is. Most voting boards send out information talking about upcoming votes, maybe it's time you actually got involved, rather then complaining about it.
Give them all the same amount of cash to campaign with, give them 6 weeks only to campaign. I'm tired of watching the millions disappear into trash ads 12 months before the vote.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Sounds good, until you ask the question: who gets to write the survey that states the issues? How the question is asked can make quite a difference. Choosing which questions to ask also makes a difference. For example, I've seen very few politicians state their position on any environmental issue. I don't recall seeing any of the politicians I'm voting for in this election make any environmental statements. Maybe each party on the ticket could submit a list of n "issues" worded the way they choose to word it, and each politician needs to vote yea/nay/pass on every issue. In such a case, however, 3rd (or nth) party candidates might have a bigger impact. IMO, that's a Good Thing.
So, basically, I guess it still sounds good to me.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
typically there is less than 50% turnout on elections of the REGISTERED voters in an area. of that percentage the majority are old people that dont care about what is online or how a blog talks about something.
I.E. it's all you young people's fault the system is as screwed up as it is! if you got your butt to the polls and voted on EVERY election the voter turnout would be higher, the young to incredibly old voter ratio would change and the 90+ year old undead that are maintaining seats in the senate and house would not be there.
Want to make a change and "save democracy? get off your ASS! go vote! pick on and ridicule you co workers that are not voting, call friends and bug them until they vote. Being passive and not getting out there does exactly what they want you to do. be complacent, uncaring and lazy. They want you to let the 45+ be the only voting voice...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why do so many people hate the idea of having an easy name for the concept of web pages that interact with the user? I don't see anyone else coming up with a better name. Yeah, let's stop calling it "Web 2.0" and move on to the oh-so-efficient "Interactive web pages built on AJAX, JSON, and other technological advancements." Give me a break, people. Unless you have coined a better term, stop whining.
And 10 more who only watch MTV.
I'm not sure which is worse: a half-educated voter who may be mislead by their media outlet of choice, or a non-educated voter who only votes because some halfwit musician on MTV told them to.
Even the guy I'm voting for runs trash ads. They work. The pinhead electorate buys it.
Yes, yes they do.
How about hyperevents since it really is an event happening outside the normal HTTP request-response cycle? I'll start a grassroots campaign and build a platform on it.
That's not a Ben Franklin quote, though its many variations are often (mis)attributed to him.
why is the method of voting, the operation of government, only a problem when Republicans win?
I mean, c'mon now, the old voting systems were nearly always rigged. It became so common place people joked about it. Government has ALWAYS been about who had the money.
Ever since the Big Deal, when we started being more concerned having the government look after us, instead of us watching the government it does not matter who is in power. People are apathetic because they cannot see how they can do anything.
Got to love it, my friend who teaches has been told to vote for specific people by her UNION. All of course not official but they do it anyway. It isn't that people who associate with one party that don't think for themselves its just that most people would rather blame a bad vote on someone else.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I would say the half-educated one....since the non educated one would simply be doing what some educated person told them...supposedly
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
On years divisible by 2 but not by 4, we elect "midterms". Midterms are the office assistants that do the work that neither pages nor interns wish to do.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
But highly improbable. Many political scientists have pointed out that in the real world, having enough people who prefer A to B to C, enough people who prefer B to C to A, and enough people who prefer C to A to B, means that the Condorcet method is perfectly viable. If you want to make it as good as the current system, just state that in the extremely unlikely scenario above, the one with the most first-place (or least last-place if you prefer) votes wins.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
ok, you got me all curious now: why do prostitutes and drug dealers like the toilets?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
You might want to let these people know...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If for no other reason than to help prove the election is rigged! Seriously, if the election is rigged, the more people who vote, the harder it will be to rig without getting caught.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I would have to disagree on that one. A Minarchist Republic would be the ideal form of government if you value Individual Freedom. Democracy is only the best if you value "equality" over liberty.
Creative Demolition
Oh...dear...God...no...
See, the problem is you want it to be unbiased AND understandable by most voters! The only thing worse than having lawyers write it would be to have those people who write the tech manuals write it! (Or perhaps to have me write it!)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Guess you can say it's part of our culture...the only reason we exist as an independent nation today is because we used guns to free ourselves. So yeah- our first taste of liberty was through force.
If our first taste of liberty was by giving children candy canes and cotton candy, we would probably associate liberty with sugar. Unfortunately, sugar doesn't generally win liberty.
Tell me: when your government strips all your rights away and makes you a slave, how would you propose a reaquisition of liberty? Through the same rational talks that proved useless up to that point? Through protests that now get you locked up and in most cases severely beaten?
I'm all for peace, but governments need to fear their people. The only thing a populace has over its government is numbers, and numbers are useless if they're not willing to do anything with them. If you don't see that, then your government already has big plans for you. Congratulations, Citizen #886486. Please pick up your rations at your nearest disbursement center, and proceed directly to your housecell before 8:00 curfew.
I've been working on an internet democracy project for a few years. It aims at allowing a fully trustable system, transparent to the point of being set up as a cluster of P2P servers, with PGP signatures and electoral lists.
Using the internet everybody could participate on everything from everywhere and at anytime. Yet you still need participation and a drive for fair decision making.
Internet could bring one thing: direct democracy. Just imagine the forum of the ancient greeks, but without any size limitation!!!
But no, it won't change everything: the desire to really decide on things democratically, the energy to go beyond media manipulations, the drive to let minorities live without oppression of the majority.
http://leparlement.org/
But consider: is any of this stuff really the issue this election season? I mean, I don't want to come off as a "Democrats and Republicans are all the same" kind of guy -- I suspect you'd find at least subtle shades of D vs. R differences between the funding behind your candidates for House -- but none of this is really the issue right now, is it?
This particular US election looks to me like a referendum on the iraq war, so we're essentially choosing between the guys who we suspect are more enthusiastic for it and the guys we suspect are less enthusiastic, even though in both cases most of them voted for it; and the side that we're treating as nominally "anti-war" is typically too timid to even make a public statement in that direction.
How is better information on the net going to get us away from having to do this kind of political mind-reading?
And further: pretty much all of us knows that campaign fund-raising has mutated into legalized bribery. None of us like it -- and no politician is going to tell you that they like the situation either. You know what they say? "Yeah, it really sucks that the moment I get elected I've got to hit the ground running to raise money for the next election, but I'm stuck doing this, if I don't I'm going to get beaten by the other guys next year who do a better job of raising funds." In other words, you're back to mind-reading again, trying to distinguish the truely corrupt from the principled fellow who feels compelled to act like he's corrupt.
If you want improve this, you need to radically change the situation. So, you got any candidates with a scheme for that? How about "public funding of campaigns"? How about "free TV ads for political parties"? Anything at all?
(And yeah, this is yet another "Web 2.0" app that's not remotely different from "Web 1.0". Wired is a fucking hive of buzzwords.)
This might interest you :
Direct Democracy by Delegable Proxy.
The technology to do it and make sure it is secure is years away, but it is a very cool idea.
--meh--
But on the other hand, if Some Guy on Slashdot tells them to vote, they're just the kind of folks we need to take back the government from those Republican Diebold-lovers, so Don't forget to vote in the US election tomorrow kids!
Well, presuming you're a US citizen. And presuming you're of age. And presuming you remembered to register -- and if you didn't now would be a good time to get it out of the way for the 2008 election, eh?
If you're feeling clueless about the process, you can check the Can I vote? site.
Take a look at the current state of the polls: Electoral Vote. The control of the Senate is balanced on a knife-edge right now.
(And if you live in California: Don't forget to vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State -- unlike the Republican appointee she's running against, she understands something about electoral integrity. And in my opinion, the world could use some better action movies far more than it needs a Hummer-driving environmentalist in the government office, so send him back to Hollywood, all right? And read up on Prop 90 before you walk into the booth.)
I think you misunderstand Direct Democracy. Or at least its meaning in popular reform circles.
generally the idea is that
Citizens have the right to overrule, and initiate laws.
ie
Should the Government be given a petition signed by X% of the citizens and meeting criteria A, B, and C. The Government *MUST* bring forth a bill for a vote in the house within Time T on the subject of the petition.
Should the Government be given a petition signed by X% of the citizens and meeting criteria A, B, and C, regarding a law passed by the government. The government *MUST* within Time T hold a referendum on the subject.
something like that
--meh--
Indeed I wasn't aware of that definition. Interesting. Thanks.
It seems to me unfortunate that the same term "direct democracy" is used for two radically different systems. What you describe seems to me a representative democracy with strong referendum rules. There should be separate terms for this system, and for the other meaning of "direct democracy", a system where everything is decided by referendum.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
It can also mean direct democracy, like literally direct (all power goes directly to the people), which is very much unworkable in groups larger then a dozen or so.
But most people who I talk about it with refer to that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
there is usually lots of talk about "town halls", and "public consultation" and what not.
Now but to defend the two terms as being somthing simmilar. They both start by recognizing that the "sovereignty" of a nation is in "the citizens" of the country. not in the head of state, or the various levels of governements.
One would put all power directly in "the citizens" hands, the other would modify the current sytsem of power to recognize this fact.
--meh--
Have guns actually brought freedom even once since 1800?
The 2nd has a horrendous track record of protecting the 1st.
The ACLU, however, has a much better track record.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I am a proud lifelong Democrat who has voted a straight party line ticket all of my life. I read up on the issues and I am well informed. I occassionally flirt with other party's platforms, but they don't do it for me. I don't like the Republicans, I dislike the idealism of the Libertarians, and I dispise the La Rouchies.
I take issue with the statement that "If someone doesn't care enough about the process to know who stands for what and to take the time to go vote without being harangued by some celebrity, then that person should have just stayed home". You have a right to choose who will represent you in Congress regardless of whether you know where he stands on the issues. It might be silly to vote for someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart, but each individual has to shoulder that responsibility himself. And if a celeberty tries to educate someone on an issue and encourages them to vote, more power to them.
In short, your lack of faith in this country and in the electorate is sickening, and is the prime reason why this country is in the shithole that it is in today.
Look, are you a Republican shill? That seems to be one of their talking points for forums like this that they perceive as being liberal/left: "Oh, there's no damn difference between Democrats and Republicans. I'm going to stay home. Anyone with me?".
In the United States we have a clear choice at the polls on Tuesday: we get to choose between evil and incompetence. Think about it. If you ask me, some incompetence would be a nice change right now.
I agree with both you and parent. In anticipation of the next General Election, look for existing campaign groups who have the ability to make these things happen. If they don't exist, find people to start them.
What we really want to know is what framework they are going to develop in and what AJAX library they are going to use to save democracy.
* Find your soul mate
I believe many websites have claimed this before, and they were like, not joking. Are you trying to make fun of online hookers?
I have to point out some info about my party for the Swedish parliament; We think we have found a new step in evolution of democary, we call it representative direct democarcy. Most of our ideas can be found here: www.aktivdemokrati.se English manifesto (not more than 5 minutes to read):http://wse75376.web16.talkactive.net/PHPbb/p hpbb2019/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=139&sid=fa318f9cc3 c24b95e93e1ae5ed6ffc2b
We are in desperate need for programmers!
Its correct that Arrow showed that system of voting taking a set of ballots with individual, strictly ordered preference rankings as input and producing a strictly ordered preference ranking as output could ever meet all of a certain set of "fairness" criteria, all of which were binary pass-fail criteria.
That proof does not show, however, that no voting system (even among those types that are strictly covered by the theorem) can be "more" or "less" fair, as to make "more" or "less" fair even meaningful statements, you have to use non-binary standards different from what Arrow used. (There is also some debate over whether Arrow's standards are all really desirable as pass-fail criteria in the first place.)
If we were to take your view that no method differs from any other in overall "fairness", we could save a lot of money and just select winners from among the available candidates by lot; if you were right, that would be as "fair" a method of selecting candidates, and represent the public will as well, as any method that actually bothered counting ballots, and it certainly would be much cheaper.