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How Can Nerds Make a Difference In November?
Scott Aaronson offers an intriguing call for ideas on how nerds can supercharge the political process this year. He's clearly an Obama admirer and phrases his challenge this way: "What non-obvious things can nerds who are so inclined do to help the Democrats win in November?" But the question itself is not inherently partisan. The analogy Aaronson gives is to the Nadertrading idea in 2000 (which we discussed at the time). What's the Nadertrading for 2008? "The sorts of ideas I'm looking for are ones that (1) exploit nerds' nerdiness, (2) go outside the normal channels of influence, (3) increase nerds' effective voting power by several orders of magnitude, (4) are legal, (5) target critical swing states, and (6) can be done as a hobby."
Get a programming job at Diebold.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Or is that obvious?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
... should be smart enough to see that neither party works and would start their own.
OK, flame away. :P
I don't care who wins the election. Just to get that out of the way.
I think that people who spend a lot of time on the internet build up a false sense of community size and influence. If one were spending a lot of time on Digg last year, they were probably surprised by how poorly Ron Paul did.
What percentage of Americans are regularly active on the internet? What percentage watch hours of t.v. a day?
I'm all for people getting out and doing something they believe in but the fact that this is compared to something involving Nader illustrates my point perfectly. It is a small group of people taking fringe actions what will not increase voting power by orders of magnitude.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'm Canadian, but I do hope Obama wins, In the recent weeks, I've been working on getting work in the US, I think it would be nice to expand my computer consulting horizons. As I've been following US politics for the last 10 yrs, I do think Obama is indeed going to be a great president. I would consider moving to the US if a president like Obama was elected!
But really, the problem with Obama, like anything else, are the myths propagated by others, or the misinformation about him. I say that anyone who wishes to help Obama (nerds included), only need to ensure that the facts are made clear to anyone willing to listen.
Nerds and the web, can obviously create ads for Obama such as "did you know" blurbs on their websites for example.
It's not about tricking people into voting for Obama, but about ensuring he's clearly understood by people. So, anyone who can clearly explain who Obama is, what he stands for and most of all, get his message across, is obviously going to help!
"What non-obvious things can nerds who are so inclined do to help the Democrats win in November?" But the question itself is not inherently partisan.
You and I seem to have different ideas of what 'partisan' means.
Honestly, the best thing a nerd can do during an election is spread information. Not slanted information but stuff like the folks over at factcheck.org are doing. Another thing is discussing various differences in the voting process like trying to build a grassroots movement to move back to the popular vote or opening up discussions on runoff voting. There's plenty of ways to inform the public, possibly the most important and least rewarded job--in my mind anyhow. I find it humorous when Democrat workers go around alienating Republican voters and vice versa.
If you approach me with the mindset that I need to be voting for your candidate I'm probably not going to react well to it.
My work here is dung.
If you want to stop voting for the lesser of two evils, stop voting for the flawed two-party system. Simply vote third party to show that you want to be involved but hate the choices given to us by the corporate controlled parties.
It doesn't matter if you vote for Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader or Alan Keyes.
People need to start demanding that these 3rd party candidates get air time and in the debates. I'm really hoping that google or someone else has a debate with some of these candidates.
The best thing you can do to make real change and a difference is to take over your local government and work up. Get some friends and like minded people and start running for city council, judges, etc....
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Lets say you are pulling for Obama. Go into Call of Duty 4 and change your name to "McCain 2008" and run around with the shotgun. Or go play Counter-strike and change your name to "McCain Roxors" and camp in a dark corner with a sniper rifle.
You can also go into people's skype channels and spam your love for the candidate that you do not want to win. People will be so put-off by your actions that you may just swing an independent in the opposite direction!
Hack the Gibson.
"(6) can be done as a hobby"
Affecting a political outcome and changing the policies of your government is NOT a fucking hobby. If you want change you need to put forth commitment and while this might not be a full-time job, it is a second job at the very least. This is not another fucking coding project you can fork if you don't like the way things are going, you can't call others noobs, and you actually have to learn something about social interaction if you want others to listen to your ideas. If you treat this like another OSS project then it will languish in code hell, a perpetual alpha with the occasional vulture picking at the carcass every now and then.
The other one is an EMP blast.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Very good point. I think this gets to the root of why those MTV "Rock the Vote!" style campaigns get on my nerves.
I'm all for people making the effort to learn what's going on in politics, and then being able to make an informed decision.
But at the same time, some people are simply apathetic. If you prod them to go out and vote (by selling the idea as trendy and "cool", applying peer-pressure, etc.), you wind up with people voting for completely wrong reasons. EG. I just like candidate X because he looks better on TV. The other guys look too old and ugly!
All things considered, I think we'd do just as well to have them opt out of the whole process, if that's all the effort they're going to put into it.
At the same time though? I *really* wish the people who don't like either of the two "major candidates" would get out there and vote 3rd. party, rather than skipping the process. That's where I'm at right now, myself. I can't bring myself to cast a vote for yet another person following in the footsteps of Bush, but Obama comes from the typical crooked Chicago politician pool, screwed us over by not fighting the telcom immunity bill, and has professed ideas for public healthcare that I think aren't going to work. Both candidates are apparently fine with a continuation of the "Patriot Act" too, which tells me a LOT about them.
That's why I'm going to cast a vote for Bob Barr. Frankly, the guy's kind of a "tool". He's just trying to ride the coat-tails of Ron Paul, and his V.P. already was heard admitting that he's really only running because he hopes it'll boost his popularity so he can get a book deal or radio show program in the future. But that's not the point. The point is, a vote for him is a protest vote the other guys can CLEARLY see they didn't earn.
Like "refactoring" from DOS 2.1 to include all the support for all the advancements in the technology since 1983 till now, while still being able to run on the 1983. computers - with exactly the same performance like today's computers.
There ARE times when you should just say "OK, let us start from scratch".
You know... what Microsoft should have done with Windows instead of Vista.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You may upgrade your intellect now.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Sorry, I'm just pissed off at the micro-issue morons. Gun control, telco immunity, abortion rights, etc. These "micro-issues' distract from the whole.
You aren't going to EVER get someone with whom you agree with 100% all the time unless its you.
Weigh the pros and cons of the two candidates, CAREFULLY, and think about who will best serve the country as a whole. Weigh the VP choice as well, McCain is old enough to die or become incapacitated and Obama is black, I can imagine the KKK or some white supremacy group trying to off him ASAP. Those guys are scary crazy, if you think islamic terrorists are crazy, you haven't seen the KKK. They'll kill a black man with no remorse, they enjoy it. (It isn't a racist troll and don't tell me you haven't heard it before. I'm just an engineer looking at the potential issues.)
Third party? Don't be an idiot. A third party will not get elected in this cycle, maybe we can work for a viable third party over time, but not now.
This election is IMPORTANT. Don't screw around and take your citizenship and right to vote seriously. Vote for the best all around package, knowing full well that there are no perfect people, and they will disagree with you on various issues, but *mostly* represent you.
As for the micro-issues:
Telco immunity. Think about this, yea, they should have been nailed to the wall, but they WERE ordered by the government to do something. It is hard to resist being compelled like that. The real prosecution should be against BushCo. If a cop told you to help him, you'd feel compelled to help. If it is illegal, the cop is responsible, not you.
RIAA, well that's the courts and congress. We need to fight it there.
Eight years ago your post would be: "These two candidates are the same guy! I'm voting for Nader!"
Do you honestly thing Gore would have run things just like Bush?
Now, do you honestly thing McCain would run things just like Obama?
Enough with the protest voting, we should mobilize people and teach them to vote for their best interests, not teaching them to be cynical and become protest voters.
Yep - all of them. Every person in the country who labels themselves Christian is a simplistic idiot that can't understand even the most basic of things. Thank God I have an atheist friend to log into slashdot for me, interpret my grunt-like muttering and type up responses on my behalf. Gotta go back to putting down the women and colored folk now.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Plenty of partisan nutjobs cast their votes for reasons less substantial than 'he looks better on TV'.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Democratic leadership is just itching for their turn at the helm of the war machine.
WWI
WWII
Korea
Vietnam
Those weren't Republican Presidents who entered us into those wars. You're sadly mistaken if you think the Democrats want less war. What the Democratic leadership wants their own wars that benefit them financially and benefit them politically. They've said they had enough of Bush's war only because it doesn't help them. Have you not noticed how the all powerful Democrats in the house and senate, and Pelosi made promises of getting the U.S. out of the Iraq situation....have faded away?
Democrats know just like they've always known, war is profitable, war can help you win elections....and they're pissed of that the Republicans have stolen this page out of their playbook.
Just face it. You're a goddamn sheep, who believe the kumbaya song the Dems are singing is real.
It's not. It never has been.
It could be worse - he could have been giving arms & equipment to Al Qaeda. Man, I'm glad we've never had any presidents who were stupid enough to do that...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
But if these people don't vote, who will vote for them?
Voter turnout is historically the lowest for middle and lower income people, so if the well-to-do merely vote their pocket books and can dupe enough other people through flag-waving, we could easily get another Gilded age.
Oh wait...it's already here?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Every year, when we get close to the election, tons of people come out of the woodwork and say, "Both candidates are evil, I've lost my will to vote, I'll vote third party. Why can't they ever nominate someone good?"
If you recall, tons of people said "Both Al Gore and George Bush are lame politicians" in 1999. Many of those people didn't vote. And simply because Al Gore seemed dull, we lost out on the chance to have a politician who really cared about environmental issues and who would have applied some moderation to the response to terrorism instead of going cowboy.
The trouble is, people, in general, are flawed. The sheer number of decisions a person has to make each and every day means that some of them will be wrong. It's simply not possible to find "a good candidate," because every human being has made a mistake in the past. Part of the reason Senators don't usually become Presidents is that they have a solid, visible voting record and lots of conflicting demands on their votes, so that anyone can point to and say "Haha! This one decision was wrong! You can't be trusted!" By contrast, Governors and Generals seem to have less visible records, so people can't play the "gotcha" game as often.
Please stop thinking that an election is a chance to find a perfect person and vote for him or her. That's not the way elections work; if you keep waiting for a perfect candidate you'll never vote. Elections work by presenting you with candidates, and you get to judge which of them you think will do the best job.
I'll confess this: in 1999, I listened to the candidates and decided that I would be a John McCain supporter. I decided to support him because I looked at Bill Bradley, Al Gore, George Bush, and him, and I decided McCain seemed like the best leader. Unfortunately, after the election, everything I learned about McCain gradually turned negative and everything I learned about Al Gore reinforced his solid reputation. In this campaign, I know a little about Obama and (I think) a fair amount about McCain. Both of them have had to abandon their key supporters to reach across the aisle and compromise with others, but I find McCain's decisions more wrong than Obama's.
Obama showed great courage not backing a junkie's-quick-fix approach to gasoline prices.
McCain supports creationism / intelligent design in schools.
McCain sponsored an amendment to ban torture, and then meekly backed away when George Bush announced that he'd ignore the law.
I'm voting for Obama. I may not agree with everything he does, but I think he's the best person to repair the damage that Bush has done to our country.
One thing you can do that isn't blindingly partisan is to volunteer as an election judge. Election staff are in short supply in many places in the country, and as new (insecure) equipment has been purchased by states, a lot of older staff have retired from the process, overwhelmed by the march of technology. Being a geek is a good fit for this problem.
More staff at the polls makes things run more smoothly, and that encourages turnout in future elections, and even in current ones when people who stayed away hear on Election Day that the line moved quickly, and decide to head in and vote after all. Bigger turnout generally favors Democrats, so if you want to help Obama this is a good thing to do.
But even if you support McCain or someone else, it's a fun, interesting experience, and you'll be helping the country express itself. A lot of staff positions at the polls require a member of each major party, so both Republicans and Democrats are needed to staff the polls sufficiently.
Voting is how we buy in to the government we end up with; even when we vote the loser, we participate in the process and that makes us stakeholders. When you become part of the election process, you facilitate this for your community.
The 2000 election was decided by less than 600 votes in Florida. About 90,000 Floridians voted for Nader that year. If only 1% of those Nader voters could see what the future held.
Seriously. Don't vote for the candidate who merely claims to serve your interests. Vote for the one who will lay the cultural groundwork for the change you wish to see in your country.
It's up to you to be that change, regardless of who wins.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
The Republicans freed the slaves, and so as a black man I'm going to vote Republican this time around. *rolls eyes*
Please do not put much value on what a given party did historically, but rather what the party's leading candidates are most likely going to do given their own personal history. Yes, the Democrats were in charge as we jumped into a number of wars. However at the moment the Democrats want the support of those who are upset about the whole Iraq thing. Therefore they're playing the anti-war card. It's not that complicated.
There is some merit to your mention of the fact that many of the anti-war claims from the Democrats aren't quite what they were a number of months ago. This is not, however, even remotely related to the fact they were in charge as we went into WWI.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire