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The First E-President

Posted by Soulskill on from the probably-not-ted-stevens dept.

Szentigrade writes "Popular Science is running a letter by Daniel Engber of the online Slate Magazine in which he offers the US Presidential nominees advice on using the full potential of the Internet upon their election into office. Some examples discussed in the letter include: a project already being developed that speeds up the patent approval process, a UK site that aims to improve government-citizen interactions, and perhaps most importantly, a call for government information to be 'presented in a standardized and widely used data format, like XML, so that anyone — in or out of government — could use and reconfigure it however they pleased.' Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President?"

3 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. It won't work by robably · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From personal experience of the UK gov petitions site - many times over - it has no effect whatsoever. It's a sham, a deflection for discontentment, a way of saying they are listening to your concerns without actually doing anything about them. All that happens - no matter how many thousands of signatures a petition gets - is that it ends and then a boilerplate response says how they understand your concerns but you're wrong. It has as much effect as all the millions of protesters in London had on us going to war in Iraq. It makes you realize how little say you have and it's very depressing. As has been said before about voting - taking part only legitimises a corrupt system.

    The real "full potential of the internet" is that it allows the government to ignore people on a more massive scale than ever before.

    1. Re:It won't work by mkiwi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As has been said before about voting - taking part only legitimises a corrupt system.

      Not trying to be too harsh here, but you would rather do absolutely nothing and ignore the problem rather than try to fix it in any way you could?

    2. Re:It won't work by Nursie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Bullshit.

      Sorry, but I don't buy that at all. Slow change from within is nonsense in the current situation, where embedded interests are perverting society slowly but enjoying the support of the citizenry.

      Were it a totalitarian state with dictators, yes, people willing to work within the system might help.

      Right now?

      Dems or Repubs are going to keep on winning. The only protest possible is to stay home.