How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

Geek Satire writes "Politics breeds cynicism; politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected, then break their promises to everyone. Mass mailings and faxings overwhelm their staffs, and who knows if you can tell your representatives what you really think? Experienced techie and political consultant Silona Bonewald (creator of the Transparent Federal Budget) believes that simple software solutions can fix these problems and more. O'Reilly News recently discussed with her how social software can improve democracy and leadership."

Comments

Software can't fix human nature

[Colin Smith]

You simply have to understand that the more power you give politicians, the more corrupt they will become.
 

Ways to get involved in civic-technology projects

[taubz]

There is a growing but now well-established community of techies focusing on this at the federal level, especially for the U.S. Congress. There are open-source projects like my GovTrack.us http://www.govtrack.us/getinvolved.xpd and oGosh!: Open Government Open Source Hacking http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/OGosh and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=45606565313.

There's no end to what techies can do to work on improving civic life. I really encourage you to check out any of those links to get involved.

Re:Improve, not fix

[TheRaven64]

A lot of people are interested but not informed. Consider nuclear power. The vast majority of interested people get their information from Greenpeace, and other similarly-biased sources. People have strong opinions on a wide variety of topics that are not based on a rational assessment of the issues.

Re:Improve the Republic .. not the democracy

[azgard]

It's actually amazing how many Americans don't understand the roots of their foreign policy. If you would have direct democracy, Osama bin Laden would never plan 9/11 - he wouldn't know who the Americans are.

Also, people believed connection between 9/11 and Iraq because George Bush lied and emphasized it. And you are going to blame common people, rather than him, for that.

So instead of doing something with the leaders that give people incorrect information, you argue that people who were deceived by incorrect information are the danger. This "sleight of mind" is getting really old and boring.

Re:How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

[neverutterwhen]

I didn't say that. I just don't think the Magna Carta had the effect you think it did. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 on the other hand was about when power shifted from the Crown to Parliament, legally anyway. Obviously the Civil War etc had huge practical effects before that. What Magna Carta did was to introduce the concept of the rule of law; it did not arrogate the powers of the monarch to the barons/representatives or whatever it is you're trying to say. I see your point, but you can't keep repeating the phrase 'Magna Carta', especially as we got rid of it just now.