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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."
...would immediately be crushed by Congress in an act of self-preservation.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Lynchmob justice?
Also, people don't seem to realize there are hardly any real democracies in the world, only republics.
Either you must be using some strange definition for the word republic that I'm not familiar with, or you're excluding countries which certainly are not republics, like the UK, Australia and other countries in the monarchy, and many other countries around the world which are not republics.
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I don't understand your objection about direct democracy. If you don't think voters are rational or worse as leaders, why have democracy at all? I think people who don't want direct democracy actually don't want democracy at all, they just either don't say it in open or don't realize there is a logical inconsistency in their statements.
By the way - I am from Europe and believe that the reason why USA was so much advanced is really the fact they had very advanced democracy (in some cases direct) on national and local level. If you had direct democracy on federal level, maybe you wouldn't have any problems you have now with war and debt.
About your constitution - your founders may have been wrong. They were just people, anyway (they also didn't consider women and other races equal to white males). And at the time, there were no practical results with direct democracy. But they are now, and show very good results (increased happiness, better budget management, higher voter turnout, etc.).
Sure, I see many ways you can use software means to improve democracy. Hell, I also see many ways to do this by using social-only means, using the currently established online communities... I can even develop a perfectâ software solution that fixes all known problems with democracy... And let's us do what you mention.
There is one simple problem, all of these might work in theory, but in practice the systems that would keep all of these running would be set up by people and will be run by people. And the people who will take the decisions about them will be the ones in the government, or exactly the part of the current system that requires improvements. It is not of much use to try and prove the axioms of a system within the system itself, likewise you can't rely on the system to provide you the means to fix its mistakes...
Let's say someone designed and wrote the perfect software that fixes all of the world's problems (which is absolutely doable in theory), it won't work. Enough mistakes will be made during the implementation that would render it absolutely useless. Enough mistakes will be made on purpose to make it work against its purposes and have a negative effect in the end. And only Slashdot would notice! You would be more successful if you tried to give that someone the full executive power...
Saw that new site that this new president launched? It's a great example of something you can do to improve the democracy, and it seems to be done correctly. Do I need to tell you that it won't work that way at all?
To improve democracy we should put more effort in what we've already been doing. Expressing our freedom of speech, or launching campaigns, participating in everything that can lead to improvement. And that lately happens online, through software, "social" software, if you like. It doesn't seem to work great, but it's all we can do.
I wish this lady good luck with her ideas, though. It doesn't matter how much you think something won't work, it might be worth trying. I don't know what exactly she wants to do, I tried to RTFA, but couldn't, too much text and nothing of substance in the first few paragraphs, and lots of occurrences of words like "twitter", "social" and "web 2.0", which only confuse me, so I don't know whether she's doing something worth, but it's good that's she's trying to do something about it. Maybe we all should, in case she's doing it wrong. :)
This is solved by direct democracy. In direct democracy, you vote about the laws directly, so you directly control that the laws you want are passed.
Note this is simpler (thus superior) solution to having court decide if the politician kept his promise. In such a system, whoever would control the court would control the politicians. Then you would have to vote about people in the court, and you couldn't rely on them either. So in comparison with direct democracy, you would have an additional set of people and you couldn't completely rely on them anyway.
So it's a simple matter of fact that if you want direct control over the issues, you actually want to decide them directly.
Actually, the practical experience with direct democracy (for example from Switzerland) says the exact opposite.
People are _very_ conservative and don't like the change, even if it's for better.
It's funny that you are talking about media influence, but at the same time parroting the power elite's propaganda about why the direct democracy cannot work.
In a direct democracy either every person needs to devote a lot of time to understanding every issue related to proposed laws, or a lot of uninformed people get to enforce their opinions. The entire point of representative democracy is that most people have better things to do with their time than study all of the issues behind every piece of legislation, so we pick people with a similar world-view to ourselves to do it for us. If you want an idea of how direct democracy would work, go for a ride in a taxi and listen to all of the uninformed opinions the driver has, then remember that his vote on every law would have the same weight as yours.
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I am not underestimating anything, I am referring to empirical experience with direct democracies. It's you who are making things up.
I recommend this book as a source of information. It answers all your misconceptions.
About technocracy - it would not be good at all. In the real world, the main issue is power. If you would give power to small elite, it would quickly degenerate. In my country, communist party tried to run a country based on such a system (planned economy and society), and it spectacularly failed.
Direct democracy could solve global warming quite easily. For example, Switzerland was always a leader in ecology-oriented legislation.
As a goverment type , i think a good idea to try might be technocracy : decisions are made according to what the best solution the problem is , based on scientifical approach and simulation models , that can veryfied by everyone.
Good luck getting the religious know-nothings to agree to that.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
If we had direct democracy, Iraq would now be a giant sheet of glass!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Also , pure direct democracy , if everyone would really from their own opninion , would slow everything done , because
... which we have already decided is so overwhelmingly a Good Thing that it is the reason we have three separate branches of government, as well as a bipartate legislature. A system of checks and balances is not a flaw, it's a feature, and one that is wise to retain regardless of the details of how the responsibilities of governance are divided up. We want enough time and enough inertia, meaning tendency to resist change, that we can realistically identify the results of the changes we make so as to repeal the stupid changes. The same technologies that allow more direct, more truly democratic participation in government also allow more rapid feedback in the process of distinguishing the desired effects of our changes from undesirable side effects. We'll all keep an eye on it of course, but your basic assumption of inherent inefficiency is disproven.
there is always someone who disagrees with it , resulting in endless discussions and debates , and no real solutions.
That is in fact a greater problem with government by an elected few than a direct democracy, and I can prove it to you right now on one page, using your own example!
You underestimate how easy people can be influenced by the media.
No, azgard is correct, and underestimated nothing. You have underestimated the propensity of people to ignore their job descriptions to collect easy money. It is not true that all politicians are crooks, but it is certainly true that some people are crooked, and likely that some can fool enough of the people enough of the time to be elected. The question, therefore, is whether a republic of elected representatives or a direct democracy is more susceptible to corruption from the interests of the populace. When we represent ourselves, our tendencies to corruption cancel one another out to a degree not possible with a representative few, or class, or elite. It is the republic model itself which is the problem, the very source of institutionalized corruption.
Sure , this isn't completely flawless either , i'm sure , but it may solve some of todays problems ( for instance , by solving the problem of global warming rather than endlessly debating it )
In fact, in a direct democracy, doing "more to address global warming" would pass with a veto-proof majority: 68%. Furthermore, we would do so despite the (false) impression that significant doubt exists among competent, reputable scientists. "Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government should do more to address global warming, according to the poll; however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global warming." Although study and refinement of the models continue, legitimate debates are on the periphery, not the basics, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar or a moron. It's a fact beyond dispute that carbon dioxide tends to retain heat by not radiating photons in the infrared range. Arrhenius discovered that in the 1800's! Another fact beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased since the beginning of the Industrial, and in proportion to the industrial combustion of hydrocarbons. Thus we know, not guess, that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting increase in thermal energy are the direct result of combustion of petroleum and other hydrocarbons. Ergo, it is a fact, not an hypothesis or theory, that use of gasoline and other hydrocarbons for vehicle fuel and to generate electricity for power grids are causing the measured observables increased mean atmospheric temperature; increased mean ocean temperature; increased severity and frequency of tropical storms; increased polar melting and de
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
"politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected"
Can we PLEASE stop using the content-free scare word "pander". When 'they' do it, it's 'pandering'; but when 'we' do it, it's 'remaining true to our core values and not selling out'.
The real word is "represent". That's what a representative does, you know?
Shock, horror: there are groups of people *who hold different political views to you!* Oh noes! And they have *political representatives*! Noooo! Pandering! Obviously their representative is completely devoid of a moral compass and is only cynically using those people with their silly beliefs. They can't actually *hold* those beliefs, surely.
Actually, no. That's not how it works. People have concerns; they elect representatives who share those concerns, and speak to them. When that happens, that's democracy *working*.
If you don't like a certain group of people's polical views, by all means attack those *views*, but don't attack their elected representatives for correctly and honestly representing the differing views of their constituency.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC