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Ask Slashdot: Is Making Government More Open and Connected a Good Idea?
Nerval's Lobster writes "For quite some time, there's been a theory drifting around that government can be made more open and efficient via the same crowdsourcing and social-networking tools that created such successes out of Facebook, Twitter and Kickstarter. In that spirit, numerous pundits and analysts have advocated the development of 'e-government' or 'government 2.0.' But what if the idea isn't as great as it seems? That's the angle embraced by Evgeny Morozov in a recent essay for The Baffler. Structured as a lengthy takedown of open-source advocate and O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly, the piece veers off to fire a few torpedoes at the idea of making government more responsive and transparent through technology (the latter being something O'Reilly readily advocates). 'One of the main reasons why governments choose not to offload certain services to the private sector is not because they think they can do a better job at innovation or efficiency,' Morozov writes, 'but because other considerations — like fairness and equity of access — come into play.' If O'Reilly himself argues that a government should be 'stripped down to its core' into a form more transparent and collaboration-friendly, Morozov counters with the idea that the 'participation' envisioned by most government 2.0 scenarios is limited, little better in practice than the comments section at the bottom of a corporate blog posting."
There are people who equate the two, and people who do not. The two camps will never agree. The problem with the first group is that they cannot allow the second to survive.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Going from "open government" to "outsourcing" is a non sequitur meant to set up a straw man. It is outsourcing that results in private firms treating government data as proprietary, and it is this kind of outsourcing that open government initiatives seek to avoid.
It's a long piece. Tl;dr: Think tank wonk mistakes Tim O'Reilly for a technolibertarian and turgidly tilts at windmills of his own invention.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Didn't someone campaign in 2008 on the idea of transparency and open government? Oh yeah, he was campaigning.
Too bad all the evidences points to that not being true..
Let's look at the claims in question:
Politicians, after all, are the easiest people in the world to bribe, it is the only job in America where bribes are legal.
People or businesses with interests before the government can contribute to the campaigns of legislators, the president, and a variety of political groups and PACs. Legally. So claim is TRUE.
The result is something that pervades every aspect of government at all levels called PAY TO PLAY.
Given the endless dribble of pro-IP law and bills coming out of Congress and the White House these days, I'd say there's some evidence for this position. MAYBE which might be upgraded to TRUE, if I bothered to google for it.
1) The biggest briber gets the best deal
That's going to take work to verify. Not feeling it. MAYBE.
2) Everyone else gets screwed.
Would be a consequence of point 1). MAYBE.
Worse, governments spout all kinds of emotional propaganda to cover up the actual reality of how the system works, directing people's anger away from the real criminals onto other groups in society.
Examples: the one percent, commies, gungrabbers, liberals, neocons, neolibs, tea baggers, etc. TRUE.
Then they promise "openness" and "transparency:" while doing the exact opposite.
While Obama made such a promise, his illustrious predecessor, Bush probably didn't. Insufficiently motivated to google. MAYBE FALSE.
Millions of well intentioned good people are duped by this propaganda every single day.
Bush and Obama both got elected. TRUE.
While not every claim has been demonstrated, there's enough there to indicate that your statement is FALSE.