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Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC, Part 2 (Video)
The original Mayday PAC goal was to raise $1 million. Now Larry is working on a second -- and more ambitious -- goal: To raise $5 million by July 4. We called for your questions on June 23, and you sent a bunch of them. This time, instead of using email, we used Google Hangout to ask via video, with an attached transcript for those who can't or won't watch the video. In today's video, Larry tells us that some of the impetus for Mayday PAC came from the late Aaron Swartz, and goes deeper into the group's goals and hopes than he did in yesterday's video. (Alternate Video Link)
From what I understand, the difference between Mayday and Wolf-PAC Is that Wolf-PAC is specifically calling for an Article V Constitutional Convention, while Mayday plans to fund politicians to get campaign finance reform legislation passed without the use of a constitutional amendment. Same basic goal, very different methods.
Was this more of the new-and-improved Slashdot we can expect in the future? Historically these answers-your-questions posts were just that, direct responses from the interviewee to users who asked questions. What did we get here? A video chat with very generalized non-specific answers and primarily just an opportunity for Lessig to promote his cause and himself. It was one big spammy two-part advertisement, essentially.
Could you be any more disingenuous, Slashdot and Dice? Forget the silly mutinous talk over the Beta redesign; this is behavior deserving of a pitchfork-wielding geek mob.
No, that's wholly inaccurate. Mayday is strictly about campaign finance reform and nothing else. It's not about a return to constitutional values, it has nothing to do with the constitution, and it's not right or left wing.
Too long, didn't watch.
I want to read my information, not listen to some windbag read it.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Others have said it, but I'll repeat: This video format sucks compared to the usual slashdot interview approach. I usually look forward to Slashdot Q&A's because there's an opportunity to have your exact question answered by someone, and so it gives lots of us who comment the next best thing to direct correspondence, assuming that your question is worthwhile enough to get upmodded.
This video, in contrast, is annoying to parse. Yes, there's the transcript, but I don't see him answering my specific questions, and it is a pain to read through a bunch of general and less articulate speech-to-text rather than getting a concise and direct response.
I could've forgiven you using this format if you still actually read him the questions that were written and voted on by us, but it seems like instead Tim decided to shit on that so he could have a Google hangout and feel important.
Ditto. Textual information trapped in a linear non-searchable video has always pissed me off. It serves the interests of the talking head and his masters more than it does my interest of having maximal access to information. Talking-head videos are a means of controlling and limiting access to information. But I digress and was trying to stay focused in my rant....
Ditto. Textual information trapped in a linear non-searchable video has always pissed me off.
Your complaint seems wildly off-topic as there's an easily searchable transcript that can be read / searched via the "hide/show transcript" link right below the video.
I don't think it's apathy, it's that the video format is so worthless for this, and perhaps that the plan Lessig is apparently describing doesn't even begin to address the problem he claims it solves. A voucher system doesn't take money out of the campaign process, it only gives the government control of who gets the money - which means government controls who gets elected. That's far worse than the system we have now.
These other countries that he points to have something that we don't have in the US, and that is state-run television. You can't just go giving away stuff, like tv commercials, that don't belong to you even if you are the government. He suggests that it would only involve $3 or $4 Billion a year.
I hope this drive of his fails. It only creates a system infinitely worse than what we have now. The 2012 elections cost a total of $6,285,557,223. Now Lessig claims that spending two or three times that much is taking money out of the process. He is wrong. All he is doing is creating a new bureaucracy to suck up a good chunk of that money for themselves and decide who gets to divide up their leavings.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
The title to this article is wrong it should be:
Slashdot throws your questions in the fucking garbage and asks Lawrence Lessig a bunch of other stuff.
The trashing of any and all questions about term limits was unacceptable.
I was actually really looking forward to getting Larry's answers to OUR questions.
I couldn't be more disappointed.