Slashdot Mirror
America's Technical Debt
Funksaw writes: An article by Brian Boyko in Equal Citizens, Lawrence Lessig's blog dealing with issues of institutional corruption in democratic politics, explains why, specifically, this reform movement needs (more) people with technical minds and technical skills.
Quoting: "What we need are more people willing to look at the laws of this country based on their function. And when I use the word 'function,' I mean very specifically the same sense that a computer programmer means it. (Because lord knows, government isn't functioning by any other definition.) ... It's not just that big money politics is being injected [like a code injection] into the function of democracy. It's also that the function of democracy can be warped by an injection. Stopping the injection of money into our democratic function still leaves the function vulnerable to the same — or similar — injection attack.... We need people who can solve the problems of politics like a programmer solves problems in computer code, because a democratic system with vulnerabilities is a democratic system that can fail or be made to fail."
The author is the technical adviser to the New Hampshire Rebellion and Mayday.US, two of Lessig's major reform projects.
Quoting: "What we need are more people willing to look at the laws of this country based on their function. And when I use the word 'function,' I mean very specifically the same sense that a computer programmer means it. (Because lord knows, government isn't functioning by any other definition.) ... It's not just that big money politics is being injected [like a code injection] into the function of democracy. It's also that the function of democracy can be warped by an injection. Stopping the injection of money into our democratic function still leaves the function vulnerable to the same — or similar — injection attack.... We need people who can solve the problems of politics like a programmer solves problems in computer code, because a democratic system with vulnerabilities is a democratic system that can fail or be made to fail."
The author is the technical adviser to the New Hampshire Rebellion and Mayday.US, two of Lessig's major reform projects.
So we need a programmer for laws. I shall call this profession .... Lawyer.
Oh man - the "blame" tool just took on a whole new meaning!
But I spent a fuckton of money on this here firearm with "Don't Thead On Me" engraved on the receiver, and I aim to kill me something.
[Note: It was supposed to read "Don't Tread On Me", but I let Jimbo from gas station do the etching because of his experience doing prison tattoos and he got to smoking meth. It's still a sweet rifle, though. I may let him turn all the letters into Olde English so then nobody will be able to tell the difference between an "h" and an "r". It's a good thing I didn't let him go ahead and draw the coiled up snake too, because the one tattooed to his belly looks like a goddamn pile of turds.]
You are welcome on my lawn.