And considering modern currency and banking is just accounting (no gold backing for example), this current privilege granted to banks is just that: a privilege. With no legitimacy.
There are plenty of other ways to create money, for example give it to citizen (it should amount to some 5% of money volume increase per year).
I've been working on an internet democracy project for a few years. It aims at allowing a fully trustable system, transparent to the point of being set up as a cluster of P2P servers, with PGP signatures and electoral lists.
Using the internet everybody could participate on everything from everywhere and at anytime. Yet you still need participation and a drive for fair decision making.
Internet could bring one thing: direct democracy. Just imagine the forum of the ancient greeks, but without any size limitation!!!
But no, it won't change everything: the desire to really decide on things democratically, the energy to go beyond media manipulations, the drive to let minorities live without oppression of the majority.
It's simple really, use our best communication tool to do politics => the net.
How to do that securely?
Well, first of all internet has the potential to bring a *HUGE* change, it could be much much more, a Direct Democracy where everybody could participate on every issue all the time and from every where.
When, Where, What. A revolution.
Of course there is one consequence: votes could be bought. Is it a problem? Can it be fought? To be decided by each group.
Here, I'm working on such an internet democracy tool, in Ruby on Rails, called parlement. http://leparlement.org/
Or you use a P2P apparatus to vote. But this has one major requirement on voters: vigilance (well, democracy always require vigilance!).
This applies on one rather simple thing: was my vote actually used in the result?
To do that it's rather simple, you of course see feedback from the server onto which you voted, but you also need to check on at least one other P2P server that it was correctly propagated.
If you do that properly, you could in fact receive mails displaying the path your vote went through.
Isn't that better than exit polls? So transparent and verifiable that it would mostly rely on a technical consensus!
Using the internet and its almost unlimited capacity to copy data around, I'm designing a system that aims to be simple and trustable.
It's easy yet disturbing. We can obtain a secure system if we remove anonymity. Then it's almost simple, distribute around the vote database and allow anybody to check the results.
In that kind of context, verification is mostly a technicality and could rely on consensus.
To regain some bit of anonymity, there can be a system of reinscription on the electoral list using a pseudo. Simple too, and while the person/pseudo relationship is private, everything else remains public and verifiable.
There are three basic stones in such a system: * P2P servers * electoral list * PGP signatures
Simple, basic, strong.
I'm trying to construct such a system using Ruby on Rails, here is my project: http://leparlement.org/
It is possible to trust a democracy on the internet.
Yes, no voting station, no paper, no physical presence. Because electrons allow one thing: to share data around.
An election on the internet could be verified in real time by all interested parties.
There are three elements to use: * P2P servers * electoral list * PGP signature
Using those three elements, you could do something you can really trust.
Of course there are other matters now open to discussion. Vote selling is the first that come to mind... it might be the price of a modern Direct Democracy.
Copyright encourages monopolies and an economy of artificial scarcity. In a world filled with billions of creative minds, is that apparatus usefull? Does it not encourage advertising, lowest denominator, celebrity for the sake of celebrity?
Let's hope in the future and internet! Will it unleash or crush?
I mostly agree with you about corporations and the political process, they are juste too powerful to be granted the same status as individuals (almost immortal individuals)
Continuous voting and stability, well well well, there are different criteria. First a large system will have a large inertia. Plus there is the possibility to introduce padding in the form of minimum time of office or such.
But! If the population changes its mind, well, isn't that a very legitimate right, and should it not be reflected in the vote?
(many will just think that the "population" is not fit to choose, well, it is a valid argument, elitist but a valid argument. My opinion is simply that "people" are as dumb as they want or can be, no point in helping people to be dumb...)
Most voting methods are preoccupied with voting strategy and how it best reflects the will of the voters.
Well, there is one method that is overlooked: continuous voting.
Ok ok, it is overlooked for a very sound reason, continuous voting requires the election to be constantly held, this is difficult in our physical world. And yet, what other method would better reflect the will of the voters???
Although in french, it's a site devoted to geeks' girlfriends and what they think of their significant other.
It talks mostly about Free Software geeks, from Paris and France. And you can find pearls of delight among their rants.
I particularly appreciate the article about hollidays. How difficult it is to take vacation for someone who doesn't consider he is working. Two days are already difficult to start with, even if it's only a week-end...
It's not just voting, it's in fact a political system based on voting and proposing what you vote for and delegating your votes -> VeniVidiVoti
It's functional, but there is no server actually hosting it, so you are limited to browsing a static copy of it, and reading its specifications.
It't not really secure either, it's a tool designed for communities, not for whole countries (not yet anyway). It could even replace a tool like Slashdot or K5H (conceptually at least)!
Just to point you to a project which attempts to give to any community a tool better suited to its needs. Basically it's a collaborative writing web site. But the principles are based on a mix of participative and representative democracies. It's very very simple, every participant can "propose/choose/delegate(his choices)". Choices and delegations can be changed at any time.
As far as I'm concerned, it's the best way to let a community express itself through writing any sort of texts: constitution, book of laws, newspaper, weblog, novel, poem... Those texts being assembled in a library which can be browsed using a filter (to filter the elements which have a lower acceptation level, thus to have a high signal/noise ratio).
It's called VeniVidiVoti, and is about 80% complete. I'm looking for a community willing to test drive it, or for server space where to install the project's library.
It's based on democratic principles, and provides some sort of weblog on top of the collaborative writing features.
Well, it's really an alternative to our democratic processes, but to be applied to petition/constitution/laws/rules/novels/newspaper writing.
It's a mix of participative and representative democracy. With it, everyone can propose elements of texts, can moderate up or down, can delegate their moderation to someone else (delegations are transitive, which mean that person can also delegate for that element).
I'm looking for some group of persons willing to install and test drive it: VeniVidiVoti Library
Have a look, it's a collaborative writing library, where any group of person can write any sort of text (laws, constitution, petition, newspaper, poem...) using the most basic democratic principles.
It offers a mix of participative (or direct) democracy and representative democracy.
VVV Library (I'm looking for a group willing to test drive it)
It was the dawn of mankind. Humans were walking on their feet, eating raw food and forming groups to defend against saber tooth tigers, tyranosaurus rex and corporate lawiers. They were enjoying a simple and very short life
The gods were happily cruising the skies, taking pride in their powers, and being warmed by their copyrighted fire. Silex and sticks were patente. The word 'fire' was trademarked. Life was good.
Then came the lesser god prometheus. He was fond of humans but couldn't stand the animal state they were living in.
He sneaked upon the fire guardian, and stole a copy of it. He managed to smuggle it down on earth, and to teach how to use silex and stick to a few rebel humans. But after a furious chase by winged baby like archers and multi headed dogs, prometheus was stricken down, chained to a rock and his body was used for medical research
Meanwhile, heavens went into revolution.
The stock holders were angry, and changed the management. Three gods formed a triumvirat and decided to change the business model to a monotheismcracy. A lot of the staff was fired. The other gods became saints, and the lesser gods became angels.
On his rock prometheus was boringly growing livers, which two beaked surgeons were dutifully removing without his agreement and without anesthesis.
You just don't get it: OSS/FSS is a protected public domain, in that you can put things into it, but you can't take things away from it!!! That's why it will grow, and grow, and grow, and possibly break as a big flood and make even the notion of proprietary software silly. Then everything will go back to its original state: public domain! and there will be no need of GPL
The Internet holds the potential to be the first perfectly competetive marketplace. While good for consumers, perfect competition is horrible for businesses. If you are guaranteed to mark zero profits, VC money disappears.
That's when you call in your magic team of lawiers, to squatch your competition to oblivion. Particularly the little man, with no legal department (stupid of him).
So, if we have the world of a microeconomics text book, entire industries that would benefit consumers never materialize because noone can make a profit.
If something is useful to some people, then there will be a way to make money from it!!! Not just through empeaching others to copy you.
I feel like we are all back in a giant classroom, where some bright student is producing a good dissertation, and the class bully takes it away, prints it on the dashboard and beats anybody copying it without his permission or anybody actually rewriting something equivalent!
Slashdot Mirror
You are right.
And considering modern currency and banking is just accounting (no gold backing for example), this current privilege granted to banks is just that: a privilege. With no legitimacy.
There are plenty of other ways to create money, for example give it to citizen (it should amount to some 5% of money volume increase per year).
A good start could be: revoke banks' privilege to create money.
That is: they can only lend money they own and can account fort!
http://leparlement.org/
Distributed Democracy. P2P, PGP signatures, electoral lists.
Vote from anywhere, anytime, on anything.
Let's use the net to replicate all votes in real time, let's set an id onto each vote and trace its movements wherever it goes.
In fact it should be as easy as a mailing list of all votes!
http://leparlement.org/security
There is a concept which is taking importance: the possibility to lend your voice to another voter.
This is in fact an attempt at representative democracy, but one which is low level and very open.
Personally I plan to add it to my direct democracy project: http://leparlement.org/
But the way issues are organised is complexifying the whole matter, you have a tree of issues and a tree of delegations, both multiply complexity!
Internet can bring true democracy, increasing the size of the athenian forum, enough to hold all of humanity!
http://leparlement.org/
I've been working on an internet democracy project for a few years. It aims at allowing a fully trustable system, transparent to the point of being set up as a cluster of P2P servers, with PGP signatures and electoral lists.
Using the internet everybody could participate on everything from everywhere and at anytime. Yet you still need participation and a drive for fair decision making.
Internet could bring one thing: direct democracy. Just imagine the forum of the ancient greeks, but without any size limitation!!!
But no, it won't change everything: the desire to really decide on things democratically, the energy to go beyond media manipulations, the drive to let minorities live without oppression of the majority.
http://leparlement.org/
It's easy, let's go all the way to internet democracy and use data replication to ensure verifiability.
You add PGP signatures to votes, P2P servers to disseminate them, and electoral lists to calculate results.
It's so easy and straightforward, that you could rely on a general consensus in order to obtain results, and everybody can participate in it!
Of course there is one problem with it: votes can technically be bought.
But you get quite some advantages, you can vote from anywhere, anytime, on anything! Direct democracy at last.
The project I'm working on, aimed at just that => http://leparlement.org/security
It's simple really, use our best communication tool to do politics => the net.
How to do that securely?
Well, first of all internet has the potential to bring a *HUGE* change, it could be much much more, a Direct Democracy where everybody could participate on every issue all the time and from every where.
When, Where, What. A revolution.
Of course there is one consequence: votes could be bought. Is it a problem? Can it be fought? To be decided by each group.
Here, I'm working on such an internet democracy tool, in Ruby on Rails, called parlement. http://leparlement.org/
There are ways to secure it quite well: http://leparlement.org/security
Basically:
* P2P servers
* PGP signatures
* electoral lists
Or you use a P2P apparatus to vote. But this has one major requirement on voters: vigilance (well, democracy always require vigilance!).
This applies on one rather simple thing: was my vote actually used in the result?
To do that it's rather simple, you of course see feedback from the server onto which you voted, but you also need to check on at least one other P2P server that it was correctly propagated.
If you do that properly, you could in fact receive mails displaying the path your vote went through.
Isn't that better than exit polls? So transparent and verifiable that it would mostly rely on a technical consensus!
http://leparlement.org/
Using the internet and its almost unlimited capacity to copy data around, I'm designing a system that aims to be simple and trustable.
It's easy yet disturbing. We can obtain a secure system if we remove anonymity. Then it's almost simple, distribute around the vote database and allow anybody to check the results.
In that kind of context, verification is mostly a technicality and could rely on consensus.
To regain some bit of anonymity, there can be a system of reinscription on the electoral list using a pseudo. Simple too, and while the person/pseudo relationship is private, everything else remains public and verifiable.
There are three basic stones in such a system:
* P2P servers
* electoral list
* PGP signatures
Simple, basic, strong.
I'm trying to construct such a system using Ruby on Rails, here is my project: http://leparlement.org/
You can also come discuss security here: http://leparlement.org/security
It's a moderated forum *and* a mailing list. Please, come and test it!
It is possible to trust a democracy on the internet.
Yes, no voting station, no paper, no physical presence. Because electrons allow one thing: to share data around.
An election on the internet could be verified in real time by all interested parties.
There are three elements to use:
* P2P servers
* electoral list
* PGP signature
Using those three elements, you could do something you can really trust.
Of course there are other matters now open to discussion. Vote selling is the first that come to mind... it might be the price of a modern Direct Democracy.
My Ruby on Rails project implementing those ideas: http://leparlement.org/
To talk and exchange on security: http://leparlement.org/security
We could actually trust, not electronic voting machines, but voting on the internet. A large step forward, almost a revolution.
How? With verifiability?
How do you verify votes? You copy all information you have about it to every and anybody wanting it! In real time.
http://leparlement.org/
We could secure votes using 3 elements:
* P2P servers
* PGP signatures
* Electoral lists
Have a look at http://leparlement.org/security
It's simple and I believe anybody looking at it with an open mind could come to the conclusion that it is interesting.
Copyright encourages monopolies and an economy of artificial scarcity. In a world filled with billions of creative minds, is that apparatus usefull? Does it not encourage advertising, lowest denominator, celebrity for the sake of celebrity?
Let's hope in the future and internet! Will it unleash or crush?
I'm sure that kind of possibility would have many more people going to the voting booth!
In fact each vote should be voted upon.
Upon a certain treshold (to determine) the election would simply not exist anymore.
Of course there must be a balance to that, anybody should be able to propose a new election!!!
This is not a huge change compared to what we actually have. But would that be in the best interest of the political system in place... I doubt it :(
I mostly agree with you about corporations and the political process, they are juste too powerful to be granted the same status as individuals (almost immortal individuals)
Continuous voting and stability, well well well, there are different criteria. First a large system will have a large inertia. Plus there is the possibility to introduce padding in the form of minimum time of office or such.
But! If the population changes its mind, well, isn't that a very legitimate right, and should it not be reflected in the vote?
(many will just think that the "population" is not fit to choose, well, it is a valid argument, elitist but a valid argument. My opinion is simply that "people" are as dumb as they want or can be, no point in helping people to be dumb...)
Most voting methods are preoccupied with voting strategy and how it best reflects the will of the voters.
Well, there is one method that is overlooked: continuous voting.
Ok ok, it is overlooked for a very sound reason, continuous voting requires the election to be constantly held, this is difficult in our physical world. And yet, what other method would better reflect the will of the voters???
VeniVidiVoti LibraryAlthough in french, it's a site devoted to geeks' girlfriends and what they think of their significant other.
It talks mostly about Free Software geeks, from Paris and France. And you can find pearls of delight among their rants.
I particularly appreciate the article about hollidays. How difficult it is to take vacation for someone who doesn't consider he is working. Two days are already difficult to start with, even if it's only a week-end...
It's functional, but there is no server actually hosting it, so you are limited to browsing a static copy of it, and reading its specifications.
It't not really secure either, it's a tool designed for communities, not for whole countries (not yet anyway). It could even replace a tool like Slashdot or K5H (conceptually at least)!
As far as I'm concerned, it's the best way to let a community express itself through writing any sort of texts: constitution, book of laws, newspaper, weblog, novel, poem... Those texts being assembled in a library which can be browsed using a filter (to filter the elements which have a lower acceptation level, thus to have a high signal/noise ratio).
It's called VeniVidiVoti, and is about 80% complete. I'm looking for a community willing to test drive it, or for server space where to install the project's library.
It's based on democratic principles, and provides some sort of weblog on top of the collaborative writing features.
Well, it's really an alternative to our democratic processes, but to be applied to petition/constitution/laws/rules/novels/newspaper writing.
It's a mix of participative and representative democracy. With it, everyone can propose elements of texts, can moderate up or down, can delegate their moderation to someone else (delegations are transitive, which mean that person can also delegate for that element).
I'm looking for some group of persons willing to install and test drive it: VeniVidiVoti Library
Have a look, it's a collaborative writing library, where any group of person can write any sort of text (laws, constitution, petition, newspaper, poem...) using the most basic democratic principles.
It offers a mix of participative (or direct) democracy and representative democracy.
VVV Library (I'm looking for a group willing to test drive it)
It was the dawn of mankind. Humans were walking on their feet, eating raw food and forming groups to defend against saber tooth tigers, tyranosaurus rex and corporate lawiers. They were enjoying a simple and very short life
...
The gods were happily cruising the skies, taking pride in their powers, and being warmed by their copyrighted fire. Silex and sticks were patente. The word 'fire' was trademarked. Life was good.
Then came the lesser god prometheus. He was fond of humans but couldn't stand the animal state they were living in.
He sneaked upon the fire guardian, and stole a copy of it. He managed to smuggle it down on earth, and to teach how to use silex and stick to a few rebel humans. But after a furious chase by winged baby like archers and multi headed dogs, prometheus was stricken down, chained to a rock and his body was used for medical research
Meanwhile, heavens went into revolution.
The stock holders were angry, and changed the management. Three gods formed a triumvirat and decided to change the business model to a monotheismcracy. A lot of the staff was fired. The other gods became saints, and the lesser gods became angels.
On his rock prometheus was boringly growing livers, which two beaked surgeons were dutifully removing without his agreement and without anesthesis.
You just don't get it: OSS/FSS is a protected public domain, in that you can put things into it, but you can't take things away from it!!! That's why it will grow, and grow, and grow, and possibly break as a big flood and make even the notion of proprietary software silly. Then everything will go back to its original state: public domain! and there will be no need of GPL
That's when you call in your magic team of lawiers, to squatch your competition to oblivion. Particularly the little man, with no legal department (stupid of him).
So, if we have the world of a microeconomics text book, entire industries that would benefit consumers never materialize because noone can make a profit.If something is useful to some people, then there will be a way to make money from it!!! Not just through empeaching others to copy you.
I feel like we are all back in a giant classroom, where some bright student is producing a good dissertation, and the class bully takes it away, prints it on the dashboard and beats anybody copying it without his permission or anybody actually rewriting something equivalent!