In other industries it costs a whole lot to innovate, and it is, compared to software innovation, extremely rare. Writing software is innovation. I write hundreds of potentially patentable algorithms and combinations of algorithms every week Writing one is a minutes work. Checking if it in itself, or in combination with some other part of the software violates a patent is a major project for a patent attorney.
Software is quite literally, an algorithm. Math. Actually, it's algorithms made up of algorithms. Thousands upon thousands of them in a medium size program. In millions of possibly patentable combinations. I literally write hundreds of potentially patentable things every single day. Almost all of these are simple combinations of things that have been done for ages. I'm sure that many of them are patented, illegally. Writing one takes minutes. Trying to find out if it is patented would be a project taking weeks, and would not be conclusive even then. It is literally impossible to verify that a program does not infringe on patents.
Software patents favor one party and one party only. Big corporations with large patent portfolios. Such companies can literally exclude competition from the marketplace through having their army of lawyers wield their arsenal of overly broad obvious patents. SMEs simply cannot afford to fight back.
Thank goodness software patents are not legal in the EU. It would be a disaster for SMEs like my company.
A huge number of SMEs signed a petition against software patents the last time they tried to pass this crap. Now it seems we have to do it all over again.
1. The telcos want the power to regulate the internet. 2. Network neutrality forbids regulation so that we retain a free market on the internet.
Handing the power to regulate the internet over to a few large corporations, with no goal except to maximize their own profits, seems a bad idea to me.
You end your post with saying: "I'm dreaming again.", so I assume your post is irony. Here's a hint for anyone that considered the idea seriously:
The number of possible innovations and combinations of innovations is literally infinite. Unscrupulous corporations will happily continue to patent combining old idea X with old idea Y forever. They will continue to inhibit innovation and progress on a global scale.
The problems the current system causes won't go away until we do something about it.
Yes, because we all know that there's a limit to the number of ways things can be implemented and combined. Look at the world of today, technology and science has almost completely stagnated. Uh, wait a minute now...
Every generation has some prominent figure putting his entire foot in his mouth saying something along the lines of "Pretty much everything that can be invented has been invented.".
The number of possible ideas to patent is quite literally infinite. Progress does not stop. New obvious improvements become visible as soon as the last batch has been implemented, or even just considered.
Corporations that have huge patent portfolios will be able to happily continue to rule the marketplace using their armies of lawyers. They will be able to continue to prevent competition at a scale that literally hampers global progress.
The current system needs to go. The sooner the better.
Instead, our brave leaders want to remove the demand that the corporation getting the patent is the inventor.
If what you are saying is that the USA has gotten so fascistic that people dare not refuse unlawful orders out of fear of the gowenment, then the government should face an uprising since it is no longer a democracy.
If that's not what you are saying, then a crime is a crime. I doesn't matter whether [Authority of choice] told you to commit the crime. Saying you were just obeying orders is not a valid excuse.
Yes corporations are manned by people, but there's a separation within the company analogous to the "government+companies vs. the people" separation. Namely: workers vs. owners.
Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the corporation that get the benefits? Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the population that pay the price?
Yes, corporations are manned by average people. However, a very small group of privileged people are reaping all the benefits. And the disparity has been snowballing the last decades.
Average after-tax income gain, 1979-2000 Top 1% $576,400 Middle fifth $5,500 Bottom fifth $1,100
So don't tell me it's OK for corporations to suck the marrow out of the rest of society because they are made up of people. It's a case of the few getting absurdly rich at the cost off the many, there's no way to get around that fact.
I agree with your observations but not with your conclusion. I don't believe people "hit their roof", as in some level which they are not able to grow past. I believe that the reasons why someones ability stabilizes at a specific level are far more complex than that.
Try to imagine starting with a group of 10 people who have never heard of chess. As step one each one gets a list of the rules of chess, nothing else. Then imagine what level they may reach by letting the following scenarios play out until the players abilities stabilize:
1. Each person is instructed to practice playing against themselves. 2. The players are paired up and told to practice against one another. 3. All players get to practice against all other players. 3.2 All players also take part in regular tournaments. 3.3 Each player is also given full access to all the worlds literature on chess strategy. 3.4 Each player also gets a previous world champion as their personal coach.
In each of these scenarios you will see a stabilization of ability just as you've observed. However, move someone from scenario to scenario and what happens? The roof moves, sometimes dramatically.
Well um, that would in affect mean that the operation of your agency would be entirely opaque to the public. Only the majority of the output would be visible. If the full records of your the working of your agency are not made public the public cannot accurately judge the working of your agency. I'm still firmly of the opinion that this would effectively put your agency outside of the scope of democracy. I believe that such operational procedures should only be allowed where secrecy is imperative.
There should be better secrecy regarding proposal submission so as not to impede the free flow of ideas resulting from paranoia that your idea will land on the cover of the Post and make you look like a shmuck, much like this case.
I don't think you thought that the whole way through. Secrecy and democracy do not mix. Anything secret cannot, by it's very definition, be democratic. If the working of the leadership of a country is not transparent to it's population, then the population does not have the information necessary to cast votes based on fact. Hence that country is not a democracy.
The risk of embarrassment seems an inconsequential inconvenience in comparison. Where do you draw the line? Should bills remain secret until they're passed in order to save the authors of failed bills from embarrassment?
I consider any unnecessary secrecy in a democracy to be a very bad sign.
....unless someone is an atheist it would seem foolish for them to ignore the possibility of Divine Justice for their sins here even if, being rich lawyers, they are immune while alive.
That's a common view that I strongly disagree with. Money does not make you happy. Friends, loved ones, fullfilling work, accomplishments. These are things that make you happy.
These lawyers are virtually guaranteed to already suffer for their choices in life. You treat others accorddng to your worldview and your personal ethics. People with personal ethics allowing them to act this way will form relationships with others of their own sort, and that's harsh punishment indeed.
And many religious people will go against a dogmatic view of their holy book if they encounter a situation which they find is against their personal ethics.
That's one of the facts that help me retain some of my belief in human nature. If this is supposed to refute my statements somehow, I'm not seeing it. Seems you agree that people should think for themselves.
The fact that some religions are regularly corrupted by fundamentalists is not a reason to consider most religious people to be willing to do reprehensible things. Athiests are just as willing to compromise their morals as Theists.
I'm not saying religious people are more willing to compromise their morals than atheists. What I am saying is that religious morals often hold that attitudes and actions which any reasonable individual would consider reprehensible are morally correct, moral imperatives even. I listed a number of such cases in the grandparent post.
I'm saying that any system of morals based on blind obedience to Religious Authorities often thousands of years ouf of date is an absurdity, and that if large groups of people adhere to such a system of morals the result is just about guaranteed be misery on a grand scale. Both in the form of huge horrors and in the form of countless smaller injustices.
I'm saying that when such a system of ethics is in the majority, you will get leaders that believe in such a system of ethics. And with such leaders you end up with horrors such as the world trade center attack, the Iraq war, the vietnam var, the second world war, etc ad nauseam.
On the smaller injustices front you get countless instances of persecution of religious minorities as well as persecution of anyone not adhering to the believers morals.
The problem here is that the religious people which perpetrate these large and small injustices are not compromising their morals.
I'm saying that any system of morals that is not derived via reason and logic from basic principles is by definition arbitrary and illogical. I'm saying that I believe that the basics principles must be the concept of balancing harm and benefit. I'm saying that adhering to arbitrary and illogical systems of ethics is arbitrary and illogical and that the results should be apparent to any rational person.
They must be either atheists or fools to not fear the cost of abusing the bereaved for profit upon their souls.
I believe it's the other way around. Most religions seem to me to allow, or even require, you to be a reprehensible individual in order to adhere to the arbitrary rules set up by whatever church you let define your morals for you.
As an atheist you're not allowed the easy way out of blindly obeying a Religious Authority. Instead you're required to make up you own mind about what is ethical. You are forced to set up a basic set of tenets by which you judge an action. Likely something along the lines of:
How many are hurt and how badly are they hurt? How many benefit and how great is the benefit.
You are then required to weigh the pros and cons of any action with the help of these tenets and try to determine how to view that action. As an atheist you can choose to condemn any action that hurts people without an overwhelming benefit to balance the hurt as immoral. Very often a believer cannot do that without violating the tenets of their faith. Here are a few well known examples:
As an atheist you don't have to consider the jews/christians/muslims/.../... to be heathen dogs that will burn in hell. As an atheist you're not required to stone to death homosexuals/heathens/unruly children etc. As an atheist you're not required to preach the evil of condoms to Africans while huge portions of the African population are dying in AIDS. As an atheist you're not required to kill your daughter should it turn out that she is not a virgin when she marries. As an atheist you are not required to burn witches at the stake. As an atheist you are not required to take part in a crusades/jihads. etc etc.
To be honest, I consider anyone that believes they can use a religion as their compass in life to be a moral infant in urgent need of enlightenment, before their arbitrary and oversimplified view of morality causes them to hurt themselves or others.
I'm sure you tried your best and just needs some time to wrap your head around the concept of rational debate. Give it another try! I'm sure You'll get it eventually.
I'm afraid you've been misinformed. Here, let me help:
debate v. debated, debating, debates v. intr.
1. To consider something; deliberate.
2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points.
3. To engage in a formal discussion or argument. See Synonyms at discuss.
4. Obsolete. To fight or quarrel.
I'm glad we got that misconception out of the way. I'm looking forward to you presenting actual arguments about the topic at hand, now that you know what a debate is.
re:"And blathering on the internet can occasionally do good - in particular I've learned a lot of new things"
Good for you - means absolutely dick in the grand scheme of things.
So you believe that knowledge in the hands of the populace "means absolutely dick in the grand scheme of things"? I beg to differ.
Keep telling yourself otherwise though, it's dellusion that makes life more fun than what it really is. Like appeasing hostile forces in a culture war.
This would be the "It's treasonous to observe reality and tell people what you conclude, if your conclusions differ from the party line." argument. You know, a whole lot of opressive regimes agree with you and make that rule into law. Do you know a single democracy that does?
That's always fun, "but what if we saw things from Hitler's point of view" is a great time killer.
Ah yes, trying to associate the other side with Hitler, while insinuating that they're just playing around. Bravo! Reasoned argument at its best.
Answer me this. You believe that any understanding gained from discussions like this one "means absolutely dick in the grand scheme of things". How then do you manage to reach the conclusion that it's your opponents, who believes it's meaningful, that is just playing around?
Go nuts - or more specifically - go FURTHER nuts.
And for dessert, the plain old unsubstantiated ad hominem.
All terrorists are just mad religious zealots, and no external factors has anything to to with it.
Relatives dying screaming, as USA dropped or payed for firebombs eat their flesh, has nothing to do with it. The USA sponsoring repressive regimes has nothing to do with it. The USA invading countries and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians has nothing to do with it. Relatives starving to death due to sanctions has nothing to do with it.
Nope, they're just crazies that want to destroy our democracy and convert us to their heathen religion. It's not that they just want us to stop killing and starving them. That's an entirely unrelated matter.
If nothing else, this system would almost require you to be much more attentive to the workings of the government and those who influence it. It would require a significantly larger time committment than most people make these days, but then that's really not saying a lot I think.
I think that is a vital function of such a system. There's a quote I find to express my beliefs on this point very well.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Sounds like a lot of overhead for people to deal with. They have to vote to categorize things, and then actually vote on them.
I think you may overestimate that concern. Yes, quite a bit of the effort involved would consist of safeguarding the reliability of the system. I think that's a price worth paying. And by all means, do compare it to the current amount of bureaucracy.
Also sounds like it could be seriously abused.
Could you be more specific? I fail to see an easy way to rig the voting system I've described, if you can see one I very much want to know about it.
Selecting maintainers through the system is fine, but building the system to begin with is going to be quite an undertaking, and would probably take years to come to fruition. Look at all the failed government data systems over the years. I agree that open source is the only way to go with this,
Agreed in full. This won't happen overnight.
but there are going to be a lot of obstacles and a lot of debate on how the system should be built. That will take a lot of time and I'm not sure if a consensus could be achieved.
I don't believe the system can be implemented, or expected to gain much support, until there is a working version of the software in place. I think "build it and they will come" applies in this case. I don't see any other way of getting it off the ground. It cannot function without at least a limited version of the software.
Yes, it occurred to me after I posted that in order for it to be auditable, it couldn't be anonymous. I'm not sure how well that will go over, but I think I'd be ok with it as long as there were strict privacy laws in place, and they were strictly enforced. The personal info should only be used for auditing the votes casts or recounts, and no other purpose.
Agreed in full on the usage of the information. However, I'm unsure whether you are assuming/implying that access to that information should be restricted. I very much doubt that such info could be restricted and confidence in the security of the system maintained at the same time. The strictness of privacy laws, and the amount of funds dedicated to it would be determined the same way everything else is once the system is up and running. For early adopters I expect it would be a case of having to have the guts to stand up and be counted under the current legislation.
My concern would be with the ability of some individuals to steal the votes of others, through identity theft or other mechanisms. If there is a national database, then whoever has access to that database would be able to determine who does and does not vote, and then possibly be able to forge votes for those who don't normally vote, and who are likely not paying attention to whether a vote has been recorded in their name.
This is certainly a serious issue that would need to be considered from the start. I'm not very knowledgeable about encryption, but this sounds like a use case for a combination of public/private key encryption, SSL connections, and passwords to me. Likely someone specializing in security will sneer at that and present a far more secure arrangement.
Of course, any system is only as secure as the users make it, and people would attempt to manipulate votes. However, even with only my suggested security in place it would by exceedingly difficult to get a hold of a large enough number of private keys to make a difference without getting noticed. You would have to manage to steal the private key and the password from an individual, for each and every vote you wanted to rig, and the very first one of these individuals that actually used the system would be alerted to the breach of security.
Here's where I'm seeing the complexities. First, are there different levels of delegation, for local, state, and federal elections?
That can be implemented in a conceptually simple way by having separate categories for the different jurisdictions. You could use any number of different ways to present this to the user.
Second, who categorizes the issues/bills that are to be voted on?
The same, or a similar, system as the one used for the voting itself would be used.
How are conflicts resolved?
Through the system. If you believe there is a problem, you file a motion to do something about it. If it gains acceptance, something is done about it. Also, votes would not be static. The votes are all there in the system and can be changed by the persons that cast them, or the person that delegated the vote to the person that cast it. If something went through unfairly to your mind, tell people about it. If enough cast their votes - or change their votes - against it, the majority position changes. There would be no scheduled polling in such a system. Everyone could chime in on any issue when they find the time.
You would need to build artificial momentum into the system to avoid close-call issues going back and forth every other minute, and to avoid fringe issues being passed without time for them to be noticed and debated. The best solution, to my mind so far, is to not use Current Support, but Protracted Support (my terms), to determine the current state of approval of a motion. Protracted support would be the integral of current support over a timespan, weighted by the quotient of the population that has voted. This simple formula could be modified or replaced of course, it just serves as a way to slow the system down a bit and to give people time to find out about, and vote upon obscure issues before they pass. An issue that most people agree with, and that a large portion of the population vote on, is passed quickly. An issue few care about, that has only a slim majority, would take quite some time to pass.
Third, wouldn't this require something along the lines of a centralized national voter database?
Yes.
Fourth, who is going to ensure the security of this presumably web-based system? We can't even seem to get secure standalone voting machines. Fifth, what mechanism will be used to create a paper-trail in the event of a recount?
I don't see any alternative to an open source implementation, where the responsible maintainers would be selected through the system itself. I've heard of no better recipe for security than peer review.
Also, the data is open for reading to anyone. Should tampering occur it would almost certainly be spotted. Anyone could do a recount, check the status of their vote, or print a paper trail, at any time. You may not have realized yet, but such a system does away with anonymous voting. I can see no alternative that can ensure the honesty of delegates and the process.
As to the system being web based: Clients would certainly communicate over the net with a server, but I'd say such a system should utilize the greater flexibility and usability of a native GUI application. However, it should be build on a multi tier architecture which would allow for web interfaces if desired, as I'm sure they would be.
I'll just address the "horrible complexity". I agree in full with the rest of your post.
Perhaps my point of view is skewed from being an experienced software developer, but I don't find it complex. It's merely a chain of responsibility. If you wish to delegate your vote on copyright issues to EFF you browse to the profile of EFFs selected representative, click delegate, and select the categories you wish to delegate. Most likely such a representative will not in turn delegate to someone else, so on your list of delegated categories the representative will show up in both the "My delegate" and the "Active delegate" Columns. The Active delegate being the person actually getting to cast your vote.
Had you chosen a friend of yours that you trust to delegate to, that in turn delegates to a member of EFF, who in turns delegates to the EFFs representative, your friend would be shown in the "My delegate" column and the EFFs representative in the "Ultimate delegate" column.
This might seem somewhat complex at first glance, but I doubt it's to much for the overwhelming majority of citizens to understand. Implementing it in software is a routine task for any competent developer.
I consider myself politically savvy. I have an IT job where I get paid to surf the web all day, so I take advantage of that. I read far more sites than I should. Still I'm not sure I'm even educated or aware enough to vote for all the people I have to. If I had to vote on issues, would it be feasible for me to make good decisions, or will I just go for the best marketed spin on what my opinion should be?
The system presents exactly the problem that you present above to a few representatives that are supposed to be knowledgable about everything. Of course this leads to them getting their "facts" from the ever present lobbying groups, that are not even close to representative of the people in general. Lobby groups can pretty much saturate the information processing capacity of a relatively small number of senators. Add to that "contributions" and you have a very bad situation. They cannot do that to the whole population.
For issues about which you are not educated you could choose anyone to delegate your vote to. I expect you know people whose opinion you trust on most issues? No longer would you be forced to put your trust in complete strangers. Remember about six degrees of separation? The chains of delegation would likely seldom be longer than six links, with each person delegating to someone they truly trust. And as mentioned, if at any time you disagree with a decision by the person you deletate to you can overturn it by voting yourself, and perhaps changing how your vote is delegated, or choosing to not have your vote counted for issues that you do not personally vote on.
I imagine that many Americans would just delegate their vote to someone else. On one hand, it gives power to those who decide to exercise their voting rights. That option is pretty nice. On the other hand, it might encourage a greater percentage to proxy allowing lobbyists and parties to further bury the individuals who would try to cast an educated vote.
The difference being that in such a system they don't need to lobby just a few hundred people. Now it's the entire population. That is a lot more difficult to achieve. Prohibitively so I'd say. Additionally, I certainly expect people who participate in a system such as this to get clued learn how to detect propaganda over time.
All in all what you say above is a variation of the "I trust politicians more than people in general" argument. I don't agree with that at all. Especially not when considering the amount of lobbying that can be applied to a few senators compared to the amount that can be applied to each and every citizen individually. The economics of scale make bribery/lobbying unfeasible when applied to an entire population.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, you mean like apparatus for switching view via button press and such? I don't write those? You coulda fooled me.
In other industries it costs a whole lot to innovate, and it is, compared to software innovation, extremely rare. Writing software is innovation.
I write hundreds of potentially patentable algorithms and combinations of algorithms every week Writing one is a minutes work. Checking if it in itself, or in combination with some other part of the software violates a patent is a major project for a patent attorney.
Software is quite literally, an algorithm. Math. Actually, it's algorithms made up of algorithms.
Thousands upon thousands of them in a medium size program. In millions of possibly patentable combinations. I literally write hundreds of potentially patentable things every single day. Almost all of these are simple combinations of things that have been done for ages. I'm sure that many of them are patented, illegally. Writing one takes minutes. Trying to find out if it is patented would be a project taking weeks, and would not be conclusive even then. It is literally impossible to verify that a program does not infringe on patents.
Software patents favor one party and one party only. Big corporations with large patent portfolios. Such companies can literally exclude competition from the marketplace through having their army of lawyers wield their arsenal of overly broad obvious patents. SMEs simply cannot afford to fight back.
Thank goodness software patents are not legal in the EU. It would be a disaster for SMEs like my company.
A huge number of SMEs signed a petition against software patents the last time they tried to pass this crap. Now it seems we have to do it all over again.
Lets examine the logic of your argument:
1. The telcos want the power to regulate the internet.
2. Network neutrality forbids regulation so that we retain a free market on the internet.
Handing the power to regulate the internet over to a few large corporations, with no goal except to maximize their own profits, seems a bad idea to me.
You end your post with saying: "I'm dreaming again.", so I assume your post is irony. Here's a hint for anyone that considered the idea seriously:
The number of possible innovations and combinations of innovations is literally infinite. Unscrupulous corporations will happily continue to patent combining old idea X with old idea Y forever. They will continue to inhibit innovation and progress on a global scale.
The problems the current system causes won't go away until we do something about it.
Yes, because we all know that there's a limit to the number of ways things can be implemented and combined. Look at the world of today, technology and science has almost completely stagnated. Uh, wait a minute now...
Every generation has some prominent figure putting his entire foot in his mouth saying something along the lines of "Pretty much everything that can be invented has been invented.".
It's complete and utter hogwash.
Nice thought, but false.
The number of possible ideas to patent is quite literally infinite. Progress does not stop. New obvious improvements become visible as soon as the last batch has been implemented, or even just considered.
Corporations that have huge patent portfolios will be able to happily continue to rule the marketplace using their armies of lawyers. They will be able to continue to prevent competition at a scale that literally hampers global progress.
The current system needs to go. The sooner the better.
Instead, our brave leaders want to remove the demand that the corporation getting the patent is the inventor.
If what you are saying is that the USA has gotten so fascistic that people dare not refuse unlawful orders out of fear of the gowenment, then the government should face an uprising since it is no longer a democracy.
If that's not what you are saying, then a crime is a crime. I doesn't matter whether [Authority of choice] told you to commit the crime. Saying you were just obeying orders is not a valid excuse.
Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the corporation that get the benefits?
Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the population that pay the price?
Take a look at wealth distribution and you get the answer: http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts
Bottom 50% ownling less that 3% of the wealth.
Top 1% owning more than 30% of the wealth.
We are seeing an absurd concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few at the cost of the many, and it is getting worse all the time. http://www.faireconomy.org/research/income_charts
Yes, corporations are manned by average people. However, a very small group of privileged people are reaping all the benefits. And the disparity has been snowballing the last decades.
http://www.cbpp.org/9-23-03tax.htm
So don't tell me it's OK for corporations to suck the marrow out of the rest of society because they are made up of people. It's a case of the few getting absurdly rich at the cost off the many, there's no way to get around that fact.
I agree with your observations but not with your conclusion. I don't believe people "hit their roof", as in some level which they are not able to grow past. I believe that the reasons why someones ability stabilizes at a specific level are far more complex than that.
Try to imagine starting with a group of 10 people who have never heard of chess. As step one each one gets a list of the rules of chess, nothing else. Then imagine what level they may reach by letting the following scenarios play out until the players abilities stabilize:
1. Each person is instructed to practice playing against themselves.
2. The players are paired up and told to practice against one another.
3. All players get to practice against all other players.
3.2 All players also take part in regular tournaments.
3.3 Each player is also given full access to all the worlds literature on chess strategy.
3.4 Each player also gets a previous world champion as their personal coach.
In each of these scenarios you will see a stabilization of ability just as you've observed. However, move someone from scenario to scenario and what happens? The roof moves, sometimes dramatically.
It's released under open source licences. LGPL/GPL/X11 to be exact.
It doesn't need to be. We don't need MS code, just specs. And C# is an ISO standard.
Well um, that would in affect mean that the operation of your agency would be entirely opaque to the public. Only the majority of the output would be visible. If the full records of your the working of your agency are not made public the public cannot accurately judge the working of your agency. I'm still firmly of the opinion that this would effectively put your agency outside of the scope of democracy. I believe that such operational procedures should only be allowed where secrecy is imperative.
I don't think you thought that the whole way through. Secrecy and democracy do not mix. Anything secret cannot, by it's very definition, be democratic. If the working of the leadership of a country is not transparent to it's population, then the population does not have the information necessary to cast votes based on fact. Hence that country is not a democracy.
The risk of embarrassment seems an inconsequential inconvenience in comparison. Where do you draw the line? Should bills remain secret until they're passed in order to save the authors of failed bills from embarrassment?
I consider any unnecessary secrecy in a democracy to be a very bad sign.
That's a common view that I strongly disagree with. Money does not make you happy. Friends, loved ones, fullfilling work, accomplishments. These are things that make you happy.
These lawyers are virtually guaranteed to already suffer for their choices in life. You treat others accorddng to your worldview and your personal ethics. People with personal ethics allowing them to act this way will form relationships with others of their own sort, and that's harsh punishment indeed.
That's one of the facts that help me retain some of my belief in human nature. If this is supposed to refute my statements somehow, I'm not seeing it. Seems you agree that people should think for themselves.
I'm not saying religious people are more willing to compromise their morals than atheists. What I am saying is that religious morals often hold that attitudes and actions which any reasonable individual would consider reprehensible are morally correct, moral imperatives even. I listed a number of such cases in the grandparent post.
I'm saying that any system of morals based on blind obedience to Religious Authorities often thousands of years ouf of date is an absurdity, and that if large groups of people adhere to such a system of morals the result is just about guaranteed be misery on a grand scale. Both in the form of huge horrors and in the form of countless smaller injustices.
I'm saying that when such a system of ethics is in the majority, you will get leaders that believe in such a system of ethics. And with such leaders you end up with horrors such as the world trade center attack, the Iraq war, the vietnam var, the second world war, etc ad nauseam.
On the smaller injustices front you get countless instances of persecution of religious minorities as well as persecution of anyone not adhering to the believers morals.
The problem here is that the religious people which perpetrate these large and small injustices are not compromising their morals.
I'm saying that any system of morals that is not derived via reason and logic from basic principles is by definition arbitrary and illogical. I'm saying that I believe that the basics principles must be the concept of balancing harm and benefit. I'm saying that adhering to arbitrary and illogical systems of ethics is arbitrary and illogical and that the results should be apparent to any rational person.
I believe it's the other way around. Most religions seem to me to allow, or even require, you to be a reprehensible individual in order to adhere to the arbitrary rules set up by whatever church you let define your morals for you.
As an atheist you're not allowed the easy way out of blindly obeying a Religious Authority. Instead you're required to make up you own mind about what is ethical. You are forced to set up a basic set of tenets by which you judge an action. Likely something along the lines of:
How many are hurt and how badly are they hurt?
How many benefit and how great is the benefit.
You are then required to weigh the pros and cons of any action with the help of these tenets and try to determine how to view that action. As an atheist you can choose to condemn any action that hurts people without an overwhelming benefit to balance the hurt as immoral. Very often a believer cannot do that without violating the tenets of their faith. Here are a few well known examples:
As an atheist you don't have to consider the jews/christians/muslims/.../... to be heathen dogs that will burn in hell.
As an atheist you're not required to stone to death homosexuals/heathens/unruly children etc.
As an atheist you're not required to preach the evil of condoms to Africans while huge portions of the African population are dying in AIDS.
As an atheist you're not required to kill your daughter should it turn out that she is not a virgin when she marries.
As an atheist you are not required to burn witches at the stake.
As an atheist you are not required to take part in a crusades/jihads.
etc etc.
To be honest, I consider anyone that believes they can use a religion as their compass in life to be a moral infant in urgent need of enlightenment, before their arbitrary and oversimplified view of morality causes them to hurt themselves or others.
I'm sure you tried your best and just needs some time to wrap your head around the concept of rational debate.
Give it another try! I'm sure You'll get it eventually.
I'm glad we got that misconception out of the way. I'm looking forward to you presenting actual arguments about the topic at hand, now that you know what a debate is.
So you believe that knowledge in the hands of the populace "means absolutely dick in the grand scheme of things"? I beg to differ.
This would be the "It's treasonous to observe reality and tell people what you conclude, if your conclusions differ from the party line." argument.
You know, a whole lot of opressive regimes agree with you and make that rule into law. Do you know a single democracy that does?
Ah yes, trying to associate the other side with Hitler, while insinuating that they're just playing around. Bravo! Reasoned argument at its best.
Answer me this. You believe that any understanding gained from discussions like this one "means absolutely dick in the grand scheme of things". How then do you manage to reach the conclusion that it's your opponents, who believes it's meaningful, that is just playing around?
And for dessert, the plain old unsubstantiated ad hominem.
For sure.
All terrorists are just mad religious zealots, and no external factors has anything to to with it.
Relatives dying screaming, as USA dropped or payed for firebombs eat their flesh, has nothing to do with it.
The USA sponsoring repressive regimes has nothing to do with it.
The USA invading countries and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians has nothing to do with it.
Relatives starving to death due to sanctions has nothing to do with it.
Nope, they're just crazies that want to destroy our democracy and convert us to their heathen religion. It's not that they just want us to stop killing and starving them. That's an entirely unrelated matter.
I think that is a vital function of such a system. There's a quote I find to express my beliefs on this point very well.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Thomas Jefferson
I think you may overestimate that concern. Yes, quite a bit of the effort involved would consist of safeguarding the reliability of the system. I think that's a price worth paying. And by all means, do compare it to the current amount of bureaucracy.
Could you be more specific? I fail to see an easy way to rig the voting system I've described, if you can see one I very much want to know about it.
Agreed in full. This won't happen overnight.
I don't believe the system can be implemented, or expected to gain much support, until there is a working version of the software in place. I think "build it and they will come" applies in this case. I don't see any other way of getting it off the ground. It cannot function without at least a limited version of the software.
Agreed in full on the usage of the information. However, I'm unsure whether you are assuming/implying that access to that information should be restricted. I very much doubt that such info could be restricted and confidence in the security of the system maintained at the same time.
The strictness of privacy laws, and the amount of funds dedicated to it would be determined the same way everything else is once the system is up and running. For early adopters I expect it would be a case of having to have the guts to stand up and be counted under the current legislation.
This is certainly a serious issue that would need to be considered from the start. I'm not very knowledgeable about encryption, but this sounds like a use case for a combination of public/private key encryption, SSL connections, and passwords to me. Likely someone specializing in security will sneer at that and present a far more secure arrangement.
Of course, any system is only as secure as the users make it, and people would attempt to manipulate votes. However, even with only my suggested security in place it would by exceedingly difficult to get a hold of a large enough number of private keys to make a difference without getting noticed. You would have to manage to steal the private key and the password from an individual, for each and every vote you wanted to rig, and the very first one of these individuals that actually used the system would be alerted to the breach of security.
That can be implemented in a conceptually simple way by having separate categories for the different jurisdictions. You could use any number of different ways to present this to the user.
The same, or a similar, system as the one used for the voting itself would be used.
Through the system. If you believe there is a problem, you file a motion to do something about it. If it gains acceptance, something is done about it. Also, votes would not be static. The votes are all there in the system and can be changed by the persons that cast them, or the person that delegated the vote to the person that cast it. If something went through unfairly to your mind, tell people about it. If enough cast their votes - or change their votes - against it, the majority position changes. There would be no scheduled polling in such a system. Everyone could chime in on any issue when they find the time.
You would need to build artificial momentum into the system to avoid close-call issues going back and forth every other minute, and to avoid fringe issues being passed without time for them to be noticed and debated. The best solution, to my mind so far, is to not use Current Support, but Protracted Support (my terms), to determine the current state of approval of a motion. Protracted support would be the integral of current support over a timespan, weighted by the quotient of the population that has voted. This simple formula could be modified or replaced of course, it just serves as a way to slow the system down a bit and to give people time to find out about, and vote upon obscure issues before they pass. An issue that most people agree with, and that a large portion of the population vote on, is passed quickly. An issue few care about, that has only a slim majority, would take quite some time to pass.
Yes.
I don't see any alternative to an open source implementation, where the responsible maintainers would be selected through the system itself. I've heard of no better recipe for security than peer review.
Also, the data is open for reading to anyone. Should tampering occur it would almost certainly be spotted. Anyone could do a recount, check the status of their vote, or print a paper trail, at any time. You may not have realized yet, but such a system does away with anonymous voting. I can see no alternative that can ensure the honesty of delegates and the process.
As to the system being web based: Clients would certainly communicate over the net with a server, but I'd say such a system should utilize the greater flexibility and usability of a native GUI application. However, it should be build on a multi tier architecture which would allow for web interfaces if desired, as I'm sure they would be.
I'll just address the "horrible complexity". I agree in full with the rest of your post.
Perhaps my point of view is skewed from being an experienced software developer, but I don't find it complex. It's merely a chain of responsibility. If you wish to delegate your vote on copyright issues to EFF you browse to the profile of EFFs selected representative, click delegate, and select the categories you wish to delegate. Most likely such a representative will not in turn delegate to someone else, so on your list of delegated categories the representative will show up in both the "My delegate" and the "Active delegate" Columns. The Active delegate being the person actually getting to cast your vote.
Had you chosen a friend of yours that you trust to delegate to, that in turn delegates to a member of EFF, who in turns delegates to the EFFs representative, your friend would be shown in the "My delegate" column and the EFFs representative in the "Ultimate delegate" column.
This might seem somewhat complex at first glance, but I doubt it's to much for the overwhelming majority of citizens to understand. Implementing it in software is a routine task for any competent developer.
The system presents exactly the problem that you present above to a few representatives that are supposed to be knowledgable about everything. Of course this leads to them getting their "facts" from the ever present lobbying groups, that are not even close to representative of the people in general. Lobby groups can pretty much saturate the information processing capacity of a relatively small number of senators. Add to that "contributions" and you have a very bad situation. They cannot do that to the whole population.
For issues about which you are not educated you could choose anyone to delegate your vote to. I expect you know people whose opinion you trust on most issues? No longer would you be forced to put your trust in complete strangers. Remember about six degrees of separation? The chains of delegation would likely seldom be longer than six links, with each person delegating to someone they truly trust. And as mentioned, if at any time you disagree with a decision by the person you deletate to you can overturn it by voting yourself, and perhaps changing how your vote is delegated, or choosing to not have your vote counted for issues that you do not personally vote on.
The difference being that in such a system they don't need to lobby just a few hundred people. Now it's the entire population. That is a lot more difficult to achieve. Prohibitively so I'd say. Additionally, I certainly expect people who participate in a system such as this to get clued learn how to detect propaganda over time.
All in all what you say above is a variation of the "I trust politicians more than people in general" argument. I don't agree with that at all. Especially not when considering the amount of lobbying that can be applied to a few senators compared to the amount that can be applied to each and every citizen individually. The economics of scale make bribery/lobbying unfeasible when applied to an entire population.