4 ms·

Seems like this is the real problem we should use technology to solve. How can we make it more expensive to buy politicians?

eric-hu 11y ago
Android politicians with a high buyoff feature.
- Buttons840 11y ago
  Maybe. :) But seriously. Starting idea: Build a website that does some well analytics and makes it clear when politicians chose profit and special interests over the good of the people. I know some sites do this, but I haven't seen any executed well enough to reach the right people.
  - briandear 11y ago
    Really 'good of the people' is a very dangerous concept. And what exactly is a special interest? People interested in copyright reform is a special interest just as people interested in copyright preservation is a special interest. Lenin was obstesibly starting a revolution for the 'good of the people.' Cuba did as well.. The good of the people there has resulted in an average monthly income of $20. Don't knock the special interests.. EFF and Wiki are both examples of special interests just as much as the special interests of the publishing industry. The book Economics in One Lesson is certainly worth reading..
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      Special interests are definitely the problem, specifically when they're asymmetrical. Disney owns more television stations and has more money than the EFF.
scotty79 11y ago
You could make politicians ban lobbying and private funding of political campaigns! Oh, wait...
- i573323 11y ago
  “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
4bpp 11y ago
It is fairly self-evident that we can't get purely self-interested and sufficiently coordinated with anyone who could displace them from their positions (in the sense that they value keeping their own bribes over denying their opponents bribes) politicians to support any measure that would actually make them no longer receive bribes. If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).
- Bjartr 11y ago
  The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal!
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal! That would still reduce the influence by >95% because you have to pay 105x and the politician only gets 5x. The actual problem is that if a politician is known for reporting bribes then they won't be offered any, so taking 1x every time is still more profitable than taking 5x once.
    - 4bpp 11y ago
      Well, if the law is set up in such a fashion that you can "keep receipts" and report retroactively to enjoy the full benefits, you would still have an incentive to dredge everything up the moment you retire (and put the extra 4x lifetime bribe earnings into your retirement fund or bequeath them to your kids), and while the crackdown would be delayed, the bribing parties would still eventually come under the hammer (so unless there is some way for them to take and run with their short-term earnings leaving a shell company to be punished, there would not be an incentive for them to bribe in the first place).
vpkaihla 11y ago
If we could reliably track politicians' money flows, their opinions, their comments and their actual actions in a system that's easily queriable, it might just be easy enough for the common people to be more aware of their rulers.
chaostree 11y ago
There are two questions I would be asking: 1) How can we build more resilient technologies so that copyright law becomes irrelevant? (And note that we already have some candidates - like IPFS) 2) What technologies do we need so that we do not need politicians? For example, is it possible to create nation-states that are small (think hundreds of thousands of people) and allow people to create their own easily?
raverbashing 11y ago
No 1 - If you make them more expensive then only the truly wealthy will be able to buy them. Yes, they exist 2 - Corruption is a matter mainly of personal ethics and perception of things around you. Of course it's hard to turn down heavily compensated engagements or other types of 'incentives' given by big players. Especially when everybody does it. It's really an issue of Game Theory
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> How can we make it more expensive to buy politicians? You're thinking about it the wrong way. You make it more expensive and fewer people can afford to do it. How do we make it cheaper to buy politicians, so that we can do it too?

eric-hu 11y ago

Android politicians with a high buyoff feature.

Buttons840 11y ago
Maybe. :) But seriously. Starting idea: Build a website that does some well analytics and makes it clear when politicians chose profit and special interests over the good of the people. I know some sites do this, but I haven't seen any executed well enough to reach the right people.
- briandear 11y ago
  Really 'good of the people' is a very dangerous concept. And what exactly is a special interest? People interested in copyright reform is a special interest just as people interested in copyright preservation is a special interest. Lenin was obstesibly starting a revolution for the 'good of the people.' Cuba did as well.. The good of the people there has resulted in an average monthly income of $20. Don't knock the special interests.. EFF and Wiki are both examples of special interests just as much as the special interests of the publishing industry. The book Economics in One Lesson is certainly worth reading..
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    Special interests are definitely the problem, specifically when they're asymmetrical. Disney owns more television stations and has more money than the EFF.

scotty79 11y ago

You could make politicians ban lobbying and private funding of political campaigns! Oh, wait...

i573323 11y ago
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

4bpp 11y ago

It is fairly self-evident that we can't get purely self-interested and sufficiently coordinated with anyone who could displace them from their positions (in the sense that they value keeping their own bribes over denying their opponents bribes) politicians to support any measure that would actually make them no longer receive bribes. If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).

Bjartr 11y ago
The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal!
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal! That would still reduce the influence by >95% because you have to pay 105x and the politician only gets 5x. The actual problem is that if a politician is known for reporting bribes then they won't be offered any, so taking 1x every time is still more profitable than taking 5x once.
  - 4bpp 11y ago
    Well, if the law is set up in such a fashion that you can "keep receipts" and report retroactively to enjoy the full benefits, you would still have an incentive to dredge everything up the moment you retire (and put the extra 4x lifetime bribe earnings into your retirement fund or bequeath them to your kids), and while the crackdown would be delayed, the bribing parties would still eventually come under the hammer (so unless there is some way for them to take and run with their short-term earnings leaving a shell company to be punished, there would not be an incentive for them to bribe in the first place).

vpkaihla 11y ago

If we could reliably track politicians' money flows, their opinions, their comments and their actual actions in a system that's easily queriable, it might just be easy enough for the common people to be more aware of their rulers.

chaostree 11y ago

There are two questions I would be asking: 1) How can we build more resilient technologies so that copyright law becomes irrelevant? (And note that we already have some candidates - like IPFS) 2) What technologies do we need so that we do not need politicians? For example, is it possible to create nation-states that are small (think hundreds of thousands of people) and allow people to create their own easily?

raverbashing 11y ago

No 1 - If you make them more expensive then only the truly wealthy will be able to buy them. Yes, they exist 2 - Corruption is a matter mainly of personal ethics and perception of things around you. Of course it's hard to turn down heavily compensated engagements or other types of 'incentives' given by big players. Especially when everybody does it. It's really an issue of Game Theory

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> How can we make it more expensive to buy politicians? You're thinking about it the wrong way. You make it more expensive and fewer people can afford to do it. How do we make it cheaper to buy politicians, so that we can do it too?