Very nice. I don't know what my tipping point is, but I suspect we have long since overshot it. The only reason everything's so relatively peaceful is because o

Very nice. I don't know what my tipping point is, but I suspect we have long since overshot it. The only reason everything's so relatively peaceful is because of the lack of transparency. We only ever hear what's going wrong if it leaks, which I postulate to be only a small fraction of total shitty goings-on. I've been thinking about (2) recently, and a separation of Bank and State akin to the separation of Church and State came to mind. For one, completely disallow gov. officials to get on a private lobbying payroll and vice-versa. Infringement by not naming the position "lobbyist" but "turd sandwich" provokes harshest penalties and analysis of the person's work during their time in Congress or wherever in order to find dishonest activity (which ideally would then be rolled back. Easier said than done). Secondly, make bail-outs impossible. When a private company fucks up, that's by definition a private problem, not a public one. The public cannot be forced to account for a private entity's stupidity or evilness. Couldn't agree more with (4). Without having explored the question far and wide, I'd say - Public entities have no right to obscurity except in very specific cases like access to and storage of peoples' private data. That implies that certain data is stored in a way it can only be decrypted by the owner or an authorized third party (owner issues a key to th.p.), while other data is completely open. - Private entities, on the other hand, have complete protection (freedom of speech|thought|religion, yadda yadda). - Private-public entities like multinational corporations (the tiny general store 'round the corner is private, not sure where to draw the line; when there's more than one branch/subsidiary?) have a mix of those rights, i.e. perfect, undiscriminating accountability and transparency has to be possible should enough doubt crop up about the company's honesty. (1)(5)(6)(7) Yes. Better communication, more honesty and personal responsibility certainly go a long way to improving the situation and empowering the people. (8) Very important. Personally, I don't engage much in my local politics other than reading the paper and voting. The only demos I've ever been on where against TTIP, which is as much an economic issue as it is a political one. I like to say "Do you part and hope for the best", and my part is in software. In the mean time, let's hope nothing craps out. "Listen more, understand those you disagree with" is crucial. There is disagreement, so obviously there's a problem somewhere that the other side doesn't know about. Understanding the other side means understanding other peoples' problems, means having a broader view of the situation, means having better tools to do something about it. Good communication is key, but honesty is crucial. To quote Wilde: "Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good."