4 ms·

Free idea - why is there no public official who runs on a digital strategy? Like a localized reddit for policies and issues on local, state, and federal levels.

by dluan 10y ago

Free idea - why is there no public official who runs on a digital strategy? Like a localized reddit for policies and issues on local, state, and federal levels. If you add in some ML and AI, you could come up with truly direct democracy, that is 100% open and transparent. Yes, this would be technically hard in that making it secure would take effort. But, in my mind, less effort than it would take to dismantle the electoral college, which has resulted in the opposite of direct democracy. Sam - if you did this, I'd vote for you.

matthewmacleod 10y ago
I reckon it's because 'truly direct democracy' would be an absolute clusterfuck in practice!
- shuntress 10y ago
  It could still be the same republic we have now, but with an extremely accessible and simple system for looking up who is running for what position when and a short bio about them. We should be doing more work that allows as many people as possible to become well-informed with as little friction as possible.
devopsproject 10y ago
> why is there no public official who runs on a digital strategy? Most people lack basic computer literacy > truly direct democracy, that is 100% open and transparent reddit, facebook, etc are all gamed by third parties > less effort than it would take to dismantle the electoral college, which has resulted in the opposite of direct democracy the founding fathers didn't want a direct democracy. Madison says “Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths … A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking."
- dluan 10y ago
  > Most people lack basic computer literacy Which way is this trending? > reddit, facebook, etc are all gamed by third parties This is what I meant by technically hard.
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    > Which way is this trending? I think we are trending backwards. More people are participating due to smartphones and easy to use apps but there is still a huge skill gap.
stephancoral 10y ago
>Like a localized reddit for policies and issues on local, state, and federal levels. If you add in some ML and AI, you could come up with truly direct democracy, that is 100% open and transparent. This makes literally no sense. The US can't be a direct democracy just by throwing Silicon Valley buzz words at it. You need to change the very fundamental laws that set up the legislative systems. You can use all this fancy 'tech' and make it seem like you are the bleed-edge innovator of the future of politics...Or you can do sane things that normal people will understand like ballot initiatives or more transparency in Congress.
- dluan 10y ago
  Here, I'll be more specific for you since you seem to lack imagination. Candidate in SF district declares run for CA state senate with most issues already set, either as a democrat or republican. Every SF resident gets access to an app and a vote on certain key issues. So issue of affordable housing and zoning laws comes up, constituents get to discuss and make arguments for each side amongst eachother. Maybe for this issue, they also get to vote, which will set this person's vote on the senate floor. Regardless, everyone else can publicly see the district's discussions, leanings, etc. Maybe there's a way for constituents to propose new topics or referendums, or that only the top contributors or people with 'points' get to do so. Maybe points are earned through verifiable volunteer work, maybe through donation. Maybe it uses analysis of what everyone's discussing already on the site to put new issues on the table. Maybe this starts at a small local level until you can prove with enough of a track record that this works better than current politicians. If it grows, it can become president. The point is, we developed representation as a heuristic for networks, transparency, and access. We have the technology for those things today.
  - stephancoral 10y ago
    >Candidate in SF district declares run for CA state senate with most issues already set, either as a democrat or republican. Every SF resident gets access to an app and a vote on certain key issues. So issue of affordable housing and zoning laws comes up, constituents get to discuss and make arguments for each side amongst eachother. Maybe for this issue, they also get to vote, which will set this person's vote on the senate floor. Regardless, everyone else can publicly see the district's discussions, leanings, etc. How is this any different than going to the candidate's town hall forums and asking them questions? Or keeping up with their views on their own site and emailing their aides with questions and concerns? Or hell, even engaging with them on Twitter (which, fwiw, seems to be one of the more effective means of petitioning these days.) Furthermore, legislative discussions are for the most part a matter of public record. There are great sites that help people with finding out where candidates and parties stand on issues, both federal, state, and local- https://ballotpedia.org/California https://ballotpedia.org/California . >Maybe there's a way for constituents to propose new topics or referendums Yea, it exists, it's called a "ballot initiative" (https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative) > or that only the top contributors or people with 'points' get to do so. Maybe points are earned through verifiable volunteer work, maybe through donation. Maybe it uses analysis of what everyone's discussing already on the site to put new issues on the table. Do you not see how ridiculous this sounds? So the people with more free time and money get to determine the political discourse? Are you even involved in your local politics?
dagss 10y ago
Direct democracy has some problems: a) Politics is usually not a "yes" and "no" to individual questions, you have to have a consistent set of answers that e.g. balances the budget. Of you vote on each post individually you would just get huge costs and no income. Perhaps taking the average across lots of complete budgets would kinda work. It could also fail to have a strategy though (fall in a minimum beween two local maxima). b) Also I would much rather that someone who is paid to work in politics fulltime vote on some questions. The populace cannot educate themselves on every single issue. So typically idiots who think the world is simple and answers obvious go and confidently vote, while the educated reflected crowd who say "I don't know" until they have thoroughly studied the issue stay at home? One could have popular votes on individual hot topics though. See Brexit..
GeneralMayhem 10y ago
It's not a new idea. We actually had a candidate like this in SF last cycle, I think for state senator. His schtick was that, if elected, he'd set up a site where his constituents could vote on every bill he saw and he would always follow what they said. There's a huge number of problems with such a candidate. Here's a few: * Technical problems. You can't hand-wave these as minor issues. They're practical/implementation issues, yes, but they're so difficult and pervasive that they elevate to the level of being fundamental problems with the idea. Spam, constituent authentication, Internet access for every constituent, Russian/Chinese tampering... These are problems that the major Silicon Valley companies have spent tons of resources on and not totally solved for their use, let alone for a use that controls the US military. * The average American does not have any clue how government works. I do not want them directly voting on or writing laws. I wouldn't want me directly voting on or writing laws without a lot of time to study up first, and I think I know a lot more about US laws and history than most voters. * The average American, even assuming potential competence, does not have enough time to read and understand all the things that go across a legislator's desk. This gets especially impossible when compromise deals need to be struck - "no unrelated amendments" is a great idea, except that then nobody would actually ever pass anything.
- mercer 10y ago
  While I see the issues and have my doubts about feasibility, here's some thoughts: > * Technical problems. You can't hand-wave these as minor issues. They're practical/implementation issues, yes, but they're so difficult and pervasive that they elevate to the level of being fundamental problems with the idea. Spam, constituent authentication, Internet access for every constituent, Russian/Chinese tampering... These are problems that the major Silicon Valley companies have spent tons of resources on and not totally solved for their use, let alone for a use that controls the US military. Depending on what level the candidate operates, perhaps a solution would be to take great effort to develop a 'platform', demographically, that represents the constituency. Perhaps some form of compensation might be necessary to make this work (for, say, constituents who usually don't have time for this kind stuff). > * The average American does not have any clue how government works. I do not want them directly voting on or writing laws. I wouldn't want me directly voting on or writing laws without a lot of time to study up first, and I think I know a lot more about US laws and history than most voters. It could be a demand that everyone who is part of this 'platform' has to spend time understanding the problem. I recall reading some articles on how, when 'regular citizens' are given time to deliberate and receive information, they come to pretty sensible conclusions. Maybe the 'average voter' isn't as dumb as they seem when given the opportunity to think things through and be heard. I think learned helplessness plays a big role in the generally negative perception of the 'average voter'. > * The average American, even assuming potential competence, does not have enough time to read and understand all the things that go across a legislator's desk. This gets especially impossible when compromise deals need to be struck - "no unrelated amendments" is a great idea, except that then nobody would actually ever pass anything. The above might make this a little more achievable perhaps. It's possible that I'm naive, but I believe it's possible for the 'average joe' to make informed decisions and strongly agree with people like Chomsky who argue that the problem is not lack of knowledge or interest, but rather the (correct) feeling that 'our' opinions don't matter or have much of an effect. I think most people opt out of politics because of this, whether justified or not. But go strike up a conversation about football, the intricacies of the show Westworld, or whatever else holds their interest, with the 'average joe', and it becomes immediately clear that they're not as dumb as they seem and quite capable of complex thought. I'm no historian but I'm pretty sure that quite a few of the great thinkers in our past would imagine that the 'average person' is not capable of literacy or something like using a computer, and yet here we are.

by dluan 10y ago

matthewmacleod 10y ago

I reckon it's because 'truly direct democracy' would be an absolute clusterfuck in practice!

shuntress 10y ago
It could still be the same republic we have now, but with an extremely accessible and simple system for looking up who is running for what position when and a short bio about them. We should be doing more work that allows as many people as possible to become well-informed with as little friction as possible.

devopsproject 10y ago

> why is there no public official who runs on a digital strategy? Most people lack basic computer literacy > truly direct democracy, that is 100% open and transparent reddit, facebook, etc are all gamed by third parties > less effort than it would take to dismantle the electoral college, which has resulted in the opposite of direct democracy the founding fathers didn't want a direct democracy. Madison says “Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths … A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking."

dluan 10y ago
> Most people lack basic computer literacy Which way is this trending? > reddit, facebook, etc are all gamed by third parties This is what I meant by technically hard.
- devopsproject 10y ago
  > Which way is this trending? I think we are trending backwards. More people are participating due to smartphones and easy to use apps but there is still a huge skill gap.

stephancoral 10y ago

>Like a localized reddit for policies and issues on local, state, and federal levels. If you add in some ML and AI, you could come up with truly direct democracy, that is 100% open and transparent. This makes literally no sense. The US can't be a direct democracy just by throwing Silicon Valley buzz words at it. You need to change the very fundamental laws that set up the legislative systems. You can use all this fancy 'tech' and make it seem like you are the bleed-edge innovator of the future of politics...Or you can do sane things that normal people will understand like ballot initiatives or more transparency in Congress.

dluan 10y ago
Here, I'll be more specific for you since you seem to lack imagination. Candidate in SF district declares run for CA state senate with most issues already set, either as a democrat or republican. Every SF resident gets access to an app and a vote on certain key issues. So issue of affordable housing and zoning laws comes up, constituents get to discuss and make arguments for each side amongst eachother. Maybe for this issue, they also get to vote, which will set this person's vote on the senate floor. Regardless, everyone else can publicly see the district's discussions, leanings, etc. Maybe there's a way for constituents to propose new topics or referendums, or that only the top contributors or people with 'points' get to do so. Maybe points are earned through verifiable volunteer work, maybe through donation. Maybe it uses analysis of what everyone's discussing already on the site to put new issues on the table. Maybe this starts at a small local level until you can prove with enough of a track record that this works better than current politicians. If it grows, it can become president. The point is, we developed representation as a heuristic for networks, transparency, and access. We have the technology for those things today.
- stephancoral 10y ago
  >Candidate in SF district declares run for CA state senate with most issues already set, either as a democrat or republican. Every SF resident gets access to an app and a vote on certain key issues. So issue of affordable housing and zoning laws comes up, constituents get to discuss and make arguments for each side amongst eachother. Maybe for this issue, they also get to vote, which will set this person's vote on the senate floor. Regardless, everyone else can publicly see the district's discussions, leanings, etc. How is this any different than going to the candidate's town hall forums and asking them questions? Or keeping up with their views on their own site and emailing their aides with questions and concerns? Or hell, even engaging with them on Twitter (which, fwiw, seems to be one of the more effective means of petitioning these days.) Furthermore, legislative discussions are for the most part a matter of public record. There are great sites that help people with finding out where candidates and parties stand on issues, both federal, state, and local- https://ballotpedia.org/California https://ballotpedia.org/California . >Maybe there's a way for constituents to propose new topics or referendums Yea, it exists, it's called a "ballot initiative" (https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative) > or that only the top contributors or people with 'points' get to do so. Maybe points are earned through verifiable volunteer work, maybe through donation. Maybe it uses analysis of what everyone's discussing already on the site to put new issues on the table. Do you not see how ridiculous this sounds? So the people with more free time and money get to determine the political discourse? Are you even involved in your local politics?

dagss 10y ago

Direct democracy has some problems: a) Politics is usually not a "yes" and "no" to individual questions, you have to have a consistent set of answers that e.g. balances the budget. Of you vote on each post individually you would just get huge costs and no income. Perhaps taking the average across lots of complete budgets would kinda work. It could also fail to have a strategy though (fall in a minimum beween two local maxima). b) Also I would much rather that someone who is paid to work in politics fulltime vote on some questions. The populace cannot educate themselves on every single issue. So typically idiots who think the world is simple and answers obvious go and confidently vote, while the educated reflected crowd who say "I don't know" until they have thoroughly studied the issue stay at home? One could have popular votes on individual hot topics though. See Brexit..

GeneralMayhem 10y ago

It's not a new idea. We actually had a candidate like this in SF last cycle, I think for state senator. His schtick was that, if elected, he'd set up a site where his constituents could vote on every bill he saw and he would always follow what they said. There's a huge number of problems with such a candidate. Here's a few: * Technical problems. You can't hand-wave these as minor issues. They're practical/implementation issues, yes, but they're so difficult and pervasive that they elevate to the level of being fundamental problems with the idea. Spam, constituent authentication, Internet access for every constituent, Russian/Chinese tampering... These are problems that the major Silicon Valley companies have spent tons of resources on and not totally solved for their use, let alone for a use that controls the US military. * The average American does not have any clue how government works. I do not want them directly voting on or writing laws. I wouldn't want me directly voting on or writing laws without a lot of time to study up first, and I think I know a lot more about US laws and history than most voters. * The average American, even assuming potential competence, does not have enough time to read and understand all the things that go across a legislator's desk. This gets especially impossible when compromise deals need to be struck - "no unrelated amendments" is a great idea, except that then nobody would actually ever pass anything.

mercer 10y ago
While I see the issues and have my doubts about feasibility, here's some thoughts: > * Technical problems. You can't hand-wave these as minor issues. They're practical/implementation issues, yes, but they're so difficult and pervasive that they elevate to the level of being fundamental problems with the idea. Spam, constituent authentication, Internet access for every constituent, Russian/Chinese tampering... These are problems that the major Silicon Valley companies have spent tons of resources on and not totally solved for their use, let alone for a use that controls the US military. Depending on what level the candidate operates, perhaps a solution would be to take great effort to develop a 'platform', demographically, that represents the constituency. Perhaps some form of compensation might be necessary to make this work (for, say, constituents who usually don't have time for this kind stuff). > * The average American does not have any clue how government works. I do not want them directly voting on or writing laws. I wouldn't want me directly voting on or writing laws without a lot of time to study up first, and I think I know a lot more about US laws and history than most voters. It could be a demand that everyone who is part of this 'platform' has to spend time understanding the problem. I recall reading some articles on how, when 'regular citizens' are given time to deliberate and receive information, they come to pretty sensible conclusions. Maybe the 'average voter' isn't as dumb as they seem when given the opportunity to think things through and be heard. I think learned helplessness plays a big role in the generally negative perception of the 'average voter'. > * The average American, even assuming potential competence, does not have enough time to read and understand all the things that go across a legislator's desk. This gets especially impossible when compromise deals need to be struck - "no unrelated amendments" is a great idea, except that then nobody would actually ever pass anything. The above might make this a little more achievable perhaps. It's possible that I'm naive, but I believe it's possible for the 'average joe' to make informed decisions and strongly agree with people like Chomsky who argue that the problem is not lack of knowledge or interest, but rather the (correct) feeling that 'our' opinions don't matter or have much of an effect. I think most people opt out of politics because of this, whether justified or not. But go strike up a conversation about football, the intricacies of the show Westworld, or whatever else holds their interest, with the 'average joe', and it becomes immediately clear that they're not as dumb as they seem and quite capable of complex thought. I'm no historian but I'm pretty sure that quite a few of the great thinkers in our past would imagine that the 'average person' is not capable of literacy or something like using a computer, and yet here we are.