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I find this naive. One day every 2-4years the govt answers to the people. Every other days is story after story of the govt bending to the will of powerful/weal

I find this naive. One day every 2-4years the govt answers to the people. Every other days is story after story of the govt bending to the will of powerful/wealthy special interests. Giving each side force multipliers doesn't even the playing field, it makes the absolute gap even larger.

naasking 9y ago
Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. Secondly, your point would be valid if the force multipliers applied equally. This likely isn't true. So which side gains more advantage? If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage. However, the government is constrained by certain transparency requirements that don't apply to citizens, so by default, citizens know more about their representatives than their representatives know about their citizens.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  > Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. The executive branch losing a court case isn't answering to the people. It's answering to the judicial branch. Being granted explicit permission as a citizen to do something you legally should be allowed to do isn't gaining anything at all. An innocent person being allowed to remain innocent again isn't giving anything to citizens. Those are basic rights.. > If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage The govt already does this across the board. I'm not certain how you could argue otherwise. Taking a issue in the news recently, we still don't have national rates on use of force by the police across the country. As in literally no-one knows what the police is doing because centralized records aren't kept, and every area does it differently. Police departments have fought body cameras. Fought enabling citizens to even see how they are executing their jobs. It was a sliver of data available under Obama (although to his credit, his admin tried to improve it), and yet: https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open-data-portal/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open...

naasking 9y ago

Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. Secondly, your point would be valid if the force multipliers applied equally. This likely isn't true. So which side gains more advantage? If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage. However, the government is constrained by certain transparency requirements that don't apply to citizens, so by default, citizens know more about their representatives than their representatives know about their citizens.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago
> Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. The executive branch losing a court case isn't answering to the people. It's answering to the judicial branch. Being granted explicit permission as a citizen to do something you legally should be allowed to do isn't gaining anything at all. An innocent person being allowed to remain innocent again isn't giving anything to citizens. Those are basic rights.. > If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage The govt already does this across the board. I'm not certain how you could argue otherwise. Taking a issue in the news recently, we still don't have national rates on use of force by the police across the country. As in literally no-one knows what the police is doing because centralized records aren't kept, and every area does it differently. Police departments have fought body cameras. Fought enabling citizens to even see how they are executing their jobs. It was a sliver of data available under Obama (although to his credit, his admin tried to improve it), and yet: https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open-data-portal/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open...