8 ms·

vTaiwan: An experiment in participatory governance

161 points by mkm416 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago
> In any case, Kao says, if vTaiwan’s recommendations are ultimately ignored, as they were with the alcohol sales law, then the whole process runs the risk of being viewed as “openwashing”—something that creates the pretense of transparency. “The end goal is legislation,” he says. Sounds like what happened to We the People in the U.S.
- audreyt 8y ago
  Indeed, We the People was one of the earliest inspirations of the Join platform. After I joined the cabinet as the Digital Minister, we have iterated on it quite a bit: https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-about-digital-democracy/ https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-about...
eric_khun 8y ago
Talking about Taiwan, they're trying really hard to attract foreign talents. If you're interested, check their Golden Card Permit. It's a visa+redisent card allowing you to stay and work for anyone there up to 3years. The only requirement is to justify of a salary of 160k NTD/month(~USD 5210/month), anywhere in the world, if you don't earn that, try the skills application[1]. And about the article, they are now requesting feedbacks from the public for the next immigration bill [2], that will make even easier to apply fo the visa. [1] https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9CBEBE3&s=0FCDB188C74F69A0 https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9C... [2] https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-ab56-10820643a38a https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-ab56-...
- mattkrause 8y ago
  Any idea why there’s a fairly specific special category for neutron physics?
  - garmaine 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan
    - ddeck 8y ago
      Let's hope they find the talent they need for that. Taiwan is home to the world's largest coal-fired power station (which is also the world's largest emitter of CO2 - equivalent to that Switzerland) and just announced construction of a new coal-fired plant 40 minutes from Taipei[1], much to the dismay of residents, environmental groups, and those related to the estimated 1,000 people killed each year by the existing plants. [2] [1] https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-with-new-coal-plant/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-wit... [2] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > The only requirement is to justify of a salary of 160k NTD/month(~USD 5210/month), anywhere in the world I'll admit the site isn't very clear, but given that this is the "Employment Gold Card Permit for Foreign Special Professionals", do the "Qualification[s] of Foreign Special Professionals" have any relevance? > Q2：How to prove that a candidate possesses unique talent, or outstanding R&D ability or innovation performances in top-notch basic research or forward-looking technology? > A2：One of the following items must be provided: > 1.Domestic or foreign certificate verifying possession of a Ph.D. degree, verification of domestic or foreign work experience in a relevant field for 3 years or more, or documents verifying academic research during the most recent three years. > 2.Documents verifying domestic or foreign work experience in a relevant field, technology (such as a domestic or foreign patent certificate, etc.), technology licensing (such as technology licensing contract, etc.), or receipt of awards.
ericdykstra 8y ago
I'm by no means an expert, but Taiwan has a very interesting political scene due to the relationship with China. The dominant party is Taiwanese nationalistic and for Taiwanese independence, whereas the biggest opposition is Chinese nationalistic. The Sunflower Student Movement, mentioned a throughout this article, lead to the formation of the progressive nationalistic New Power Party in 2015. This party was co-founded by lead singer of the political metal band Chthonic, Freddy Lim, who is now one of 5 members of the party in the Taiwanese legislature (out of a total of 113 seats).
- rangibaby 8y ago
  PRC is also dead against ROC declaring independence as Taiwan because it would open the door to others to do the same (eg Hong Kong)
  - hawkice 8y ago
    The ROC has declared not just independence, but sovereignty over all of China. This... does not meaningfully reflect reality. Hong Kong is extremely unlikely to be able to emulate the political success Taiwan has had (which is, baring some diplomatic hiccups, total - it is, contrary to PRC, USA, and occasionally ROC statements, a totally normal country similar to China in language and, to a lesser extent, culture, but not otherwise related). Mainland China knows this and has been ignoring statements of sovereign control by the Republic of China for some time. But they do control the island of Taiwan, as well as several others.
    - CogitoCogito 8y ago
      > The ROC has declared not just independence, but sovereignty over all of China. This... does not meaningfully reflect reality. To be fair, the PRC claims over the territory controlled by the ROC are just as ridiculous as the corresponding claims made by the ROC over lands controlled by the PRC. (Arguably the PRC claims are crazier, since they have _never_ controlled Taiwan, Kinmen, etc.) The ROC is as much a legitimate government over its territory as the PRC is of its territory. To believe otherwise requires some seriously twisted historical revisionism.
jimmybot 8y ago
Mentioned in the article: As an accomplished programmer and a bit of an anarchist, Audrey Tang is a super interesting government minister. I just came back from regularly scheduled office hours, which I find really rad for a minister to have (both walk-in and by appointment office hours are available). I wanted to compliment her g0V org on a great rewrite of the online dictionary published by the Ministry of Education: really clean URLs, using open data for translations, publishing the original data under a nice license, behind a CDN – and she commented, oh yeah I just deployed an update (!). https://www.moedict.tw/ https://www.moedict.tw/ Many years ago, Audrey also elucidated Chinese language Twitter users living in 2x the density of English users, which foreshadow's Twitter's decision in lengthening limits to 280 chars for English but not for Chinese: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414 About g0v and a list of projects: http://g0v.asia/ http://g0v.asia/
- titanix2 8y ago
  I’m surprised the g0v version include translations in foreign languages (and other Chinese languages). Doesn’t the ND clause of CC forbid it? (Edit: this is not a rethorical question. I worked with this dictionary before and if it is indeed allowed to extend it I have work to do)
  - wibr 8y ago
    The website displays search results from several dictionaries: https://www.moedict.tw/about.html https://www.moedict.tw/about.html
    - titanix2 8y ago
      I already read this page. It does not address my question. My interrogation is around the fact that mixing several dictionaries in the same page is considered a derivate product or not. Intuitively it is, so I don’t understand how this does not break the ND clause of some source material. So they must be some non obvious legal loophole I want to know about, or this website is breaching some licences.
shalmanese 8y ago
Audrey Tang has been a HN member since 2009 (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt)
pabs3 8y ago
Audrey Tang also spoke about this at DebConf18 in Taiwan recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2018/DebConf18/2018-07-28/q-a-session-with-minister-tang.webm https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2018... The tech sounds interesting to apply to other situations too, like collaboration on open source projects.
baileyp 8y ago
People seem to misunderstand the relationship between Formosa (a.k.a Taiwan) and Chinese government (ROC and PRC). Actually Formosa is not related to ROC in terms of sovereignty. ROC, merely a governing authority, happens to exist on the island of Formosa. Basically ROC do not own Formosa's sovereignty. ROC is still contending against PRC regarding to the representation of China[0]. It's Chinese government's affair, and nothing related to Formosan because both of them, including PRC and ROC, do not own Formsa's sovereignty[1]. > JURIDICAL ASPECTS OF THE FORMOSA SITUATION > In the Japanese Peace Treaty of April, 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores, but again this did not operate as a transfer to Chinese sovereignty, whether to the Chinese People's Republic or to the Chinese Nationalist authorities. And Formosa may be handled in the same way as Ryukyus[2][3]. That's the reason why ROC rejected to admit Japan remains residual sovereignty over Ryukyus when Ryukyus was returned back to Japan[4]. [0]. https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY [1]. http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-73.pdf http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-... [2]. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d89 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23... [3]. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d31 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23... [4]. https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3 https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3

161 points by mkm416 8y ago

> In any case, Kao says, if vTaiwan’s recommendations are ultimately ignored, as they were with the alcohol sales law, then the whole process runs the risk of being viewed as “openwashing”—something that creates the pretense of transparency. “The end goal is legislation,” he says. Sounds like what happened to We the People in the U.S.

audreyt 8y ago
Indeed, We the People was one of the earliest inspirations of the Join platform. After I joined the cabinet as the Digital Minister, we have iterated on it quite a bit: https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-about-digital-democracy/ https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-about...

eric_khun 8y ago

Talking about Taiwan, they're trying really hard to attract foreign talents. If you're interested, check their Golden Card Permit. It's a visa+redisent card allowing you to stay and work for anyone there up to 3years. The only requirement is to justify of a salary of 160k NTD/month(~USD 5210/month), anywhere in the world, if you don't earn that, try the skills application[1]. And about the article, they are now requesting feedbacks from the public for the next immigration bill [2], that will make even easier to apply fo the visa. [1] https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9CBEBE3&s=0FCDB188C74F69A0 https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9C... [2] https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-ab56-10820643a38a https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-ab56-...

mattkrause 8y ago
Any idea why there’s a fairly specific special category for neutron physics?
- garmaine 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan
  - ddeck 8y ago
    Let's hope they find the talent they need for that. Taiwan is home to the world's largest coal-fired power station (which is also the world's largest emitter of CO2 - equivalent to that Switzerland) and just announced construction of a new coal-fired plant 40 minutes from Taipei[1], much to the dismay of residents, environmental groups, and those related to the estimated 1,000 people killed each year by the existing plants. [2] [1] https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-with-new-coal-plant/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-wit... [2] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> The only requirement is to justify of a salary of 160k NTD/month(~USD 5210/month), anywhere in the world I'll admit the site isn't very clear, but given that this is the "Employment Gold Card Permit for Foreign Special Professionals", do the "Qualification[s] of Foreign Special Professionals" have any relevance? > Q2：How to prove that a candidate possesses unique talent, or outstanding R&D ability or innovation performances in top-notch basic research or forward-looking technology? > A2：One of the following items must be provided: > 1.Domestic or foreign certificate verifying possession of a Ph.D. degree, verification of domestic or foreign work experience in a relevant field for 3 years or more, or documents verifying academic research during the most recent three years. > 2.Documents verifying domestic or foreign work experience in a relevant field, technology (such as a domestic or foreign patent certificate, etc.), technology licensing (such as technology licensing contract, etc.), or receipt of awards.

ericdykstra 8y ago

I'm by no means an expert, but Taiwan has a very interesting political scene due to the relationship with China. The dominant party is Taiwanese nationalistic and for Taiwanese independence, whereas the biggest opposition is Chinese nationalistic. The Sunflower Student Movement, mentioned a throughout this article, lead to the formation of the progressive nationalistic New Power Party in 2015. This party was co-founded by lead singer of the political metal band Chthonic, Freddy Lim, who is now one of 5 members of the party in the Taiwanese legislature (out of a total of 113 seats).

rangibaby 8y ago
PRC is also dead against ROC declaring independence as Taiwan because it would open the door to others to do the same (eg Hong Kong)
- hawkice 8y ago
  The ROC has declared not just independence, but sovereignty over all of China. This... does not meaningfully reflect reality. Hong Kong is extremely unlikely to be able to emulate the political success Taiwan has had (which is, baring some diplomatic hiccups, total - it is, contrary to PRC, USA, and occasionally ROC statements, a totally normal country similar to China in language and, to a lesser extent, culture, but not otherwise related). Mainland China knows this and has been ignoring statements of sovereign control by the Republic of China for some time. But they do control the island of Taiwan, as well as several others.
  - CogitoCogito 8y ago
    > The ROC has declared not just independence, but sovereignty over all of China. This... does not meaningfully reflect reality. To be fair, the PRC claims over the territory controlled by the ROC are just as ridiculous as the corresponding claims made by the ROC over lands controlled by the PRC. (Arguably the PRC claims are crazier, since they have _never_ controlled Taiwan, Kinmen, etc.) The ROC is as much a legitimate government over its territory as the PRC is of its territory. To believe otherwise requires some seriously twisted historical revisionism.

jimmybot 8y ago

Mentioned in the article: As an accomplished programmer and a bit of an anarchist, Audrey Tang is a super interesting government minister. I just came back from regularly scheduled office hours, which I find really rad for a minister to have (both walk-in and by appointment office hours are available). I wanted to compliment her g0V org on a great rewrite of the online dictionary published by the Ministry of Education: really clean URLs, using open data for translations, publishing the original data under a nice license, behind a CDN – and she commented, oh yeah I just deployed an update (!). https://www.moedict.tw/ https://www.moedict.tw/ Many years ago, Audrey also elucidated Chinese language Twitter users living in 2x the density of English users, which foreshadow's Twitter's decision in lengthening limits to 280 chars for English but not for Chinese: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414 About g0v and a list of projects: http://g0v.asia/ http://g0v.asia/

titanix2 8y ago
I’m surprised the g0v version include translations in foreign languages (and other Chinese languages). Doesn’t the ND clause of CC forbid it? (Edit: this is not a rethorical question. I worked with this dictionary before and if it is indeed allowed to extend it I have work to do)
- wibr 8y ago
  The website displays search results from several dictionaries: https://www.moedict.tw/about.html https://www.moedict.tw/about.html
  - titanix2 8y ago
    I already read this page. It does not address my question. My interrogation is around the fact that mixing several dictionaries in the same page is considered a derivate product or not. Intuitively it is, so I don’t understand how this does not break the ND clause of some source material. So they must be some non obvious legal loophole I want to know about, or this website is breaching some licences.

shalmanese 8y ago

Audrey Tang has been a HN member since 2009 (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt)

pabs3 8y ago

Audrey Tang also spoke about this at DebConf18 in Taiwan recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2018/DebConf18/2018-07-28/q-a-session-with-minister-tang.webm https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2018... The tech sounds interesting to apply to other situations too, like collaboration on open source projects.

baileyp 8y ago

People seem to misunderstand the relationship between Formosa (a.k.a Taiwan) and Chinese government (ROC and PRC). Actually Formosa is not related to ROC in terms of sovereignty. ROC, merely a governing authority, happens to exist on the island of Formosa. Basically ROC do not own Formosa's sovereignty. ROC is still contending against PRC regarding to the representation of China[0]. It's Chinese government's affair, and nothing related to Formosan because both of them, including PRC and ROC, do not own Formsa's sovereignty[1]. > JURIDICAL ASPECTS OF THE FORMOSA SITUATION > In the Japanese Peace Treaty of April, 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores, but again this did not operate as a transfer to Chinese sovereignty, whether to the Chinese People's Republic or to the Chinese Nationalist authorities. And Formosa may be handled in the same way as Ryukyus[2][3]. That's the reason why ROC rejected to admit Japan remains residual sovereignty over Ryukyus when Ryukyus was returned back to Japan[4]. [0]. https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY [1]. http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-73.pdf http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-... [2]. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d89 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23... [3]. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d31 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23... [4]. https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3 https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3