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Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothi

Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.

brudgers 14y ago
Petitions for Ballot Propositions have radically reshaped California's government over the last several decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propositions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propo...
- randall 14y ago
  Some (me!) would argue rather poorly. Design by committee taken to its unfortunate logical extreme.
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    Not rather poorly; disastrously. I don't live in California any longer, but when I did I voted no on every single proposition. Their cumulative negative impact on the possibility of effectively running the state far outweighs the benefit that any one of them might confer.
  - YuriNiyazov 14y ago
    I would argue otherwise. There is at least one political movement that is currently sweeping through the country that was first passed via a California ballot measure because no one in the legislature would risk the political capital for it.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    One of the problems with democratic processes is that they're democratic.
junto 14y ago
> If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. That statement is so scary, but most likely true.
- chii 14y ago
  the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change? Activism comes from expending effort to direct the course of the system (aka, society). Some people, like the rich and powerful, are also "activists" - in the sense that they use their wealth and power to direct the system in such ways as to benefit themselves, while the more altruistic activists direct towards a more ethical/equal world as deemed by their moral systems. In my eyes, they are of the same sort. Problem is that the altruistic activists tend to lack in resources, and thus, they often "lose" to the powerful wealthy ones that act more out of self interest.
  - belorn 14y ago
    > the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change? Because government should serve the people and a petition is meant to show government issues the people find important? Okey, I guess saying that government should serve the people is hard to do with a straight face, but thats how it was suppose to be. Its like saying that the law should be fair and non-discriminating, no matter skin color, sex, or money in the bank. People still expect those two things to be true, even if in truth they are rarely so.
    - shadowfox 14y ago
      > show government issues the people find important A tiny percentage of the population finds important. I suspect that often enough we underestimate opposition to (or mere disinterest in) our ideas and tend to overestimate the importance of our opinions :(
  - com2kid 14y ago
    "the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change?" I am apparently one of the rare ones who researches any petition, and its impact if made into law, before I sign it. If everyone did such, I feel that petition systems would be a lot more worthwhile.
Dirlewanger 14y ago
You got it. Nothing but a placebo for the average Joe.
jessaustin 14y ago
So true! It's also true of "real" voting in "elections". They only put up with that crap because it's so easily manipulated by the media. They'll distract us with "new" policies when they have to, but nothing will ever threaten the ever-expanding stream of money that flows through lobbyists to their employees in government and back out to the lobbyists' clients. The system won't be "fixed" using tools that exist within the system. It must be hacked, but I don't really see how.
- chii 14y ago
  > It must be hacked, but I don't really see how. figure out a way to efficiently get energy (nuclear? solar? vacuum energy?), so you don't need to rely on any incumbent authority. Using that energy, design drones to mine resources from the earths' crust, or extract minerals/resources from the sea. THis process must be automated. These drones, using the extracted resources, would reproduce themselves, so that the whole process can be exponential in speed. When a critical number of drones is reached, arm the drones (or create new drones that are armed). Use those drones to take over the world - send an ultimatum. Then, once the whole world has bowed down to you, you become the most benevolent dictator, giving all equality and a good life.
  - amirmc 14y ago
    Part of that is an end-of-the-world scenario. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo
  - bjustin 14y ago
    You do so shortly before nanomachines for eternal life are invented, and your second in command turns out to be a tyrant ruling over humanity for hundreds of years.
TheCapn 14y ago
Maybe that's how their interpreted by many but my personal interpretation is optimistic, but different. Pretend you're a government official. Every day you have several dozen, if not hundreds or more "requests" made of your office. Fix this. Change that. Ban it too! It all just blurs together. Eventually you need to filter the noise, "these quacks are all just in it for themselves. I represent the people, I need to know what the people want!" you may say to yourself. How can you tell what the people want. Well, get them to rally together, show that there is support for the clause to "Ban it!" How could we do that? Perhaps by getting everyone interested to express said interest. What's the threshold of people you're willing to listen to though? 25,000? That seems right. But suddenly, every cause can rally 25,000 people without issue, we're back to the initial issue: too much signal:noise. So we increase the threshold; only the issues that people really care about will make it through. ---- I never actually believed the petitions were doing much good. The 80% "legalize pot", 5% "admit you have aliens", 5% "no really, legalize pot", and another 4% of equal garbage petitions seemed to ruin the system for everyone.
- rorrr 14y ago
  That's not how these petitions are used by the current administration. Just take a look at the responses to completely rational petitions, like the ones about legalizing pot. Scientifically and medically, marijuana is way way safer and less damaging than alcohol. The response we got is absolutely insane, political bullshit. The goal of these petitions is to create visibility of some sort of interaction with citizens, to create an illusion of participation, an illusion of a democracy. Hey, it does fool most people.
moskie 14y ago
Just because change doesn't come directly from these petitions, it doesn't mean they're worthless. They act as a gauge, not necessarily for our government, but for us, showing the amount of support that exists behind a given idea or movement. It's not precise, and is not the only gauge, but it at least functions as one piece of the puzzle of affecting real change. Your cynicism is wasted here. > If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. Replace "petitions" with voting, protesting, posting comments on Hacker News, or talking with your fellow citizens about political issues. All those are other pieces to the puzzle. Why aren't they banned?
cjoh 14y ago
Petitions are completely ineffective because the citizenry doesn't have enough civic knowledge to ask for the right things. Take for instance, the top one -- "classify the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group" or the various succession petitions. Is there a federal agency that regulates hate groups? Or classifies who is a hate group and who is not? No. "Hate Group" is a label used by the private NGO sector -- in this case the ADL and SPLC (two non-governmental organizations) maintain lists of hate groups. Nor does one "incorporate" via the federal government. You incorporate in a state. Stripping Westboro of their tax exempt status should be the lead ask there, and yet those petitions are far less popular than the original? Why? Because it's a more severe ask. Same with "recount the election" -- the federal government doesn't count votes! Restrict pay for senators? Seriously, c'mon. We all learned about separation of powers, right? Petitions do work. What a lobbyist does is petition the government. They're just professional at it, and why we presume that a developer or a plumber or a chicken farmer should be as good of a lobbyist as a professional lobbyist is, is beyond me. Petitions work. But there's a lot more to getting petitions to affect change than writing some nonsense on a web page and getting a bunch of people to agree with you. Is the expectation that if .01% of the US Population clicks a +1 button on a website then the federal government will change a law? That's a scary proposition.
- getsaf 14y ago
  "Petitions do work. What a lobbyist does is petition the government. They're just professional at it, and why we presume that a developer or a plumber or a chicken farmer should be as good of a lobbyist as a professional lobbyist is, is beyond me." As much as I think lobbying is a great harm to the system, I can't help but wonder. Would it be effective if there were some sort of "Kickstarter" for lobbying that would allow the mass public participate in a particular lobbying effort with their own $. Think "We the people" but backed by people who wish to affect change in a particular way with a small "donation". The difference would be that each project would need to be curated by a professional lobbyist to ensure that the details are correct. There could be a threshold set and a particular lobbying effort would only move forward if the threshold is met... Etc, etc, just like Kickstarter. I can't help but think that I'm being too simplistic and overly optimistic. Is there any particular reason this wouldn't work?
wissler 14y ago
Calling them completely ineffective is a stretch, at a minimum they create more opportunity for spreading news. Whether that has any effect is a function of the person who receives it.
rauljara 14y ago
Apologies in advance. <cranky rant> I am so sick of these democracy doesn't work, the powers that be own us, utterly worthless statements. Worthless is the sense that all they do is justify your own inaction. So many people take the fact the government doesn't work the way they want it to as evidence that democracy doesn't work. It's a fallacy. What they have trouble understanding is that while we may largely agree that certain problems exist (very few people are in favor of corruption in government) we are incredibly divided on how to solve those problems. My (imperfect) solution would be publicly financed elections and a complete end to campaign contributions. There are many people who feel passionately that campaign contributions == free speech. There isn't enough public support for one solution or another to override the institutional inertia that was built into the constitution by design. It isn't evidence that democracy doesn't work, it's evidence that your position doesn't have enough support. But when positions do gain support, things really do change. We've passed constitutional amendments outlawing slavery, giving women the vote, and instituting civil rights. Jesus Christ, do you understand just how hard getting each of those things passed was? Do you understand how many entrenched and powerful interests had to be overcome? Do you understand just how little shouting that democracy doesn't work would have accomplished when faced with moral injustices like that? If your solution isn't getting passed, work on convincing people that it's the right solution. But don't scream democracy doesn't work when it doesn't get passed because not enough people care about it or agree with it. That actually is democracy working exactly how its supposed to. Change opinions. Don't rant about how they don't matter. </rant>
- jlangenauer 14y ago
  It's not an argument that "democracy" doesn't work, it's an argument that the current institutional arrangements aren't really democracy - at least in the sense that the public are actually directly or indirectly governing themselves. Now, in that sense, let's review exactly how "our"[] government measures up: Individual citizens or groups of citizens have minimal means of influencing their own government through the means of the system - i.e. their representatives. Petitions change nothing, letters to representations to MPs / Congresspeople will receive a form reply and will usually be ignored. Occasionally, when public sentiment doesn't conflict too badly with economic interests, minor tweaks can be made, but that's about it. Where real change has occurred, it has been done so outside* the institutional parameters of the system. The abolition of slavery took a civil war, and the vote for women and civil rights took massive public protests, illegal acts and (in the case of the suffragettes in the UK) hunger strikes. So yes, change is possible. But it was never achieved within the confines of a system largely designed and evolved (I contend) to limit public participation, and certainly not by online petitions. [*] Not everyone is from the US, y'know.
sliverstorm 14y ago
On the other hand, if the threshold is high enough, they might actually start recognizing the petitions. At the current limit, a successful petition represents a fractional percentage of voting Americans, but if the threshold was 1 million, any successful petition represents at least 1% of voting Americans.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
saraid216 14y ago
> If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. By this logic, if your comment was correct, your comment wouldn't exist.
jriley 14y ago
In 2011, a frustrated citizen in Killeen, TX started collecting signatures in a parking lot to recall the entire city council. Enough people signed to officially recall 5 seats. Reference: http://www.kcentv.com/story/16070848/killeen-city-council-recall-elections-results-are-canvasses http://www.kcentv.com/story/16070848/killeen-city-council-re...

brudgers 14y ago

Petitions for Ballot Propositions have radically reshaped California's government over the last several decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propositions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propo...

randall 14y ago
Some (me!) would argue rather poorly. Design by committee taken to its unfortunate logical extreme.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  Not rather poorly; disastrously. I don't live in California any longer, but when I did I voted no on every single proposition. Their cumulative negative impact on the possibility of effectively running the state far outweighs the benefit that any one of them might confer.
- YuriNiyazov 14y ago
  I would argue otherwise. There is at least one political movement that is currently sweeping through the country that was first passed via a California ballot measure because no one in the legislature would risk the political capital for it.
- brudgers 14y ago
  One of the problems with democratic processes is that they're democratic.

junto 14y ago

> If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. That statement is so scary, but most likely true.

chii 14y ago
the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change? Activism comes from expending effort to direct the course of the system (aka, society). Some people, like the rich and powerful, are also "activists" - in the sense that they use their wealth and power to direct the system in such ways as to benefit themselves, while the more altruistic activists direct towards a more ethical/equal world as deemed by their moral systems. In my eyes, they are of the same sort. Problem is that the altruistic activists tend to lack in resources, and thus, they often "lose" to the powerful wealthy ones that act more out of self interest.
- belorn 14y ago
  > the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change? Because government should serve the people and a petition is meant to show government issues the people find important? Okey, I guess saying that government should serve the people is hard to do with a straight face, but thats how it was suppose to be. Its like saying that the law should be fair and non-discriminating, no matter skin color, sex, or money in the bank. People still expect those two things to be true, even if in truth they are rarely so.
  - shadowfox 14y ago
    > show government issues the people find important A tiny percentage of the population finds important. I suspect that often enough we underestimate opposition to (or mere disinterest in) our ideas and tend to overestimate the importance of our opinions :(
- com2kid 14y ago
  "the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change?" I am apparently one of the rare ones who researches any petition, and its impact if made into law, before I sign it. If everyone did such, I feel that petition systems would be a lot more worthwhile.

Dirlewanger 14y ago

You got it. Nothing but a placebo for the average Joe.

jessaustin 14y ago

So true! It's also true of "real" voting in "elections". They only put up with that crap because it's so easily manipulated by the media. They'll distract us with "new" policies when they have to, but nothing will ever threaten the ever-expanding stream of money that flows through lobbyists to their employees in government and back out to the lobbyists' clients. The system won't be "fixed" using tools that exist within the system. It must be hacked, but I don't really see how.

chii 14y ago
> It must be hacked, but I don't really see how. figure out a way to efficiently get energy (nuclear? solar? vacuum energy?), so you don't need to rely on any incumbent authority. Using that energy, design drones to mine resources from the earths' crust, or extract minerals/resources from the sea. THis process must be automated. These drones, using the extracted resources, would reproduce themselves, so that the whole process can be exponential in speed. When a critical number of drones is reached, arm the drones (or create new drones that are armed). Use those drones to take over the world - send an ultimatum. Then, once the whole world has bowed down to you, you become the most benevolent dictator, giving all equality and a good life.
- amirmc 14y ago
  Part of that is an end-of-the-world scenario. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo
- bjustin 14y ago
  You do so shortly before nanomachines for eternal life are invented, and your second in command turns out to be a tyrant ruling over humanity for hundreds of years.

TheCapn 14y ago

Maybe that's how their interpreted by many but my personal interpretation is optimistic, but different. Pretend you're a government official. Every day you have several dozen, if not hundreds or more "requests" made of your office. Fix this. Change that. Ban it too! It all just blurs together. Eventually you need to filter the noise, "these quacks are all just in it for themselves. I represent the people, I need to know what the people want!" you may say to yourself. How can you tell what the people want. Well, get them to rally together, show that there is support for the clause to "Ban it!" How could we do that? Perhaps by getting everyone interested to express said interest. What's the threshold of people you're willing to listen to though? 25,000? That seems right. But suddenly, every cause can rally 25,000 people without issue, we're back to the initial issue: too much signal:noise. So we increase the threshold; only the issues that people really care about will make it through. ---- I never actually believed the petitions were doing much good. The 80% "legalize pot", 5% "admit you have aliens", 5% "no really, legalize pot", and another 4% of equal garbage petitions seemed to ruin the system for everyone.

rorrr 14y ago
That's not how these petitions are used by the current administration. Just take a look at the responses to completely rational petitions, like the ones about legalizing pot. Scientifically and medically, marijuana is way way safer and less damaging than alcohol. The response we got is absolutely insane, political bullshit. The goal of these petitions is to create visibility of some sort of interaction with citizens, to create an illusion of participation, an illusion of a democracy. Hey, it does fool most people.

moskie 14y ago

Just because change doesn't come directly from these petitions, it doesn't mean they're worthless. They act as a gauge, not necessarily for our government, but for us, showing the amount of support that exists behind a given idea or movement. It's not precise, and is not the only gauge, but it at least functions as one piece of the puzzle of affecting real change. Your cynicism is wasted here. > If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. Replace "petitions" with voting, protesting, posting comments on Hacker News, or talking with your fellow citizens about political issues. All those are other pieces to the puzzle. Why aren't they banned?

cjoh 14y ago

Petitions are completely ineffective because the citizenry doesn't have enough civic knowledge to ask for the right things. Take for instance, the top one -- "classify the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group" or the various succession petitions. Is there a federal agency that regulates hate groups? Or classifies who is a hate group and who is not? No. "Hate Group" is a label used by the private NGO sector -- in this case the ADL and SPLC (two non-governmental organizations) maintain lists of hate groups. Nor does one "incorporate" via the federal government. You incorporate in a state. Stripping Westboro of their tax exempt status should be the lead ask there, and yet those petitions are far less popular than the original? Why? Because it's a more severe ask. Same with "recount the election" -- the federal government doesn't count votes! Restrict pay for senators? Seriously, c'mon. We all learned about separation of powers, right? Petitions do work. What a lobbyist does is petition the government. They're just professional at it, and why we presume that a developer or a plumber or a chicken farmer should be as good of a lobbyist as a professional lobbyist is, is beyond me. Petitions work. But there's a lot more to getting petitions to affect change than writing some nonsense on a web page and getting a bunch of people to agree with you. Is the expectation that if .01% of the US Population clicks a +1 button on a website then the federal government will change a law? That's a scary proposition.

getsaf 14y ago
"Petitions do work. What a lobbyist does is petition the government. They're just professional at it, and why we presume that a developer or a plumber or a chicken farmer should be as good of a lobbyist as a professional lobbyist is, is beyond me." As much as I think lobbying is a great harm to the system, I can't help but wonder. Would it be effective if there were some sort of "Kickstarter" for lobbying that would allow the mass public participate in a particular lobbying effort with their own $. Think "We the people" but backed by people who wish to affect change in a particular way with a small "donation". The difference would be that each project would need to be curated by a professional lobbyist to ensure that the details are correct. There could be a threshold set and a particular lobbying effort would only move forward if the threshold is met... Etc, etc, just like Kickstarter. I can't help but think that I'm being too simplistic and overly optimistic. Is there any particular reason this wouldn't work?

wissler 14y ago

Calling them completely ineffective is a stretch, at a minimum they create more opportunity for spreading news. Whether that has any effect is a function of the person who receives it.

rauljara 14y ago

Apologies in advance. <cranky rant> I am so sick of these democracy doesn't work, the powers that be own us, utterly worthless statements. Worthless is the sense that all they do is justify your own inaction. So many people take the fact the government doesn't work the way they want it to as evidence that democracy doesn't work. It's a fallacy. What they have trouble understanding is that while we may largely agree that certain problems exist (very few people are in favor of corruption in government) we are incredibly divided on how to solve those problems. My (imperfect) solution would be publicly financed elections and a complete end to campaign contributions. There are many people who feel passionately that campaign contributions == free speech. There isn't enough public support for one solution or another to override the institutional inertia that was built into the constitution by design. It isn't evidence that democracy doesn't work, it's evidence that your position doesn't have enough support. But when positions do gain support, things really do change. We've passed constitutional amendments outlawing slavery, giving women the vote, and instituting civil rights. Jesus Christ, do you understand just how hard getting each of those things passed was? Do you understand how many entrenched and powerful interests had to be overcome? Do you understand just how little shouting that democracy doesn't work would have accomplished when faced with moral injustices like that? If your solution isn't getting passed, work on convincing people that it's the right solution. But don't scream democracy doesn't work when it doesn't get passed because not enough people care about it or agree with it. That actually is democracy working exactly how its supposed to. Change opinions. Don't rant about how they don't matter. </rant>

jlangenauer 14y ago
It's not an argument that "democracy" doesn't work, it's an argument that the current institutional arrangements aren't really democracy - at least in the sense that the public are actually directly or indirectly governing themselves. Now, in that sense, let's review exactly how "our"[] government measures up: Individual citizens or groups of citizens have minimal means of influencing their own government through the means of the system - i.e. their representatives. Petitions change nothing, letters to representations to MPs / Congresspeople will receive a form reply and will usually be ignored. Occasionally, when public sentiment doesn't conflict too badly with economic interests, minor tweaks can be made, but that's about it. Where real change has occurred, it has been done so outside* the institutional parameters of the system. The abolition of slavery took a civil war, and the vote for women and civil rights took massive public protests, illegal acts and (in the case of the suffragettes in the UK) hunger strikes. So yes, change is possible. But it was never achieved within the confines of a system largely designed and evolved (I contend) to limit public participation, and certainly not by online petitions. [*] Not everyone is from the US, y'know.

sliverstorm 14y ago

On the other hand, if the threshold is high enough, they might actually start recognizing the petitions. At the current limit, a successful petition represents a fractional percentage of voting Americans, but if the threshold was 1 million, any successful petition represents at least 1% of voting Americans.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

saraid216 14y ago

> If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. By this logic, if your comment was correct, your comment wouldn't exist.

jriley 14y ago

In 2011, a frustrated citizen in Killeen, TX started collecting signatures in a parking lot to recall the entire city council. Enough people signed to officially recall 5 seats. Reference: http://www.kcentv.com/story/16070848/killeen-city-council-recall-elections-results-are-canvasses http://www.kcentv.com/story/16070848/killeen-city-council-re...