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> Basically this is a tool to better inform policy decisions No, it is actually a safety valve. If the public gets a little too agitated about anything they c

• ajross 14y ago
  Fair enough. Let's just agree to disagree on that. Your explanation is a bit too far on the "been reading a bit too much dystopian pulp" side of the spectrum. To argue that the practice of policy is cynical and easily corrupted is a truism. To say that the white house deliberately threw up a petition system to actively "neutralize" inconvenient opinions is just ridiculous, sorry. The white house staff are people just like you and I, and they care about many of the same things you do and truly want to do the right thing in the face of many competing interests. Don't turn them into Orwellian villains, it's not helpful.
  • jlgreco 14y ago
    The less dystopic version of my interpretation is that the site is just a way of keeping people happy, rather than "neutralized". Does that seem so implausible to you? > The white house staff are people just like you and I See, that realization is what enables me to believe they would make a petition site just to keep people happy. It is something rather frequently seen in the "real world" from "normal people" (see: suggestion boxes in the breakroom at work), and is exactly the sort of thing I could see myself doing. Hell, I have done it. Have someone that is mad at you? Let them vent for a while until they calm down, then tell them why they are wrong. This sort of tactic isn't unique bizarre super-villian behavior. It is standard bullshit. If the intent were completely pure, merely to educate, they wouldn't have people perform a meaningless action before they got their cookie. You don't get that far in politics by being clueless about how to gauge public interest in a topic without resorting to an online tally of interest. That is simply inconceivable.
    • writtles 14y ago
      Yeah, lets just go back to the days of hitting the streets with those paper petitions, and gathering signatures at bus stops and Phish concerts! Why get the internet involved in politics at all?
      • zanny 14y ago
        Because anonymous forums on the internet have proven for a decade sane discourse goes out the window due to the Internet Fuckwad Theorem. It is an entirely different dynamic to be in someones face and have to fear consequences beyond words from your behavior, and honestly, that is what almost any protest in history was for - to try to shake the boots of those who are gifted with power. An internet petition is just a number and a paragraph that people clicked a thumbs up on. Nobody would ever care unless those people actually started voting differently, and by differently, that means something other than just going across the isle and shaking hands with their neighbor politician in the other camp. It is the same reason you don't argue with businesses with petition letters, you argue with them with their bottom line. If you are in a state of demanding something, the other party has a power and influence you don't, and you need some pull in the relationship or else you will be walked all over.
        • writtles 14y ago
          >Because anonymous forums on the internet have proven for a decade sane discourse goes out the window due to the Internet Fuckwad Theorem. It is an entirely different dynamic to be in someones face and have to fear consequences beyond words from your behavior Heh. And here you are, in said forums! Somewhat perfecting the voice of righteous judgement! Bravo, but no. I see what you came to represent here, but if you think trumpeting loudly some bad-ass anti-establishment intellectual philosophy while standing on the tiny issue of "the right to cell-phone-unlocking-regardless-of-lender-contract" as a basis for your purist reasoning, then you sir/ma'am, live in a first world overrun with problems of the same degree! There is wisdom in "choosing your battles," and this, my dear zanny, is not the one. Trust me.
        • writtles 14y ago
• lotu 14y ago
  Bullshit, the idea that this website is just a plane to place and pacify the public is simply silly. First the issues handled on this site are not the type that will spill out into the streets if ignored people simply will not riot over being unable to legally unlock their phones (this is the definition of a first world problem b.t.w.). The fact of the matter is their aren't any looming issues facing the US that are likely to result in widespread riots today. But let's assume we are back in the 1950s during the Civil Rights Movement, I can't imagine a non-reply to a "We the People" petition doing anything to quell the Civil Rights Movement. Frankly, I suspect it would just further fan the flames. The only way I could see this working as a "safety value" is if people confuse signing an online petition with actually voting. Something I find unlikely. Now if the government uses the site inform their opinions of the populace and shape their actions this could influence policy but only if it has been shown that if you oppose a petition than you will get voted out next election. The elderly are great at doing this which is why no one touches Social Security and Medicare. A lot of people think the Internet is a representative sample of the general population, and if something is massively popular online than the fact the the government isn't doing is means that they are usurping the will of the people.
  • jlgreco 14y ago
    You are the one talking about riots, not me.