
A message from Lawrence Lessig [video] - irabinovitch1
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/blog/message-lawrence-lessig
======
rayiner
There's a conceit among technologists that Washington doesn't know how
technology works. I don't think this is true. In my experience with the
federal government, I have been quite amazed at how much people did
understand. Washington is full of nerds. They are often latin majors rather
than computer science majors, but they are nerds nonetheless, and they are
sharp and quick learners.

What is missing is not people who are "technically enabled." Rather, it's
people who share the values many technologists share. You can understand how
TCP/IP works without buying into the philosophies pertaining to an open and
neutral internet. And its those people that seem to shy away from
participating in politics. Not people who can describe what happens when a
packet gets dropped, but people who can articulate why its better to have an
internet that doesn't drop packets based on who sent them.

~~~
cbsmith
> There's a conceit among technologists that Washington doesn't know how
> technology works. I don't think this is true.

As someone who has sat in the room with one of the highest ranking congressmen
whilst explaining to him that one of his bills to support one of his big
campaign contributors was going to stifle free speech, kill privacy as we know
it, and undermine private property rights... I gotta say, no they really
don't. Not surprising, as most people, even people who work in technology,
don't know how technology works.

> Washington is full of nerds. They are often latin majors rather than
> computer science majors, but they are nerds nonetheless, and they are sharp
> and quick learners.

I think all of that is true, and concede that a lot of people in Washington
are probably smarter than me. I have absolute confidence that they understand
computer technology at least as well as I understand Latin.

Here's the dose of reality: how many of the non-Latin majors on Hacker News
explain how Map Reduce works in Latin? ;-)

> Rather, it's people who share the values many technologists share.

Totally agree, and frankly it's a really big problem for engineers in
particular. Engineers like tools, and they like the freedom to come up with
ways to creatively use them. Most people prefer products. Just that difference
alone creates a whole different set of values.

------
izendejas
Holy shit! How does this not have thousands of upvotes?

It's a masterful presentation -- the likes of which I haven't seen before. I
reckon I got a similar feeling that so many did when they heard MLK speak. If
you read about leadership, this is it folks. You tell very compelling stories
that inspire you to action not because you want to follow the likes of
Lawrence Lessig, but because you believe this cause is very important. For
someone to kindle that passionate response is an art form.

And then there's the issue. It's a no-brainer: attack the root of countless
legislative problems--campaign financing, the corruption.

I grew up the first part of my life in a country that is terribly corrupt and
when I look at the US, the place I now call home, the only difference that I
see, is that it's legal here. I was outraged at the Citizens United decision--
in my mind, that was one of the worst decisions ever because it continues to
legitimize a farce of democracy that we live under today.

tl;dw (ie, too long didn't watch): watch it for a lesson on leadership and get
outraged at campaign financing!

edited: typos, toned down the hyperbole to avoid distracting from the message.

~~~
loup-vaillant
tl;dw. Yet I'm confident campaign financing is not the problem. It's just a
symptom of something much deeper: the constitution itself.

It's very simple: in nearly all developed countries (the "West"), the rules of
power (the constitutions) were written by men in power. There is a huge
conflict of interest, so the constitutions suck. Or maybe they don't, but the
people sure don't rule. We don't live in a democracy by any reasonable meaning
of the word. (My current best guess is that our countries are plutocracies:
money and businesses rule. Anecdotal evidence: Fractional Reserve Banking,
which means private bank makes profit from printing money —they don't
_actually_ print money, but the effects are the same.)

Want to solve campaign financing? Don't support elections in the first place.
Elections aren't democratic anyway: 2 candidates you can vote for? What a
farce: that's 1 bit of decision thrown as a bone to the people. The pool of
potentially worthy presidents is way bigger than 2. So many bits of decision
power stripped from the people.

Want an _actually_ representative assembly? Do what any rational poll company
does: select the citizens by random trial. That may not be enough though, so
you may want to use the first assembly to bootstrap something better
(typically by having them write a constitution, then leave politics forever).

~~~
pdkl95
What Mr. Lessig is doing, I believe, isn't about "campaign financing".

This is about waking people up to the idea that they _can_ change things.
There's a deep apathy an general defeatist attitude in most of the country
because people have watched things spiral out of their control far too often.

It doesn't mater what the cause is; campaign finance is just one of problems
that, at least in some areas. It'll help, but the goal is to remind people
that you _can_ fight back.

This is about giving the a victor, for moral sake, and we need a LOT more
people pulling a Howard Beale on corruption in general.

/me walks over to window

( _clears thought_ )

/me sticks head outside, and yells

I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I AM _NOT_ GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!!

~~~
izendejas
Yes and no. I've certainly reduced what Lessig states to what I found the most
fitting way to summarize the problem he describes, but the corruption in the
system really comes down to that as he so clearly explains towards the end of
the video by marching in New Hampshire for campaign finance reform.

Many people don't participate because they don't feel represented until the
issue affects them directly (NIMBY politics), yet there are countless issues
in which we are affected as citizens because we let lobbyists and those that
fund campaigns dictate legislation.

Many people here are always raging about patent law, copyright law, etc. Those
were all Lessig's causes until Aaron Swartz made him realize that all the
powerful interests have the legislators by the balls, so until that gets
fixed, progress on any other front will be difficult.

------
IvyMike
It's always interesting me to take the passion and fury of online discussions
about politics and freedom and to reconcile that with the comparatively paltry
amount of money donated to political organizations by people in silicon
valley.

I think there's this feeling in Silicon Valley that "I'm changing the world
through code" or "I believe the best ideas should win". And I wish that were
the case. But in the meanwhile the Koch Brothers and hollywood quietly funnel
bajillions of dollars into superpacs and get all the politicians in their
pockets.

(I saw Lessig give this excellent talk at SCALE, and my take away from his
talk is that we should remove the need for politicians to whore themselves out
for money. And I strongly agree. But I guess I'm saying that in the meanwhile,
if that's how the game is played, we need to put more skin in the game.)

~~~
protomyth
"meanwhile the Koch Brothers and hollywood quietly funnel bajillions of
dollars into superpacs and get all the politicians in their pockets."

Here's the problem. You probably think the Koch Brothers is one of the biggest
spenders. The joke of it is that they aren't. Their PAC network isn't in the
top 10, but they are good targets for certain networks (in the same way Soros
is for other networks). Heck, some of the stuff Koch is for horrify
Republicans.

Hollywood, as a whole, is much more effective with money, but money is not
their only weapon. The glamour of Hollywood and mingling with celebrities has
always attracted politicians. Look at the celebrities testifying in front of
Congressional Committees. Does anyone honestly believe they are the most
qualified to testify? No, but the can surely attract the attention of
politicians so it makes up for the lack of expertise and is one hell of a
money equalizer.

The media is not a neutral observer and their pointing to "enemies" is a
distraction for themselves and their friends. Go find the actual contributions
and PAC spending to see what is real. Big Tech needs to deal with reality and
the actual system.

~~~
asnyder
Really odd, it's my firm opinion that the media is not only not a neutral
observer, they're actually very damaging, but not in the way you suggest. It's
my perspective that the media no longer points out outright lies and other
silliness as demonstrated by the talking heads and punditry that's presented
as fact and news, when the reporters know very well that their guests are
liars, avoiding the issue, or misleading the facts.

Though for some reason most of conservative "friends" will tout similar
talking points, when in truth the real issues are blatant untruths and
misrepresentations being presented to the people. Only in America can we have
a negative, lame-duck narrative of a newly re-elected presented who's had
consistent job growth for 47 months, lowered the deficit the most aggressively
out of any President over the past 20+ years, an obvious economic recovery as
defined by numerous measures, and I could go on and on, but yet, somehow the
media narrative continue to present Republicans as stewards of the economy,
despite facts to the otherwise over the past 13 years, not to mention an
unnecessary and financially damaging shutdown, along with whatever talking
point they wish to present on any given day.

The facts of the matter is that the media loves sensational soundbites and
talking points, over actual facts regardless. Which for whatever reason
Democrats have been absolutely terrible at combating and presenting the actual
situation. Furthermore, the cable news/social media driven 24hr self-selected
news cycle doesn't help things.

Heaven help us.

~~~
protomyth
“lowered the deficit the most aggressively out of any President over the past
20+ years”

Clinton and a GOP Congress would have that title. This President is openning a
large gap
[http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45010](http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45010)

"who's had consistent job growth for 47 months"

If you go over to the [http://data.bls.gov](http://data.bls.gov) U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics you will see that is nothing special as far as Presidents
go (President Bush had 46 months even with 9/11). What should be troubling is
the unemployeement rate (same website) taking into account workers who have
given up. This is troubling. Also, the part vesus full time employeement
figures are not happy ones.

"Which for whatever reason Democrats have been absolutely terrible at
combating and presenting the actual situation."

Given the slant of the NYT, MSNBC, and CNN, I have a hard time believing
Democrats cannot get their talking points out. In fact, CNN losing market
share with their turn to more punditry probably doesn’t help your points
either. Of course their sensationalist reporting during the shutdown (They
should be happy they weren’t around for Speaker Tip O’Neill’s 12 shutdowns)
given the history of the shutdown
[http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/08/6432513-this-w...](http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/08/6432513-this-
would-be-18th-government-shutdown-in-us-history) was pretty pathetic.

// late because responding to this took more time than a I had at a rest stop

------
startupfounder
30%-70% of our government representative's time is spent calling the 0.05%
(150k people) of US citizens to raise money to get re-elected.

Our Republic is a Representative Democracy (not a true democracy) where there
are 2 election cycles, the "Funders" and the voters. As a representative you
can't get your name on the ballot in the voting cycle unless you pass the
"Funders" cycle.

This is a closed source program where one has to "lean to the green", towards
the 0.05% of people who have the money, to play.

NH is the KEY! Isolate 50,000 people in New Hampshire who say, "What will you
do to end the system of corruption in Washington?" 50,000 people will swing
the vote.

How can technology help isolate those 50k people? What apps can we build? What
networks can we build?

~~~
dublinben
How are 50,000 people in New Hampshire going to change anything? That state
has two representatives in the House of Representatives. What are two people
in a corrupt legislature supposed to do?

~~~
startupfounder
What is the first stop in the presidential primary?

New Hampshire. Specifically Dixville Notch, NH[0]

It has massive media coverage because it is the first stop for both parties[1]

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixville_Notch,_New_Hampshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixville_Notch,_New_Hampshire)
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_primary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_primary)

------
colinwinter
THANKS for sharing this. Wouldn't have discovered it otherwise and definitely
a positive refresher with new points beyond his TED talk.

For anyone still sitting-on/queuing/water-latering Lessig's main TED talk on
money in politics, as a vidder I created a remix of it to help improve
engagement and intensity, using soundtracks by Zack Hemsey and a few video
clips from other sources for support:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-
vGYR8S58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-vGYR8S58) I never really shared
it beyond the organizers behind Lessig so I hope someone more useful than the
avg youtuber can benefit from it here...

------
arghbleargh
For the benefit of those who can't/don't want to watch the video, can someone
summarize what Lessig's "cause" is?

EDIT: More specifically, I am wondering why he's calling for the help of
"technically enabled" people. What is the relevance of technology here?

~~~
MaysonL
His basic thesis can be summed up as:

The American political system (especially Congress) is very corrupt. This is
due to the fact that it is almost impossible to be elected without raising a
lot of money, and even harder to get reelected without doing so. This requires
Congresspeople to spend a large fraction of their time contacting potential
campaign contributors and convincing them to give money. It also makes them
very very aware of which positions on which issues will bring in money. It
also leads to large proportions of ex-Congresspeople and former Congressional
staffers becoming (very well-paid) lobbyists.

And that because of this, nothing substantial to improve the current
corporate/financial domination of American society can be done until the
influence of money in politics is removed.

The poll statistics he quotes are worth noting:

1) 96 percent think that lessening the influence of money in politics is
important.

2) 68 percent think that this is very important.

3) 91 percent think it's unlikely, and therefore not worth spending any effort
on.

------
fossuser
If you haven't seen Lawrence Lessig's other talk about campaign financing
creating a second dependency within congress on their funders in addition to
the people, it's worth watching.

www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

~~~
spoiledtechie
I believe his Google Talk is FAR BETTER.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc&noredirect=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc&noredirect=1)

------
btgeekboy
I had the privilege of attending this talk in person last weekend.

I'm generally very apathetic about politics in general, and have no interest
in participating. By the end of this session, though, I think that may have
changed. I'm not quite sure how I want to participate quite yet, but the
seed's been planted.

------
teamdemocracy
For those in the SF Bay Area, we are having a hackathon the weekend of March
29–30 in San Francisco. We will be working on tools to support Lawrence
Lessig, the NH Rebellion organization, and their grassroots movement to end
the system of corruption in DC. If you're interested in participating, hit us
up at teamdemocracyus@gmail.com and we'll send you the details.

------
adamfeldman
So, is the question how can technology greatly reduce the costs of
campaigning? Would this allow for campaign finance reform where more
restrictions are placed on candidates in return for funds and publicly funded
technology tools to enable far smarter campaigns (like what Obama's re-
election team did with voter turnout)? Could technology change the costs of
voter outreach to a point where the funders become irrelevant?

~~~
cbsmith
Most important question: if you won't watch the video which informs about all
this and/or read the materials Lessig has posted explaining all this, why
should anyone think you'd read their replies answering the same questions here
on Hacker News?

------
spoiledtechie
Lawrence is by far one of the most important thought provokers of our century.
This man is on his way into history.

