

Esther Dyson: Can the Internet help bring about democracy? - tokenadult
http://www.slate.com/id/2295106/

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nazgulnarsil
"The Internet may have made this transition seem too easy. In Internet
communities, it's fairly easy to build consensus. Membership is voluntary, and
people who don't like the rules can leave (or they can be kicked out: there is
no requirement for due process). Moreover, many resources are infinite on the
Internet. People aren't fighting over scarce housing or lucrative jobs. They
are befriending one another, sharing information, and accumulating status,
points, and experiences."

housing and jobs are scarce because of shitty government, including shitty
democracies (arguably mainly due to the monetary policies of the biggest
shittiest democracies).

poverty is a solved problem. it persists because it is profitable for the
people with guns and money printing presses for it to persist and no one will
stand up to them. at least not without nukes.

the scarce resource argument is bullshit. humans are net wealth producers if
you leave them alone. this is doubly true since we cracked the atom. the
reason we have unsafe, waste producing nuclear reactors instead of thorium
reactors is because governments wanted plants that could produce weapons grade
material. <http://www.energyfromthorium.com/history.html>

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stretchwithme
Totally a solved problem. Even in wealthy countries, the poor are often poor
because many governments discourage savings (by lower interest rates into the
basement), discourage work (with high income taxes, welfare payments,
unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid). All of this fosters a culture
where work is not seen as the vital thing that it is and where giving up is
the easiest thing to do.

Other policies are made to cater to the monied interests, at the expense of
the non-monied, causing many things to be more expensive than they need to be.
Housing, health care, education, transportation all fall into this category.
All of these things should be getting cheaper over time, but once government
establishes control, that control is inevitable hired out to the highest
bidder and used to benefit them at the expense of the consumer.

Of course, where there is no rule of law, the thugs just take everything as
soon as you produce it, which is worse, I guess. But at least people who
escape it often still have the work ethic necessary to succeed in a free
society. That is, unless the government "helps" them.

~~~
locopati
Yes, I'm sure if we let government step out of the way and give corporations a
free hand, everything will get much better.

~~~
stretchwithme
Government is more a tool of entrenched interests than you may realize.

Corporations are just mechanisms for individuals to cooperatively own assets.
Not the source of all evil in the modern world.

