

Could we use open source tools to improve politics? - iProject
http://gigaom.com/2012/09/29/could-we-use-open-source-tools-to-improve-politics/

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rurounijones
First thing we need to do is take the current process and make it much easier
for the common man to track. That means laws written in plaintext formats that
can be tracked. Not released as PDFs, it means keeping track of voting records
etc etc. Email notifications to people when a law as passed. Let people follow
their politicians in a Facebook style manner so that they can see everything
they are doing and leave comments etc.

There are many sites that do some of these things already but none (as far as
I know) that combine that all into one nice user interface.

When that infrastructure is there THEN we can start with the more political
changes.

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mseebach
Crowdsourcing works for Wikipedia and open source software because there are
compatible elements of unambiguous truth and scratch-your-own-itch. The areas
of lawmaking where this is true are few, so this won't work.

Should a shoplifter have his hand chopped off, be caned, be jailed, get
community service or not be punished at all? People are going to disagree with
each other on this and most other issues and ultimately nobody is going to get
the solution they feel is the best for everything. Democracy is not designed
to creating optimal societies, it's designed to make sure we can still live
together peacefully despite disagreeing.

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jellicle
No. Not in the way that this article discusses. The government is perfectly
capable of being open. It doesn't want to be.

"I want to be X"

"Here's a tool that lets you be Y"

"But I still want to be X!"

When you see a convoluted, complex, or "bad" law passed, for whatever your
definition of "bad" is, it's not because the legislators were somehow unable
to write a better one. There are plenty of smart staffers and smart lobbyists
who write laws, and they write exactly what they mean to write. They passed
what they wanted to pass.

This approach solves a problem that doesn't exist ("government unable to write
good laws") and fails to solve the real problem that actually exists
("government doesn't want to write good laws"). The real problem is being
addressed by, e.g., <http://www.rootstrikers.org/> .

This is a fundamental misapprehension of how government works. I thought Clay
Shirky was smarter than this.

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kijin
I don't think the distinction is that clear-cut.

One of the reasons that governments don't want to write good laws is because
there is too little incentive to write good laws, and too much incentive to
write bad laws. One solution might be to replace those irresponsible
lawmakers, or at least augment them, with those who actually do have an
incentive to write good laws.

Participatory democracy is _not_ simply the idea that more people can write
better laws. The number of participants, by itself, is meaningless. Part of
the idea is that if you invite a diverse range of individuals and groups to
participate in the process, at least some of them will have enough motivation,
passion, and intellectual prowess to outmatch the ones who don't. Open-source
software might not have any performance advantages over proprietary
alternatives, but at least it will be easier for somebody to spot a backdoor.

I have a lot of respect for people who are trying their best to curb the
influence of money on politics. But if the idea is that politicians will want
to write good laws once the influence of money is gone, I think that's just as
naive as the idea that you're criticizing. No matter how we tweak our campaign
financing regulations, there will always be people who don't want to write
good laws, and those kinds of people have an unfortunate tendency to want to
become politicians. To ignore this crooked aspect of humanity is a fundamental
misapprehension of how government works.

So, electing the right sort of people is only half the solution. The only way
to ensure that those who are elected keep wanting to write good laws is to
force them to write good laws or else face severe repercussions (e.g. being
recalled or thrown in jail). But in order for the rest of us to detect
deviations from good lawmaking and inflict appropriate repercussions on
responsible parties, first we need to know what the hell is going on. So even
if having more eyes does not automatically lead to better laws, at least it
will make it a bit more difficult for those who write bad laws to get away
with it. It's a lot more difficult to get away with a backdoor if the relevant
commit was signed with your key and the whole world knows it.

"Our elected 'representatives' don't represent us in any literal sense, as if
we were doing the ruling 'through them'. That is nonsense. They rule and we
don't. But because we can easily deprive them of power at certain intervals,
they have (at least theoretically) the incentive to rule in a way responsive
to our interests." - Jean Hampton, _Political Philosophy_

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cypherpunks01
I'm surprised that the Pirate Party wasn't mentioned here. There are a bunch
of free software tools with an aim towards participatory democracy, here are a
couple very interesting ones:

\- Liquid feedback, <http://liquidfeedback.org> and
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Feedback>

\- Votorola, <http://zelea.com/project/votorola/home.xht>

Lots more at <http://metagovernment.org/wiki/Active_projects>

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ck2
Until lobbyists are made illegal, all the tools in the world aren't going to
change much.

Industries and special interests groups should not be allowed to whisper in
the ears of politicians, that's what voting is for.

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willyt
Imagine if you could propose a law, then garner support for it at a grassroots
level. E.g back in 2002(?) someone proposes a law that makes it a criminal
offense to declare war without the backing of the UN.

Effectively anyone can table a private members bill and then the whole country
can vote on it. Most amendments would go nowhere but some would be significant
enough to attract enough attention for significant majority of the population
to cast a binding number of votes.

It would be a more significant moment for democracy than the Magna Carta.

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DanielBMarkham
What a stunning naivete. Wow.

The system incentivizes legerdemain through complexity. Laws are being written
exactly in the manner that benefits those that matter the most -- legislators.

In the states, there's not even an incentive for laws to actually solve one
problem at a time. There is no "test case". Instead, laws addressing various
problems (or perhaps a better way of putting it would be seeking various types
of votes) are lumped together and all presented as a pass-or-defeat decision
for the president. In this manner a legislator can vote for "money for the
troops act" or "food for starving orphans act" while actually ensuring that a
dozen of the local businesses that support him gain unfair competitive
advantage and that the local union will be motivated to get out the vote the
next election.

Laws are what get votes. This is their only acceptance criteria. The last
thing in the world that's ever going to happen is to get a legislator to give
up total control over the complexity and nuances of the schlock they create.

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zeruch
Could we? Sure. But the thin end of the wedge -which is to have it presented
in a way that lets legislators think they get an advantage out of it- has yet
to be played correctly...mostly because the obvious threats to their
established patterns is far more clear.

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jlarocco
What problem is this supposed to fix?

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thinkcomp
Open-source or not, I think the answer is yes. I've been working on PlainSite
along these lines.

<http://www.plainsite.org>

<http://www.change.org> is a great site that's had some real successes, albeit
outside of the political arena.

<http://www.govtrack.us> is also quite comprehensive.

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joshuaheard
Isn't our representative democracy already open source?

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iamdave
By name only.

