On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 1:16 AM, Liam <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm off-topic, so apologies, but... > Yes, this is off-topic. I'd hope the list won't mind if I make a very brief answer here, and then if necessary Liam and I can continue the conversation off-list. If anyone else wants to join in, please contact me directly and I'll arrange something. > Jim, you can't crowd-source policy-making. Policy should be made by > experts, those who've studied an issue at depth and tried to > understand the impact of possible approaches to it. The value of a > republic, electing elites to govern, is that it avoids the dangers of > simple-majority rule (see referendum mania in California). > "Coalitions" of modestly- or ill-informed members of the public is not > the answer, in fact it may make things worse (see Republican primaries > now underway). > Liam, I'm not imagining any fundamental change in the constitutional structure of the United States. I live in California and am well aware of the problems with the referendum system here. The U.S. Constitution has a system of checks and balances that I believe are capable of producing an effective democracy. But one of the most important checks is that provided by "We The People" to hold elected representatives accountable. About 90% of the U.S. thinks than Congress is dysfunctional. Yet the people have become almost completely powerless now to affect congress or policy, because policy is determined by lobbyists. Indeed, most legislation is not written by the elected members of congress, or even by congressional staff. Instead, lobbyists write the legislation. And lobbyists are funded by powerful special interests whose only incentives are to advance their special interests. You said that "you can't crowd-source policy-making." I agree if by "policy-making" you referring to the specific act of writing legislation. But if you expand your definitions a little, it should be obvious that policy is already being influenced by crowd sourcing. Consider for example the recent events with Komen For The Cure. They changed their policy due to the crowd-sourced pressure of religious conservatives, and then seemingly reversed their decision due to the crowd-sourced pressure of progressives. Now, Komen is not congress, but crowd sourcing in this case was so effective that it demonstrates the possibility for crowd sourced pressure on congress. I highly recommend Clay Shirky's book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations". I think it sheds a great deal of light on what can be done with social media. -Jim -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en
