Tag: government

  • Lawrence Lessig’s TED Talk on Reclaiming the Republic

    Lessig talks about how the people have lost control of our government to those who have money. He tells stories of politicians and everyone connected to the political and legislative process evolving their thinking to appease their financiers. Deregulation is politically counter-productive because those involved get steady cash from lobbyists to manipulate those regulations. Total reform is […]

  • Democracy 2.0 with Micro-voting

    The democratic process hasn’t changed much. The public elects a representative, representatives make decisions. The average citizen is essentially limited to three tools for affecting change. First, we elect the representatives who best convince us they’ll make the decisions we would want them make. Second, we can send correspondence to our representatives hoping to influence their decisions. Third we can hold protests and demonstrations to broadcast our opinions. But there can be a better way. Modern communication tools allow the public better access to their representatives and can revolutionize the democratic process by voting directly on the issues. Using internet, text message, and phone voting systems the public can be more involved in the decision making process. The role of the representative is reduced more to the role of an organizer than a decision maker because constituents can decide most of the issues themselves. This is democracy 2.0 not because of the invention of new tools, but because it changes the way people behave. I believe this is the direction we’re headed, but it’s not a perfect world.