Lets face the situation clearly. The honeymoon period barring mishaps is about 100 days for the newly elected president and then the same old tired crap comes forth until everyone is as pissed off as they are with that clown Bush. To get elected they say whatever it takes trying not to remember they will have to repay the various lobbies like the Jewish lobby. Its a sad fact that Joe Kennedy got his mafia contacts to get Jack elected and that is what got him murdered when he didn't pay off !! Time for a new world order via the internet imho. The UN is not much more than a joke. The US Presidency is too much power in the hands of a single person and Congress is too feeble and "bought" to say so.
It wouldn't be very difficult to have a cyberspace Parliament where anyone who is interested gets 1 vote. The rules would be flexible so that a 2/3 rds majority makes the rule and it takes a 2/3 rd majority to break it. Perhaps a 1% quorum to propose a motion and anyone registered can vote. Speakers in the debate elected by a vote ? Should be interesting where it gets to ??????????
Some countries already have this. Within a current democracy, you can have an emerging e-democracy by transitioning with representative direct democracy, where the party representatives get elected and then carry out the voting of the voting electorate on each issue. When it comes to "secret/sensitive issues", it can be solved by electing representatives to committees for a certain term. This is also how crisis counsels can be constructed, so that in the case of technological failures - there is some backup. In USA, the two dominate parties have managed to polarize all of society, and been given the opportunity to shape politics into a battle among only the two main parties. They have concentrated all power between them, and with the commercial backing/funding necessary today to make it through the election process, they have stopped any change emerging, or anyone outside of the two main parties to have any say at all. It is really not the way to do things in a democracy. With a direct democracy you need better informed participants and education becomes an important issue. However, within an e-democracy, you can delegate voting on issues using flexible trust-models where individual topics/sectors/issues can be distributed to those you trust keep your interest and vote - when you are not ready/able to cast your vote. That also prevents deadlocking voting processes. The flexibility inherent into a e-democracy, also make it easy to adapt quickly and react to changing conditions or emerging new knowledge/information. That means that you can go back and change your support on issues, while structural rules of voting would prevent sabotage or wasting resources, by having some level of commitment, assessment and pre-planning to costly projects/decisions. Imagine a future without the top heavy bureaucracy and corrupt politicians - or media, news organisations for that matter. It is possible. It is also definitely possible to reform US politics starting already today, with the support of technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_direct_democracy
Interesting article on e-democracy above. As it points out there would be major obstacles e.g. politicians, lobbyists etc. to having a cyberspace forum with any power. We will have to opt for a public debating forum, anyway initially. Looks like we are stuck with the usual lot for the foreseeable future YYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSSSS
Consider the historical facts. Rulers, aristocracy, officials, politicians ... They were all privileged by virtue of education, information and office/powers. Now we have the technology and potential in education to make anyone an equal participant and interact in society, debate and vote. This evolution transcends democracy or any other forms of governing. It is human society and civilization that is changing - evolving. We become more complex up to a point where some relieving change is made, until the next build-up of complexity ushers in a new change - all in waves or cycles, if you will. There are several models/systems to understand evolution. Systems theory is the level above - understanding how we model and understand phenomenons relating and the universe itself. Sometimes, thinking outside of the box becomes ridiculous - like in the US where "The Church of Freethinkers" was formed. Now, there is an oxymoron if there ever was one! There are several ways to ensure balanced, fair debating using new trust-models and merit-based systems. However, one needs to always remember that this includes having every opinion available, and not excluding anything. Using technology to help us avoid sabotage, distractions or otherwise disruptive attacks on an information system is just contributing to it's structural integrity and healthy evolution. It is not in the interest of any such system to discriminate or suppress anyone, but rather gain the trust of everyone and be able to handle anything. Thus it becomes something truly useful, and improving human communication - as well as securing a more advanced and improved society - without forcing conformity, but rather helping everyone be empowered to participate and interact. The greatest reward is avoiding a lot of the current flaws of the trust-models in place today within democratic institutions which lend themselves easily to corruption and bad intentions. Current "democratic models" take away the sense of an individual having any impact or matter on issues - by detaching individuals from the decision process, overcomplicating an individual's role and making an individual feel insignificant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Also, if you look at humankind and human evolution into civilization at a large scale, then the transition from a feudal system with it's aristocracy and nepotism rule into democracy has spawned a more dominant method to gain an edge for successful survival. We now have deceit and especially corruption as the main parasitic form for catering to special interests and egocentric living. Energy companies have for decades used corruption as an easy broker into huge profits, but this also creates tension and opposition from the populations over time, because of the obvious imbalances it brings with it. We see consequences of the rampant corruption in society by increasingly complicated and encompassing legislation, regulations to stem loopholes. Then we see increased resource spending on judicial processes with lawyers battling out the ever dynamic laws, and special interests investing into circumventing judicial systems, laws etc. It all amounts to a huge parasitic part of society, sapping resources and increasing burdens on it's components - not adding to productivity in any sense. The whole approach is flawed, since punitive measures do not hinder risk-takers or outweigh the benefits to the risk of easy profits. We all see the results of deceit in democracy, like corruption - and "we sense" there is something behind decisions, favours and other imbalances that are created. This again spurs a flurry of conspiracy theories, some valid while others ineptly inaccurate fantasies. The whole society becomes paranoid, with facets fighting each other for gain of power, influence and the corruption revenues. In earlier times, the power was structured like in feudal hierarchies, and rule was forced upon everyone. What technology today offers civilization is to remove the trust-models "from the trust of humans", and onto reliable platforms which are not open to deceit or corruption, as long as the model itself is open and trusted. This also makes the models much more flexible and efficient, as well as making society as a whole more geared towards production and improvement - resulting in more riches, potential and value for everyone. This also removes more of the risk for most catastrophic conflicts, since regression to too much of a lower level is prohibitively costly and not in anyone's interests. This makes technology the solution, and shows some of the flaws of the "democratic peace theory" which is centre-piece for the neo-conservatives. Their flaw is that, as I've pointed out, current democracy is structurally open to corruption/deceit - and factually is ridden with this flaw today. The way to evolve for the future is through levering technology and securing the structural integrity of our models for society, by moving the trust-models from the grasps of those who are prone to corruption and onto a trustworthy platform. This does increase efficiency and prosper for all of society - and the world - as well as empowers the individuals in a way which avoids much of the conflict and tension we see today as well as reduces the unnecessary costs attributable to these imbalances on civilization. It also simplifies life by instead of enlarging legislation, it nullifies attempts of corruption by removing the possibility of the deceit and parasitic behaviour; ultimately decreasing the need for exaggerated punitive reaction and costs.
Just wanted to link in a continuation of these ideas from another thread, without replicating it. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2048542#post2048493 Arrow's impossibility theorem is certainly interesting, but also reflects the realities and limitations of the time it was conceived - in 1951. Hehe, "No elected official in the United States is known to endorse range voting." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting
Anyone with knowledge of CRM, ticketing/support systems, ERP, data-mining, logistics, financial trading, archiving, accounting, risk-assessment and many other fields - knows that a technological platform greatly improves efficiency, reliability and trust of the respective processes. Well, this is also the case of bureaucracy, political election and political processes - these can all be greatly improved by moving them over to technological platforms. As a consequence, production can be increased - and society becomes more efficient. Many current laws and regulations that govern the manual operations performed today, can be translated into rules operating on the technological platforms - and as a result are much more dynamic, cheaper to adapt as well as being more efficient and easier to monitor. There will also be a lot less infractions, and consequently less punitive reaction - since there are less human operations. There is room for a lot more metrics to monitor performance and further perfect the models and systems that are being transferred to this new platform as well. It is however important that people start to understand the benefits of these changes, and are not clouded by those interested in resisting these changes. Ultimately, some will need to find other functions to fulfil when there are no more politicians, and less bureaucrats... and not everyone will welcome that change. Using representative direct democracy, there is no stopping this change for a more secure, fair and balanced democratic future - since this already fits into any open democracy. It's just starting it and getting people informed about the realities, possibilities and advantages. The nice thing is also that there is no special interest advantage to such a system - no room for deceit or corruption, but plenty of room for effective audit and monitoring of such open systems.
Oh, not to forget... there are also great business opportunities to the transition into such a e-democracy using the transition by a representative direct democracy as long as the political system is still the same. If a balanced non-malicious financing using advertisement or other similarly tolerated income generation is employed, then there is surely a great deal of money possible to be made before the system would be fully effective and dominant. Any misuse would probably result in delays, setbacks and competing systems taking over. Ultimately it would converge and financing would not longer be an issue, but be a social expense to support the direct democracy system. Another possibility is to use an open identification standard as well as an open auditing/verification model, whereby several operators of such a voting and debating system could be existing and competing - financed by advertising, metrics etc. It really depends on how forgiving and accepting the population is to such free-market ideas - and still being able to trust the systems. It is possible to design, and as I have pointed out - there are several business models, both involved in development and operations. Internet business modelling and analysis can still be both fun and useful...
Thanks for your reply Gringinho - interesting. I rather favour the Swiss model where citizens have the right to cast a vote on important issues in referendums. This was possible due to the small size of the population and country. With the arrival of technology it is now possible for even the largest countries and beyond.