The Coming Digital Presidency 464
Ranjit Mathoda writes "Marc Andreeson, the cofounder of Netscape, met Senator Barack Obama in early 2007. Mr. Andreeson recalls, "In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more." As a social organizer and a lover of new technologies, Mr. Obama could be expected to make good use of such tools in getting elected, and he has done so. What may not be as obvious is that Mr. Obama appears to have a keen interest in using such technologies in the act of governing. And whether Mr. Obama becomes president, or Mrs. Clinton or Mr. McCain do, these new tools have the potential to transform how government operates."
A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's cool, and yet not (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hillary is just plain unlilkeable, taking votes away, even Democrat votes. Most Republicans hate her (because of her husband, who IMO was a good President esp. in comparison to our present Oil Baron Traitor in Chief) and won't vote for her, and I for one don't like her because her husband gave her the job of instituting national health care like the civilized world has and she botched it.
Myself, I'll be voting either Green or Libertarian, depending on who's on the ballot in Illinois. Mine will be a protest vote against our Corporate-owned government. We, the people, have been left out of the loop for far too long.
That said, there are a lot of seventy two year olds who ARE computer literate; I've met some. I gather there are a few on slashdot with low UIDs. I don't know about McCain but judging someone's computer literacy by their age is pretty ignorant.
BTW, I turn 56 next week. [kuro5hin.org]
-mcgrew
Re:What's the REAL significance of any of this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ron Paul is a cautionary counterexample; It's all very well building up grassroots support on the Internet, but if your grassroots comprises a mishmash of troofers, stoppers, lunatics, antisemites, conspiracy theorists, naive libertarians, politically vacuous "fuck the system" types, and a spattering of basement-bound non-voting teenagers and various other subcultures and social outcasts entirely ill at ease with Middle America, then it's (as we kept trying to tell them) not going to be enough.
Moderation (Score:4, Interesting)
We live in a Republic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:2, Interesting)
It is, but all's fair in love and politics. The Left tars the Right for years for associating with its round of the religious right. So, its entirely fair for the Right to hit the Left back on its associations with racist organizations. If Republicans are the party of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as the left likes to say, then certainly, it is fair to paint Democrats as the Party of Louis Farrakhan and Reverend Wright.
Re:Making the body politic a mob. (Score:3, Interesting)
We have unfair representation when compared to prior representative-"voting citizen" ratio of our countrys past.
One way to fix that would be to have 5000 congressmen. But that would cost too much! That is, if we force them to be in House/Senate. Our technology could easily get each and every congresscritter a t-1 to their house and have net-voting. GPG is the PKI that's free to use, therefore congresscritters could post messages with GPG, and conduct publically accountable voting. Aww, no more voice votes.
Since voting could be done from any congresscritter T-1 (ip checks would not allow GPG signed messages from other IPs), it would also allow collaboration if they choose to meet.
And doing this method would eliminate a "central" point of government. I say that cause Washington DC would be easy to bomb, either by air or sea. It's pretty darn close to the shore. How would you disable a government that meets virtually across the whole USA? We in the tech community would agree that eliminating a SPOF would be a good idea.
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. Between Obama's preacher's racist remarks, and Hillary's dodging sniper fire, I think both Dem. presidential candidates have lost some of their potential undecided voters as well as some of the less liberal democratic voters. The gaffes, and bickering have really turned some people off.
I have to think too....that no matter who gets the Democratic 'nod', they will lose some Dem. voters. If Obama gets it.....women will get mad Hillary didn't get in. If Hillary gets it....I think black support will drop, especially if she gets it..and Obama still has popular vote and more normal delegates.
That being said...I think Obama would have the best chance of pulling the Dems together even with some losses mentioned above.
Either way, it might not be pretty for the Dems, but, there is a LOT of election season left, and McCain has plenty of time for his own gaffes and skeletons to come dancing about. Right now, I'm still giving McCain the edge at this point, albeit a narrow one.
Re:Making the body politic a mob. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Making the body politic a mob. (Score:3, Interesting)
That is not at question however - these technologies are a low-level protocol which will require some higher-level (as of yet undeveloped?) protocol to become meaningful and coherent.
Re:Making the body politic a mob. (Score:3, Interesting)
- After the President signs a bill, it is sent to the polls once a year to be voted on by the people. Any bill not recieving 50% of the popular vote will not become law.
- All laws expire ten years after enactment, but can be reenacted if resubmitted and voted on by Congress, signed by the President, and voted up by the people.
We have way too many laws.The idea of using Facebook, MySpace, and Digg as instruments of government is, in some ways, breathtakingly foolish
In some ways?
The anonymity of the Internet, combined with the speed of activity on the Web, seems to lead in many cases to an amplification of our baser instincts
What do you mean "our?" There always have been idiots, always will be. What about the anonymity of the ballot?
Do we want our political leaders receiving input from commercial Web sites, with no means of identifying who or what is promoting certain causes?
Do we want our political leaders receiving input from foreign and domestically owned commercial corporations, with no meaningful input from the citizenry? That's what we have now.
Debates on sites such as Daily Kos revert on a daily base to name calling, ad hominen attacks, and sheer bloody-mindedness
Sounds like Congress.
And you mention diaries [kuro5hin.org]? How about journals [slashdot.org]? Am I the guy you're warning me about?
-mcgrew
Re:Facts (Score:2, Interesting)
Spare the supposed outrage about killing innocent people when your we-hate-america preachers lack the guts and the conviction to say these are human beings. [google.com]
Re:Seriously, though... (Score:3, Interesting)
He was the first to set up a punch-card system for what was new to them: computing.
Oh yeah. They're old so they cant figure out a User Interface. meh.
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Facts (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't have either. You are not intellectually better, and you are not honest with yourself.
But par for the course to hear some kind of contrived argument that it's "divisive" for judging people like you whose unregulated guns and trucks are actually killing people every day, and even threatening our entire civilization.
Guns don't kill people. People do. And you are divisive.
And no one but the 25% who still think Bush is god believes you. Zero tolerance for you faithy, crooked Republicans.
See, now that's divisive, because, about 35% of the people still approve of Bush. So, you can't claim zero tolerance for 35% of society, and not call yourself divisive. You just divided society! And then, there are a lot of people who believe in owning firearms as a fundamental human right. There are a lot of people that drive trucks responsibly. Now, you go and divide them too. See, you just keep dividing away, ever blissfully ignorant that your own totalitarian impulses are what is really dividing the country. Me, I just want low taxes and to keep my guns and my truck, but you, you attack me. And yet, I'm divisive for not wanting to change my life for your damaged view of the world. Why, didn't you already say you were a poor, abused victim of the evil corporations? Joining you would be the same as trying to team up with a kicked dog. You need, help, my poor victimized, disenfranchised friend, not political power. Best to leave the country to us, since you can't even pay your mortgage.
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:4, Interesting)
Boy, you said it and demonstrated it. I take serious issue with your explanation of how far left and right the three candidates you discussed are. I'd bet $50 you are a conservative and/or republican, just by the fact that you labeled all three candidates as liberal to some degree.
Honestly, I think that all this talk of McCain being moderate or a democrat in republican clothing is just a thinly veiled attempt to attract conservative leaning Democrats who feel guilty about voting for a republican. I only hope that most people will see through this game. McCain is a conservative, republican, plain and simple. I was ready to vote for him over Gore in 2000 when he stood up for his principles and told the religious right to shove it. Since then, he's gone over to the dark side and has cow-toed to all sorts of religious right nut jobs. He lost my support when he gave the commencement speech at Liberty University:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/5/14/142724.shtml [newsmax.com]
Look at his positions for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain [wikipedia.org]
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, as a conservative, I can tell you that McCain is NOT. Show me a bill that has McCain's name on it that conservatives agree with. McCain/Feingold? Nope. McCain/Kennedy? Nope. McCain/Lieberman? Nope. How about McCain's views? McCain on torture? Nope. [boston.com] McCain on the border? Nope. Sorry, John McCain is not a conservative. Sure, he is a Republican and shares many views with Republicans, but for the most part, he is not a conservative.
From your own Wiki link:
McCain has also said in an interview that he would "immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases".[21]
Meeting Wright != 20 Years of Mentorship (Score:2, Interesting)
Seeing a man one or twice is not the same as having them as your spiritual mentor for 20 years. The Clinton's will almost certainly have had contact with him, as he's a bigwig in the black community (a big portion of their constituency prior to Barak), that doesn't make them privy to his racist outbursts the way someone who has known him and been mentored by him for 20+ years almost certainly is. Equating the two is as disingenuous as dismissing Wright's overt racism with a "Your not black, you wouldn't understand" in one breath, followed by an apologist "Black preachers have been saying appallingly racist things for decades, so you really can't consider it racist" (anyone beside me see the illogic of that?), as Obama's supporters have done.
As for Oprah, she chucked more than a decade of support for Hilary Clinton out the window to support a freshman senator who is on tape himself saying he wouldn't run in 2008 because he wasn't qualified for the job. Obama is nowhere near as strong on women's issues as Hilary, he's no stronger on core Democratic issues than Hilary (with the possible exception of the Iraq war, at a time when Hilary, along with the rest of us, was deceived into believing Saddam was on the brink of having nuclear weapons), and certainly as a one term senator has less of a track record on all these issues. Since gender issues can be ruled out as a reason for Oprah to dump Hilary for Barak, and core Democratic issues can be ruled out, as well as his track record versus hers, it suggests her change of heart has more to do with ethnicity than anything else...which bears a disturbing parallel to Pastor Wright's rhetoric.
I voted for Obama for senate, but I'm very disturbed at how he's run his campaign, and the willingness of the Democrats to shunt aside a woman with decades of experience and qualifications in favour of a first-term senator who speaks well but will be even more of a newbie in office than Baby Bush was.
The whole situation is ugly. We have 3 choices: a competent, experienced woman, an inexperienced man who says the right things but whose competence is open to question, and a conservative who is likely to continue many of Bush's worst policies even if his rhetoric is softer and slightly more intelligent. And all three have run campaigns that have strayed well outside of the bounds of acceptability IMHO.
That said, the one candidate who might have gotten America out of the morass is unlikely to win the nomination, which leaves us with the question: will Obama through inexperience do less or more damage than McCain's right wing politics? Throw in Obama's apparent long-term acceptance of racist rhetoric and it really makes you wonder what the country is in for under an Obama presidency. I don't know the answer, but I suspect, like others, I will be voting Green or Libertarian this next election as I find both likely winners to be more or less equally lousy. Unless by some miracle Hilary does take the nomination, and I really don't see that happening, irrespective of how desperately the country needs her quality of leadership.
All in all, it's times like these that make me damn glad I emigrated.
Re:Facts (Score:1, Interesting)
The kind of nonsense that someone who ignores that people kill people with guns (and their environment with trucks) will happily ignore in your faithy paradise. You will change your life, whether the government, the economy or nature makes you. BUt since I care about my life more than yours that you're wasting dragging the rest of us down, I'm happy to see you divided from the weapons you're fatuously insisting on playing with.
See, now you are changing the story. The fact of the matter is, you claimed that we were being divisive, and now, all of sudden, come the rationalizations for why you want to take away might rights. I have a right to keep and bear arms. I have a right to my truck. You are not taking that away. If you try, then there will be civil war. It's really that simple. You do not have a right to steal my possessions because of your pathological need to feel safe.
So while I'm happy to benefit from the catastrophe you Republicans have wrought on our country,... try and stop it
Why are all the subprime states Democratic states? Just checking....the fact of the matter is, the national economy is being dragged down by cities and states that Democrats have driven into the ground. Look at Michigan. Look at Cleveland. In fact, let's all have a look at Illinois. Democrats have looted those places for years, and now that all the businesses have left, to avoid getting further raped, you go and cry fowl. I mean, seriously. You claim to want to create jobs, and claim to value opportunity, but, at the same time, any time a corporation tries to set up shop in a Democratic state, they get taxed to the hilt, all the construction is blocked by environmental lawsuits, and then the crooks come in looking for a few favors to get the commissioner a new deck, and then, finally, when that's all done, the union marches in, demands a cut of the paycheck of every worker, and in the end, delivers nothing but a bunch of swimming pools for the heads of unions compliments of the so-called union pensions for workers.
It's a sad joke.
You know, Obama might well win the election. Your side always has been good at scaring people into believing that they are not capable of charting their own destiny, that, they need bullies and thugs like you to protect them (so that you can steal from these people you claim to protect). It's ironic, I suppose, in that, as much as you protest Republican fear mongering on the war on terror, you do it for nearly every other aspect of a person's live. You want to steal power so that you can stop guns, cars, private schools, private clubs, tvs, imports, trade, communications, radio talk shows, corporations, companies, along with every productive enterprise in the United States. We've seen the track record of your economic policies - the protectionist fear mongering that prolonged the Great Depression, the 1960s liberalism that ruined a generation, and now, in the shadow of all that wreckage, there's a handful of people getting ahead and getting out, and your answer is to destroy them too because you can't stand to see someone succeed.
So, the moral of the story is, you can talk about being patriotic and helping out america as much as you want, but, you aren't seeking to build anything. You are seeking to drag other people down so you and your buddies can cash in on the patronage jobs and make-work industries. Patriots add value to the country, and you don't.
Re:A bit presumptuous, no? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lets leave off discussing the obviously twisted use of the word "liberal" as an ad hominum slur and get to your assertion that Obama is more liberal than Clinton.
Specifically which policies are more liberal? Please feel free to define what you mean by "liberal" and use examples. If you are up for a constructive discussion, throw in the "conservative" policy alternative and describe why it is better. For the sake of the argument I'll define "liberal" as "wants more federal government involvement" and "conservative" as "wants less federal government interference".
Lets do a quick policy comparison between HRC & BHO based on those definitions:
1. Health Care - Similar plans to provide near-universal insurance coverage, but not true Socialized Medicine, ala Canada or England (consider their systems "most liberal" on health care). Major difference is that Obama's emphasizes cost cutting and allows people to not opt in if they don't need the coverage. Clinton's plan mandates everyone covered or are fined. Clinton= +1LP (Liberal Point).
2. Economy -
2a. Mortgage crisis: Clinton wants to freeze subprime lending rate increases on existing loans, have a 90 day moratorium on foreclosures, and a direct payout of bailout money to borrowers through the states. Obama wants mix of direct borrower bailouts and Mortgage Revenue Bonds to lenders for refinancing. Both want to spend $30B. Score Clinton as more liberal since her plan doesn't try to help the lenders. Clinton = +2LP, Obama = +1LP
2b. Income Taxes: Both support increased taxes on "the wealthy". Clinton wants $650M in assistance to working families for emergency energy assistance. Obama wants $500M in tax relief to working families, and immediate $75B payout to 150M qualifying citizens, similar to Bush's current payout scheme. So, Clinton= +2LP, Obama= +2LP, Bush= +1LP.
2c. Social Security: Clinton wants to add a govenment run 401k with tax incentives for contributing. Obama wants automatic workplace pension plans with 50% match on first $1k for families earning under $75k. Obama wants to eliminate taxes on social security drawing seniors making less than $50k/year. Obama wants to remove the $97k cap on social security taxes to secure fund for the future. Clinton= +1LP, Obama= +2LP
2d. Corporate Taxes: Clinton would scale back corporate subsidies by $55B and invest $50B of that in a strategic energy fund. Obama wants to lower ordinary American's taxes by $80-$85 billion by closing corporate loopholes for oil and gas companies and cracking down on international tax havens. Clinton= -1LP, Obama= -2LP (They get negative values here for REMOVING GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN BUSINESS and FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY).
2e. Trade- Both want to renegotiate pieces of NAFTA to help American manufacturing and competetiveness. Both want to increase regulation of quality of goods coming into US (no lead paint toys, etc). Clinton= +1LP, Obama= +1LP
3. Education - Both want increases in tax credits for college tuition. Both want to address problems with unfunded mandates and No Child Left Behind, both want to address teacher retention and teacher training, both want to help at the family level with pre-K and K-12 education, and so on. They both have extensive and intrusive plans. Lets give them both the same rating. Clinton= +3LP, Obama= +3LP
4. Energy & Environment - Both link their energy and environment plans together. Both want to double current basic energy research funding. Both want to promote development of "green" energy technologies and increased fuel economy. Both want to limit growth of America's "carbon footprint". Obama's plan emphasises technology development, including clean coal development. Clinton's is mixed between policy and technology development, but lacks the detail of Obama's plan. Both want to invest heavily in development of domestic "gr
Lessig on Obama; +, all politics is organizing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're wondering whether Obama's enthusiasm for the Internet and technology goes beyond "hip and in touch", you might consult Lawrence Lessig's endorsement of him [lessig.org]. And after reading Obama's tech paper, I can't say I think any other candidate's compares even in showing awareness of issues.
That said, the fact that I see the net strongly leveraged elsewhere -- including Paul's rather impressive campaign -- makes me *less* jaded about the increasing use of social networking. Nor do I think it's really surprising or affected: to some extent, all politics is (among other things) organizing. Real-world social networks were a huge part of politics before social networks came to the web, it's a completely natural fit now that's here. So to one degree or another, *everybody* is using it. I think part of the reason Paul stands out in his use is his unfortunate and somewhat unfair uphill battle in traditional media -- he really didn't have anywhere else to go.
Now, I'd agree it sometimes seems Obama is using this tool more heavily and talking more about his use of tools than anyone else in the field other than Paul. But I think to the extent that's true, it's largely because up until the last 4 years of his political career, organizing has been a big part of what he does -- his start, for goodness sake, was as a community organizer [edwoj.com]. It really does appear he has a philosophy that includes bottom-up organization as a component of well-balanced politics. And what the social networking tools do that's new to politics is increase the reach and efficiency of that kind of organizing. They only marginally bolster the traditional political networks, but they're a huge boost at the grassroots level, especially the more you know about grassroots organizing.
I also would agree that not all candidates are created equal on the tech-friendly front, however. In particular, McCain has some issues with not fighting the internet [oreillynet.com], and while Clinton might have some good progressive impulses regarding it, I don't trust her not to throw it under a bus if some other "expediency" arises.
So while I'm sometimes a bit disappointed we didn't get a race like Obama vs Paul -- one that I think would have essentially signaled a real end to business as usual and a significant shift to digital politics -- I still think Obama stands out as an evolutionary step in the right direction, if not the Paul revolution.
One other thing about a part of the premise of the post ("Hey general public, I'm Obama and unlike the other candidates, I'm hip and in-touch with the current generation! Vote for me!"). This isn't necessarily directed at the poster I'm responding to, but I'm noticing a high degree of frequency in attacks on Obama that are essentially "Sure he SEEMS great, but SEEMING isn't the same things as BEING great and we just don't know what's REALLY behind HIM!" To some extent, I don't blame people for thinking this way. We've been let down pretty severely by quite a bit of our political leadership recently. And it's hard to really know whether what you know about a candidate is image or fact.
But I also think the time for this kind of talk about Obama is past. He's been in the spotlight for a while, there's plenty of material available about him and written by him to get genuinely familiar with the substance of his history and positions. I don't have a problem with people arguing about what they don't like about Obama's stated policies, or a vote he made in the past. But at this point, anybody bringing up this kind of "we don't KNOW" or "he's all STYLE and TALK" rehtoric isn't bringing up an insightful point, they're showing their own need to do homework. Or, in some cases, acting with ulterior motives.