Does Even Amazing Partisan Tech Deserve Applause? 209
theodp writes "The press has been filled with wide-eyed articles about how Obama's tech team pulled out the stops in their race against the Republicans. But as exciting as some of the new techniques dreamed up may be, Tom Steinberg points out it's important to reflect on the difference between choosing to use tech skills to win a particular fight, versus trying to improve the workings of the democratic system, or helping people to self-organize and take some control of their own lives. 'I am still filled with an excitement about the prospects for non-partisan technologies that I can't muster for even the coolest uses of randomized control trial-driven political messaging,' writes Steinberg. 'The reason why all comes down to the fact that major partisan digital campaigns change the world, but they don't do it in the way that services like eBay, TripAdvisor and Match.com do. What all these sites have in common – helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people that is not directly opposed by a counter-shift.'"
What Amazing Techniques? (Score:4)
I'm confused - What "exciting new techniques" did the candidates came up with? Using Twitter? Writing a blog? Campaigns and PACs soliciting donations or informing people of important dates through text messages, phone calls, emails or applications on phones?
Wow - What an age we live in...if you ignore that the underpinnings of these technologies have been around for years if not decades.
All they did was leverage what was there to spam everyone and rake in money for advertisements, travel, staff expenses and otherwise. The tools may be relatively new, but the "technique" is a century old.
Re:What Amazing Techniques? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm confused - What "exciting new techniques" did the candidates came up with?
Massive data analysis and machine learning (I pressume some form of data clustering/unsupervised learning system) combined with the use of behavioral scientists. It's never been done before in this manner AAAAAND in this context. If that doesn't qualify as exciting new techniques, then ${DEITY:-FSM} help you.
I know that in slashdot trying to sound l33t hax0r is the avant garde thing to do, but c'mon.
In other news, hybrid and electric cars are not exciting new technologies because the gear was known to the Greeks around the 3rd century BC, and the wheel was invented around 5,000 BC.
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In short, they used data mining to tailor messages to the specific recipients. For example, if you're a thirty five year old white woman who attends church (but only a few times a year) then it might be that even though you're nominally pro choice that's not an effective campaign strategy with you. Instead, appeals to a sense of economic justice or fair play might work better. So what the Obama campaign in particular would do is call and talk to you about tax policy and not mention abortion at all, knowing
Re: What Amazing Techniques? (Score:2)
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Tell me, is any of this campaign software Free/Open Source?, available to the public, for p
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Regardless of how "new" or "advanced" the tech was, what each candidate did was a good example of how they lead and how they manage people. If you can't manage your campaign effectively then how can you be trusted with the country? The successes or failures of either side exposed elements of their management style and core philosophies in ways that some sales pitch never can.
The tech of the campaigns are a reflection of what they really believe and how they put that into action. It is deeds as opposed to wh
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Metamarketing is the new form of marketing (Score:2)
Hyping marketing campaigns (of which political campaigns are a subset) has become more and more common. It's like the actual product doesn't matter anymore.
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It's like the actual product doesn't matter anymore.
Our city council had a very bitter election this year, but I could determine nothing about the candidates' positions from their campaign literature. But then I noticed the flyers from the public employee unions were only attacking one of them, so I voted for her. So we cannot judge candidates by what they say, but we can judge them by their enemies.
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So you blindly voted for whatever crook was opposed by the people who actually work in your local government. You've proved Republicans don't need their disintegrating party: you only care about what you imagine are liberals.
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Well, he can be as excited as he wants.... (Score:2)
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You really think the campaign didn't involve money??
It's all about money.
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It's all about money
The GOP and super-pacs spent about 3x as much per vote as the democrats. I am sure the analysis of how the money was spent would be fascinating. I would love to know why the GOP effort was so inefficient. My guess is that there is a crisis of leadership. After-all Reince Priebus is still the RNC chairman, and he clearly had no idea what was about to happen before the election.
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If you were to hand craft a candidate that would be impotent in arguing against Obama, you couldn't do much better than Romney.
That was the problem.
The GOP has more then just one problem (Score:2)
That was the problem.
The GOP has far more then one problem. They should have cleaned up this election, but even back in the primaries it was evident that there were serious problems: only Huntsman and Romney stood a chance of winning. How did the GOP get itself into a situation where all the candidates traded popularity with electability?
And then the GOP lost all of those senate races that it should have won. Was that Rom
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By the time they had the primary in my state, the guy I wanted to vote for had already moved to an different party.
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It's a crisis of governance. Republicans are committed to terrible ideas about how to govern the country. The ideas that they executed for years with trifecta control of the US government, and perpetuated in years after by minority interference with goverment action to reform what they installed.
I hope that Priebus and the Republican Party stays committed to them. They belong on the dustheap of history, along with so much American greatness they destroyed.
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My goodness you must have drunk all the koolaid.
Obama is continuing at least half the stuff Bush was doing. Hell he liked attacking countries in the middle east so much he added another one. Sure, he doesn't do torture, but you can't torture someone you blew up with a drone. Oh and ain't it neat that the banks, and hell even the insurance companies seem to get the treatment they want no matter who's in power.
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But all of the sites he mentioned are not in the business to "help" anyone.
They're all in it to make money.
The problem is not so much that they are in it to make money(indeed, it is rather convenient if somebody can do well by doing good, since they might actually continue to do so). The problem is that, particularly in Ebay's case, 'doing well' and 'doing good' are somewhat divergent objectives and the former has been steadily gaining ground on the latter for years now.
Tom Steinberg's sites *do* help people (Score:3)
So for example:
Technology is non partisan (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a matter of who manages to leverage it to their advantage that makes a difference. At one point, the GOP and Karl Rove were ahead of the Democrats at using databases and software to rally support and gerrymander voting districts. But it appears that they have run out of steam.
One wonders why the Republicans haven't been the ones pushing publicly funded broadband. They are missing quite a bit of their base out in the trailer parks.
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Republicans oppose publicly funded broadband because Republicans are funded by a few very rich people whose corporations would lose some of their monopoly money to the public competition.
Capitalists will sell the rope used to hang them.
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But the very rich (fiscal conservatives) are too small a minority to be politically viable. That's why they have to make a deal with the devil, so to speak, and form a coalition with social conservatives. So its in their interest to throw them a few crumbs and wire broadband out to where the white trash lives.
The very rich have a truly astonishing amount of money and power; they can buy a lot of support with that. The more conservative parts of the very rich use the rest of the republicans as their cats-paws, though the alliance with the social conservatives has been fraying rather since the start of the financial crisis. This discord is harming the party, though the full effects haven't been felt yet due to the nature of district boundaries. (Compare the compositions of the House and the Senate, where the latte
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One wonders why the Republicans haven't been the ones pushing publicly funded broadband. They are missing quite a bit of their base out in the trailer parks.
There's the obvious disconnect between alleged cause and alleged effort. Why should publicly funded broadband be politically useful to the Republicans, even if it did help people who were more Republican than Democrat (which I might add is a dubious proposition on its own)? Why should someone who is bitterly complaining about taxes and such, be happy because someone throws them modestly cheaper broadband as a sop?
Instead this sounds like more of the idiocy from people who can't be bothered to understand
Re:Technology is non partisan (Score:4, Interesting)
At one point, the GOP and Karl Rove were ahead of the Democrats at using databases and software to rally support and gerrymander voting districts. But it appears that they have run out of steam.
You do realize that the Republican majority in the House is due to gerrymandering? The machine still did them some good. It shouldn't be a surprise that Pennsylvania is one of the worst offenders WRT this, after all that's the same state where a new voter ID law was enacted which the republican majority leader famously described with the words "[enact a law that] will allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done!"
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You're wrong, just like a Republican bigot. Poor Black people tend to live in cities; trailer parks have more poor White people. In 2012, in reality (not in the Republican fantasy bubble), Democrats had only a two point advantage among Whites [people-press.org] making 17 points (ie. R:58% / D:41%).
It's thinking like yours that doomed Republicans to win a landslide only in your imaginations.
What a way to frame the argument (Score:2)
The last sentence (Score:2)
Of course it is (Score:2)
Anything that moves the tech forward is worthwhile.
NASA developed a lot of tech specifically to get us to the moon, and along the way everyone else (who isn't going to the moon) gets to benefit from the advances. [discovery.com]
This is like that. The goal was to get Obama elected. But the breakthroughs are something that everyone else can benefit from now that they're here.
Well... (Score:2)
Speaking of which, XKCD pointed out a while back that no white candidate who's been mentioned on twitter has ever gone on to win a presidential election. Something to think about...
Match.com isn't really a positive use of tech (Score:2)
Match requires both you and the person you contact to be paying members to be able to read and send email. Yes, you cannot even read email unless you are a payi
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Funny)
That's not entirely fair: there's also the religious conservatives who believe that the government should run your private life!
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But are there any religious libertarians who believe that the government should outsource the running of your private life to churches?
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I think that was the plan behind Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism". Cut the social safety net, allowing non-profit religious organizations to take up the burden of care, but remove restrictions that prevent those organizations from proselytizing and imposing religious restrictions upon the recipients of their aid.
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Optimal decision making about everyone's life is not graded on the content of the decision as much as on its acceptance by everyone. That's why democracy is the best system yet tried: it depends on the consent of the governed.
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it depends on the INFORMED consent of the governed
Unfortunately, the current process is all about NOT informing you. It appears to, but for the important stuff, both sides have agreed that there is no need ti inform anybody else.
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, one party rule works great EVERYWHERE it's tried. The Soviets thought they were righteously correct too.
The Democrats in 2008 scared the hell out of me. They were spouting things like "we will rule for a generation". They scared everyone else too, when you look at what happened in 2010.
And as for libertarians, they happen to be the only poeple to have enough principle to be pissed about Bush's torture AND Obama's drone executions.
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And as for libertarians, they happen to be the only poeple to have enough principle to be pissed about Bush's torture AND Obama's drone executions.
Yet, all the stupid Libertarians go apeshit about Obamacare, which was designed to cut back the 45,000 deaths annually due to lack of health insurance.
Sorry, but 45,000 American lives saved > Pakistani drone executions.
We liberals consider the drones to be the least important thing ever, because we worry about the 45,000 American lives due to lack of health in
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But its here to help people.
But if you really take the time to criticize it, its pointed out that its really an old republican plan from the 1990s.(which it is).
If your not going to vote third party stay home.(Rocky Anderson, Jill Stien, ftw).
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We already give away emergency care.
It's the non-emergency care that you don't get for free. Neither should you expect it. The idea that we need to shred the Constituion in order to manage costs is just assinine. The latter is by no stretch of the imagination more important than the former.
It's all a false dichotomy. Something like Obamacare doesn't need to be placed above the law. You can just implement it in a legal manner and tolerate the "scofflaws".
People understandably have a problem with ignoring rul
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Obamacare, which was designed to cut back the 45,000 deaths annually due to lack of health insurance.
If all government programs did what they were designed to do, the world would be a perfect place.
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Obamacare has already insured many more people [google.com], as it was designed to do.
Now show me where Obamacare has not done what it was designed to do. Or just stop posting purely ideological made-up propaganda.
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Your search results are interesting. So there will be more insured, but it is looking like there won't be enough doctors to treat them.
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and for literally destroying private practice medicine
"Literally destroying private practice medicine"? Wow, I didn't know we even had enough drones to kill every single private medical practitioner in the US and destroy their offices.
But let's ignore the "literally", as literally nobody uses it correctly any more. :-)
It's been a couple of years since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, but I went to my doctors' [sic - husband does internal medicine, wife is an endocrinologist, which is a bit of a jackpot for a type 1 diabetic...] off
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More and more doctors are having to sell their practice and become hospital (or management company) employees to stay afloat because of the changes this has brought about. We've dumped vast sums of money down the rathole of EMR without getting benefits anywhere close to what we should get in return for so large an investment.
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As a libertarian, and someone who can do something called math, and who understands at a moderate level this thing called economics, I can assure you that libertarians are in the right for having issues with obamacare. Answer this honestly, how is it going to improve health care? Making insurance mandatory, according to basics of economics means you've increased demand for insurance, and by making it required by law, created a very, very inelastic supply curve. According to economics 101, the only thing
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Obamacare does a lot more than just insure more people. Though for those newly insured, it has improved their healthcare by funding what couldn't be bought before, already proving you wrong.
Obamacare also requires insurers provide contraception for the price of insurance premiums, which is preventive medicine that reduces costs due to unexpected pregnancies and STDs.
You're pretty sure that health insurance is meant to cover only catastrophes, but it's not. It's to cover spikes in health care costs that come from occasional expensive events. It's just like car collision insurance: it's a financing strategy that allows people to keep moving through life in a way they can afford, based on statistics. In fact car insurance should pay for routine maintenance that prevents catastrophic costs like engines seizing or bald tires skidding into something.
The financing costs money to operate, plus salaries and profits to motivate people to dedicate the time it requires to do it properly. Though not as much as the insurers charge (up to 20% of premiums, even under Obamacare). What every one of our foreign competitors has chosen over the past several generations is a public health insurance system like unemployment insurance, which we already have for a lot of Americans in either Medicare, Medicaid, VA insurance and some others.
In fact you have called for public health insurance in what you have detailed. Except for some reason you want an "employer offered health account". Why should the employer have anything whatsoever to do with health? Why should an employer even know when you have drawn on payments for medicine? Why should you have to move it when you change employers? Why should employers spend one minute administering health financing when their business is totally unrelated? Obviously that "account" should be Medicare/Medicaid/VA insurance, paid by taxes, administered without profit by the government that already does so very well for many millions of Americans.
What's wrong with you libertarians is that you cannot accept that government is the people joined together to protect ourselves, at a great scale economy. You're obsessed with authoritarian private corporations that demonstrate daily the vast waste they layer atop most widespread services, especially those that are equally available to all. You reduce actual life experiences demonstrated everywhere to inane sloganeering like "heading down the path of communism, and history has already told us how well that works". No, you have merely cherrypicked history and called things names without regard to their meaning.
There's more to economics than economics 101. There's more to reality than the libertarian mayor of Sim City bothers to carp about.
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What every one of our foreign competitors has chosen over the past several generations is a public health insurance system like unemployment insurance, which we already have for a lot of Americans in either Medicare, Medicaid, VA insurance and some others.
I would count Germany, for example, as a competitor, but they don't have a fully-public health insurance system [nytimes.com]. However, it has a lot more "gummint interference" than I suspect would be acceptable to fans of the free market.
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Insightful)
You're pretty sure that health insurance is meant to cover only catastrophes, but it's not. It's to cover spikes in health care costs that come from occasional expensive events. It's just like car collision insurance: it's a financing strategy that allows people to keep moving through life in a way they can afford, based on statistics. In fact car insurance should pay for routine maintenance that prevents catastrophic costs like engines seizing or bald tires skidding into something.
Sorry, but no. Insurance, by definition, is there to cover events that are too expensive to be able to afford the immediate expense, and unlikely enough that you don't actually expect to need it very often.
Routine maintenance is by definition routine, and therefore shouldn't be covered by insurance. If you start using insurance for routine events, then the overall cost goes up because the insurance company will want to take a share of the profits.
Re:Got news for you (Score:4, Interesting)
That's only true when you presume that there is a for-profit insurance company involved in the process. My (largish) employer is self insured (with a big company paid a fixed cost to administer the plan), so our VP of HR cuts a check every week to pay to sum total of all employees' health care costs for that week.
Thus, the company is actively trying to encourage and incentivize us to better take care of routine maintenance. Engineers tend to ignore health issues, so the company put a full-time clinic on-site and encourage us to visit if we sneeze once. They want us to not get avoidable diseases so they ban smoking on their property and create lots of free physical activity programs where we can get exercise.
My insurance company, also known as my employer, wants my routine maintenance covered because it saves them money, pushing the overall costs down (not up).
While it's not the case in the U.S. right now, were you to replace "my employer" with "my government", the same arguments could apply.
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were you to replace "my employer" with "my government", the same arguments could apply.
I disagree. There is an existing relationship between you and your employer which may serve to restrain you and your coworkers from going too far in the opposite direction of over-using the health care services paid for by your employer (actually paid for by you because your wages are lower than they otherwise would've been, but that's another conversation). If one employee was overusing the health care system or abusing privileges, it would be a simple matter to identify that employee and have a talk with
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You actually sounded very lucid and correct until that last paragraph where you displayed your staggering ignorance about universal healthcare. Obamacare just furthers the agenda of crony capitalism (which is the only type of capitalism that ever has or ever CAN arise). A true UHC would put all aspects of healthcare back in the hands of the people who are getting that care, as evidenced by every civilized nation in the world with UHC that is vastly popular with said nation's citizenry.
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crony capitalism (which is the only type of capitalism that ever has or ever CAN arise)
Powerful people have been abusing their powers to help their friends or dispense favors with expectation of repayment since the dawn of recorded history. This is nothing that's either unique to capitalism or new. Were some more equal than others in Mao's China or the Soviet Union or in Cuba? You'd better believe it. Did Louis XIV of France play favorites among his nobles? Absolutely. So, this cannot be a valid critique of capitalism because it's no less prevalent, and may even be more prevalent, in any of t
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The Democrats in 2008 scared the hell out of me. They were spouting things like "we will rule for a generation". They scared everyone else too, when you look at what happened in 2010.
Where they actually that different from the "permanent Republican majority" fantasists who they swept out of office in 2008? Hubristic interpretation of immediate political gains as portents of inevitable future victory is foolish; but seems extremely common.
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I completely agree, the pendulum swings both ways.
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I think most people with a brain would agree, complete rule by any single party is asking for disaster.
Oh, I'm no friend of one-party rule; but my impression has been that the contemporary crowing from both democratic and republican sides on the subject has been shallow, vapid, and largely meaningless in relation to any serious risk of 'one party rule' in the sense practiced in places named "The people's democratic republic of somethingorother"... The republicans had Rove's oleaginous dreams of a 'permanent majority', which dissolved in the cruel face of reality about as fast as PNAC's theories of a Pax Amer
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Sure, but that sets up a false dichotomy where we only have the choice between the mostly sane party and the primary batshit-crazy opposition. In reality, a period of "one party rule" while a new opposition party forms that is not batshit crazy would not be that awful, especially given that our primary system allows us to hold elections within that party.
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Not really. There are many libertarians that have said views, but I'd not say that the Libertarian party embraces them. If anything, the problem the libertarians have is that they aren't in any way unified. There's a variety of people that vote libertarian: There's the freedom worshippers, that wouldn't even allow the state to set immigration laws. But in front of them are nativists, that hate immigrants. Some would leave a minimal army, and dismantle the rest of the state. Others would allow the state to d
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That's because Libertarians are about personal choice and freedom and everybody has different personal levels of importance... Not just what their leaders tell them to care about.
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And as for libertarians, they happen to be the only poeple to have enough principle to be pissed about Bush's torture AND Obama's drone executions.
Not too fond of Bush or Obama on civil liberties [guardian.co.uk], and concerned that Social Security, Medicare, etc. will get cut [guardian.co.uk]. Unless you have a very unusual definition of "libertarian", or by "the only people" you don't literally mean "the only people", your claim appears to be untrue. Even if you argue that by "the only people" you meant "the only political party", there's another party [gp.org] that's opposed to torture [gp.org], has at least some members opposed to drone attacks [gp.org], and not exactly fans of free-market solutions for [gp.org]
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The democratic party is just as corporate sponsored as the republican party, if only exceptions being to make government a private non-corporate entity that responds of a few with connections instead of money.
Where were they on SOPA and PIPA?
What about with monsanto's little debacle?
I am sure its "public intrest" where they completely ignored there cam
PLEASE MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a big fan of downmoderation, but the parent is a blatant (and successful) troll. It should not be modded +5 Insightful.
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. See how places like Venezuela or Cuba or China or Libya serve their citizens under that kind of democracy that you advocate.
LOL you've never actually talked with anyone from any of those countries, have you?
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But I know East Germany was a hell hole and people were literally dying trying to get out.
Did you know the west germans, english, and french governments all begged the east german government not to let the wall fall due to economic fears about a flood of immigrants into the west? Did you know that after the wall fell and their fears proved to be unfounded, those same democratic leaders did a 180 turn and declared that western democracy had brought down the wall in spite of those evil commies? Sure the west used to make instant heros out of the handfull of people who sucessfully climbed the wall
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No, because you made it up.
Just because the thing stopping them getting out was broken doesn't mean they had to let them in.
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No, they said nothing about everyone who disagrees with their politics. Nor did they say that single-party rule is best. Yours is the savory troll food known as a strawman argument.
What they said was that of the two parties we actually have, the Democratic Party does things to improve democracy. The Republican Party is blatantly anti-democratic, whether in funding by (and for) a few of the richest people, or in stopping people from voting if they're probably not voting Republican.
In reality, what they said
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So everyone who disagrees with your politics is dumb and the best way to support democracy is to have everyone fall in line and vote for the same party. That is some hot savoury troll food you are serving up there.
Maybe you should talk to some people fortunate enough to have been able to leave homelands that prescribe to such philosophies. See how places like Venezuela or Cuba or China or Libya serve their citizens under that kind of democracy that you advocate.
How the hell did you come up with that idea? How does the parent advocate Cuba, China or Lybia "kind of democracy." He said "governments that represent the public interest should rule the world." Sounds a bit pompous, yeah, but he's right. Dictatorships never represent the public interest.
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Venezuela luckily has oil wealth so it can stand up against the US better.
China, I find boring in its pursuit of economic growth over everything else, and Libya was just a boil waiting to be lanced.
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Re:WTF is this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF is this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I took it as "if they can use tech to divide us, why can't they use tech to unite us?"
Some government websites are plainly painful to try to find information on. Most early alert systems for weather, disaster and Amber alerts are second rate stuff that would have never gotten out of Zuckerberg's dorm room. Why shouldn't we expect better from our elected officials? Where is the transparency we've heard so much about?
You keep beating the drum of the one party system... I want something better. Not more of the same. Your partisan rant isn't going to change my mind on that.
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It's a horribly corporatist troll. Commercial tech is nothing but good, because it makes people's lives better "without opposition". Political tech is bad because there's opposition, or because it doesn't fix everything. What a load of CXO worshipping propaganda.
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Well, so far political tech HAS only been used in opposition...
For instance, why doesn't Congress have a giant monitor wall telling them how much money they have to spend and what each bill will cost in a simple pie chart when they make their voting decision? If they need money for something they should be able to remove money from one pie piece and see what past bills will be impacted by the new one. Every change in spending will have a clear cost and funding source link.
The whole point of computers is t
Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Steinberg is really thinking about the low-budget, non-commercial, very effective sites that his charity MySociety [wikipedia.org] has set up over the last 10 years in the UK, which aim to help non-party democracy at a grass roots level, by helping make citizens more powerful against government at all levels, by creating systems that give them more information, help them work together, and track and share the outcomes of what happens when they tangle with power.
What Steinberg is saying is that systems like that, that make the citizen more powerful, are far more impressive to him than systems which make a particular political party more effective. It's a bit surprising that so far seemingly every poster here has missed Steinberg's point.
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What Steinberg is saying is that systems like that, that make the citizen more powerful, are far more impressive to him than systems which make a particular political party more effective. It's a bit surprising that so far seemingly every poster here has missed Steinberg's point.
I understand his sympathies. I share them, too, both professionally and personally.
But just because the katana was used to express the coercive will of the shogun doesn't mean it's not an admirable piece of engineering, from which important lessons can be learned (even if it's only 'avoid being in the path of a moving blade').
Understanding how things work is the stock in trade of every self-respecting geek. Asserting one's morality as an excuse not to study demonstrably powerful and potentially useful tools
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The problem is that in trying to make his point, he's pointing at various commercial sites as "good examples," when in reality they aren't quite up to what he's talking about. I also note that there is nothing stopping him ... or any of the complainers here ... from developing and fielding such a system.
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I think you're right about the framing ("partisan" bad "commecial" good mmkayyyy). It assumes blindly that party politics are only about politicians and not about the issues the party fights for.
However I do think there is a legitimate point to be had here. Putting aside the issue of corruption for the moment, that is. We can microtarget political constituancies for the purposes of GOTV (who's enthusiastic, what buttons to push), but somehow we fail in assesing the will of the public (who thinks what, an
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So I REALLY don't get the circle jerking we've had the past couple of elections on focus groups, hell all they can do is help you target ads and a lot of the young people i know simply don't allow ads, they DVR the TV and they have adblock on the browser, so you can spend until hell freezes over they just ain't listening.
Yes, but if you worked out that a large number of young people would probably vote for you with a little encouragement, you'd then know not to bother wasting all your money on conventional advertising, but would maybe try to use "viral" marketing on facebook, hand out leaflets outside schoools, get boy bands to release songs with subliminal messages on, or whatever.
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A perfect example is my boys, 18 and 20...do EITHER of them watch TV? Nope, its all computers and social networks, neither of them watched squat.
And this story is about political groups using "computers and social networks" to reach people who can't be reached by traditional media like TV and newspapers.
TV tangent... (Score:2)
Neither of your boys watch TV, yet they get their news from TV comedy shows? Ignoring all of the significant issues in that state of affairs, when is it TV?
Is it only TV if I use rabbit ears?
If it is live (ie. no pvr)?
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... so you can tell them the right lies.
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I need a foreign country that is more conservative than the US to move to.
I believe Afghanistan is like that. Iran as well. East Germany was as well. Be careful what you wish for.
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You know, I understand that history can be a bit bewildering at times, but it is generally agreed upon that Communist regimes are left- rather than right-leaning. Probably not a place for a conservative of any stripe.
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Hey, don't get in the way of blink political hate...
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It's cute how you think the horde of red-staters who make up the base of the Republican party are all about laissez-faire, as if that is also the defining characteristic of "conservatism".
Re:Still can't believe Obama won (Score:5, Interesting)
Communist regimes are left- rather than right-leaning.
Communism demonstrated itself to be highly authoritarian ironically under the ostensible goal of anarchy. In the western world, however, authoritarian personalities are almost universally associated with reactionary conservative politices.
Liberalism is starkly different to communism in that liberalism is strongly against government enterprise (which is different to public services), and authoritarianism. Two core beliefs of liberalisms -- going back to the 19thC, is to champion the rights of the individual (against the tyranny of the masses), and also advocated for lassiez-faire economic reforms.
Back then, Liberals advocated for universal health-care, a social safety net, and public education for all. None of these things are inconsistent with each other. Spending money on schools/emergency-services/heath-care/social-security is just a matter of priorities -- not a "statist" stance as the false narrative in the tea party goes.
This just demonstrates the inadequacies of left/right term.
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Communism demonstrated itself to be highly authoritarian ironically under the ostensible goal of anarchy.
The problem with Communism is that it was most enthusiastically taken up in countries with authoritarian political backgrounds such as Russia and China, or in places with inadequate social/political systems generally, such as in newly independent African countries.
However, there was never any ostensible goal of anarchy: the ostensible goal was liberty, equality, and fraternity.
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How about saudi arabia?
don't let the door hit you on the way out.
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I need a foreign country that is more conservative than the US to move to.
Somalia? Saudi Arabia? Send us a postcard and tell us how you like your new digs.
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What is the difference [between advertising and propaganda]?
One is up front about trying to sell you something.
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The real story is that the Romney team didn't have the tiniest shred of competence. They proved themselves overly secretive (bordering on paranoid) and so arrogant that they didn't think standard practices in software development and delivery applied to their "special" campaign.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/romneys-fail-whale-orca-the-votetracker-149098.html [politico.com]
America really dodged a bullet not getting stuck with this kind of leadership.
Frankly, any allegedly 'small government republicans' also dodged a bullet: Not only was ORCA a total clusterfuck from an IT nerd perspective, its premise fundamentally involved replacing the traditional, decentralized, somewhat-ideosyncratic-but-built-on-local-institutions-and-people-and-pretty-resilient, get out the vote mechanism with a shiny, centralized, technocratic "Solution" run from Romney HQ. As it turned out, the system didn't even work correctly; but (even if it had) it was basically founded on
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3 seconds of googling confirmed that turnout in St. Lucie county was about 70%. Did you fact check this before you posted it?