'Technology Will Replace the Need For Big Government' (vice.com) 247
New submitter axlash writes: There's a lot of dissatisfaction with governments today, as can be seen by the rise of left-wing parties in Europe, to the rise of non-mainstream political candidates in America. Well, here's a thought -- with all the talk of technology replacing jobs, why not have it replace governments, too? The speculates about how "in the near future, the government might dramatically shrink -- not because of demands by fiscally astute Americans, but because of radical technology." It goes on: "Even the US President could one day be replaced, which -- strangely enough -- might bring sanity to our election process." The main thrust of the article is essentially about how government jobs will be replaced with technology, although it doesn't say much about whether there'll be technology administering this technology.
Millennials don't watch enough old sci-fi (Score:4, Interesting)
... That's seriously the only reason I can think of why someone would think that putting technology into an oversight role over humanity is a good thing.
A generation raised on YouTube and Google algorithms and that doesn't seem to value freedom of expression or thought also doesn't understand why humans, process, and procedural protections are necessary. In turn, that makes things less efficient than they theoretically could be, but a technocratic Orwellian state as envisioned by dipshit solutionists will eventually come to the conclusion that life would be a lot more efficient if you just get rid of humans altogether.
I'm honestly a bit confused how people don't see this. Did they not see T2 growing up? Did they not watch any dystopian 70's sci-fi? Have they never heard of The Twilight Zone and its continual reminders about how hubris catches up with people? What is it?
Re:Millennials don't watch enough old sci-fi (Score:5, Interesting)
... That's seriously the only reason I can think of why someone would think that putting technology into an oversight role over humanity is a good thing. A technocratic Orwellian state as envisioned by dipshit solutionists will eventually come to the conclusion that life would be a lot more efficient if you just get rid of humans altogether.
Sure, unless it's one of those conscientious AIs that just straps everybody into an orgasm machine and calls it a day.
But in any event, the more likely scenario is that some small cabal of humans will take over, and simply tell all the plebians that there's a benevolent AI in charge. In reality, it'll just be the governing elite doing what governing elites always do: living it up on the backs of us chumps.
I'm honestly a bit confused how people don't see this. Did they not see T2 growing up? Did they not watch any dystopian 70's sci-fi? Have they never heard of The Twilight Zone and its continual reminders about how hubris catches up with people? What is it?
They either don't concede that putting an AI in charge is necessarily bad for humanity ("_Terminator_ is just a movie, real AI researchers know better"), or they don't concede the possibility of artificial intelligence at all ("It's impossible for a machine to possess 'true' intelligence, because the Bible/some pop philosopher told me so").
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Regardless if you think AI is possible or not, most folks should realize that intelligence is not required prerequisite for the those that are lording over your life... If you think a computer would make your life better, well, that's your choice to believe it...
I suspect that people that wish computers took over the world are probably mostly disenfranchised. When you are disenfranchised, you are easiest to convince that the grass is greener anywhere than where you are standing. These things are not rat
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Re:Millennials don't watch enough old sci-fi (Score:5, Funny)
Who gets to train the AI?
I had you at "orgasm machine", didn't I?
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Track the source (Score:2)
This concept is not from the Millennial generation you claim want's it. It's from the same source that pushes other sociological engineering projects. People, even millennial people, don't want this stuff and advocate against it to themselves. The huge push back against the College Campus SJW stuff only happened because things reached a boiling point. That rhetoric and movement started long ago by social engineering projects.
The difficulty I see at present is shutting down some of these projects so that
No need for "oversight role" (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole problem is the notion that people need an "oversight role", which in fact they do not.
What technology enables is the ability for local regions to function in a decentralized manner without need for "oversight" or "central planning".
It's not about REPLACING human oversight, but dismantling it.
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Re:Millennials don't watch enough old sci-fi (Score:4, Interesting)
There's two sides. There is the Technological Society/Theodore Kaczynski perspective which is that technology leads to larger government:
Roads require drivers licenses
Radios require spectrum licensing
Nuclear weapons are too dangerous for personal ownership
Power transmission needs oversight
Ultimately the theory here is that you either need large organizations who act and look a lot like a government or a government to maintain the infrastructure essential to a modern society.
However, I think that while that perspective is very true, it assumes technology is on a bell curve. It used to be that you could be very self sufficient. Then we became dependent on society. Technology though once it reaches an apex of The Matrix/Star Trek Replicators means that you are again fully self sufficient. Think about just a very small narrow area like computing. It used to be that a computer was very isolated and not very dependent on society. Then it got a modem and connected to the phone network--ultimately the internet and as it grew it consumed more and more power requiring a connection to the power grid.
Now with a smart phone you can do almost all of that. And theoretically with a meshed wifi network you could still connect to other people and communicate. All without government/infrastructure support.
The big things we still need government for are:
Defense, Infrastructure, Regulation, pension, law enforcement and Healthcare. If you had a replicator and Star Trek level medicine that would take care of pension and healthcare. Infrastructure will fade away with jet packs and off-the-grid electricity generation from rooftop solar. Defense will fade away when resource scarcity is dramatically reduced. All that's left is effectively a standards body and a law enforcement agency. But again... most crime is theft (resource scarcity).
So it's not about Technology being given too much power, but about Technology eventually reducing the need for oversight.
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The obvious solution going by sci-fi is to have the Jedi Council rule.
But seriously, government jobs won't be replaced because they're not jobs but positions of power. And if they were replaced, what would it matter? Whatever your reasons for disliking "big government" might be, I very much doubt they'll be helped by having it staffed with literally soulle
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Further, I think anyone who will go whole hog on that technocratic approach will deliberately forget history, Futurism-style [wikipedia.org]. Those old movies will be ignored because they are decreed to be irrelevant.
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Re:Millennials don't watch enough old sci-fi (Score:4, Funny)
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A generation raised on YouTube and Google algorithms and that doesn't seem to value freedom of expression or thought also doesn't understand why humans, process, and procedural protections are necessary.
Has anyone under 40 ever?
I know it's fun to blame young people for everything, but I can't recall a time when any young people were ever particularly wise. This is why we prefer our leaders to be older and experienced.
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The author of the article is either a young boomer or an old Gen X'er (born in '73)... .
If you can't remember the Kennedy assassination you're too young to be a Boomer.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Score:2)
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Original or remake? The difference is important (hint: the latter sucked).
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We NEED big government (Score:4, Insightful)
Big government spends so much time fighting with itself that not much gets done. A smaller more efficient government will screw the people a lot faster.
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truth!
big government exist, because big government, not to help the people or fulfill a vital role. it exists solely to keep existing and make more governemnt.
Don't Steal – The Government Hates the Compe (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you really think the Government will permit this?
No, they won't.
In the USA, the Federal Government is too big to permit any competition.
In the USA, many State Governments are too big to permit any competition.
Every thing that competes with the Government loses. Look at Microsoft's surrender to the USA Federal Government when M$ reached its zenith and became a threat to the Feds. Zap! M$ lost the battles and now pay homage to the USA Government.
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yeah, the part that got me was the assumption that these bureaucratic departments are going to let themselves shrink.
Will lead to costly project overruns (Score:2)
Sure... (Score:4, Informative)
Can I write the software? Oh you forgot about that little detail, eh? I guess you'll insist on it being open course, of course. Sure, nobody could every fool you if you could see the source code. [c2.com]
There is no way for this to be trustworthy. The system must be both comprehensible *and verifiable* by the vast majority of citizens. That means less technology. The future lies in simpler laws and rules. That's supposed to be the big draw of a minimum income - significantly reduce the complexity of government by making the rules extremely simple: everyone gets $X stipend. No welfare, old age pension, foodstamps, etc.
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Forget about the software. The backdoor will be in the hardware, which is even less comprehensible and verifiable than software is.
replacing government with technology will eventually lead to replacing the government with the owner of said technology.
Will the machine preserve records? (Score:2)
State Department claims it can't find any Pagliano email [politico.com]
Not deleting stuff would be nice.
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You don't know for a fact that he didn't send any email to her
Except I do [state.gov].
Silly rabbit - entitlements are for the unemployed (Score:2)
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If you consider sufficiently advanced technology, then the headline "Technology Will Replace the need for X" will (eventually) be true for all values of X, or at least, will not be provably untrue.
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If we get to the point where basic goods can be 3-d printed cheaply
We're unlikely to ever see a 3-D printer make a slice of toast.
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Re:Silly rabbit - entitlements are for the unemplo (Score:4, Interesting)
The author has a terminal case of Star Trekitis. He assumes since we can make a fireproof building, we don't need firefighters. We won't need police because the Internet of Things can monitor everything.
He's never met Murphy. It isn't at all clear that he even understands how to turn his TV off.
Nothing to see here, move along.
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An increasing number of jobs can be replaced by robots.
Eventually everyone is out of work.
I sometimes lurk in a forum which has degenerated into a Tea Party session where they tell each other that the best thing to do is to save taxes by getting rid of most government jobs, I saw that the current target was the Department of Education a few days back.
What comes next? Butlerian Jihad? An army is a necessity because the excluded are going to revolt at some point.
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An increasing number of jobs can be replaced by robots.
Eventually everyone is out of work.
I sometimes lurk in a forum which has degenerated into a Tea Party session where they tell each other that the best thing to do is to save taxes by getting rid of most government jobs, I saw that the current target was the Department of Education a few days back.
What comes next? Butlerian Jihad? An army is a necessity because the excluded are going to revolt at some point.
To be fair, much of the original intent of the Tea Party was a reduction in *Federal* government size... it's a process argument about where certain layers of society should be governed from. Ironically, it's the progressives that want to centralize everything, on the grounds of efficiency, standardization, and soul-crushing nationwide conformity.
Tea Partiers want(ed) to abolish the US Department of Education because nothing about "running education" is mentioned in the Constitution. That doesn't mean state
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Again, the largest percentages of Federal spending are:
25% is health care
24% is social security
So, 1/2 our annual outlay has zero to do with paying any wages.
Shurely Some Mistake? (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a lot of dissatisfaction with governments today, as can be seen by the rise of left-wing parties in Europe,
Did you mean "as can be seen by the rise of right-wing parties in Europe"? Computerization of the government was a goal in the Soviet Union at one point. SAP consultants are surely already gleaming of the though of selling national ERP systems to centrally manage whole countries at a time in really big computer systems. Really Big Systems.
It will only happen (Score:2)
Begging the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
This implies, there ever was a real need for Big Government in the first place...
There sure were problems, which the government solved, however, (quite) arguably, these solutions introduced worse problems of their own...
Libertarians continue to argue — with show of reason — that government's role ought to be confined to keeping the enemies away without and crime at bay within the borders...
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There are plenty of countries where the government provides minimal services. I'm sure they're all much nicer places to live than the US.
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Ever lived in one for yourself? Venezuela, maybe?
There's plenty of need (Score:2)
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The US up until FDR qualifies, in my not so humble opinion.
You are begging the question yourself... Are they "successful"?
For example, they can not defend themselves from Russia [quora.com] — not without NATO [theatlantic.com] (American) help...
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"The US up until FDR qualifies"
They had a depression every few decades, each one worse then the last. The only thing that broke the last one was World War II, a government economic intervention of unprecedented scale.
The Scandinavian counties top the UN Human Development Index.
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"They had a depression every few decades"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"FDR's first 8 years in office did not do anything"
Not enough. Despite being insanely wasteful, it was hugely successful at solving economic problems. Imagine what a similar effort directed to helping people instead of killing people would do.
The UN Human Development Index is a measure of success. There can be others. What would yours be?
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FDR brought government spending as a percentage of GDP from 10% to 20%. Then the war brought it to 50%. You don't get much more meddling then that.
We can be saved by a war on greenhouse gas emissions.
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empirical evidence
The US up until FDR qualifies, in my not so humble opinion.
Clearly you need to learn about the time you want to talk about. That's the problem with people who like "the good old days".... they don't seem to have a clue how truly fucked up those days were.
As for the Scandinavian countries being successful? Yeh, they are... and pretty much everyone with a brain knows it. By most any economic or quality of life measurement they're doing better than the US, and have been for some time. You're desire to look only at military strength is a pretty piss poor view of t
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Because limiting government to those things gets in the way of your memeplex power grabs, cog.
Actually the opposite (Score:4, Insightful)
It is my belief that technology improves the capability to centralize government operations. That's one reason you have states tending towards top down centralization today. It is now possible to run more things from the national capital than ever before.
Centralization has benefits that are quite considerable... if they are used for good. The problem with big government is that the characteristics of a large bureaucracy make the government itself into its own constituency. Look at US legislators. They're completely out of step with a lot of their voters, on both sides. How could that happen? It's way too easy to manage things from the capital.
Will direct democracy and other things become more prevalent with more technology? Quite possibly. However, while I've always stated that democracy is a very good method of generating legitimacy for a particular government, it's really shitty at determining the truth for questions that have anything but the simplest answers.
A lot of progressive types today take great comfort in the belief that they have the majority opinion on their side. However, would they still consider themselves correct if they were a minority? They certainly would. Therefore, having everyone on your side is convenient, but doesn't necessarily improve the value of your proposition. A direct democracy without experts mediating the effects could generate some very popular, and very disastrous policies.
As for technology in general managing things. Garbage in, garbage out. If you start with a flawed premise, your technology will find the best possible means of achieving your flawed goals and screwing you over. I am interested in how technology can help us in the future, but in the end, I think the real determination of whether a future is utopia or dystopia will be determined by the moral and ethical decisions that we generate the starting goals and premises from which the technology will implement a solution.
I'm not seeing it... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's obvious to the point of trivial that certain technological advances will reduce the number of people required to do a given job; but that doesn't change whether or not the job is considered to be within the state's mandate or whether it is a private sector matter.
That's what size-of-government fights are really about(sure, there's some skirmishing about shrinking or expanding specific workforces to either save money or address a perceived deficiency in service): "What should the government do? What should it not do? What is acceptable to contract out? What is best handled internally?"
Given that technology has tended to result in labor savings, I'd certainly expect a lower headcount in government in the future; but that's irrelevant to whether it is 'big' or not. Running a welfare state, say, would probably be more efficient if you could just have a single AI do it; but it'd be just as much a 'big government' proposal, just one with fewer people pushing paper around.
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They are conflating the philosophical question of *what* government should do with the practical side of *how* it does it.
Replacing the DEA with cyborgs or bureaucrats with database applications only changes the implementation, not the reach and scope.
Complete bull shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Government is not mainly technology and will not be replaced by technology.
Down with them (Score:4, Insightful)
There's never been a need for "Big Government",
and we all know that technology has outpaced our obese overlords.
Left wing? Europe? Now?? (Score:2, Informative)
Someone hasn't been paying attention. The *right wing* is on the rise in Europe, and it has nothing to do with the size of the government and everything to do with nationalism and cultural fears (thats a nice way of saying racism).
Living in Belgium, I don't know anyone who complains about the size of the government. In fact, I think the common idea between the young I work with and the old in my family is that the government isn't doing enough about [roads|infrastructure|global warming|etc]. Doing more mean
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Syriza and Podemos are not right wing. Both sides are seeing gains at the expense of the mainstream because the mainstream is increasingly dominated by career politicians who know a lot about how to get elected but not much else.
Technology will only replace Gov't Workers! (Score:2)
Most people have seen the inside of some government offices and they do not impress one with the concept of efficiency, when the piles of papers are seen.
We are a good 30 years into the small computer revolution and it is time for routine tasks to be taken over by AI programs, leaving minimal staff to take care of the "exceptions", "errors" and "omissions."
Wrong - just like it won't replace jobs (Score:2)
The number of Jobs depends on work that needs to be done, not the current work that is being done. For that reason, more tech simply means we expand the work that needs to be done (1,000 years ago, we didn't think anyone had to offer mortgages, do title searches, etc. etc.)
Similarly, just as the definition of 'work that needs to be done' expands as we use technology to reduce the man hours to do the work, so does "government work that needs to be done".
Every time we automate/outsource away a government job
What could go wrong? (Score:2)
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Hello
A strange game.
The only winning move is
not to play.
How about a nice game of Chess?
What could possibly go wrong..go wrong..go wrong (Score:3)
Technology will replace big government? (Score:4, Insightful)
Government is basically a jobs program (Score:2)
This will never happen. The whole point of government these days is to provide cushy jobs and pensions where paper is shuffled and reports are filed.
Example: today through our taxes we spend more than $60K on anti-poverty programs for a family of three. (http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf) Guess how much of that actually "trickles down" to the family vs. what gets wasted on government middlemen? How much better cou
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Morpheus called it (Score:3, Interesting)
"The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms."
"Extreme surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence."
"God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary."
"No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera."
"The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgement."
"You underestimate humankind's love of freedom."
"The individual desires judgement. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization. The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. God was a dream of good government. You will soon have your god, and you will make it with your own hands."
And to provide the counterpoint, a very brief warning from Twitter as to how quickly it can all go wrong. [twitter.com]
Paranoia (Score:2)
"The computer is your friend."
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So, it's either ... (Score:2)
"Who watches the watchers?" (Score:2)
I like to think (Score:2)
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers
How do you punish software? (Score:2)
In the case of typical government operations, much of the work for both IT and non-IT staff is taking vague laws/procedures/guidelines from higher up the chain of command and turning it into specifics, such as written processes, specific actions, and/or code, in a fractal kind of way. There is a fairly high degree of subjective judgement and politics that goes into this.
It's essentially a chain of command and people are responsible for their link in the chain. How is software going to do that? How do you pu
Great topic. Poor execution. (Score:3)
Government and the technical augmentation or automation thereof is a fascinating source of ideas and issues, philosophical and economic. But the OP's choice of a term like "Big Government" seeks to attract only lightweight libertarians and nattering neocons who are blissfully transfixed by antiseptic fantasies like meritocracy and Big Bad Bureaucracy.
Why discuss flamebait? Let's ask a better question.
Can AI/tech improve or replace government? Can it help us to focus better on issues rather than politics? Might tech help us to make concrete measurable progress toward achieving specific goals, improve administative efficiency, and minimize the role of gov't in our lives? Yes, I'm convinced that it can, and I'd love to discuss it. But the OP's simplistic article won't inspire that level of discourse here and now.
For a better start on this topic, I recommend:
"Automating Easy Government Solutions with Machine Learning"
https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/11/18... [gsa.gov]
"Why Government Managers Need to Know About Machine Learning"
http://datasmart.ash.harvard.e... [harvard.edu]
"How can government make the most of machine learning systems and avoid the pitfalls?"
http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/h... [nesta.org.uk]
"White House to probe role of AI in government"
https://fcw.com/articles/2016/... [fcw.com]
Not a chance (Score:2)
The purpose of "Big Government" is not and never has been to serve the people. It is to always have a loyal army of bureaucrats handy to enforce the will of those in power on the people. Inefficiency, bloat, arcane and often destructive laws, waste, corruption, etc. are all part of that package. Having a light-weight efficient government was always an option, technology is not needed for that. Some countries have that type of government, and much lower taxes in addition, without having worse infrastructure
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Also Stephenson: 'Snow Crash' and 'Diamond Age'
Re:Been done by Asimov (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't mind a hot pizza.
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Also, Person of Interest.
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"Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote."
"Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reas
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On the other hand, the total I.Q. of all the people working in the government means that we're much closer to replacing them with A.I. than we thought.
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Re:Skynet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, its the internet.
I had this realization a while back from mention of a very old economic theory, one truely beyond its time since it comes from before the real advent of general purpose computing. Its a very simple concept.... decentralization is more efficient as information flows.
You need big central orgs when information is bottlenecked and can't move to where it needs fast enough. The Internet turns this concept on its ear. We need the government we have because it used to be reasonable that it takes 6 weeks for someone to get to Washington in an "emergency".
Its time to break this shit up, its too big and centralizes way too much power into way too few hands.
Re:The best outcome (Score:4, Interesting)
The Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution specifically to make sure Americans do NOT actually get what they vote for.
If you think about who makes up the voting public, I can understand why they'd do that. Democracy is mob rule, and mobs are very stupid, easily manipulated things.
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Seriously? Do we not teach government anymore in school here in the good old USA? MOST of what they promise the CAN NOT do anyway, no one person or branch of government has the power to unilaterally just DO what they want. Plus, rarely does any single party hold enough control to get stuff done on their own power by controlling two branches. It was designed this way on purpose...
So stop expecting to get what the politicians are promising and realize when you are being duped, lied to and manipulated and st
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