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Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#41

Post by the_duke »

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

Just a few days ago WaPo and NYT had articles like "OMG OMG entire state department leadership just quit! OMG". An hour later, those had all disappeared or were replaced, because they were actually just let go (their customary resignations were accepted).

Trump will do a lot of damage to the US, but hysterical reporting with such a negative bias does not cast a good light on the US media, and is not the way to go.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

tptacek wrote: post #21
pgodzin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fake News" is completely making things up facts like "Trump punched the Pope today" for the sake of clicks. Calling recent actions as a "Muslim ban" is an interpretation of real events, including quotes by Rudy Giuliani and Flynn's son calling it a "Muslim ban" themselves. I would not consider it fake news, just an order executed with enough plausible deniability that they can prey on people's newfound obsession wit…

Just to follow this up for people skimming: A high-profile author of the policy is on camera --- video you can easily find for yourself --- saying that they were tasked with devising a Muslim ban, and that he is proud of the legal chicanery they employed to make it "legal". This subthread, of course, an entirely off-topic divergence from the subject at hand.

I think "Trump's Travel Ban may be the first step to implementing Muslim ban" would be a fair headline for the topic. I agree with 'alva that news reports should make a clear distinction between what is, what was meant by that, and what some people say it might be.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#43

Post by saosebastiao »

tptacek wrote: post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

> Using technology to bypass the expensive outreach vectors traditional candidates are stuck with.

This is a huge frustration of mine. It is nearly impossible to get the attention of politicians unless I'm willing to spend a vast amount of my time on the phone, because they don't pay attention to email, social media, etc.

It would be awesome to have a social media platform that is dedicated to political communication. And with ample features related to communicating about policy. Like for example:

1) The ability to search for a pending bill based on the text of the bill, highlight text, and comment directly on it.

2) The ability to +1 someone else's comments in a meaningful way.

3) The ability to publicly challenge a politician's claims through research, data citations, or other types of analysis.

4) The ability to find the appropriate politicians/appointees for a specific concern.

5) The ability to facilitate directional communication from politicians on specific issues. It would be great if a politician had a common platform to explain in detail why they voted yay/nay or abstained from voting for something, with quick crossreferences, data visualization, etc.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#44

Post by alva »

Geekette wrote: post #39
alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

Nothing false about the example you cited. The architect of the ban, Rudy Giulani confirmed on air that the goal was to ban Muslims and his team's task was to create a legal mechanism for that to happen[1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/tr...

It is totally false to say Trump has enacted a law to ban people from entering the US based on their religion. Totally false.

Is it true that Rudy Giulani has said this. It also true Trump has said in the past he wants a Muslim ban. It is also true that many people believe this action is a step in the direction of a Muslim Ban.

But this is not a Muslim Ban at this stage and presenting it as such is a lie and misleading.

I agree that alarms should be going of all over the place in the mainstream news about this action and would encourage all of the opinion pieces to stress this could be a step towards a full Muslim Ban. That is for the Opinion pieces however.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#45

Post by Gargoyle »

tptacek wrote: post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

>I've set a goal for myself to get a specific number of friends and acquaintances to run

Do you plan to run yourself?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#46

Post by baursak »

Democracy can be improved by having democracy in the workplace.

Modern corporations are run like totalitarian, authoritarian regimes with top-down orders being barked down. If you disobey, you're out.

People in Western democracies are no longer putting up with non-democratic control of their political institutions, but are completely oblivious to non-democratic control of their economic institutions and are perfectly willing to take orders where and when it matters most -- every day, 9 to 5.

When employees can directly vote and democratically elect the CEO/CFO and other executive and managerial positions, across the wide range of industries and in majority of organizations, it will be a huge win for democracy, and that will spill into a much more engaged population politically as well. Also, at that point, employees are no longer employees.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#47

Post by maxxxxx »

I am a little ambivalent about this. On the one hand the intent is probably good but on the other hand companies like YC and Silicon Valley are drivers of a lot of developments that led to the current situation.

- Silicon Valley is a great example of growing inequality. Most of the rewards go disproportionally to a select few at the top

- A lot of VC companies are killing a lot of previously relatively stable jobs. Uber is giving its drivers a job for a while but it's pretty clear this will not be sustainable and they will soon be out of a job again

- The biggest companies like Facebook and Google are pretty much aiding "fake news" because in the end the only thing they care about is impressions and fake news sells better

Don't want to be too negative but technology is not only a force for good but also causes problems for a lot of people. Maybe these people are looking at the wrong guy for solutions but their concerns are valid.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#48

Post by davidw »

saosebastiao wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

> Using technology to bypass the expensive outreach vectors traditional candidates are stuck with. This is a huge frustration of mine. It is nearly impossible to get the attention of politicians unless I'm willing to spend a vast amount of my time on the phone, because they don't pay attention to email, social media, etc. It would be awesome to have a social media platform that is dedicated to political communication…

I have a feeling part of why they don't use tech solutions is that the 'cost' of making a statement is valuable information: if a ton of people are willing to spend 10 minutes to make a call, that tells you something. Having 100 people, half of them Russian bots, click on a "+1" button, might not tell you as much.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#49

Post by AlexC04 »

One of my favorite "public good" websites is in the UK and called "theyworkforyou.com"

The workflow is that you punch in your postcode and get a list of all the people who represent you. From house, senate, european parlaiment.

You can then fill in a form and send a "constituent letter" to all the correct people for whom your opinion should have an impact.

After a reasonable wiating period, a survey comes to your email asking if they replied and some other questions.

Those "roll up" into a report on the member's responsiveness to their constituents.

Of the times I used it when I lived there, I always got responsiveness and only once was the response rude / unsatisfactory. (a member of european parlaiment was a total dismissive jerk)

Anyways - as far as ideas go, I think that would be a useful "start" - I also think there was more they could do to improve that further.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#50

Post by adamnemecek »

tptacek wrote: post #38
thowar2 wrote: post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

There's been a YC RFS for Education for a long time; it's #7 on the list. YC has had some success in the space with companies like Clever, and for awhile had a sister-program dedicated solely to K-12 startups.

While nice, neither of these strikes me as truly disruptive. The downside is that to achieve the best educational environment, you'd have to open a school which doesn't scale nicely unless you plug into existing "world APIs".

I guess you could start by opening a co-working space with a supervising adult (not teacher, this adult will be there to ensure that the kids aren't killing each other).

There would be teachers accessible via video calls but most of the time would be spent reading or doing work, not passively listening/watching. If you pool these teachers together, you will be able to teach even the most obscure subjects.

In this system, everyone is literally going at their pace.

I think that fundamentally the main objection to this system is that some people learn better in a classroom setting, to which I reply: 21st century education needs to make a transition to turn graduates into self-learners. This can only be achieved with a system that fosters self-learning from very early on.

It's not like you can create self-learners by making students go through a process that's fundamentally as anti-self-learning as possible.

This will also make switching schools extremely painless. You will transition to a new desk. It's like a gym membership, you can totally have two if that's convenient for you for whatever reason.

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