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Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

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

#101

Post by EGreg »

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…

I have a very specific vision for how to reform education. Would be happy to partner up with people who feel similarly:

http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158

I have a platform that can be used to build it all but could use a good business partner and extra JS/Mobile developers can't hurt.

The business partner would help make pilots in schools and colleges. Just maybe a class here or there at first, then prove it out.

Please see http://qbix.com/blog for how we could partner together. If you are interested to talk, see my HN profile.

I agree with Bernie that college should be free but disagree that it should be free in its current state. It can b made much cheaper if you flip the classroom in the way I indicated above. That is what should be made free (ie paid for by the government).

In Primary School (everything up to High School) we need to reform the terrible top-down dynamics. I know about them secondhand because my mom is a teacher. School is a daycare center for parents who work. Kids are overdiagnosed with ADHD. Paul Graham wrote about school being a veritable prison back in 2003 (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) Things only got worse in the last 20 years.

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

#102

Post by rdtsc »

How about starting a new political party? Is that too crazy to consider? Maybe this is the time to do it.

I think one thing that happened recently is that we saw a desire for change. The number and enthusiasm of Sanders and Trump followers points to that. Maybe there is a place for a party to represent the views and values of those who followed Sanders.

Just thinking about it, there was a previously unknown, old, white, male politician who had such a tremendous following from so many people. What happened to that crowd? Those people are still out there, young, many in college, new graduates, minorities. It probably includes factory workers from Rust Belt and so on. There were so many followers despite media ignoring them in-large, despite the main DNC establishment disliking them and they still got so many votes.

I think doing the same thing over and over with the DNC as before, is probably not going to work. How feasible is to take all those invested billions and create a new movement instead of fighting fake news, why not generate good news. Instead of forgetting about the workers whose jobs are being automated away, perhaps talk about basic income in the way that would be accepted and not be seen as a humiliating hand-out.

What better to improve Democracy by creating a more parties to represent and replace the crusty old one with all their baggage and corruption.

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

#103

Post by smacktoward »

davidw wrote: post #48
saosebastiao wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Having worked myself as a constituent contact in a Congressional office, I can tell you from experience that you are exactly right. Someone who's willing to hand-write a letter and pay for a stamp is seen as a more motivated constituent -- more likely to care enough about the issue to have it decide how they'll vote in November, in other words -- than someone who makes a call; and the caller is more motivated than someone who clicks "send" on an email; and the emailer is more motivated than someone who signs a Web petition.

For a long time, in fact, this mindset meant that a really effective way to "hack" the Congressional contact system was to send your message in a telegram -- because if you were willing to pay to have a messenger run your message across town and deliver it by hand, you were assumed to be very motivated indeed!

(I doubt that's true anymore, of course; not least because I'm not sure you can send telegrams anymore. But now I'm wondering if you could get the same effect these days by sending your message via FedEx's most expensive service...)

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

#105

Post by davidw »

smacktoward wrote: post #103
davidw wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having worked myself as a constituent contact in a Congressional office, I can tell you from experience that you are exactly right. Someone who's willing to hand-write a letter and pay for a stamp is seen as a more motivated constituent -- more likely to care enough about the issue to have it decide how they'll vote in November, in other words -- than someone who makes a call; and the caller is more motivated than so…

I asked this elsewhere, but does being a donor matter at all for calls/letters? If so they check the dollar amount?

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

#106

Post by ryanworl »

dukeluke wrote: post #87
chipgap98 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we can halt progress just because it negatively impacts some people. At the same time you are right that it is "not only a force for good" and there are things that can be done to mitigate that negativity. I think this is an appeal to entrepreneurs do to just that

When "progress" continually lowers wages of the lower class and concentrates power to fewer and fewer people, I think the way of doing things needs to be reevaluated.

Technology provides massive amounts of consumer surplus and deflation.

What if we need less money and lower wages are actually fine?

Edit: Do the people down-voting this actually think technology doesn't provide consumer surplus and deflation? Or do you have a problem with my question?

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

#107

Post by nemild »

rdtsc wrote: post #102

How about starting a new political party? Is that too crazy to consider? Maybe this is the time to do it. I think one thing that happened recently is that we saw a desire for change. The number and enthusiasm of Sanders and Trump followers points to that. Maybe there is a place for a party to represent the views and values of those who followed Sanders. Just thinking about it, there was a previously unknown, old, whi…

New parties are hard. Still, I've found it interesting to think about a group that was only active in 3-5 evenly contested states, that collectively controlled a few percentage of the vote in those states.

This small group might have tremendous power to set the agenda, either as a distinct party or one that influenced the presidential candidates.

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

#108

Post by gshulegaard »

rdtsc wrote: post #102

How about starting a new political party? Is that too crazy to consider? Maybe this is the time to do it. I think one thing that happened recently is that we saw a desire for change. The number and enthusiasm of Sanders and Trump followers points to that. Maybe there is a place for a party to represent the views and values of those who followed Sanders. Just thinking about it, there was a previously unknown, old, whi…

I agree that more, equally influential, parties are better for the health of US politics...but there are many systemic traits that I believe are prohibitive to new parties becoming equally influential.

To even begin addressing the multitude of these issues would require passing laws through our current political system and I am convinced that would be near impossible.

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

#110

Post by kmnc »

alva wrote: post #29
pgodzin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ban on 7 Muslim-majority countries with exceptions for minority religions. In addition: "I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News. "He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’" source: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

Does any of that change the hard facts that what was enacted is not a ban on people coming to the US based on their religion. Because that is the pure fact.

So we should just keep dismissing his obvious intentions because he hasn't fully executed on them at this precise moment? You can keep explaining away his actions based on technicalities all you want, but his intentions are clear to most people in the US and around the world.
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