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Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

fortune.com

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Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#91

Post by ada1981 »

jnicholasp wrote: post #85
paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentially get a lot of support but yet there is no way for others to show their strong opposition against that as well. Plus, even if somehow the evangelicals and those supporting them were to have the upper hand in terms of numbers, you still can't do things like ban abortions based on numbers alone. Basic, more modern human princ…

> > Basic, more modern human principles shouldn't be left to democratic vote What process should be used to decide which are these modern human principles that are too important to be left to majority rule, and who gets to participate in that process?

Exactly.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#92

Post by tonyedgecombe »

DanBC wrote: post #72
usefulcat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marching in the streets sends a much stronger message per person than does signing an online petition.

It had fuck all effect though.

We don't really know what the impact is further down the line, the government has lost a vote over going to war since.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#93

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Angostura wrote: post #40
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

Trump's still been invited on a state visit.

He was invited before any petition.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#94

Post by BillinghamJ »

amoorthy wrote: post #70
lomnakkus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't recall any instance where this has had any remotely noticeable effect. Can you name an instance? EDIT#1: Just to be absolutely clear: This is an incredibly transparent distraction ploy. There's no actual intention of acting on any of this. EDIT#2: See also the recent FCC "public consultation" on Net Neutrality.

(Related to my company) I've spoken with a half dozen government officials in the US and they all said they do not consider petitions in policy making. The biggest problem they have is not knowing easily what fraction of the signers are in their constituency. Beyond this, they see petitions as a marketing ploy by organized groups and hence further discount it. Btw, interesting article on change.org's challenges with…

The UK's petition system (https://petition.parliament.uk) specifically collects postcode information to group votes by constituency, and even provides a handy heat map showing % of constituents who voted.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#95

Post by BillinghamJ »

pc86 wrote: post #48
Angostura wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's still been invited on a state visit.

Are people in the UK really signing a petition that amounts to "don't invite the President of the United States to the UK on an official visit"?

Yes, and when 3% of the entire country's population has gone out of their way to vote for that, it's worth serious consideration.

It's often said that one letter written and sent is representative of the opinion of 1,000 people. Perhaps with online petitions it's more like 5.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#96

Post by BillinghamJ »

skynode wrote: post #41
dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

I fail to see how the UK's policy is better. For starters, its a government policy which can be revoked at will. Change.org is a for-profit entity whose objectives are clear and cuts across government and private enterprise.

It's not actually. It's decided by parliament, which is not the same as the government. It specifically exists in order to challenge the government.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#97

Post by Vinnl »

woollysammoth wrote: post #84
frankdenbow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every company is Craigslist or aspires to be. It can be argued that if Cragislist had more employees they could do more for their users.

Definitely, it’s not a perfect comparison — it just seems to me that a company with somewhat low revenue and an altruistic mission should do everything it can to be lean.

Unfortunately that's quite a hard problem. I'm not saying this applies to Change.org as I hardly know it, but cutting corners doesn't necessarily lead to spending less money. Charities in general often have this problem of having to minimise "overhead" to remain in the public's favour, resulting in overqualified people wasting a lot of their time on e.g. simple administrative tasks because that way it doesn't count as overhead.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#98

Post by paganel »

jnicholasp wrote: post #85
paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentially get a lot of support but yet there is no way for others to show their strong opposition against that as well. Plus, even if somehow the evangelicals and those supporting them were to have the upper hand in terms of numbers, you still can't do things like ban abortions based on numbers alone. Basic, more modern human princ…

> > Basic, more modern human principles shouldn't be left to democratic vote What process should be used to decide which are these modern human principles that are too important to be left to majority rule, and who gets to participate in that process?

It's a centuries old question. I for myself am a Kantian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative) when it comes to morals (or at least I try to be one), but leaving aside what I believe, I think it is fair to say that majority rule has historically been against lots of things that we now see as being "morally good", so to speak.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#99

Post by suckerberg »

Yes, lets have Gates investing our app, google provide stats, facebook for logings. What's wrong ?

Some companies make me laugh loud. How many petitions you really can take part, before you recognise that your facebook site is blocked and youtube account deleted.

I hope people could wakeup for reality.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#100

Post by greeneggs »

alasdair_ wrote: post #49
dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

The US has something similar. The issue is that (even in the UK) the response can be "no" and the consideration can also be "no".

The US used to have something similar. The site still exists, but under Trump the petitions are no longer reviewed. You can't take democracy for granted.
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