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White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
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Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, but a petition is a public focal point that takes 30 seconds to contribute too. The cynical attitude "I'm not going to do this because it won't help" is probably a greater negative to one's personal effect on the cause than however much time it might waste.
With the current legislature, a local vocal group of constituents is a much more effective means of citizen-government communication than an internet survey that takes 30 seconds to contribute to.
Why is it either-or?
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your petition might get a reading in the Parliament and you're allowed to speak. However, this is not a guaranteed outcome, the Bundestag or rather the committee in charge of petitions may deny you the public reading with a 2/3 majority. However, on the state level there is a "Volksentscheid" where the people can directly vote or enforce a vote on an issue. The quorum and the topics that are eligible for a Volksentsc…
Have there been any particularly notable uses or outcomes of this process?
The most notable outcome was probably the petition against internet blocks in germany [1] which was signed by more than 130 000 persons and was a crucial milestone in gathering public attention which ultimately brought the law to a fall.
[1] you know, against child porn. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz for a short summary.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#54Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.
So true! It's also true of "real" voting in "elections". They only put up with that crap because it's so easily manipulated by the media. They'll distract us with "new" policies when they have to, but nothing will ever threaten the ever-expanding stream of money that flows through lobbyists to their employees in government and back out to the lobbyists' clients.
The system won't be "fixed" using tools that exist within the system. It must be hacked, but I don't really see how.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more reasonable place to start appears to be making a lot of money and then using it to lobby relentlessly.
Fact: you'll care less about this stuff once you have a lot of money.
I suspect a neurochemical basis for this - when one is rich and in the higher echelons of society, it goes to reason that their brains will have more serotonin swimming around due to a) better food and b) more socialising.
Having higher levels of serotonin makes us more blind to unfairness:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5884/1739.abstract
> We observed the effects of manipulating 5-HT function on behavior in the ultimatum game, where players must decide whether to accept or reject fair or unfair monetary offers from another player. Participants with depleted 5-HT levels rejected a greater proportion of unfair offers, but not fair offers, without showing changes in mood, fairness judgment, basic reward processing, or response inhibition.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#56Whether the threshold is 100K or 100M, nothing has happened yet as a result of a "successful" petition. Sure, the stupid petitions give them a chance to giggle at the rubes. The most reasonable petitions get essentially the same reaction, however. ["Legalize pot? I think we can guess what they were smoking when they signed that one! Hahahaha!"] As much as I wish it were otherwise, I expect the same for the current "f…
Representative democracy is just that: representative, not direct. You have people who represent a whole body (district/state/whatever), not a drone that will pull a lever when you tell him to. They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants, not just the majority of it, and then faithfully represent that point of view in various ways, which is not just voting or fielding new laws. Petitioning, per se…
> They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants
I'd argue that they should determine what they whole electorate wants... but they should be striving for what their whole electorate needs. It may not get them re-elected, but getting re-elected isn't "supposed" to be their job, doing what's best for the people they represent is.
Sadly, none of that seems even close to common practice.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#57Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.
So true! It's also true of "real" voting in "elections". They only put up with that crap because it's so easily manipulated by the media. They'll distract us with "new" policies when they have to, but nothing will ever threaten the ever-expanding stream of money that flows through lobbyists to their employees in government and back out to the lobbyists' clients. The system won't be "fixed" using tools that exist with…
> It must be hacked, but I don't really see how.
figure out a way to efficiently get energy (nuclear? solar? vacuum energy?), so you don't need to rely on any incumbent authority.
Using that energy, design drones to mine resources from the earths' crust, or extract minerals/resources from the sea. THis process must be automated. These drones, using the extracted resources, would reproduce themselves, so that the whole process can be exponential in speed. When a critical number of drones is reached, arm the drones (or create new drones that are armed). Use those drones to take over the world - send an ultimatum. Then, once the whole world has bowed down to you, you become the most benevolent dictator, giving all equality and a good life.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#58Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.
> If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned. That statement is so scary, but most likely true.
the amount of effort you expend to sign a petition is next to nil. Why would anyone expect, then, that signing a petition can affect any sort of change?
Activism comes from expending effort to direct the course of the system (aka, society). Some people, like the rich and powerful, are also "activists" - in the sense that they use their wealth and power to direct the system in such ways as to benefit themselves, while the more altruistic activists direct towards a more ethical/equal world as deemed by their moral systems. In my eyes, they are of the same sort. Problem is that the altruistic activists tend to lack in resources, and thus, they often "lose" to the powerful wealthy ones that act more out of self interest.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#59My first reaction to the announcement was negative:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5064624
But now, I am not so sure. Raising the threshold seems like a sound response to the program gaining traction if the Whitehouse wants it to succeed - closing it down would be the simple response if their goal was not to be bothered. Raising the threshold (a second time) invites people to take the low effort act of signing a petition more seriously - even if this seems a bit counter intuitive at first blush.
Imagine if a response from the Whitehouse required just one signature. It would sure gain traction. But it would encourage triviality. "It's 1am, Barry. Make my neighbor's dog shut up."
Increasing the threshold requires more political organization. At the original 5000 signatures, the barrier to entry posed from organizing was low enough to reward minimal success at political organization. Moving it to 25,000 required better organization.
Barry believes in the power of grassroots political organization to the point of putting his money in the form of a Harvard JD where his mouth is. Two campaigns for president have shown him that much of its future will be implemented with digital tools.
The Whitehouse is seeking the sweet spot of participatory democracy at the scale of the Whitehouse. If, as I suspect, similar strategies are implemented at lower levels of government, Democrat party leadership now has data upon which to make informed decisions at those levels.
With any petition, signing is a trivial effort. Buy-in comes from watching progress not from demanding answers. The speed with which signatures were collected for petitions related to Aaron Swartz's death shows that the threshold was too low. Firing the prosecutor expresses anger, but it doesn't seek structural change. Lynch mobs don't.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
So true! It's also true of "real" voting in "elections". They only put up with that crap because it's so easily manipulated by the media. They'll distract us with "new" policies when they have to, but nothing will ever threaten the ever-expanding stream of money that flows through lobbyists to their employees in government and back out to the lobbyists' clients. The system won't be "fixed" using tools that exist with…
> It must be hacked, but I don't really see how. figure out a way to efficiently get energy (nuclear? solar? vacuum energy?), so you don't need to rely on any incumbent authority. Using that energy, design drones to mine resources from the earths' crust, or extract minerals/resources from the sea. THis process must be automated. These drones, using the extracted resources, would reproduce themselves, so that the whol…
Part of that is an end-of-the-world scenario. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo