For those in the SF Bay Area, we are having a hackathon the weekend of March 29–30 in San Francisco. We will be working on tools to support Lawrence Lessig, the NH Rebellion organization, and their grassroots movement to end the system of corruption in DC. If you're interested in participating, hit us up at teamdemocracyus@gmail.com and we'll send you the details.
A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#2230%-70% of our government representative's time is spent calling the 0.05% (150k people) of US citizens to raise money to get re-elected. Our Republic is a Representative Democracy (not a true democracy) where there are 2 election cycles, the "Funders" and the voters. As a representative you can't get your name on the ballot in the voting cycle unless you pass the "Funders" cycle. This is a closed source program wher…
Even if we accept that this characterization is true, you would still need to show that it results in worse policy outcomes than whatever alternative system you my care to propose.
That is very difficult to do because policy outcomes are subjective. What you think is a worse policy outcome might be desired, or at least acceptable, to a majority of people.
It all comes down to policy, even for Larry Lessig. His turn toward reforming the entire system only happened after the system produced an outcome (on copyright extension) that he strongly disagreed with.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#23It's always interesting me to take the passion and fury of online discussions about politics and freedom and to reconcile that with the comparatively paltry amount of money donated to political organizations by people in silicon valley. I think there's this feeling in Silicon Valley that "I'm changing the world through code" or "I believe the best ideas should win". And I wish that were the case. But in the meanwhile…
"meanwhile the Koch Brothers and hollywood quietly funnel bajillions of dollars into superpacs and get all the politicians in their pockets." Here's the problem. You probably think the Koch Brothers is one of the biggest spenders. The joke of it is that they aren't. Their PAC network isn't in the top 10, but they are good targets for certain networks (in the same way Soros is for other networks). Heck, some of the st…
Really odd, it's my firm opinion that the media is not only not a neutral observer, they're actually very damaging, but not in the way you suggest. It's my perspective that the media no longer points out outright lies and other silliness as demonstrated by the talking heads and punditry that's presented as fact and news, when the reporters know very well that their guests are liars, avoiding the issue, or misleading the facts.
Though for some reason most of conservative "friends" will tout similar talking points, when in truth the real issues are blatant untruths and misrepresentations being presented to the people. Only in America can we have a negative, lame-duck narrative of a newly re-elected presented who's had consistent job growth for 47 months, lowered the deficit the most aggressively out of any President over the past 20+ years, an obvious economic recovery as defined by numerous measures, and I could go on and on, but yet, somehow the media narrative continue to present Republicans as stewards of the economy, despite facts to the otherwise over the past 13 years, not to mention an unnecessary and financially damaging shutdown, along with whatever talking point they wish to present on any given day.
The facts of the matter is that the media loves sensational soundbites and talking points, over actual facts regardless. Which for whatever reason Democrats have been absolutely terrible at combating and presenting the actual situation. Furthermore, the cable news/social media driven 24hr self-selected news cycle doesn't help things.
Heaven help us.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#2430%-70% of our government representative's time is spent calling the 0.05% (150k people) of US citizens to raise money to get re-elected. Our Republic is a Representative Democracy (not a true democracy) where there are 2 election cycles, the "Funders" and the voters. As a representative you can't get your name on the ballot in the voting cycle unless you pass the "Funders" cycle. This is a closed source program wher…
Even if we accept that this characterization is true, you would still need to show that it results in worse policy outcomes than whatever alternative system you my care to propose. That is very difficult to do because policy outcomes are subjective. What you think is a worse policy outcome might be desired, or at least acceptable, to a majority of people. It all comes down to policy, even for Larry Lessig. His turn t…
I disagree that worse policy outcomes are strictly necessary to propose a need to fix the system.
There are already demonstrable and massive distortions between what Congress debates and invests effort in vs. what the populace is preoccupied with vs. what these interests are preoccupied with. That means we've derailed the original intent of democracy/the Constitution.
Either you ratify a change to the constitution to make that okay, or you make whatever changes are needed to prevent this from continuing. You don't leave something this central to law & order in this country to be bypassed just for the fun of it.
> It all comes down to policy, even for Larry Lessig. His turn toward reforming the entire system only happened after the system produced an outcome (on copyright extension) that he strongly disagreed with.
You should watch the video. You are implying post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning here, and that's not really how it went down. He was working on what he thought was his part of the problem until his definition of "his part of the problem" was changed, and it wasn't changed by his failure to get the outcome he wanted.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#25It's always interesting me to take the passion and fury of online discussions about politics and freedom and to reconcile that with the comparatively paltry amount of money donated to political organizations by people in silicon valley. I think there's this feeling in Silicon Valley that "I'm changing the world through code" or "I believe the best ideas should win". And I wish that were the case. But in the meanwhile…
"meanwhile the Koch Brothers and hollywood quietly funnel bajillions of dollars into superpacs and get all the politicians in their pockets." Here's the problem. You probably think the Koch Brothers is one of the biggest spenders. The joke of it is that they aren't. Their PAC network isn't in the top 10, but they are good targets for certain networks (in the same way Soros is for other networks). Heck, some of the st…
The deal with the Koch Brothers is that, for example, they are (or at least were) to a large degree bankrolling Tea Party in a huge way, but most Tea Party supporters saw the movement as a purely grass roots org. The other thing is that the specific agenda they are advocating seems like it'd cause quite a massive transformation on the country, yet that change doesn't seem to have a lot of currency with the general public.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#26Holy shit! How does this not have thousands of upvotes?
It's a masterful presentation -- the likes of which I haven't seen before. I reckon I got a similar feeling that so many did when they heard MLK speak. If you read about leadership, this is it folks. You tell very compelling stories that inspire you to action not because you want to follow the likes of Lawrence Lessig, but because you believe this cause is very important. For someone to kindle that passionate response is an art form.
And then there's the issue. It's a no-brainer: attack the root of countless legislative problems--campaign financing, the corruption.
I grew up the first part of my life in a country that is terribly corrupt and when I look at the US, the place I now call home, the only difference that I see, is that it's legal here. I was outraged at the Citizens United decision--in my mind, that was one of the worst decisions ever because it continues to legitimize a farce of democracy that we live under today.
tl;dw (ie, too long didn't watch): watch it for a lesson on leadership and get outraged at campaign financing!
edited: typos, toned down the hyperbole to avoid distracting from the message.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#27There's a conceit among technologists that Washington doesn't know how technology works. I don't think this is true. In my experience with the federal government, I have been quite amazed at how much people did understand. Washington is full of nerds. They are often latin majors rather than computer science majors, but they are nerds nonetheless, and they are sharp and quick learners. What is missing is not people wh…
> There's a conceit among technologists that Washington doesn't know how technology works. I don't think this is true.
As someone who has sat in the room with one of the highest ranking congressmen whilst explaining to him that one of his bills to support one of his big campaign contributors was going to stifle free speech, kill privacy as we know it, and undermine private property rights... I gotta say, no they really don't. Not surprising, as most people, even people who work in technology, don't know how technology works.
> Washington is full of nerds. They are often latin majors rather than computer science majors, but they are nerds nonetheless, and they are sharp and quick learners.
I think all of that is true, and concede that a lot of people in Washington are probably smarter than me. I have absolute confidence that they understand computer technology at least as well as I understand Latin.
Here's the dose of reality: how many of the non-Latin majors on Hacker News explain how Map Reduce works in Latin? ;-)
> Rather, it's people who share the values many technologists share.
Totally agree, and frankly it's a really big problem for engineers in particular. Engineers like tools, and they like the freedom to come up with ways to creatively use them. Most people prefer products. Just that difference alone creates a whole different set of values.
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#28So, is the question how can technology greatly reduce the costs of campaigning? Would this allow for campaign finance reform where more restrictions are placed on candidates in return for funds and publicly funded technology tools to enable far smarter campaigns (like what Obama's re-election team did with voter turnout)? Could technology change the costs of voter outreach to a point where the funders become irreleva…
Most important question: if you won't watch the video which informs about all this and/or read the materials Lessig has posted explaining all this, why should anyone think you'd read their replies answering the same questions here on Hacker News?
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#29Holy shit! How does this not have thousands of upvotes? It's a masterful presentation -- the likes of which I haven't seen before. I reckon I got a similar feeling that so many did when they heard MLK speak. If you read about leadership, this is it folks. You tell very compelling stories that inspire you to action not because you want to follow the likes of Lawrence Lessig, but because you believe this cause is very…
tl;dw. Yet I'm confident campaign financing is not the problem. It's just a symptom of something much deeper: the constitution itself.
It's very simple: in nearly all developed countries (the "West"), the rules of power (the constitutions) were written by men in power. There is a huge conflict of interest, so the constitutions suck. Or maybe they don't, but the people sure don't rule. We don't live in a democracy by any reasonable meaning of the word. (My current best guess is that our countries are plutocracies: money and businesses rule. Anecdotal evidence: Fractional Reserve Banking, which means private bank makes profit from printing money —they don't actually print money, but the effects are the same.)
Want to solve campaign financing? Don't support elections in the first place. Elections aren't democratic anyway: 2 candidates you can vote for? What a farce: that's 1 bit of decision thrown as a bone to the people. The pool of potentially worthy presidents is way bigger than 2. So many bits of decision power stripped from the people.
Want an _actually_ representative assembly? Do what any rational poll company does: select the citizens by random trial. That may not be enough though, so you may want to use the first assembly to bootstrap something better (typically by having them write a constitution, then leave politics forever).
Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]
#30Holy shit! How does this not have thousands of upvotes? It's a masterful presentation -- the likes of which I haven't seen before. I reckon I got a similar feeling that so many did when they heard MLK speak. If you read about leadership, this is it folks. You tell very compelling stories that inspire you to action not because you want to follow the likes of Lawrence Lessig, but because you believe this cause is very…
[comments don't always parse as intended, so let me first say that I mean this in the very best way possible, and intend to find ways to support Lessing and everybody else fighting corruption]
This may be the most powerful talk I've ever seen. Mr. Lessig has alway given a very interesting (and entertaining) talk. There have been some good talks recently, such as some of the 30c3 talks and Doctorow's caution for the future[1] a year earlier. There are, believe, there's two reasons this talk is so effective.
First, Mr. Lessig gave such a clear and simple goal. This prevents the problem from being immediately interpreted as one of those "big problems" that never get solved.
It doesn't even matter if campaign finance really is the "root" of the problem. It's still worthwhile, and even a small success has got to a lest help some when fighting for other causes in the future.
When dealing with other difficult situations such as addiction or depression, a common suggestion is to make small goals first, that are actually attainable, because trying to solve everything at once often ends up conditioning for apathy over the "impossible task". Those voting numbers shown at the end, however, suggests some victories are easily within reach.
That said...
I believe the key reason this talk was so powerful is that Mr. Lessig called on one of the original ways of rallying people to the cause. It works because it's a reminder that people matter, and some things cannot wait until later...
...because this fight already has a martyr.
Maybe we should make some progress before other are claimed as well.