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A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

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Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#31

Post by pdkl95 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #29
izendejas wrote: post #26

Holy 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…

What Mr. Lessig is doing, I believe, isn't about "campaign financing".

This is about waking people up to the idea that they can change things. There's a deep apathy an general defeatist attitude in most of the country because people have watched things spiral out of their control far too often.

It doesn't mater what the cause is; campaign finance is just one of problems that, at least in some areas. It'll help, but the goal is to remind people that you can fight back.

This is about giving the a victor, for moral sake, and we need a LOT more people pulling a Howard Beale on corruption in general.

/me walks over to window

(clears thought)

/me sticks head outside, and yells

I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!!

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#32

Post by [deleted] »

startupfounder wrote: post #11

30%-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…

[deleted]

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#33

Post by [deleted] »

startupfounder wrote: post #11

30%-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…

[deleted]

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#34

Post by izendejas »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #29
izendejas wrote: post #26

Holy 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…

I think you should reconsider watching the video.

Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual? I am not sure I understood correctly, but your solution IS the non-solution we're practicing today.

It's really difficult to summarize this video, just watch the first 5-10 minutes (that's what I tried) and you'll be hooked.

For added value: I'll buy you a beer for each filler/non-lexical sound (eg, "uhm", "eh", etc) you catch Lessig making whenever you're in the south bay.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#35

Post by izendejas »

pdkl95 wrote: post #31
loup-vaillant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What Mr. Lessig is doing, I believe, isn't about "campaign financing". This is about waking people up to the idea that they can change things. There's a deep apathy an general defeatist attitude in most of the country because people have watched things spiral out of their control far too often. It doesn't mater what the cause is; campaign finance is just one of problems that, at least in some areas. It'll help, but t…

Yes and no. I've certainly reduced what Lessig states to what I found the most fitting way to summarize the problem he describes, but the corruption in the system really comes down to that as he so clearly explains towards the end of the video by marching in New Hampshire for campaign finance reform.

Many people don't participate because they don't feel represented until the issue affects them directly (NIMBY politics), yet there are countless issues in which we are affected as citizens because we let lobbyists and those that fund campaigns dictate legislation.

Many people here are always raging about patent law, copyright law, etc. Those were all Lessig's causes until Aaron Swartz made him realize that all the powerful interests have the legislators by the balls, so until that gets fixed, progress on any other front will be difficult.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#36

Post by loup-vaillant »

izendejas wrote: post #34
loup-vaillant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you should reconsider watching the video. Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual? I am not sure I understood correctly, but your solution IS the non-solution we're practicing today. It's really difficult to summarize this video, just watch the first 5-10 minutes (that's what I tried) and you'll be hooked. For added value: I'll buy you a beer for each filler/non-lexical sound…

> Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual?

Not quite.

Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people. They're an illusion.

That was the problem. Now my solutions:

(1) Don't vote for elections that don't make any difference. This means most elections bigger than small cities. Or do vote, but put a blank entry.

(2) Spread the word.

(3) Think of alternatives, such as random trials. Some of those have already been tried. Look for instance at ancient Athens.

If we can get the majority of citizens to acknowledge the problem and know about the possible solutions, there will be a revolution. Hopefully this one won't be too violent.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#37

Post by dragonwriter »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #36
izendejas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should reconsider watching the video. Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual? I am not sure I understood correctly, but your solution IS the non-solution we're practicing today. It's really difficult to summarize this video, just watch the first 5-10 minutes (that's what I tried) and you'll be hooked. For added value: I'll buy you a beer for each filler/non-lexical sound…

> Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual? Not quite. Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people. They're an illusion. That was the problem. Now my solutions: (1) Don't vote for elections that don't make any difference. This means most elections bigger than small cities. Or do vot…

> Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people.

Since there are empirically measurable difference in how well different electoral systems work in empowering the people in nation-scale polities (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy), I don't think it is at all the case that they don't work or are an illusion in general.

Its true that the electoral systems in certain large polities (the US among them, but not the only of them) work exceptionally poorly, which might lead to the faulty generalization that elections in large polities are fundamentally broken for those for whom the ones with exceptionally bad systems are the only referents, but that's a flawed generalization from limited information.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#38

Post by loup-vaillant »

dragonwriter wrote: post #37
loup-vaillant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't support elections in the first place? So continue business as usual? Not quite. Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people. They're an illusion. That was the problem. Now my solutions: (1) Don't vote for elections that don't make any difference. This means most elections bigger than small cities. Or do vot…

> Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people. Since there are empirically measurable difference in how well different electoral systems work in empowering the people in nation-scale polities (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy ), I don't think it is at all the case that they don't work or are an illusion…

Okay, then, how effective is the high end? I expect not very.

And more importantly, are elections the best we can do? Handing over nearly unlimited power to a group of people we hope will not use it unwisely in the next few years?

No way. There's got to be a better system.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #38
dragonwriter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, I do not condone elections for anything bigger than a small city, and neither should you. They don't work. They don't empower the people. Since there are empirically measurable difference in how well different electoral systems work in empowering the people in nation-scale polities (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy ), I don't think it is at all the case that they don't work or are an illusion…

Okay, then, how effective is the high end? I expect not very. And more importantly, are elections the best we can do? Handing over nearly unlimited power to a group of people we hope will not use it unwisely in the next few years? No way. There's got to be a better system.

> And more importantly, are elections the best we can do?

I would say elections are almost certainly an essential element of the best we can do; elections alone aren't a complete system of government.

> Handing over nearly unlimited power to a group of people we hope will not use it unwisely in the next few years?

Elections don't imply that. It sounds to me like your problem isn't actually with elections at all, but with the details of the powers given to officials who are elected.

Re: A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]

#40

Post by protomyth »

cbsmith wrote: post #25
protomyth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 pu…

Well, Occupy had quite a lot of money coming into it from different groups, and I would imagine the participants think the same of themselves.

The money coming into the Tea Party (or Occupy) didn't get people out to protest or spend all day at events. The general public is never political as a whole and the Tea Party did a pretty good job during the elections. It will be interesting to see if the establishment triumphs or the grass roots push back hard in 2014. I would imagine the 2012 RNC will probably be remembered.

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