From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 20:03:01 +0800
To: lunaslide@loop.com
Subject: Re: True democracy the electronic way
In-Reply-To: <v01530500ad47100dc99b@[204.179.169.44]>
Message-ID: <199602150303.TAA21304@netcom22.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>I too would like to see a purely democratic process rather than a
>representative one.  And I also agree that it won't happen soon.  The
>question is, what do we keep of govt?
>
>How would the group propose electronic voting on legislation should
>proceed?  What sort of technical solution could be arrived at to allow
>everyone in the country to vote on specific legislation and how would they
>get access to that legislation?  I think _this_ is a cypherpunk topic for
>sure.

two quick comments:

1. this is an extremely interesting problem in my opinion. the ideal
form of government has not been achieved in many millenia. could it
be solved given the full power of the information age, i.e. 
an apex in intellect and technology? personally I think a very
efficient form of government can be created. its a problem with
very little true "research" behind it in one sense (I mean, how much
thought goes into the creation of the average government? perhaps 
a lot of thought, but how much of it is backed by good understanding of
consequences of various choices?).  on the other hand, it is a problem
in which research has been ongoing for centuries. 

if anyone knows of
a mailing list to discuss this concept of trying to apply technology
to government, I would be most interested. the closest I can see
right now is groupware software, which I have repeatedly predicted
here is going to go ballistic as far as development some near date
in the future (esp. with high speed networks).

2. the mouth-foaming libertarians here hate discussions about
democracy. TCM repeatedly advocates total withdrawal as the "solution".
the basic belief is that government shouldn't matter. "if it doesn't
matter, we're right, if it does matter, then there's nothing we can do about
it" I saw paraphrased here once. the nihilism associated with the 
attitude that people always move toward the evil side of the morality
spectrum, such that the majority is always a tyrannical cabal, is
strong here. so if you want to get some serious discussion on this
matter, maybe you can find another mailing list where the mere basic
premises are not going to elicit dirty looks.