Pirate Party Germany now at 8% in nationwide polls
taiwannews.com.tw
taiwannews.com.tw
They use an internet based system called "liquid feedback" for collaboration. Every member can propose stuff. Every member gets one vote. The highest voted stuff becomes the program. All of this happens online.
Yes, it's still young and immature. But please compare to how your conventional political party operates and tell me with a straight face it doesn't sound like a good idea.
Politicians should vote based on their visions and beliefs or visions and beliefs shared by the party. This is just random, populistic and doesn't have any real meaning.
I want to know from a political party how will they deal with real issues. With low employment rate. With bad economy. With good economy. Where will they invest, where will they cut.
"We will vote about that later" is definitevely a terrible answer.
Consensus works far better for policy; 90% of people might read something and think it sounds good, while 10% of people might spot a terrible flaw. Simply voting would let the policy be ratified with the flaw, while in a consensus process the facilitator would let each side present their views, and someone might come up with a proposal that addresses the flaw and satisfies everyone.
Consensus doesn't need 100% agreement, and even when you get down to the most fundamental agreements, people with the same facts who are aware of each others viewpoints can still disagree (at which point the majority view has to win), but the process should continue until that point is reached. This process does require some subjective decision making (e.g. around when consensus has been reached), so it can't yet be fully automated.
I don't think their goal is automating the decisions, their goal is to add much needed efficiency and transparency to the process by taking it online.
When you look at their software then it's a web-forum with a purpose-built voting/karma system.
For the first time I (a non-member) can go to the website of a political party, read their discussions, learn who is proposing what, who is voting for what and what the dominating opinions are.
You and I may not agree with their (lack of) positions on various subjects. But, as I understand it, it takes nothing more than an online-registration to join in on a discussion, and to present your own ideas on a level playground.
As far as I am concerned that's an overdue breath of fresh air.
Unless you prefer the state-of-the-art; backroom-politics with an "old boys club" calling the shots...
* legalisation of non-commercial copying
* prohibition of DRM technologies
* right to derive from existing works
* reduction of copyright terms (expiration with death of the author or earlier)
* (continued) prohibition of patents on software, business models, genes and seeds
This are their current goals. They want to allow private copying. So selling the copy would still be illegal.
Concerning patents: "We reject patents unanimously onto organisms and genes on business ideas and also to software"
* http://www.stoptoptwo.org/about/ * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_%2820...
The Pirate Party, if it gets into government, will invariably be a member of a coalition with limited power to influence policy. In the aftermath of elections it may have limited bargaining power as a balance of power/kingmaker party. In both of these situations it makes sense for it to be a "one-trick candidate", using its influence to deal with the issues that it cares about, and staying more or less quiet on issues that the larger parties care more about.
I think they're primarily throwing the non-electorate.
Many young people don't vote because they perceive it to be about boring, old people stuff they don't really get nor care about. They barely know what are inflation or the ECB fund rate, they certainly don't have any advice about who's going to act on it in the most constructive way.
Now mess with their Internets, and suddenly they understand what the poll is about. Politicians have tailored their rhetorics for a world in which retired people vote, whereas youngsters don't. It looks like it's changing.
Hypothesis: when you're young, you can dismiss these stuff and have no advice about them, because they're grown-ups stuff. As you age, you have to admit that they're for smarter people, not merely older ones.
Yeah, I think I'll stick with "not knowing what all that shit means, and being self aware enough to realize it".
How do you think Germany got suckered into the Euro in the first place?
However, I have to admit that I get a tiny weeny bit optimistic.
But: similar "interest group" parties (Grüne, anyone?) tend to lose their focus, and their competence, with time.
Summary: Too soon to tell.
Incumbent german politicians, from the "traditional" german parties, I think.
> and are both "they"s the same people?
That's how I read it.
http://twitpic.com/6tg4l9 (that's Marina Weisband, Member of the Board, Piratenpartei Deutschland)
I'm suprised that party which seeks to seriously impair (if not completely blow) the software industry gets so much applause here.
How exactlly do the impair the software industry? Some (don't know how many exactlly) of the guys that got elected into the berlin parlament work together in a software startup. One of them even owns it. Why would they destroy the industry many of them work in?
If you are selling software product and all means of fighting with unauthorized redistribution are taken away from you then you are screwed. That's all I have to say.
Well then, there is your problem. Your business model does no longer work (or rather, is slowly but inevitably failing) - you cannot force people to pay for the distribution of infinitely copyable data, and neither can you ultimately force them to pay you to use it.
My question is: How exactly does this entitle you to demand laws to save your business model?
You could apply the very same argument you are using against Free Software (the libre kind), which is still nonsense.
Besides, generations of industries have been put out of business by technical advancements. I don't see why the software industry (or any digital media industry, for that matter) should be the first to have a special exception just because they whine loud enough.
How about you stop complaining about inevitable progress and instead try to find new ways to make ends meet? Adapt or face being made obsolete - it's that simple, really.
BTW. The next scheduled election is 2 years away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_German_federal_election so its half time right now for the German Bundestag.
Yeah, you may want to explain exactly how. To me it seems like the pirate party's values are right in line with your average software developer's values.
Just because you don't agree with a political party's agenda does not mean news about that party isn't HN material.
We just happen to be in one of the first real industries (media is popular but not strictly useful, so not an industry for the purposes of this) whose product can be copied without incremental cost. Instead of throwing up artificial barriers around this to try to perpetuate our old-world business models we should be leveraging this and creating all the value we can.
Besides, making software free (by removing the ability to demand money for it) doesn't mean nobody would be paid to work on it. Many (most?) full-time Linux devs are paid. Probably 95% of software isn't a for-sale product, and of the bit that is, much of that could probably be supported other ways.