How can programmers help the Occupy movement? | Hacker News Reader

How can programmers help the Occupy movement?

What sorts of tools/services could software engineers build to help the Occupy movement?

I write code on Wall St. I don't make millions. Am I part of the greedy 1%? The world is not as black and white as you think.

When doing community work, I created a system to graphically represent asset maps. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/pz5WfI If this could be standardized with dropdown menus and connected to Google Docs, people could create asset maps that communicate a lot of info in a small space that can be easily understood. I got a start, but didn't have the technical know-how to make it simpler. The details are here: http://bit.ly/q5sGrK

TL;DR: A picture could quickly demonstrate a person's assets, needs, contact info, and an image to quickly identify with that person (like a photo, logo or spirit animal or whatever) and these could be filled out on blackboard or paper or online and then translated into a database.

contact me for more info: realistic.optimist@gmail.com

What's the "Occupy movement", exactly? Is it really a protest against the wealthiest 1 percent? That seems really counterproductive, since most of the wealth possessed by that group was created by that group, i.e. it didn't exist 50 years ago. Unless you can prove they stole that wealth, or you can prove that government policies had nothing to do with our current economic condition, helping this "movement" is a complete waste of time.

Malaria and hunger kill millions annually. Education in the U.S. continues to decline. Cancer, obesity, drugs, crime, etc. Why don't you take a stab at those problems first? Or get rich people to be more like Bill Gates rather than have a statist thug force them to fork over more of their legally and peacefully obtained property?

"What's the "Occupy movement", exactly? Is it really a protest against the wealthiest 1 percent?"

It's not a protest against wealth, it's a protest against how:

* Deregulation allowed the financial sector to run wild, then

* get bailed out by the taxpayer when it all blew up in their face, then

* continuing the party as if nothing had happened (record bonuses paid from taxpayer bailout money)

* while their customers (from individual families to those families' pension funds) got screwed in ways that are demonstrably fraudulent on a massive scale

* while no-one in the industry gets punished

* while regular people continue to get screwed, even if they did everything right (get a degree, no jobs - save up a down payment, still can't get a mortgage - need business capital, still can't get a bank loan)

These guys on the left are angry at Wall Street in the same way that the right is angry at the Government. Their lives have become massively worse since the crash, while they see the people they perceive to have caused the mess continuing to party on taxpayer money.

Regular people in this country are pissed at the ruling classes in a way they haven't been for generations, the only difference is in who they're blaming.

Should both movements cross paths, it will be our Arab Spring/French Revolution.

Turbulent times ahead.

It's also a protest against animal abuse, and a protest against paper money, and a protest against the death penalty, and a protest against the military.

That's the big problem with it--it is way too defocused.

You forgot fur, whaling, and the Judean People's Front.

I thought that was tea party movement.

This is Occupy: http://fyiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/protestseattle.jp...

Back to work, guys.

Tea party and Occupy are the same movement (anger at the ruling classes for screwing the general population) from different angles.

Plenty of stupid signs from tea party rallies too: http://www.prwatch.org/files/images/Medicare.jpg

In any sufficiently large group of people, you can find a few idiots (and they're usually the loudest ones).

The interesting/important thing here is that regular people from both left and right are mad enough to turn off their TVs, go outside and protest - three things that Americans are not naturally inclined to do.

Something is seriously brewing out there...

The tea party has much in common with that protest. I think both sides need to focus less on the groups of people involved and just accept that big government and big corporations are not a healthy mix. Big corporations actually don't mind a big government because regulation can work in their favor to make it harder on their smaller competitors, not to mention lobbying for special favors and direct assistance (e.g. guaranteed loans). Tea partiers should be more positive towards the political realities of a powerful government and their opponents should recognize the need for reforming entitlements and ineffective/wasteful departments, such as the Department of Education and Defense.

I wouldn't describe our situation as a potential "Arab Spring/French Revolution". We have civil rights. The poor are generally well taken care of in this country, and there's plenty of opportunity for those willing to work hard -- that is those willing to change careers and work multiple jobs in hard economic times. "Do whatever it takes" is what started this country, not let's figure out a way to extract wealth from another group of people, except for the shame of slavery, of course. "Do whatever it takes" (morally - fighting an oppressive imperialist monarchy, letting all groups become citizens, etc.) can work again.

I had a programmer friend of mine help build http://OccupyCalendar.org - it is a first start, if it catches on, could use help in developing it.

Also - IT on the ground is helpful and people who understand electrical needs.

I've been looking for some developers interested in building an application to assist them in their process. Centralized messaging, city based messages, support requests, and an unfiltered news source etc. Mostly just RSS Aggregates, Push Messaging notifications. Rails / HTML / jQuery / Java

I've spoke to 4 or 5 head Occupy Leaders about this idea and they are interested as could bring some real-time centralization of the movement. This would be a profitless project, donations past server costs would go back into occupy movements. Contact me me@scott-mcleod.com

Please go to the OWS website and read their stated goals. Then ask yourself if you really support them. I think a lot of people are just projecting their own anger and ideas and don't understand OWS at all.

I've decided against supporting the movement. I like what they ostensibly stand for. Corporate influence in politics is a tricky thing. There is palpable dissonance between deregulation in good times and bailouts in bad. Protesting that is all well and good.

But, as you say, many supporters are projecting their own views onto the self-proclaimed 99%. I'm worried about supporting a the misguided, vocal, projecting crowd rather than the stated goals. To some degree, political movements always suffers from this. OWS more than others.

On a side note, "the Occupy Movement" has a funny ring to it. Has occupation and liberation become synonymous at last?

Aviary's feather application uses HTML5 to allow embedded image editing. This is a good visioning tool whereby people can draw out their visions and submit them. The tool is very simple and easy to use, even by those who are not at all tech savvy, and it requires no download of software.

possible applications: proposing camp layout design ideas proposing march routes proposing flyer and poster ideas showing where cops are gathering during a protest (map overlay) showing where people are hurt during a protest (map overlay)

How about participating in the movement and guiding folks towards using RSS for distributed and decentralized news suggestion?

Dave Winer:

occupyweb.org

http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/03/relyingOnFacebookTwi...

http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/09/bootsOnTheGround.htm...

Honestly, if you could write a web app to allow for scalable online General Assemblies, that would be awesome. I'm thinking IRC with upvotes and all the key GA actions as contextual menu items.