Pirate To Join European Parliament As Youngest Member | Hacker News Reader

Pirate To Join European Parliament As Youngest Member

torrentfreak.com

104 pointsTsiolkovsky16 comments

Youngest member of current parliament and female, it's awesome to have variety in the seats.

She sounds like a bright, reasonable young lady. I wish her success. I'm wondering though if maybe they'd get more votes if they didn't call themselves the Pirate Party. I mean, they can talk about their various political positions all they want but their name will make them seem like a single issue party. Their electorate care about the same things any electorate cares about. Health care, the economy, and just putting food on the table. I think that's pretty universal. The Pirate Party needs to broaden its audience if they'd like to gain more seats faster and change that name. It comes off as a gimmick.

Look how far the Tea Party has got on a silly name.

Or the iPad. A lot of people thought it was a silly name in the beginning. But now the product itself became so popular, that they take the name for granted.

That would entail changing the goal of the Pirate Party.

One might argue that they've gotten so much exposure so far because they are called the Pirate Party. (The name is alluring. It's exciting to read they have a member in Parliament because it's so contrary to what you expect.) Pretty good advertising.

The desirable outcome isn't that they become the most popular party, but that more parties begin to adopt more of the sensibilities of the Pirate Party, which would suit people who prefer to align themselves to less excitingly-named but more powerful groups.

That reminds of Google's strategy with Chrome. But just like Chrome, even if they don't pursue to be the most popular party, they might just get there if the other parties keep shooting themselves in the foot with laws like SOPA.

That used to be Google's strategy with Chrome; right now it they perhaps DO pursue to be the most popular browser. It is becoming so, anyway.

I doubt Google expected people to flock to Chrome quite as much as they did. If you get that momentum you'd be a fool to squander it.

Also: Journalists love their nautical metaphors. That seems like a plus (however annoying it might be).

They have two members, btw 8-)

I somewhat agree, but on the flip side - if they had had a "standard political party" name, I doubt they'd had any traction when they were getting started, and not gotten to the European Parliament at all. Remember that the major increase in membership count happened around the time the Pirate Bay founders were in court.

I think you're wrong here. There's some major political instability in many parts of Western Europe, with people abandoning mainstream parties in favor of new parties that aren't associated with the political establishment.

Some to the left, some to right, some with "standard" names, some with "alternative" names, but same the pattern is all over the map.

And I don't even think it's all that different in the US. Different system, different symptoms, but both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement come from the same dissatisfaction with the political status quo.

> The Pirate Party needs to broaden its audience if they'd like to gain more seats faster and change that name.

In practical terms that's not going to happen as Pirates wouldn't be able to agree on a new name.

> It comes off as a gimmick.

It didn't to Berliners two months ago -- Pirates got 9% of the vote.

The name is also a strategical attack on the newspeak of "software/audio/video piracy". The negative associations with the term works great for the RIAA/MPAA/GEMA/... lobby. (At least in europe) pirates are now a political stance, instead of just another word for criminals.

The german pirate party wiki has a page about their newspeak counters. For example, instead of "intellectual property" talk about "monopoly rights". Instead of "hacker tools" say "security software".

http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Liste_der_Unwörter

And don't forget Sweden's "anti-pirate bureau" inspired the "pirate bureau". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piratbyr%C3%A5n

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