Ask HN: Tech work that strengthens liberal democracy | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Tech work that strengthens liberal democracy

8 pointspc2g4d11 comments

If I could work on one problem right now it would be reinvigorating liberal democracy, both in my home in the United States, and around the world. I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, a software engineer, machine learning engineer, and data scientist in one, and a recent startup co-founder, with a strong interest in political science, constitutional governance, and so on; in other words, I think I have a lot to offer, and I'd love to get involved in the right project.

Are you all aware of any efforts in this area? Whether in the corporate world or in academia, foundations, think tanks, startups, and so on. I'm at a point in my work where I can be a bit choosy.

Rust, Typescript, PyTorch, Tensorflow, Vue, and much more are in my tech wheelhouse, FYI.

Just putting out feelers

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One thing I was told at USDS is that people's willingness to engage in the democratic process is directly related to how much trust they have in the government to fulfill its promises, which in turn is directly related to whether the government seems to work in their day-to-day interactions with it (renewing a passport or DL, paying taxes, booking a campsite at a national park).

If you can, try to put in some time (could be a few months; could be 4 years) at USDS, 18F, or a state government's digital service. You will be working to strengthen liberal democracy, and you'll be able to make a lot of contacts in the civic tech world.

Work on campaigns to advance adoption of IPv6. Nothing says freedom more than connecting directly to your friends, family, and personal devices over the internet without need for routing your data through some central server.

Can you explain this? I am IPv6 naive and I would expect IPv6 to massively harm privacy, but that expectation is out of ignorance.

> without need for routing your data through some central server.

I am also not sure what this means.

IPv6 provides a sufficient number of addresses that every single person on the planet could have billions of dedicated addresses and there would still be plenty more available without fear of running out.

We have effectively run out of public IPv4 address more than 15 years ago. As a result most people have what's known as a non-route-able address (NAT). NAT allows devices to hide behind the privacy of a router and can communicate out, but other side devices cannot access the inside devices. That is good for network privacy, but it completely defeats application communication. That then means almost all application communication connects through some central server, for example if you want to share messages on social media you send then to a social media server instead of the intended recipient.

Contrast that against telephones. With phones everybody has a unique address and you call the intended person directly. There is no central server.

>If I could work on one problem right now it would be reinvigorating liberal democracy

Help small business owners. They are the bedrock of democracy, as an independent individual doesn't fear the repercussions of their viewpoints when they aren't dependent on a check from bigcorp.

> reinvigorating liberal democracy, both in my home in the United States, and around the world.

really do not want Americans trying to impose or “reinvigorating” any kind of political form in my country.

and i guarantee you as divided as my country is..nobody want anything from American government. despite hollywood propaganda about American people saving world from aliens and monsters.. US government meddling maybe biggest external contributor to my countrys problem.

you want to do good in the world? Ok go fix you own country and get out of everyone else business.

I had in mind the idea that tools that strengthen liberalism and democracy in the U.S. would also be available to people in other places. E.g. TOR. Also that those supporting liberal democracy around the world should work together. DEFINITELY not interested in imposing anything on anybody.

I wouldn't worry about the rest of the world. Clean up your own house first.

Here's a project for you: end gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is spectacularly corrupt and yet it is still practiced in the United States:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_S...

Eliminate gerrymandering and you will have taken a good step forward.

Good luck.

You may find https://represent.us/anticorruption-act/ interesting. Gerrymandering is just one of the issues. They try to deal with gov't being the gateway to lobbying, and the impact money has on policy more generally

When they originally started, I supported them, then they turned into something I could not. They seemed to have moved back from that stance, which is nice to see

Liquid Democracy is an interesting idea in that regard:

https://liqd.net/en/software/, https://github.com/liqd

Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of traction (used to have a bit more during the Pirate Party's heyday).

In more pragmatic, more immediate terms, His Majesty's Government (or rather: the Cabinet Office, specifically) is quite active when it comes to providing open source software that helps with governance (e.g., through data science and design systems). You might be able to find something worthwhile there to contribute to:

https://github.com/orgs/alphagov/repositories

I would go spend a couple of days on Yale history professor Timothy Snyder reading his books and then watch him on YouTube. Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is also a major academic in this area. Their respective relevant books are "The Road to Unfreedom" and "They Don't Represent Us." Timothy Snyder also wrote "On Tyranny," which is a very quick read which is directly applicable to the question you are asking, he also narrated it in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tocssf3w80

Timothy Snyder is more about understanding and fighting the forces of tyranny while Lawrence Lessig focuses more on the mechanics of our democracy and the consequences of our current implementation.

I promise you will love Timothy Snyder.

My personal take is "democracy" the word has been hijacked and it's probably time to stop using it casually. The core idea and foundation of liberal democracy and what you feel is being eroded and needs strengthening is rule of law. Russia tried to privatize and democratize but failed because they did not have rule of law. Rule of law is where all the good stuff comes from. So what you really want an answer for is "how do I use my technical skills to promote rule of law?"

Supporting rule of law means supporting a fact based world, supporting institutions that do investigative research, and promoting empathy for the oppressed. Supporting rule of law means empowering the un-empowered by, for example, supporting unions.

Snyder would say: So choose an institution you care about – a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union – and take its side.

FedSoc/Fox/Heritage Foundation/Cato/Cambridge Analytica/CPAC are the exact opposite of what you want to invest in. I am not sure there are good examples on the pro rule of law side of the aisle.

One of the problems of supporting rule of law is that law has always bound the poor and powerless, but often does not bind the rich and powerful. The consequence of this is that powerful people will defend their ability to arbitrarily use their power without consequence. This makes supporting rule of law something that puts a person in real personal risk proportional to how effective they are in their support. I imagine as a consequence it's harder to find the forceful efforts to support it.

How you contribute depends on how far long you think America is. If you think we've passed the precipice, then the correct investments are ones that help people fight to reform the republic, specifically helping people organize and fight. If you think we are still redeemable, then investment in our institutions (media, legal, educational) is the way.

Here is kind of what I would expect the answers would be:

The USDS is probably the most directly applicable organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service

I can't vouch for ACS, but they seem opposed to fedsoc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Constitution_Society

I can't vouch for this either, but here's a list of think tanks: https://academicinfluence.com/inflection/study-guides/influe...

PBS/NPR are generally good media.

Might be good to look into what Stacy Abrams is doing.

I'm not sure how to support unions or unionization efforts.

I probably feel quite similarly to you, but haven't put in the hard research myself, so this is where I'm at. I was hoping for better answers here too.

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