O'Reilly donating ebook "Open Government" as a tribute to Aaron Swartz | Hacker News Reader

O'Reilly donating ebook "Open Government" as a tribute to Aaron Swartz

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349 pointscode_chimp27 comments

I'd like to see more than an Open Government. I'd like to see a web site developed where people read about issues of interest, learn about the benefits and drawbacks to upcoming policies at a centralized location, see how those policies affect budgets (federal, provincial, or municipal), and provide a simple voting mechanism to get a general sense of how agreeable people find the policy. More than that, it would be amazing if people could contribute to the discussion in a moderated fashion (with moderators selected at random, for random intervals of time, to avoid herd-mentality).

Something like this:

1. https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Interests%...

2. https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Policy%20P...

3. https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Debate%20P...

4. https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Supporting...

For anyone curious about the project, check out:

https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/

Being able to say "A small subset of the population is now informed and believes this way" doesn't seem quite like "more than an Open Government".

What is so special about this website that it can bring such a positive change on how we are governed (while unaffiliated with the government) that it is "more" than changing the government itself?

There are screenshots but no source code in the repo. Are these just mockups?

Yes, just mockups.

1) There are people working on that kind of thing. Start asking around, make your interest known, get people to tell you when they hear something. Look into things like Code for America, Make Your Laws, or Votizen; they're not precisely what you're looking for, but they've probably heard about things that are closer.

2) Build it. Get to know people who are involved in your local town's politics and build community support for such a web site. Figure out what the needs of the various subcommunities are, including the people who don't speak English, the people who have never used a computer, and the like and figure out how to account for them. Once you've got broad support, you can work on converting people into actually using your site.

Yes, it's exactly like a startup. Except that you're not going to turn much of a profit and you can't pick and choose your customer base.

3) Keep in mind that any widely used system is going to become a target for optimization and exploitation. That's what government corruption is.

Good points, thank you.

I'm torn on the issue. In my view a politician is actually a service provider doing the mundane tasks I can't be bothered to do. It would be a huge waste of time if a majority of people had to keep up to date on all political issues.

Most of the current "internet voting" systems provide a way to delegate votes, but often those are delegated indefinitely and lead to power concentrations on a few active people.

I'm not dumb and I even have the time, but I'd still give proxy to someone who I thought serious understood the issue at hand (so, say, an economist for economic issues). Unfortunately, we currently get the worst of all worlds, representative democracy where the decision makers are career politicians and rarely experts in anything. A representative technocracy would suit me.

I don't see a way around it (doesn't mean there isn't one), because how would you identify the economics expert? Seems to me it would still boil down to marketing, the "expert" who advertises himself the best would win. Obviously that advertising could not happen in terms of presenting economics knowledge, because few people would understand it. So the advertising would be in things people understand, like looks, presentation skills, charme... So basically just what already happens.

Politicians rarely read any bill or law that they vote for. Instead they have underlings to do this. Even then it's a problem because they have to wade through the legalese of a 500 page document with constant changes.

For half of their tenure Congress is preparing for re-election. Much of the other time left is meeting with lobbyists who pay enough to their campaign to represent one side of the issue.

I'm not saying the current system delivers, just that I think politicians should do work that I then won't have to.

There is an issue in that our society doesn't provide us with the time and space needed to participate properly in governance. This is true even of Congresspersons: they spend as much time providing the service as they do keeping their job [1]--and those two activities aren't the same. We need a culture where companies see it as normal and natural for people to take time out of their daily/weekly/monthly schedule to seriously study and engage with issues.

[1] http://politicalpartytime.org/blog/2013/01/18/bennet-leads-t...

I still think it is impossible because nobody can be an expert in everything, and furthermore, it is something I personally don't want to do. I have other interests than politics.

> I still think it is impossible because nobody can be an expert in everything

Expertise is not a prerequisite to good governance. Let's face it: no one knows everything about anything. You get by with what you do.

> it is something I personally don't want to do. I have other interests than politics.

I'm not proposing to take those things away from you.

I have other interests than eating food, but I still do that every day.

>I'm torn on the issue. In my view a politician is actually a service provider doing the mundane tasks I can't be bothered to do. It would be a huge waste of time if a majority of people had to keep up to date on all political issues.

A lot of the things that we pay for are paid for because we can't or won't provide it ourselves. I buy vegetables because I don't grow them myself. I pay for someone to fix my car, because I can't do it, and don't have the time to learn how, or maybe don't have time to do it even if I could do it.

The difference between the above, and government, is that I can choose my provider. No matter which liar wins an election, I lose.

two big problems: 1) most people have a limited ability to make good decisions about policy. 2) the framing and presentation of the issues will have a large effect on how they are perceieved

Looks well thought out, might be easier to target local politics initially.

I've developed http://www.unbaa.com in an effort to increase equality. It's a simple tool for democratic decisions and is unfortunately on the back burner for now.

Happy to discuss concepts so feel free to drop me an email.

for a split second there I read this as Papa Bear O'Reilly donating the book. During that split second my brain was almost fried trying to make sense of how he could have written a book titled "Open Government"

There are two O'Reillys, one good, another one evil.

Papabear O'Reilly does not give out free ebooks.

Tim O'Reilly gives out free ebooks and even gives out free ebooks if you own the old paper book and enter the ISBN number on his site. Also OReilly ebooks are DRM free as well.

I'm not seeing where to enter the ISBN. Could you point me in the right direction please?

EDIT: I've found where you register print books, but it claims you have to pay $5 to "upgrade" to the ebook version.

It used to be free. I guess they added the $5 fee?

I don't think donating Killing Kennedy or Killing Lincoln to "honor" Aaron Swartz would be very appropriate...

That's a nice gesture by O'Reilly. Salute.

Kudos for a thoughtful gesture from O'Reilly.

It does make one wonder, has openness in Government increased under the current administration or not?

While the reality might remain elusive, my sense is, at a minimum, the perception of openness, has strengthened with the public.

This is such a nice gesture! However I have a (maybe small) concern: They use creative commons no derivative license. Doesn't that make forking pointless, if not a breach of terms?

Is it on ResearchGate? http://www.researchgate.net

They mean Bill not Tim.

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