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Comment by flyinRyan | Hacker News Reader

The time voting would help was gone years and years ago. If you want to make peaceful change now you're going to need to get involved in politics directly (e.g. "The pirate party" but don't call your party that in the US. In fact, I'd call them "democrats" or "republicans", which ever is more popular). Until enough of us do this, things will just continue to get worse. There is no politician out there who truly has your interests at heart. Even if there is, they're alone (e.g. Ron Paul and I don't even agree with the majority of his platform).

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I'd say that culture is a much more powerful agent of change than traditional political work could ever be.

Politicians can act as scribes and put down into legislation a part of the cultural ethos, but they don't do much in the way of inspiring that ethos in the first place.

Practice what you preach, call bullshit by its' name.

I don't know about you, but I remember a time where calling your representative could affect change. In the last ~10 years politicians have shown that they no longer care. Studies in Canada and various places have shown that simply advertising changes enough people's behavior to be effective. So now politicians feel ok simply ignoring their constituent so long as they get enough advertising money to secure a win. Culture of the "plebs" is irrelevant to the 1% so long as the plebs aren't armed with a mind to do something with those arms.

If you want to change the system at this state the only option is to be the system.

But the system is not the government. It is an emergent system created by the interaction of people. You don't have to accept the government as the primary authority that determines how you live your life. If enough people do that the culture changes and so will the "system".

I mean look at how inefficient governments are… Have you ever seen one make a solid economic plus? Those archaic structures are pretty much already crumbling.

I hope and think that the kind of shit these systems are doing right now are just the death throes of an obsolete institution desperately trying not to fade into irrelevance.

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