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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I'm again not sure what the win is with the government running sites like this, versus, you know, making sure the Internet keeps running so that private citizens can set up their own sites.

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Participatory democracry perhaps? What if sites like these became the democracry? What if your vote on sites like these actually decided policy rather than simply informing your representatives about how you think? Then the government itself becomes an unnecessary middle man and the algorithm becomes the government.

"It may not sound like a revolution if government officials simply listen more to members of the public, but it’s not really that revolutionary if the opinions are then ignored by the bureaucrats. Ms. Noveck is clear that none of her efforts is meant to create a sort of direct democracy.

There is a reason you want people with expertise working in the jobs we have, she said. But she said that the new online tools will nonetheless put pressure on officials to take public opinion into account."

I don't see why we should stop short of direct democracy? If the technology allows it, why not?

direct democracy = mob rule. if we had direct democracy in the united states, sept 12th: we would have nuked someone. if iraq had direct democracy after the american invasion, surely, a good part of the population would have been killed.

Because of the digital divide, people with easy access to the internet and the proper education to use it are also unequally represented in an e-democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy

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