[Vision2020] Open source and related concepts

[Paul Rumelhart]

Ted Moffett wrote:
> Your "gut instinct tells me that it will?"  Wow!  Your faith in the 
> ultimate goal of this effort is admirable. 
>  
> But do you think this effort will stop fundamentalist religious 
> congregations from voting in lock step to control local or state 
> government in Idaho?  Do you think they will join in, or oppose, this 
> egalitarian anarchist vision of law making?  They use the Internet to 
> promote their version of dogmatism and thought control.  Consider the 
> Idaho Family Values Alliance, well known for promoting Idaho's 2006 
> Super DOMA.  Moscow's support for domestic partner benefits is 
> mentioned on their web page:
>  
> http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/

Groups like the Idaho Values Alliance have a limited readership.  Their 
main audience is people who think like they do.  That is true for all 
such organizations, religiously-motivated or not.  If this program takes 
off, it will consist of people from all walks of life.  It will be 
harder to pass legislation through the system that is too one-sided.

What I am hoping will happen is this:  a number of individuals 
interested in this project will sit down and write some legislation and 
have it vetted through the system they are still developing.  There is 
no reason to believe that members of fundamentalist religious 
congregations will not participate, along with those who are in 
opposition to them.  If this process works as I expect it will, the 
legislation written will consist of a host of compromises that will have 
been hashed out through this system.  Legislation from different areas 
will be perused for ideas relevant to the current legislation, and a 
better overall bill will result.  All that is missing is for a savvy 
politician to step up to the plate, pick it up, and run with it.  Why 
would they do that?  Because legislation like this that is being 
supported by more people in their geographic area will have more chance 
of success than legislation put forward by a stand-alone political group 
(even one consisting of fundamentalist religious congregations) would 
have.  That is assuming that this project catches on.  If that happens, 
then everyone will have to join in to get their views heard and to have 
any effect on the legislation being proposed.

I used to think programs like this couldn't work, but that was before 
the success of the open source software movement and of other 
collaborative projects ala Wikipedia.  I would have thought a thousand 
programmers would have come up with a complete hash of code that was 
buggy as hell, but it actually works out differently.  It's easy to 
write crap code if no one (or very few) will see it.  To put your code 
out there amidst the other programmer's code is a daunting experience.  
You polish your code until it shines, just so you won't look like too 
large of a fool when you submit it.  When editing Wikipedia entries, if 
you write poorly or are not organized in your thinking, you will usually 
find your edits on the cutting room floor very quickly.

That's why I think this will work.  Who actually writes legislation 
now?  Politicians?  Their staff?  People on a crusade?  I would think 
that legislation that has been written by those affected and that has 
been put through the wringer and survived will be prized by politicians, 
because they know the likelihood of having it pass and getting the 
support of those who worked on it will be much greater.

Maybe my faith in this project is misguided.  I guess time will tell.  
But in my opinion, the abuses of the current system have come about 
*because* something like this has not existed.

> ---------------------
> I do have a thought, now that you asked, that relates to the often 
> heard claim that the Internet is a democratising egalitarian 
> liberation technology.  Why in the Age of the Internet, when anyone 
> could have determined in an hour or two of Internet research, that the 
> claims of the Bush administration in 2002 that Saddam had WMD 
> that posed a credible and immediate threat to the national security of 
> the USA, and had ties to Al Qaeda,  were very doubtful propositions, 
> did this not result in strong hesitation in the US Congress and the US 
> public, about invading Iraq?  How were so many misled into believing 
> these fabrications, exaggerations and distortions about Iraq WMD, and 
> Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, when credible sources on the Internet could 
> have shed doubt on Bush's claims?

I think the reason for this has more to do with the emotions of the 
people at the time.  9/11 affected everyone in some manner or another.  
Patriotism was the by-word, and it was unpatriotic to question the 
administration.  Also, there is a culture change that is still only 
beginning to happen.  That is a change in trust.  People used to trust 
the evening news crew to be relatively unbiased, and their politicians 
to at least consider that they might be wrong before they commit so many 
resources towards it.  I think that now much of that trust has been 
lost, but not everyone has lost it yet.

>  
> It seems that the Internet is only as useful as the critical and/or 
> investigative thinking skills of those using it; teaching critical 
> independent thinking is fundamental to the education of the citizenry 
> in a democracy, no computers or Internet required.  How did the 
> greatest thinkers in human history achieve what they did without 
> computers, after all? 
>  
> Which is not to say that the Internet is not a wonderful tool; but it 
> is merely a tool, that can be used to control and mislead, as well as 
> enlighten, educate and liberate.

That is very true.

>  
> It is well known that porno is one of the dominant activities on the 
> Internet.  Now there's egalitarian political liberation for you!  What 
> a diversion from the responsible investigations that should have 
> concerned every citizen about Iraq WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda, during 
> the 2002 run up to this disastrous and cruel war!

The internet offers freedom for many, and sometimes that freedom is the 
freedom to visit porn sites and get access to graphics and videos they 
would not or could not normally acquire.  You take the bad with the 
good.  Not everyone has to save the world.

Paul