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Forum: Internet Links Topic: tell me MS isn't evil started by: Malcolm Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,08:42
< Bill sounds off about some political issues >.QUOTE Mr. Gates was also critical of the United States government’s unwillingness to adopt a national identity card, or allow some businesses, like health care, to centralize data keeping on individuals. “It has always come back to the idea that ‘The computer knows too much about you,’ ” he said. The United States “got off to a bad start” when it comes to using computers to keep data about its citizens, he said. Doctors are not allowed to share records about an individual patient, and virtual doctors visits are banned, he said, which “wastes a lot of money.” The United States “had better come up with a better model” for health care, he said. He was also critical of the Congress’ stance on immigration, and said he would like to see immigration exceptions for “smart people.” Canadian laws are more favorable, he said, because they allow immigrants to work if they are offered a high paying job. Microsoft has created “a lot of jobs in Canada for that reason,” he said. Yeah, it's all about the greed. They're not fundamentally run or influenced by a power-hungry, megalomaniacal control-freak nerd. Just stop bitching & give them all your information. & the notion that our immigration situation is the same as Canada's is laughable. Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 24 2009,08:44
1) Virtual doctor visits are not banned; They are generally unreimbursed though.2) I would like to see more immigration exceptions for smart people too. As for a national identity card, etc. Why not? It's kind of insane to have 51 different id cards for Americans. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,08:49
Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway.
Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 24 2009,10:21
I would be fine with a national ID card if our federal government weren't so shitty.
Posted by Troy on Jul. 24 2009,10:36
I'm ambivlant about the ID's: Good in that they would probably eventually solve a lot of problems, but bad in that it would require standing in a line for hours upon hours to get one (ala DMV). Probably will happen in the next 10-20 years, though. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,11:05
(GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,10:49) QUOTE Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway. Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 24 2009,12:15
Elections and representation are so last century. It's time to start up a direct democracy. We've got the tech for it.One login, one vote. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,12:43
(TPRJones @ Jul. 24 2009,14:15) QUOTE Elections and representation are so last century. It's time to start up a direct democracy. We've got the tech for it. One login, one vote. The technology isn't the problem; it's the sheer number of people. Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 24 2009,12:51
(Troy @ Jul. 24 2009,13:36) QUOTE I'm ambivlant about the ID's: Good in that they would probably eventually solve a lot of problems, but bad in that it would require standing in a line for hours upon hours to get one (ala DMV). Probably will happen in the next 10-20 years, though. Just issue it where you issue state ones today. Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 24 2009,12:51
(TPRJones @ Jul. 24 2009,15:15) QUOTE Elections and representation are so last century. It's time to start up a direct democracy. We've got the tech for it. One login, one vote. We're a republic for a reason. Democracy would be worse than what we've got. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,13:48
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,14:05) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,10:49) QUOTE Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway. Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. I have no problem with that. Can't be hard to assign everyone in each district a day of the week in which to vote. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,13:50
(TheCatt @ Jul. 24 2009,15:51) QUOTE (TPRJones @ Jul. 24 2009,15:15) QUOTE Elections and representation are so last century. It's time to start up a direct democracy. We've got the tech for it. One login, one vote. We're a republic for a reason. Democracy would be worse than what we've got. Yeah... I don't think I'd really like everyone actually voting themselves a pony. But then I don't like special interests on representatives. I dunno. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,14:47
(GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,15:48) QUOTE (Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,14:05) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,10:49) QUOTE Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway. Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. I have no problem with that. Can't be hard to assign everyone in each district a day of the week in which to vote. Scheduling isn't the problem. The verification can suck. How does the gov't at large know you're you? That you were at your polling place on that day at that time? That the "voter confirmation" printout you've got in your hand isn't a knock-off? That you aren't heading up to another polling place, swapping out IDs/papers/whatever w\ other folk? Making 100% (or whatever your comfortable margin of error is) sure that one person voted at most once isn't trivial. Back in the day, "voting" meant standing outside your porch & yelling your choice to the dude that was walking by. We started valuing privacy over ease of use when we let thugs & mobs influence voters' opinions. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,15:01
(TheCatt @ Jul. 24 2009,14:51) QUOTE (TPRJones @ Jul. 24 2009,15:15) QUOTE Elections and representation are so last century. It's time to start up a direct democracy. We've got the tech for it. One login, one vote. We're a republic for a reason. Democracy would be worse than what we've got. The only historical examples I've seen of working direct democracies involved relatively small numbers of people. There's too many fucking people. But let's say that we can get some synchronous, psychic, telepathic, hive-mind thing going or that we come up w\ communication tech. sufficient to kill that issue. There's still the matter of a fundamental rift in how you look at the rest of the world. I've noticed two camps : 1) There's certain folk in the world that are not to be trusted in certain matters. They are destructive creatures that contribute less than they leech when left to their own devices in that area. 2) If you're involved in some collective or society & you're going to be subject to their laws, you've got a say in what they are, goddamnit. Even if what you've got to say or do is insane, you're part of the system but not subservient to it, so you get to express your opinion. There's nothing that prevents those two theories from coexisting peacefully until (3) society starts supporting the destructive folk so that they don't suffer the consequences of their actions. Then they (4) further prevent any concerned, sane citizens from taking useful action. The point being there's people that I don't trust to be part of a direct gov't, no matter how small a percentage. Fuck, I can't remember the last time I thought the average IQ of the voting public broke 50. I shudder at the thought of replacing "voting" w\ "ruling." Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,17:32
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,17:47) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,15:48) QUOTE (Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,14:05) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,10:49) QUOTE Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway. Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. I have no problem with that. Can't be hard to assign everyone in each district a day of the week in which to vote. Scheduling isn't the problem. The verification can suck. How does the gov't at large know you're you? That you were at your polling place on that day at that time? That the "voter confirmation" printout you've got in your hand isn't a knock-off? That you aren't heading up to another polling place, swapping out IDs/papers/whatever w\ other folk? Making 100% (or whatever your comfortable margin of error is) sure that one person voted at most once isn't trivial. Back in the day, "voting" meant standing outside your porch & yelling your choice to the dude that was walking by. We started valuing privacy over ease of use when we let thugs & mobs influence voters' opinions. Anything to keep groups like ACORN from moving 10,000 people into Ohio for 6 hours to try to affect an election. If there was any actual falsehood of any of the protections you listed, they wouldn't be able to hide innocently behind, "Oh, is that wrong?" One ID, one vote. Anything is better than the nothing (followed by litigation) that we have now. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,17:33
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,18:01) QUOTE 1) There's certain folk in the world that are not to be trusted in certain matters. They are destructive creatures that contribute less than they leech when left to their own devices in that area. This is exactly how blue staters describe red staters. Posted by Mommy Dearest on Jul. 24 2009,18:51
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,17:47) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,15:48) QUOTE (Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,14:05) QUOTE (GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,10:49) QUOTE Until we are allowed to verify voters, it's all on a bad foundation, anyway. Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. I have no problem with that. Can't be hard to assign everyone in each district a day of the week in which to vote. Scheduling isn't the problem. The verification can suck. How does the gov't at large know you're you? That you were at your polling place on that day at that time? That the "voter confirmation" printout you've got in your hand isn't a knock-off? That you aren't heading up to another polling place, swapping out IDs/papers/whatever w\ other folk? Making 100% (or whatever your comfortable margin of error is) sure that one person voted at most once isn't trivial. Back in the day, "voting" meant standing outside your porch & yelling your choice to the dude that was walking by. We started valuing privacy over ease of use when we let thugs & mobs influence voters' opinions. So what would be the solution? Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,19:23
(GORDON @ Jul. 24 2009,19:33) QUOTE (Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,18:01) QUOTE 1) There's certain folk in the world that are not to be trusted in certain matters. They are destructive creatures that contribute less than they leech when left to their own devices in that area. This is exactly how blue staters describe red staters. I can easily flip that around w\ all the Republicans bitching about people on welfare. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,19:28
(Mommy Dearest @ Jul. 24 2009,20:51) QUOTE (Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,17:47) QUOTE Scheduling isn't the problem. The verification can suck. How does the gov't at large know you're you? That you were at your polling place on that day at that time? That the "voter confirmation" printout you've got in your hand isn't a knock-off? That you aren't heading up to another polling place, swapping out IDs/papers/whatever w\ other folk? Making 100% (or whatever your comfortable margin of error is) sure that one person voted at most once isn't trivial. Back in the day, "voting" meant standing outside your porch & yelling your choice to the dude that was walking by. We started valuing privacy over ease of use when we let thugs & mobs influence voters' opinions. So what would be the solution? Verifying voter identity when they ask for as much anonymity as humanly possible is a bitch of a task if you'd like to include plugging into a secured nation-wide network to tie all that shyte together. Then there's multiple polling places & things like ID fraud. You either have to take the time to do that difficult procedure correctly or start trading secrecy & proper rules for quicker response times. This thread is quickly becoming derailed. Hmm, shall this get spun off into something in America II? Been dead there for a bit. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,20:03
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,22:28) QUOTE Verifying voter identity when they ask for as much anonymity as humanly possible is a bitch of a task if you'd like to include plugging into a secured nation-wide network to tie all that shyte together. Then there's multiple polling places & things like ID fraud. You either have to take the time to do that difficult procedure correctly or start trading secrecy & proper rules for quicker response times. This thread is quickly becoming derailed. Hmm, shall this get spun off into something in America II? Been dead there for a bit. I don't think there is a comparison. All an ID proves is that you voted; the secret ballot is still in effect. Fun fact: we only got the secret ballot in the late 1800's (IIRC) to destroy the political machines (Boss... something) that were running the cities. Used to be able to buy/coerce votes, and verify the person voted the way they were supposed to. The secret ballot is not something ever implemented by the founding fathers. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,20:44
If you can make that ID biometric & definitively tie it to a person, i.e. he can't give it away if he wants to, then I'll say ID would go a long way (the other shit that implies notwithstanding). If we're talking a plastic card w\ a magnetic strip or a chip, I'm less optimistic.Cards get passed around or counterfeited, chips/strips get read & decoded, hell, even thumbprint scanners can't be trusted unless there's a human operator to make sure they aren't getting cheated. Privacy doesn't come free. System verification of private user actions isn't free. Hell, this is distributed system verification of private user actions. Centralized, public actions are easy to verify. If the front porch vote was still around in 2000, that hanging chad shyte wouldn't even be in play. As you said, though, we decided to make a trade. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 24 2009,21:04
All right, fuck it.One dollar, one vote. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 24 2009,21:33
That's kind of what we have now.
Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 25 2009,07:39
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,13:05) QUOTE Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'. Here in Texas it mostly is already. We've got two weeks of Early Voting, and well over half of voters go before Election Day to avoid all the crowds. Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 25 2009,07:47
(Malcolm @ Jul. 24 2009,17:01) QUOTE (TheCatt @ Jul. 24 2009,14:51) QUOTE We're a republic for a reason. Democracy would be worse than what we've got. The only historical examples I've seen of working direct democracies involved relatively small numbers of people. There's too many fucking people. ... 1) There's certain folk in the world that are not to be trusted in certain matters. They are destructive creatures that contribute less than they leech when left to their own devices in that area. Too many people is mostly a technical and design issue. A majority is still a majority. As to debate, it would take some careful design to come up with a way for everyone to feel they've had their say and still make the output at least reasonably sensible. But I bet there are ways to get that done, and even if not perfect it would still be more effective than the current system of telling your representative, who mostly ignores the clamoring masses in favor for a handful of key "voters" (read as "contributors"). And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths. Finally one additional advantage a direct system would have: more gridlock. It would be damn near impossible to strike deals with the opposition. No more "I'll give you an army base in your district if you vote for my bill you hate" bullshit. And we need more gridlock, because the more Congress gets done the more they spend on bullshit. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 25 2009,07:54
What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns. At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting. Yes, I realize a lot don't, but that still doesn't mean any significant percentage of 280 million people in this country are going to learn about every issue before they vote on it. This doesn't even touch on the obfuscation of the language on most local laws I vote for, so you can't really figure out if a "yes" vote on an issue is actually for, or against that law.I think the great majority of regular folks, intelligent or not, don't have the time to educate themselves on the issues. Maybe make a bylaw... if 50% of people don't vote at all on an issue, then it cannot pass? This would keep the busy/confused people from voting at all, and they can either sell the bill harder or educate peeps better. Also would keep 10 laws a day from getting passed. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 25 2009,09:14
(TPRJones @ Jul. 25 2009,09:47) QUOTE And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths. We've got the means to dilute their influence already. As a society, we appear to have rejected using it. If 90% of the eligible voters would go march on D.C. or their local state capital, they'd get brought to their knees. Posted by GORDON on Jul. 25 2009,09:20
(Malcolm @ Jul. 25 2009,12:14) QUOTE (TPRJones @ Jul. 25 2009,09:47) QUOTE And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths. We've got the means to dilute their influence already. As a society, we appear to have rejected using it. If 90% of the eligible voters would go march on D.C. or their local state capital, they'd get brought to their knees. I don't think even 25% of eligible voters could fit into DC without spilling into the burbs. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 25 2009,09:21
(GORDON @ Jul. 25 2009,09:54) QUOTE What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns. At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting. Yes, I realize a lot don't, but that still doesn't mean any significant percentage of 280 million people in this country are going to learn about every issue before they vote on it. This doesn't even touch on the obfuscation of the language on most local laws I vote for, so you can't really figure out if a "yes" vote on an issue is actually for, or against that law. I think the great majority of regular folks, intelligent or not, don't have the time to educate themselves on the issues. Jackpot. There aren't enough hours in the day to familiarize yourself w\ the inherent complexity of being part of a gov't in charge of hundreds of millions of people. Even if you break shit up into committees like Congress, it's still difficult. Our senses can't process that amount of info that quick. Either reduce the amount of info or increase info uptake. Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 25 2009,11:46
(GORDON @ Jul. 25 2009,09:54) QUOTE At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting. I can't imagine you posted that sentence with a straight face. Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 25 2009,11:51
(GORDON @ Jul. 25 2009,09:54) QUOTE What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns. No problem. I can solve that with two items: 1) a link is available right there on the voting page to go to information resources, including links to the most vocal critics & supporters of whatever the item is, and 2) before voting on a topic a short quiz is given on the topic - say five questions, not difficult but you'd have to be at least passingly familiar with the issue to get the answers - and if you don't get at least 80% of those questions right you don't vote yet and are shunted to the information page to learn about the topic (plus a little "please vote responsibly!" pop-up window gently calls you out on your stupidity). Does that mean fewer people will bother to participate? Yes. But I don't see that as a bad thing. QUOTE There aren't enough hours in the day to familiarize yourself w\ the inherent complexity of being part of a gov't in charge of hundreds of millions of people. Even if you break shit up into committees like Congress, it's still difficult. Our senses can't process that amount of info that quick. Good. Not everyone should be voting on every topic anyway. Many items will only effect certain groups of people, and only those with a stake in the issue are likely to care enough to go to the trouble. Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 25 2009,12:05
The problems there are:1) The people who "care" are the people who want the government to do something. So we'll end up with more government. 2) People will vote on everything. Hell, I have no idea what the difference between my soil and water conservation representative choices were, but I chose one. Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 25 2009,18:18
The day we can all get petabyte bandwidth jacked directly into our brains, this might change."Oops, need to prepare for the elections ... download complete. Yep, all the candidates still suck & they're still trying to take my money legally." Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 25 2009,18:25
(TPRJones @ Jul. 25 2009,13:51) QUOTE 2) before voting on a topic a short quiz is given on the topic - say five questions, not difficult but you'd have to be at least passingly familiar with the issue to get the answers - and if you don't get at least 80% of those questions right you don't vote yet and are shunted to the information page to learn about the topic (plus a little "please vote responsibly!" pop-up window gently calls you out on your stupidity). One man's "passingly" is another's "indepth." People get bitchy if you suggest literacy tests for voting. & that's one more thing to verify now to make sure the "disenfranchised" voters aren't getting shitty quizzes. Posted by TPRJones on Jul. 25 2009,23:07
Still, I can dream.
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