==================================================== Posted message: Hi everyone,
A former classmate of mine has started an organization that attempts to increase voter turnout by reducing the barriers to voting - if you're not tracking, only 57% of eligible voters actually voted in 2008. There are lots of reasons why people don't vote, but forgetting to get yourself registered, getting too busy to request an absentee ballot, and letting deadlines slip by accidentally shouldn't be among them. The deal is simple - you sign up on their website and they track primaries, registration deadlines, election days, etc, and they send you the necessary paperwork and reminders to get it all done. They've got 25 universities already signed up for this coming election and *are looking for more partners* - please see the below and contact Sam Novey (cc'ed) for further information. ====================================================== Response: I just wanted to throw this out there, and let everyone know that such a thing is possible, regardless of the fact that none of us will ever see it in our lifetimes because of the struggle over power and a lack of morality and foresight by our "superiors". Note, this is a message of decent length. Stop now before your eyeballs begin to bleed and you get a stroke. However, I can promise it will change your view of voting and money to a degree. I have gone through dozens of iterations of this project/invention with several think tanks and forums and people of numerous ideologies and cultures etc. I know some of you will disagree, have opinions, or have thoughts about it or something like it - you can save your words. Nothing you say or mention will bring this thought any closer to existing or coming true because it's just a wet dream, or a mirage. It's not worth wasting effort over, except my own. Congress as a whole consumes $100 million every year just to exist. In the past, while performing estimates on the cost of voting each year, I came to the conclusion that elections cost approximately $6 billion per year - how funny it was that I was correct, after seeing a Mother Jones article estimating the cost at $5.8 billion. My estimate included training staff, lost job wages, paper, voting machines for each state, and so on. In addition to the $6 billion we waste on elections each year, there is the added insult of not having Congress follow their constituent's needs. I had arguments about how the founding fathers had planned on including in the original country documents that no more than 50,000 people should be represented by one man. That number is currently well over 725,000. There is a stadium in poland I think that can hold massive numbers of people - fill two of them, drop a single senator in the middle, and ask yourself if there is any possible way he could hold the same beliefs and have the same needs as all those people. It's not possible - our system is inherently flawed and continues to operate as such. That being said, if Congress is supposed to represent many individuals, and Congress makes decisions because we, the people have granted them this power, then this means that the individual is really the one making the decisions. We can therefore liquefy Congress, return the vote and decision making to the individual, and retain checks and balances as intended. Could you imagine a president that vetoed the will of 300 million people? The only real consideration to be worked out is the problem of majority rule/minority vote or some combination of the term/phrase. It was really the only one I couldn't argue against in depth, but that's only because one would assume that giving the vote to that many people, rules would already be in place to prevent that kind of abuse from happening. If we give you a gun, you can't carry it in public without a permit, etc kind of thing. Let's quickly recap: $6 billion spent every year. 1 representative for every 725,000 people, model based on ancient, ineffective technology. Abuse. There are two methods of distribution for this idea. One is software that can be placed on the computer and phones etc, (subject to vulnerabilities in the hardware/software, etc) another is in the form of a highly secure, custom manufactured "panel" (tablet) that would be placed in every domicile, for the reason that renters move, homeowners move around as well. The entire system (the panel and resulting network) has been covered regarding security, voter fraud, bribes, abuses, redundancy, etc - this is covered and does not need to be discussed. If you're thinking of a few issues, nevermind them, the system is thoroughly protected from every angle imaginable from being taken advantage of. The only consideration is how the population as a whole will begin to use, and continue to use the idea and how this will affect minorities and so on. So we have this panel installed. I will talk about advantages soon. The way it works, is that each person will have their finger scanned in the panel (which can possibly be detached and carried around the house) to identify individual voters within the house. This also allows voters of age to register via the panel, saving time/money or whatever. People can submit their own bills to be voted on by the public at large, search for bills, save or follow bills that are going through the "pipeline", etc. In order to submit a bill, the individual will make their "laws" (based by county, town, state, etc) and if possible, upload supporting research documentation for all participants to view. I know it will be messy at first, but imagine things running smoothly. We're talking about a new form of government/democracy after all. The "Civilization" game series converts governments to anarchy for a turn, before converting to a new government. This is expected. Other viewers have the ability to upload research of their own in case anything was missed, people can comment on the bill and rate these comments so that new viewers to the bill can see the most important information first, and this goes for the provided research as well. Cost estimates must be included, or in other words, the bill must be as complete as possible. Once finished, the bill can be voted on to get "signatures" - after enough are gathered, the document is sent to a random third party law firm to convert into legalese. The random law firm prevents pocketed firms from being used. Firms found to be pocketed are banned from converting future bills. After the bill is converted and resubmitted to be voted on, the public can vote on individual lines of the bill. No more earmarks, watermarks, piggybacking, porkbarrelling, etc. No more pushing bills as a whole filled with crap. This is round 1 of the bill process. If voters approve of a majority of the bill (i.e. the bill is structurally sound after losing a portion of the original submission), it is submitted again to another random third party law firm for finalization. This law firm will also review the last conversion to detect any abuses inflicted by the previous firm. As of round 2 of the bill, voters are given 2 weeks to vote on the finality of the bill so they can allocate time to read information, not miss a day of work and wages, and make an informed decision. The bill is then either enacted, sent to the president to sign, and/or checked by a supreme or circuit court and approved. The page of the bill on this panel will have updates regarding the process of the bill and where it stands, etc. Advantages - Although we save the $6 billion from training, paper, lost wages, new state machines, etc, we must pay a cost up front for the network and the panels in each home, but only once. If we assume a minimum of 3 persons per household, we need 100 million panels, at an estimated cost of $300, resulting in $30 billion up front, but let's make it $50 billion for the network and IT training. The network pays for itself in 10 years, but we must also consider the ability of voters to review old bills with earmarks etc, and eliminate pork barrel spending. A quick google search estimates current pork barrel spending at an average of $20 billion over the last 7 years - http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/#trends So we can easily see that the panel system will pay for itself rather quickly in terms of savings. On top of reducing legal abuse, excess spending, useless projects, we can direct taxpayer funds directly at sorely needed areas of the country and civic life. Projects that no longer function or exist can be removed and funds redirected at something more productive, even sponsoring "crowdfunding" for projects of a high level nature like DARPA's automatic vehicles etc - or in other words, "public research". It would be akin to the roman population directing their taxes towards discovering plumbing, or something like that. Satisfying a modern need. More people will participate if they understand that their involvement directly affects what happens to their lives and their town, etc. We may even be able to require companies to provide more days off, or vacations, like europe does in order to facilitate the use of this panel more efficiently by the public as a whole. The country also no longer goes to war frivolously. When wars do begin, the population can end it directly. Search for terrorists, but if Saddam has no nukes, we come home. I think it's safe enough to say that we can leave the federal agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc to the president, minus privacy concerns etc of course. Additionally, this panel will provide and require thousands of permanent jobs here in the country. Before I get to that, the panel is 100% handicap accessible. It has a speaker, language processing, etc so that the blind, deaf, etc can all use the panel just like anyone else can. That being said, technical support will be required for people who need help - staff will talk to people directly through the panel, even highlighting areas or appearing on the screen if necessary. Installation contractors will be required to install and replace units throughout the country on a permanent basis. Manufacturers will have a permanent place in repairing and refurbishing units as well as making new ones. Finally, there will be the infrastructure staff, maintaining networks, antennas/towers, servers, databases, etc. To recap quickly: Thousands of permanent jobs, reduced spending, direct community involvement, reduction in corruption and abuse, more accurate public representation. Efficiency. That being said, the higher level advantage here is that this idea prepares humanity for the next evolutionary step as we enter an increasingly digital world. Jobs are being replaced by robots, efficiency comes in the form of upgrades, and people are being phased out as a whole (minus education and research etc.). My point is that if proven successful, this new form of democracy can support a larger and more advanced nation for the next 300 years as governments learn new ways to abuse the system, but the point is that they won't be able to for quite some time. Congress is hundreds of years old, and the abuse is easy to see - all the tricks have been found. The more important point is that if successful, this panel can extend itself to other democracies such as the UK and europe, starting individually within each nation at first. It will be easier to convert dictatorships etc to democracy with direct representation such as this. Once additional nations adopt this kind of democracy, it sets the stage for humanity to combine as a planet via the technology and internet infrastructure. Entire nations can vote as individuals regarding "United Nations" style laws. This will prove to be more and more important as humanity reaches out to the stars and inhabits other worlds, and will serve future generations as a support system for many hundreds of years into the future. This result is simply not feasible with the current system we have in place. It just won't hold together. To recap: USA becomes more cohesive and cooperative, more "hive mind" so to speak. It becomes successful in the US, spreads to the UK, Canada, and the EU. Once successful in these countries, the infrastructure merges so that people from the USA, UK, Canada, and the EU can vote on international law, together, as this "hive mind" begins to establish a sense of ethics and morality. Once overpopulation and efficiency surrounding farming techniques reaches an apogee, we spread our new "government" to other planets like the moon, mars, and begin working on terraforming and expanding ourselves into space. Efficient government is mandatory in order to successfully branch out into space. Imagine the government of mars conflicting with the government of earth. A civil war in space? Come on. It will be easy to allow mars for example to have it's own government, and still encapsulate the two planets as a body in a similar fashion to the way we use the UN to form international treaties between our governments now. Whew. Thanks for reading! Too bad i wrote all this for nothing, and the idea will just disappear anyway. Have a nice life. Yes, be upset with today. Be very, very, upset. Go Occupy Wall Street!
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