Paul, Don't be too concerned. This type of rigging boundaries by politicians has been going on for centuries in many countries including my own - Australia. You could even correlate that a Dictatorship Rule is the ultimate "jerrymander". I agree with your thoughts on the "middle ground". In my opinion, it has also been marginalised as communications in our societies has improved - print media, television, internet etc. The reason being is that information can be deployed to the majority of the public at break neck speeds. Politicians often need that small percentage / margine to get across the line at election time. To follow on from Bill Theon and others comments. I believe morality is in the hands of everybody but especially us because we should have a greater technical expertise than most users. Unfortunaltely I have identified and been involved in processors which are technically flawed - motivated by external forces against the better judgement of GIS Specialists. Some of these external forces are valid - for instance an answer is required but we can't afford the 99% correct answer, the 85% correct answer will do. This whole subject brings up the greatest challenge of our industry - How do we convey at times the extremely complex results and easily display a "reliability / accuiracy factor". Today, many organisations have "codes of ethics". In summary, "we can but do our best" Happy New Year to one and all. cheers Lawrie
>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2004/01/07 02:14:44 AM >>> We may be contributing to a very bad trend in what we do..! I may have to light a blue touch paper and retire here - a very risky area - but I'm not making any sort of partisan point. Over Christmas I've been catching up on some reading and was both alarmed and fascinated by a long article in the New Yorker about gerrymandering in the US. To gerrymander is defined by Dictionary.com as "To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections". There are now tools available that allow the use of census data, opinion polls, lifestyle etc to very high levels of accuracy previously unavailable. Presumably there are MapInfo partners that sell them. Voting districts need redrawing all the time of course. Managing this to ensure your rivals votes are nullified or reduced by shunting districts around so that they are swallowed up - or 'unhelpful' districts are merged - is the gerrymandering aspect. Its actually illegal in England but thats not to say it doesn't go on. This sort of thing has always happened but GIS makes it more precise - one voting district of notably bizarre shape in Philadelphia has been structured by local politicians (Republican in this case) to look like an 'upside down Chinese Dragon'. By these means the politicians ensure that they corrall off 'their' vote into safe blocks and then concentrate on the undecided voters when electioneering (the figure of 10% was used in the article). The result of this is to make the campaigning more and more shrill as there is no need to appeal to the mass of voters. The sheer violence of the language used in US election campaigns has always amazed me (I was there in 84 and 94) but its apparently getting much worse. It also means that the middle ground of opinion is ignored in the various legislatures - Republican/Democrat cooperation is now almost non-existent even on non-contentious issues. Obviously the New Yorker has what many listers would call through gritted teeth a 'liberal bias' but I think this is a valid point and even allowing for greater controls it could happen over here. I suppose if the tools are there they will get used but does anyone else share this concern? And now I'm going to change my identity and move to Patagonia. Paul Crisp Syntegra Innovation Place Delta Bank Road Newcastle NE11 9DJ Tel 0191 461 4522 Fax 0191 460 1987 ******************************************************************** This email may contain information which is privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please notify the sender immediately and delete it without reading, copying, storing, forwarding or disclosing its contents to any other person Thank you Check us out at http://www.syntegra.com ******************************************************************** The following message has been received from the Internet. Please use with caution the message and any attachments This message has passed through an insecure network. All enquiries should be directed to the message author
