Clever ways to spread information to influence political opinion.

[admittedheretic]

If one wanted to see a change in a particular city or state legislation, what unconventional ways could one spread their agenda?

What if a group collaborated together to burn thousands upon thousands of CDs which could be played in DVD players and distributed them to the masses over a short period of time? I don't think this would be effective unless done at a high enough volume to make the evening news report. The content of the media would containing information that should be spread, but it should also have something that gets people talking. People who have not seen the video will be influenced by others to watch it. I am unsure if this would even be an effective, but it is just an idea.

What other ways could this done and how come nobody is doing it? Does it not work?

[phej]

Youtube?

[Night Runner]

What other ways could this done and how come nobody is doing it? Does it not work?

No, it doesn't. Come on, man, use your J. ;) Burning "thousands upon thousands of CDs" will cost you a fortune, and a only a relatively small percentage of people will
a) own a DVD player, and
b) be interested enough in what you have to say to watch it, and
c) have time to watch it - rather than sleep, work, fuck, eat, or engage in their hobbies.

Do you want to know what really works? Going to poor neighborhoods and telling their uneducated residents that the election got moved from November 4th to November 5th, so that those of them who wanted to vote wouldn't be able to. Providing free van rides to the polls for the old people, all the while telling them all about your agenda and criticizing your opponent. Trying to stop the Congress from passing a health care reform by spreading rumors of death panels that would round up all the old folks and kill them dead. :rolleyes:

[Chilibean13]

Obama (excuse me, I mean Vallerie Jarrett) seems to like implying that the funding for the National Endowment of the Arts will be taken away if they don't help to get his message out there. So, I guess getting artists to paint pictures of you with halos on your head might help.

[Stickman]

Viral marketing seems to be really effective. The only thing is, people havn't figured out how to purposefully use it other than maybe Obama and to some extent Ron Paul.

[PunkinA]

I remember when high schools in our area got a big contract to put televisions in all the classrooms. The technology would be provided for free, as long as the school agreed to air some informational programming for ten minutes a day across the whole school, and put up some posters.

I wonder what the school board members who approved the program got out of the deal.

[Paul Siraisi]

I ask again, does Congress have a web forum?

[gestalt]

No they do not.

I think the best thing to do on a local level like this is really get a feel for the players. Letter-to-the-editor debates are excellent fodder for public opinion if your responses are finely-crafted and well written. That depends on community size.

Unconventional....

I've seen 'moves' made in board-rooms but I think that anything too unconventional would be seen as schtick and novelty. And quickly dismissed as result.

But here's an idea that I use in my class presentations. Web-based Powerpoint Cell-Phone polling. Take a live survey of your audience, having them vote via their cellphones and see the poll immediately up on a screen in front. I think their website is down at the moment, the best free and paid versions of the service are from Poll Everywhere.

[Warrior]

You could run for office and campaign on the particular platform you want to see implemented.

[blueback]

I've been impressed with the anti-smoking propaganda I've seen in the last couple years. They've really been stretching themselves to come up with creative and memorable visuals.

I think visuals are really the key to influencing people. Words used to be important, back when everyone had to get their information through papers and radio, but pictures have been king even since an election was lost because someone didn't think they needed makeup on television.

Figure out where the audience you want to reach typically looks, and put your message there in a way that is hard to forget. Keep in mind that certain things usually attract attention, like sex and fear, and certain things usually stick in the mind, like faults and the opinions of famous people. The important thing is to take over the debate.

Of course, the easiest way to get something changed is to convince a rich person or corporation to get involved. Money is what buys those expensive advertising campaigns and/or expensive legislators. You might get more bang for your buck (so to speak) by focusing your efforts on a few rich people or corporations.

[Visum]

I remember when high schools in our area got a big contract to put televisions in all the classrooms. The technology would be provided for free, as long as the school agreed to air some informational programming for ten minutes a day across the whole school, and put up some posters.

I wonder what the school board members who approved the program got out of the deal.

My school too, and Anderson Cooper was the mouth piece. I was skeptical of it then, and I still am.

I was thinking if you really wanted to influence people on a mass scale, start a forum based on personality profiles. You would be able to respond to them in ways that would cater to their general personality weaknesses. :laugh::thinking:

[hubcap]

This got a lot of attention in my neighborhood:

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Roxie]

Top Ways to Influence Others:
Get to someone that you want to influence knows and have them put the word in for you.

Try calling the local reporter or paper and see if it is hot topic for a local reporter, they often are looking for stories, angles, folks to interview, etc.

Youtube was mentioned earlier and I highly agree, although it can be tough to get it hot enough to go viral.

Reach out to groups already organized, they have the communication system in place and if they agree with you will carry on the message. For example, if I wanted to influence politicians about something in the environment reach out the an organization that cares about that part of the invironment and let them know what the policitician is doing and how it could impact them.

To reach out to an elected official, give them a call or write them a letter, email or snail mail.

Hope this help and remember it takes between 7 and 21 touches to influence someone else, so it really is just a numbers game!

[Night Runner]

Why does Congress not have a web forum?

Because:
a) most Congressmen are old and quite likely not up to speed on technology - especially online message boards;
b) a forum like that would have roughly 300,000,000 users - and that's just from the United States. Have you seen all the trolls on Yahoo and AOL message boards? What you're proposing would be a magnet for all the trolls in the world and would require an army of moderators;
c) this giant forum with an army of moderators, 300 million users and a legion of trolls would require the largest, most sophisticated servers known to man - and chances are, they'd still overheat and die on a regular basis;
d) every Congressman that I know of has a site, an email and numerous assistants. If you really want to discuss something, you can just contact the Congressman in question or someone in his/her inner circle.

[zibber]

What other ways could this done and how come nobody is doing it? Does it not work?

Aren't there many grass roots movements?

As in: demonstrating, talking to people, spreading information.. It's not working, but people are doing it.

[Conservationist]

If one wanted to see a change in a particular city or state legislation, what unconventional ways could one spread their agenda?

Entertainment media: convince the ill-educated that they're geniuses for adopting a certain viewpoint.

[firebee]

Entertainment media: convince the ill-educated that they're geniuses for adopting a certain viewpoint.

Excellent plan. Perhaps they can use something like this (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.************/wp-content/uploads/typical_social_roles.jpg)?

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working all that well (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). Pity. I was so looking forward to supporting our new robot overlords.

[saberu]

you probably need help to make any impact so the first step might be finding like minded people and creating an organization

i heard a quote about keeping a lie simple and repeating it over and over...not that you intend to spread lies, but the same basic approach should work

[Paul Siraisi]

Why does Congress not have a web forum
Because:
a) most Congressmen are old and quite likely not up to speed on technology - especially online message boards;
That will of course change.
b) a forum like that would have roughly 300,000,000 users - and that's just from the United States. Have you seen all the trolls on Yahoo and AOL message boards? What you're proposing would be a magnet for all the trolls in the world and would require an army of moderators;

300,000,000 is the total population of the United States. Not all these people are going to be posting. Good point about non-US users. This site could employ sophisticated authentication and entitlement management methods to tie every user to a social security number. That alone would cut down on all kinds of traffic.

Yes, I'm picturing a large number of moderators equipped with efficient tools in a very smart state-of-the-art site. Default no post allowed over 500 characters or under 20, with those restrictions relaxed as users gain 'credibility' points. One would want a more or less continuous polling feature. No links allowed. Congressmembers could subscribe to certain subjects/key words/credibility levels, etc. Some kind of matching algorithm to indicate potentially related posts no matter where located. Etc, etc, etc.

c) this giant forum with an army of moderators, 300 million users and a legion of trolls would require the largest, most sophisticated servers known to man - and chances are, they'd still overheat and die on a regular basis;

YouTube works, right? How different is that? I think you're underestimating the capacity of modern high availabilty server deployment schemes.


d) every Congressman that I know of has a site, an email and numerous assistants. If you really want to discuss something, you can just contact the Congressman in question or someone in his/her inner circle.

No, that kind of black hole of a silo is precisely what I'm trying to get away from (have you noticed that every single congressman has his own individually built web email site? How incredibly inefficient--they have plenty to learn from each other). Our representatives don't represent us adequately. These are politicians, not thinkers. Congress, as a body, needs to be directly confronted with the best thinking we US Citizens, as a body, have to offer them.

I am proposing the next level in representative democracy.

[Night Runner]

That will of course change.
When? A lot of old-timers control the politics now and will do so for many decades to come. Even then, it's not guaranteed that the next generation will be very technologically literate. For example, John McCain just turned 73 years old and he probably has quite a few more years as a senator ahead of him. And yet, according to quite a few sources, he doesn't go online and doesn't even use email (not himself, anyway). Our previous president is "only" 63 years old, and he doesn't seem too tech-inclined, either - in one of the 2004 presidential debates, he told about things "on the Internets." I'd venture a guess that his level of expertise is limited to forwarding email jokes and watching YouTube videos. :rolleyes:


300,000,000 is the total population of the United States. Not all these people are going to be posting. Good point about non-US users. This site could employ sophisticated authentication and entitlement management methods to tie every user to a social security number. That alone would cut down on all kinds of traffic.
This just gets better and better. So you'd have a database with all the social security numbers and names in one place? This would be a double treat for all the hackers: hack the official U.S. forum and organize the world's biggest identity threat.

Yes, I'm picturing a large number of moderators equipped with efficient tools in a very smart state-of-the-art site. Default no post allowed over 500 characters or under 20, with those restrictions relaxed as users gain 'credibility' points. One would want a more or less continuous polling feature. No links allowed.
We're talking about humans, not Vulcans. It's hard enough to moderate a board with a few thousand members. A bigger board with a few million members would have far more problems. In fact, it's safe to say that the sheer number of problems will grow exponentially, not proportionally as more and more users join the discussion.

Congressmembers could subscribe to certain subjects/key words/credibility levels, etc. Some kind of matching algorithm to indicate potentially related posts no matter where located. Etc, etc, etc.
This is the main problem with your proposal: Do you know how busy a typical congressman's schedule is? Hanging out on a message board (when it's not being hacked or taken down for maintenance) would be a very unproductive use of their time. I'll bet you anything that most (if not all) congressmen would just have their assistants/interns/whoever hang out there instead of them - if they bother to do anything at all.

YouTube works, right? How different is that? I think you're underestimating the capacity of modern high availabilty server deployment schemes.
YouTube is very different because of the fundamentally different model. Not everyone has the capability or enthusiasm to create and post a video: primarily, people watch other people's videos. Posting on a forum is faster, easier and, it would seem, consumes more resources as hundreds, thousands - or millions! - of people keep refreshing the same thread over and over...


No, that kind of black hole of a silo is precisely what I'm trying to get away from (have you noticed that every single congressman has his own individually built web email site? How incredibly inefficient--they have plenty to learn from each other). Our representatives don't represent us adequately. These are politicians, not thinkers.
Name one advanced country that has implemented what you are proposing, or even something remotely resembling it. Name one.

Congress, as a body, needs to be directly confronted with the best thinking we US Citizens, as a body, have to offer them. I am proposing the next level in representative democracy.
And of course, you'd humbly volunteer yourself as one of "the best thinking we US Citizens," eh? :rolleyes: Do you know what happens when you get "best thinkers" together? You get a MENSA convention. Merely having a high IQ is not enough - a politician must know how to network, connect with others, influence them, and so on... Perfect? No. Does it get things done? Yup.

[Paul Siraisi]

a) most Congressmen are old and quite likely not up to speed on technology

That will of course change.

When?

Inevitably. Today's young are tomorrow's old. Ever hear this: The future is so inevitable it might as well be now?

By the way:
< age 60 294
>= age 60 245
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

b) a forum like that would have roughly 300,000,000 users

300,000,000 is the total population of the United States. [not likely]

This just gets better and better. So you'd have a database with all the social security numbers and names in one place? This would be a double treat for all the hackers: hack the official U.S. forum and organize the world's biggest identity threat.

This may come as a shock to you, Nightrunner, but all the social security numbers already are in one big database! If you know anything about computers then you know referencing that same db (once during user setup) could be done in a secure manner.


Yes, I'm picturing a large number of moderators equipped with efficient tools in a very smart state-of-the-art site. Default no post allowed over 500 characters or under 20, with those restrictions relaxed as users gain 'credibility' points. One would want a more or less continuous polling feature. No links allowed.

We're talking about humans, not Vulcans. It's hard enough to moderate a board with a few thousand members. A bigger board with a few million members would have far more problems.

INTJf is more heavily moderated than absolutely required, and does not have all the automated tools--and default restrictions--that could be built for the purpose. And there is no limit on the number of moderators that could be employed. No vulcans moderators required, Nightrunner. Just a few smart humans to design the thing in the first place.

Congressmembers could subscribe to certain subjects/key words/credibility levels, etc. Some kind of matching algorithm to indicate potentially related posts no matter where located. Etc, etc, etc.

This is the main problem with your proposal: Do you know how busy a typical congressman's schedule is? Hanging out on a message board (when it's not being hacked or taken down for maintenance) would be a very unproductive use of their time. I'll bet you anything that most (if not all) congressmen would just have their assistants/interns/whoever hang out there instead of them - if they bother to do anything at all.

Once again, I think you underestimate what can be done with good design. This could be configured into a single email containing the top 5 ranked comments of the day on a favorite topic, for example. The possibilities for efficient delivery of information are endless.

YouTube works, right? How different is that? I think you're underestimating the capacity of modern high availabilty server deployment schemes.

YouTube is very different because of the fundamentally different model.

How do you know what model I'm talking about? I've barely said anything!

Not everyone has the capability or enthusiasm to create and post a video: primarily, people watch other people's videos. Posting on a forum is faster, easier and, it would seem, consumes more resources as hundreds, thousands - or millions! - of people keep refreshing the same thread over and over...

Check out all the comments on the videos. And we have the technology to talk about petabytes with a straight face. And here's a new rule to help: "You have already contributed to this thread today. Come back tomorrow." The possibilities are endless.

No, that kind of black hole of a silo is precisely what I'm trying to get away from.... Our representatives don't represent us adequately. These are politicians, not thinkers.

Name one advanced country that has implemented what you are proposing, or even something remotely resembling it. Name one.

Good grief. Surely that isn't the breadth and depth of your imagination right there? Name one country that was created by a written Constitution before 1787. Name one on the moon before 1969. You must know I could go on.

Congress, as a body, needs to be directly confronted with the best thinking we US Citizens, as a body, have to offer them. I am proposing the next level in representative democracy.

And of course, you'd humbly volunteer yourself as one of "the best thinking we US Citizens,"

Parse that grammar better, please. I said "the best thinking we [US citizens] have to offer." I didn't say anything about best thinking citizens. The point of such a forum would be to act as a tool to cause the best of EVERYONE'S ideas to rise to the notice of our representatives.

eh? :rolleyes: Do you know what happens when you get "best thinkers" together? You get a MENSA convention.

No, Nightrunner, that's what you get when you make stuff up. We just finished discussing a gigantic forum, containing EVERYONE's ideas.

Of course that forum would still have to be somehow designed to cause all the crap thinking to sink to the bottom.

Merely having a high IQ is not enough - a politician must know how to network, connect with others, influence them, and so on... Perfect? No. Does it get things done? Yup.

What do you think we're doing here, right now (not that we're getting much done)?

[reb]

if the money is not taken from the equation, a congressional forum would simply be a 'dog and pony' show like we have now. the money from lobbyists/contributors, has to be removed before discussion will have any meaning. the thieves have even allowed themselves to retroactively change the congressional record. try to find their voting record. communication with people who are already bought and paid for is not communication; they must have something to lose by communicating 'in the clear' with us, in order for our words to have any effect. their recent perceptions are we will continue to re-elect them despite what they do. if we all emailed them about their health care and retirement plans, what effect would that have? (a lawyer question...never ask a question you are pretty sure you do not already know the answer to).

none of us here can begin to influence 'our representatives' unless we have the monetary clout like ge/insurance/unions. take the contributions away, leave the congress reliant upon their salary (i.e., get fired if not responsive) and see things change.

[Night Runner]

Inevitably. Today's young are tomorrow's old. Ever hear this: The future is so inevitable it might as well be now?

By the way:
< age 60 294
>= age 60 245
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

You very conveniently side-stepped my main question:
This is the main problem with your proposal: Do you know how busy a typical congressman's schedule is? Hanging out on a message board (when it's not being hacked or taken down for maintenance) would be a very unproductive use of their time. I'll bet you anything that most (if not all) congressmen would just have their assistants/interns/whoever hang out there instead of them - if they bother to do anything at all.
Even if such a forum is created, if it were properly moderated by oh, say, 10,000 moderators, if it were absolutely unhackable, if basic human nature (rude person+anonymity=troll) were changed overnight and we all turned into Vulcan-like rational debaters who don't use fallacies when making polite and respectful arguments regarding our socio-political differences - even then none of the congressmen would spend significant (if any) amount of time on that forum, because if they do, they won't have time to do things they were actually elected to do in the first place. :rolleyes:

Like I said, in the best case scenario you'd get an intern (or, worse yet, an intern's assistant) browsing through those threads every now and then. And here's another problem - if you post your concerns on a forum dedicated to the entire Cognress, none of the congressmen in particular would have a motivation to help you. If, however, you were to call your actual representative or senator and tell him/her what bothers you, that intern you'd talk to would relay the message, and something might actually change. (I'm talking about medium/small-sized problems here - relatively minor things within that congressman's power.)

This may come as a shock to you, Nightrunner, but all the social security numbers already are in one big database! If you know anything about computers then you know referencing that same db (once during user setup) could be done in a secure manner.
Touché. :toff:

INTJf is more heavily moderated than absolutely required, and does not have all the automated tools--and default restrictions--that could be built for the purpose. And there is no limit on the number of moderators that could be employed. No vulcans moderators required, Nightrunner. Just a few smart humans to design the thing in the first place.
I was referring to Vulcan posters (though I may have phrased that better). Check out Yahoo buzz. Or a sufficiently large message/comment board on any major news site. There are trolls aplenty... Sure, you can ban a known rules violator, but something tells me that the sheer numbers of trolls and idiots will be far, far larger than those of the few intelligent posters you seek to attract.

Once again, I think you underestimate what can be done with good design. This could be configured into a single email containing the top 5 ranked comments of the day on a favorite topic, for example. The possibilities for efficient delivery of information are endless.
But have you considered the sheer amount of information that will be posted in those topics? It's hard to keep up with some of the more popular threads on this board (though I'm quite proud to say I've read all 600+ posts on curiousgeorge's thread on rape), and we only have a few hundred active users. If you get a forum with millions of users, there just won't be enough time for people to read through all the comments. It will be millions of people talking all at once. And even if you were to implement a YouTube-like comment rating system to make sure the best ones get to the top, you'll face yet another problem: people often disagree with one another. You'll have creationists and evolutionists flagging each other's posts; pro-lifers and pro-choicers; Reagan's fans and haters. There will be absolutely no objectivity.

And here's a new rule to help: "You have already contributed to this thread today. Come back tomorrow." The possibilities are endless.
So wait, all the users will be limited to only one post per thread per day? :stunned: Like I said above, it will be millions of people talking at the same time. If you post something, 24 hours later your message will be buried underneath thousands others...

Good grief. Surely that isn't the breadth and depth of your imagination right there? Name one country that was created by a written Constitution before 1787. Name one on the moon before 1969. You must know I could go on.
Fallacy. I can just as easily name accomplishments other countries achieved and the United States didn't. I can just as easily name lots of other accomplishments we attempted and at which we failed miserably. Besides, that wasn't the main point. Once again, here is what I asked:
Name one advanced country that has implemented what you are proposing, or even something remotely resembling it. Name one.
You have yet to name one. :) Are you implying that the United States is currently the most technologically advanced country? I'd say that the first place in that category belongs to South Korea and Japan. Every aspect of people's lives there is digital. And yet, somehow, they haven't implemented your idea. I'm sure they have the technology for it. I guess they either don't see the need for it, or realize that the human factor would f*** things up.

Parse that grammar better, please.
My bad. Too much quoting...

I said "the best thinking we [US citizens] have to offer." I didn't say anything about best thinking citizens. The point of such a forum would be to act as a tool to cause the best of EVERYONE'S ideas to rise to the notice of our representatives.
Hmm. Okay. Still seemed a bit like self-promotion in that original contest. :P But once again, you'll face an idea overload. And our representatives won't even log on. Sure, they'd probably sit in front of a computer and press a few buttons in front of a camera to show their constituents how supposedly advanced they are, but that's about it. It will be trolls, more trolls, interns and grossly outnumbered thinkers with too much time on their hands. Oh, and did I mention trolls? :)

What do you think we're doing here, right now (not that we're getting much done)?
We are wasting time haha. Thought I must say, I really do enjoy this conversation. It's a welcome distraction from the routine. If and when you have a smart person with a great idea, posting that idea on an online forum won't change a thing. If and when you have a smart person with a great idea and an access to a better medium (a newspaper editorial or a radio show), you get NPR, CNN and FOX news. If and when you have a smart person with a great idea and a desire to make money, you get a think tank. And if you actually want your idea to be implemented, just like reb said, you'll need to hire a lobbyist. It's a sad state of affairs, but that's how things have been done here for over two centuries, and somehow I don't see lobbyists and congressmen changing it (or allowing somebody else to change it) anytime soon...

[Paul Siraisi]

You very conveniently side-stepped my main question:
This is the main problem with your proposal: Do you know how busy a typical congressman's schedule is? ... Like I said, in the best case scenario you'd get an intern (or, worse yet, an intern's assistant) browsing through those threads every now and then.
I didn't sidestep anything. My answer on the busy congressperson was this:
This could be configured into a single email containing the top 5 ranked comments of the day on a favorite topic, for example. The possibilities for efficient delivery of information are endless.
No interns required. The congressperson could receive a single daily email from the American People.

And here's another problem - if you post your concerns on a forum dedicated to the entire Cognress, none of the congressmen in particular would have a motivation to help you. If, however, you were to call your actual representative or senator and tell him/her what bothers you, that intern you'd talk to would relay the message, and something might actually change. (I'm talking about medium/small-sized problems here - relatively minor things within that congressman's power.)
That stuff can stay in place. I'm not talking about minor personal concerns. I'm talking about what people think about the state of the nation and where it should be going. But we could also tag people by state.
There are trolls aplenty... Sure, you can ban a known rules violator, but something tells me that the sheer numbers of trolls and idiots will be far, far larger than those of the few intelligent posters you seek to attract.
The trolls would have their social security numbers to think about--they might not find it much fun there. This would not be your average forum.
But have you considered the sheer amount of information that will be posted in those topics? It's hard to keep up with some of the more popular threads on this board (though I'm quite proud to say I've read all 600+ posts on curiousgeorge's thread on rape), and we only have a few hundred active users. If you get a forum with millions of users, there just won't be enough time for people to read through all the comments. It will be millions of people talking all at once. And even if you were to implement a YouTube-like comment rating system to make sure the best ones get to the top, you'll face yet another problem: people often disagree with one another. You'll have creationists and evolutionists flagging each other's posts; pro-lifers and pro-choicers; Reagan's fans and haters. There will be absolutely no objectivity.
This is the hard part, I agree--how to organize ideas effectively. But going to the moon was ard, too. I'm sure there is much in forum technology still to be invented, or properly exploited. Something like search engine web crawling for comments, used to generate meta data both about the comments and the users themselves. So if certain users tend to post/vote in persistent groups, this can be captured and used. One might list top-ranked posters by how many posts/comments of theirs include a given combination of words (akin to identifying specialists in your topic of interest). A crawler bot might find the first poster of an ultimately popular combination of words, and have that contribute to the person's ranking. Moderators could assist AIs by developing a sort of 'idea thesaurus' (or maybe the AI can track combinations of combinations of words, or maybe Wikipedia can be exploited): Peace in Afghanistan == pashtun politics == Iranian culture, etc. That would allow mapping that could then be exploited to present topic areas (most discussed, most polarized, today, this week, etc.)

So wait, all the users will be limited to only one post per thread per day? :stunned: Like I said above, it will be millions of people talking at the same time. If you post something, 24 hours later your message will be buried underneath thousands others...
I've noticed that problem here. A heavier use of voting functionality could take some of the pressure off the comments, if the problem is just being heard, in a more generic sense. But the above meta data approach could rescue more complex statements by aligning them with other ideas--or maybe giving an 'originality' flag.
Fallacy. I can just as easily name accomplishments other countries achieved and the United States didn't. I can just as easily name lots of other accomplishments we attempted and at which we failed miserably. Besides, that wasn't the main point.
It wasn't the point at all. The point was that just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be (whoever does it).
Once again, here is what I asked:
You have yet to name one. :) Are you implying that the United States is currently the most technologically advanced country?
No, this is nothing like what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that something not having been done before is not in itself evidence it can't be done.
I'd say that the first place in that category belongs to South Korea and Japan. Every aspect of people's lives there is digital. And yet, somehow, they haven't implemented your idea. I'm sure they have the technology for it. I guess they either don't see the need for it, or realize that the human factor would f*** things up.
Or we've only just arrived at a technological state where such a radical idea is actually feasible.
If and when you have a smart person with a great idea, posting that idea on an online forum won't change a thing. If and when you have a smart person with a great idea and an access to a better medium (a newspaper editorial or a radio show), you get NPR, CNN and FOX news. If and when you have a smart person with a great idea and a desire to make money, you get a think tank. And if you actually want your idea to be implemented, just like reb said, you'll need to hire a lobbyist. It's a sad state of affairs, but that's how things have been done here for over two centuries, and somehow I don't see lobbyists and congressmen changing it (or allowing somebody else to change it) anytime soon...
I would still want to try.

[Night Runner]

In the end, it all comes down to this: politicians don't care about your (or my, for that matter) great ideas about changing this country. The only thing they really care about (though they don't like to admit it) is getting elected and then re-elected ad infinitum. That means getting interns who listen to your complaints about, say, construction workers outside your house - and then applying a quick fix, getting your vote and bragging about it to the press. That's how it works - and I've been around enough politicians to know they all do this.

The only thing that truly gets their attention is a substantial block of the electorate that would vote against them if something isn't done: unions, minorities, old people, et cetera. That's why those blocks have so much power, and that's why everyone kowtows to them - not because they genuinely care, but because pissing them off would make life very, very difficult.

When and if a truly great idea spreads like a wildfire through this nation of ours, the two main parties adapt it. If they don't, a third party pops up. That third party usually doesn't last very long, because it becomes a threat to the big two, and they adapt its ideas. Devoid of originality, the party essentially fades into nothingness. If the people are lucky, some of its ideas might actually get implemented.

And then you have that rarest phenomenon of all - a politician who cares not about getting elected, but about changing the status quo and introducing the new idea. In 2008, it was Ron Paul. I'm sure we all still remember how miserably his campaign failed... :rolleyes: The Powers That Be don't care about your great ideas altering the status quo. They like it just the way it is, and there are absolutely no incentives for them to change it.

[RdtheLiterature]

Find one the those Super Connectors that Max Gladwell talked about in The Tipping Point and tell them your idea.





RdtheLiterature added to this post, 4 minutes and 28 seconds later...

And then you have that rarest phenomenon of all - a politician who cares not about getting elected, but about changing the status quo and introducing the new idea. In 2008, it was Ron Paul. I'm sure we all still remember how miserably his campaign failed... :rolleyes: The Powers That Be don't care about your great ideas altering the status quo. They like it just the way it is, and there are absolutely no incentives for them to change it.


sighhhh....I hope not. I understand all of this.
I do, I really do, but I still hope there is hope. and I'm keeping my faith!

[Paul Siraisi]

In the end, it all comes down to this: politicians don't care about your (or my, for that matter) great ideas about changing this country.

Hard to argue with that.

I'm still bent on cracking this nut.