glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee) (04/28/89)
In article <1673@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >'The squeaky wheel gets the grease' is not a valid form of government, >at least in my mind. Neither is government by consensus. >What we need is instant voting capability, or at least a way for the 'lazy' >person to voice their opinion. It is bad enough with the constant opinion polls on every issue these days, can you imagine the effect of instant polls? 1. this will guarantee that the first impression gets voiced the loudest, it does not allow sober second thought before casting your vote. Dangerous. 2. people who are not in a position of responsibility tend to have a short view on things. If you ask me whether the government should raise my taxes, I will always say no. If you ask me whether we should allow cheap imports, and I am a consumer, I will always say yes. 3. people tend to take the selfish view, not looking at the big picture unless it is to their advantage, see point 2 for examples. 4. people have short attention span, subject to mass media persuasions. Free trade is good... Free trade is bad... Free trade is okay... Free trade is good... In short, government by consensus will end up always taking the short term easy way out, resulting in short term volatility and long term stagnation. -- Godfrey Lee P.O. Box 9707 Cognos Incorporated 3755 Riverside Dr. VOICE: (613) 738-1338 x3802 FAX: (613) 738-0002 Ottawa, Ontario UUCP: uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!glee CANADA K1G 3Z4
kevin@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) (05/01/89)
In article <5997@cognos.UUCP> glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee) writes: >In article <1673@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >>'The squeaky wheel gets the grease' is not a valid form of government, >>at least in my mind. >Neither is government by consensus. I need some clarification on this point. Do you mean 'majority rules' is not a valid form of government? I am not saying that it is not a viable form of government, but to me, 'loud minority rules' will just be unfair to too many people (ie the silent majority). > >>What we need is instant voting capability, or at least a way for the 'lazy' >>person to voice their opinion. >It is bad enough with the constant opinion polls on every issue these days, can >you imagine the effect of instant polls? With 'good' data crunching algorithms (oh no, the computer scientist in me is coming out) this information could be made available to MP's in a form that they can assimilate quickly in order to decide what all of their constituents want, rather than the dozen or so banging his doors down. Personally, I think that if these people could voice their opinions at their convenience, they would take a little time to think about it. (How much time does the average opinion poll give you to respond? A minute? 5 minutes? I don't know since I've never been asked to take one.) There's a crossover here into the idea about having information access available to everyone. Want to know what the relevant issues are on the current opinion poll? Just punch up the query on your personal information system and you can find out without a lot of research. > >1.2.3.4. points against this idea > >In short, government by consensus will end up always taking the short term easy >way out, resulting in short term volatility and long term stagnation. >-- >Godfrey Lee P.O. Box 9707 In the current world of course you are right, but I tend to be somewhat of a dreamer and assume that if someone casts a vote they will cast it responsibly. If there is an election and I haven't examined the issues/ candidates etc.. I will not cast my vote for the above reason. Voting for the sake of voting is not democracy, it's ludicrous. All four of your points are not the fault of the governing body but the fault of the individual people. People will vote without thinking, have a short view on things, take the selfish view, and have a short attention span. I don't think that these people can cast competent votes in any election simply because they do not and will not understand the issues. Possible solution? Dream on. The only way I see around this (notice that I do not say "feasible way") is to ensure that people voting know what they are voting for. As I mentioned earlier, one way is to provide people with the instant access of information so that they can find the facts they need quickly. The real solution? Educate these people properly. IMHO the average Canadian/American/whatever is not qualified to choose who is the best candidate to represent them. What is sorely lacking in our educational system today is the passing on of 'wisdom'. After 20 years of schooling I can honestly say that had I had a different attitude I could have graduated in the same position as I am in now without learning a damn thing about the real world. Real education takes effort and desire, and by having kids sit through hours of boring/semi-boring lectures and talks we certainly do our best to stifle these traits. Ever wonder how class distinctions are created? How about through the people having these traits naturally being able to overcome the system and emerge on top (whether they went to school or not), while those who need to build these traits never having the opportunity and having what small amount of desire they may have crushed through the almost robotic motions of standard schooling. Before the flamethrowers are fired up, this has been my experience at the time I went through school (I just finished). If anyone has more positive experiences with the educational system either recently or in the past, I would be relieved to hear about them. --- Kevin Picott NTT Sytems Inc.
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/02/89)
In article <1684@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >... the average >Canadian/American/whatever is not qualified to choose who is the best >candidate to represent them... They also may not be interested, since it's obvious to most everyone that (a) our two major parties are Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with no important differences between them, and (b) most of the dealings an average citizen has with the government are determined by the civil service, not by the elected politicians, and election results seldom have much effect at that level. -- Mars in 1980s: USSR, 2 tries, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 2 failures; USA, 0 tries. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu