Beth Noveck: Demand a more open-source government

Hello everyone!

What a day in age we have come to: 7 billion + people, super advanced technology, volumes of knowledge on a vast amount of information! What a culmination of human progression, it truly is something to behold. I think one of the topics most brought up on ATS are relevant to the question, "where do we go from here and how are we possibly supposed to get there?".

I invite you to watch the following video



The presenter is Beth Noveck: served in the White House as the first United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer and founder and director of the White House Open Government Initiative (2009-2011). UK Prime Minister David Cameron appointed her Senior Advisor for Open Government. She served on the Obama-Biden Transition Team and was a volunteer advisor to the Obama for America campaign on issues of technology, innovation, and government reform..

She presents a very wonderful idea; that through our increasingly sophisticated system already put into place, the Internet, we as a society could finally establish a true democracy.

I think this video really puts forward a great idea, that "we the people" already have the ability to rule ourselves. Internet technology is really going to be something that will bring us to salvation, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I see that a lot of people with the mindset that we shouldn't trust the internet and computers. I raise that as the inventors of this technology, we should look to progress it as long it as long as it benefits mankind. As I see it, the foreseeable future is in dire need of human cooperation on a large scale. Using an "open source" style government could not only fix the problems of humanity, but be a lot of fun!

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by kyle43

She presents a very wonderful idea; that through our increasingly sophisticated system already put into place, the Internet, we as a society could finally establish a true democracy.

A true democracy, without protection for the rights of individuals, would be the ultimate mob rule. Leveraging technology, it would facilitate tyranny at a speed never before achieved.

Recently, we saw what happened when mega millions were thrown into advertisements against labeling GMO food in California. The fact that the masses bought into this utter garbage gives us a glimpse at the massive corrupting power of money. Imagine being hit with political propaganda ads 24/7 and it's effect on a high-speed, mob-rule democracy.

reply to post by jcarpenter


How could be tyranny be facilitated if the mechanisms needed to create political action are completely open sourced and able to be viewed freely?