Hack money out of politics: Democracy Hackathon (March 29-30 San Francisco)

Hack money out of politics: Democracy Hackathon (March 29-30 San Francisco) (eventbrite.com)

54 points by aaronlifshin 12 years ago | 17 comments

dmix 12 years ago |

The amount of influence money has on the state is directly proportional to the amount of control the state has on the economy and justice system. Money in politics wouldn't nearly matter as much if the government didn't apply heavy-handed control to every market and courtroom around the country.

As long as power is centralized into a few politicians hands, there will always be a massive concerted effort to buy that power.

Everyone who champions for more state-intervention, this is the natural side-effect you'll have to live with. Welcome to your unintended creation. Transparency is the only possibly counter-balance I could see helping the situation, but I don't see any level of transparency being added to gov operations. The trend has been in quite the opposite direction.

spikels 12 years ago | |

You hit the nail on the head. Power corrupts and more power just leads to more corruption. In theory transparancy should help but is resisted in many ways and rarely effective in practice (e.g. FEC).

In my opinion the only real solution to government corruption is limits on government power.

aaronlifshin 12 years ago | |

Very good points. In fact, transparency legislation in California failed by one vote just this week. Check out California Clean Money Campaign (who are also working with us on the hackathon event).

My point here is that the system is locked down as long as money controls it. We cannot release state control over the economy until we get money out of politics.

The corruption goes both ways: politicians depend on donor money, but to get the donor money they have to create complex legislation to extort with.

There is a great story in Republic: Lost about Al Gore and early internet regulation where the senators essentially say: "If we leave this unregulated, how will we make money off these guys?"

From where we are now, we have to work to reduce the influence of money on politics before any other reform can be approached sensibly.

anigbrowl 12 years ago | |

What do you mean by applying heavy handed control to courtrooms? You seem to be making a wholly circular argument here.

cafard 12 years ago | |

What justice system do you envision outside the state?

dmix 12 years ago | | |

It doesn't have to exist outside of the state:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state

Whereas currently 86% of people in federal jail are there for victimless crimes:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/8558/why-we-need-prison-re...

InclinedPlane 12 years ago |

The problem isn't "money in politics". The problem is that the political process is too shallow, so much so that ordinary advertising can swing results often. And that is due to the electorate and the media. If you try to force money out of elections then you don't solve the underlying problems and you end up just moving corruption around, the money ends up less direct and harder to trace. Nobody wins and we end up bacck where we started.

aaronlifshin 12 years ago | |

Some media reform and education reform can be imagined that would help with this problem. However, no such reform can actually be enacted while our lawmakers are dependent on their funders instead of common sense or the wishes of the people.

InclinedPlane 12 years ago | | |

I think that sentiment stems from the idea that law shapes society rather than society shaping the law. The reason the media is the way it is today has more to do with societal and cultural norms than with the law. It can, and should, be changed not through laws but through society.

aaronlifshin 12 years ago |

Hey all, unfortunately (but also fortunately), we are full up to capacity for this event. Please contact me if you are interested in other ways you can support teamdemocracy.us, or have a fantastic idea you want to hack on. My gmail is my username here.

vezzy-fnord 12 years ago |

What happens when things go the other way around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy

aaronlifshin 12 years ago | |

The threat to democracy from closed electronic voting systems is well documented. But why do these systems get put in place? Could it have some connection with political donations by companies that manufacture the machines, such as Diebold?

Our political system cannot reach unbiased, good decisions about what types of voting systems to implement if it's being swayed by big donors.

We have to hack to get money out of politics, so that our politics don't get hacked!

technologue 12 years ago |

Since this board is full of logical people (programmers), I'm curious to know why any of them think that a system based on tyranny of the majority would increase freedom for people?

Also, I'm really curious what sort of things you all think you can "hack" that will really make people more free. After this, will the NSA be gone? How about the entire military industrial complex and all it's mouthpieces on tv and in Congress? What about the drug war and the power of big pharma? Diebold? Dynasty families like the Bush's and Clintons? Etc Etc Etc.

If any of you were serious about freedom you would be figuring out how to hire lawyers, not coders. A better voting app is just an easier way for my representatives to give me false choices.

aaronlifshin 12 years ago | |

Tyranny of the majority is still better than any other system humanity has so far come up with.

Some of the suggested hacks are listed at the link. They will not, by themselves, get rid of the NSA, but they are reasonable steps that the anti-corruption movement can take at this time to raise awareness and build momentum.

You can join in and start working on the BIG problems you listed, or you can say this cannot be done and do your own idea which seems to be about hiring lawyers.