Popular protests in the EU

[Sickening]

Who is proposing votes or drafting legislation, if there are no politicians? Civil servants? Who appoints and oversees civil servants- other civil servants? What you're describing seems less like radical democracy and more like the technocrats wet dream: the democratic process shrunk so far as to fit inside an iPhone app, and the entire business of drafting and applying policy restricted to those who can be trusted (that is, who trust themselves) to do it correctly. Without much broader changes to the political and indeed social and economic apparatus, all this proposal seems to offer is the concentration of power into the hands of those who already have it, provided they can manage the shifting moods of the plebeians with occasional referenda; a sort of bureaucratic Bonapartism.

Also, this specific proposal effectively disenfranchises everyone who doesn't have a smart phone, which is an awful idea all on its own.

Don't you realize that government subsidized smart phones that functions as citizens IDs and passport is also an option? I don't get with y'all hating technology although it has provide hassle free service application process. The fear of tech being controlled by few companies is just irrational, because government can just takeover smartphone manufacturers and label smartphones as basic necessities.

The government must already have the ability to ensure investments on fresh tech graduate with prospect and create more competitions to existing tech companies while at the same time guaranteeing employments for those whose jobs are being replaced. They just refuse to think or just lazy to act fast before China destroy European tech industries completely.

I never said about eliminating bureaucrats completely. I also realized that entire policy making must be done by human and for human. It just would be very nice for everyone for never having to deal with problem to deal with problematic civil servants. There are just too many people hating a~hole on the system who'd only become obstacle for good and clean governance. Brexit for example was just a bad idea done too quick, with no discussion between experts and general population whatsoever about the after-effects and possibilities about life after the decision and just overall a blemish on European history.

My goodness, wasn't y'all like supporting socialism ? How can you achieve that goal if you still not see "disenfranchised" people is just people like you and me and just stop looking down "disenfranchised" as people with no power nor strength to buy a single smart phone wherever they are? Yes they need all the help and assistance they can get, but looking down on them is just not helping either.

 

[Yeekim]

BRIC and the TPP (which I actually believe are both each bigger than the EU in raw population of member states) had votes on the issues, or even transparency by the governments negotiating them toward their peoples at all? This is news to me...

BRIC is not a free trade area and TPP11 is behind EU in terms if GPP, not to mention a lot less comprehensive.
EDIT: @Sickening Indeed technology gap can easily be solved. But what technology does not solve is the need to delegate some of the decisionmaking (including agenda-setting) due to sheer volume of issues. Hence, there is always need for politicians...

 

[Traitorfish]

Don't you realize that government subsidized smart phones that functions as citizens IDs and passport is also an option? I don't get with y'all hating technology although it has provide hassle free service application process. The fear of tech being controlled by few companies is just irrational, because government can just takeover smartphone manufacturers and label smartphones as basic necessities.

Okay, so, now the program involves the state nationalising the smartphone industry. Or, because most smart phones are produced in a small minority of countries, establishing their own, state-run smartphone industries. Who is overseeing this? The politicians who it will make obsolete? The civil servants whose historical tendency is to resist any sort of nationalisation, let alone something as expensive as building your own industry from-scratch, Soviet-style? It's not enough to simply declare "Oh, the state can do X, Y and Z" when the infrastructure simply doesn't exist.

(Perhaps there's some confusion around the term "civil servant": I don't know how common it is in the United States, but in the UK and Commonwealth, it specifically means a state bureaucrat, it isn't equivalent to "public servant", which is a sort of nebulous ideological term meaning any elected or appointed official.)

I never said about eliminating bureaucrats completely. I also realized that entire policy making must be done by human and for human. It just would be very nice for everyone for never having to deal with problem to deal with problematic civil servants. There are just too many people hating a~hole on the system who'd only become obstacle for good and clean governance. Brexit for example was just a bad idea done too quick, with no discussion between experts and general population whatsoever about the after-effects and possibilities about life after the decision and just overall a blemish on European history.

The problem isn't that you're leaving a few civil servants hanging around, it's that you're concentrating all effective political power in the hands of civil servants. Periodic referenda, even frequent ones, do not constitute effective oversight, because the proposal, interpretation and application of any vote is decided by an unelected bureaucracy. What you're proposing reduces itself almost immediately to a technocratic dictatorship.

 

[Patine]

Don't you realize that government subsidized smart phones that functions as citizens IDs and passport is also an option? I don't get with y'all hating technology although it has provide hassle free service application process. The fear of tech being controlled by few companies is just irrational, because government can just takeover smartphone manufacturers and label smartphones as basic necessities.

The government must already have the ability to ensure investments on fresh tech graduate with prospect and create more competitions to existing tech companies while at the same time guaranteeing employments for those whose jobs are being replaced. They just refuse to think or just lazy to act fast before China destroy European tech industries completely.

I never said about eliminating bureaucrats completely. I also realized that entire policy making must be done by human and for human. It just would be very nice for everyone for never having to deal with problem to deal with problematic civil servants. There are just too many people hating a~hole on the system who'd only become obstacle for good and clean governance. Brexit for example was just a bad idea done too quick, with no discussion between experts and general population whatsoever about the after-effects and possibilities about life after the decision and just overall a blemish on European history.

My goodness, wasn't y'all like supporting socialism ? How can you achieve that goal if you still not see "disenfranchised" people is just people like you and me and just stop looking down "disenfranchised" as people with no power nor strength to buy a single smart phone wherever they are? Yes they need all the help and assistance they can get, but looking down on them is just not helping either.

There's the (largely under-addressed) issue of the absolutely destructive effects cell-phone proliferation is having on our society and culture - make those two words plural, because the range of this phenomenon is so vast - especially among the growing "sociopathic cell-phone zombie youth." I own a landline and a laptop, and they both stay at home when I go out. Does that sound shocking, or make me an anachronism? With society, culture, and inter-personal skills on a face-to-face disintegrating because of these hand-held "plague machines" as it is, I would fight tooth-and-nail against any legislation where I lived, or in solidarity, where any one else lived, that tied firmly and legally everyone's very political and legal rights ENTRIELY to this technological disease. Another good example of a technology with a good base idea and a vision to revolutionize - well, everything - but whose consequences became disastrous, in the end, that can be analyzed retrospectively is peaceful civilian nuclear power- which was actually just getting started when my mother - whose constantly pushing for me to get a cellphone - was being born and in infancy and toddlerhood in the early '50's.

 

[Hrothbern]

We had this year in our parliament 4,143 motions already from the 150 MP's of our Tweede Kamer.
Add to that the questions on new laws to Ministers, on governing decisions, positions and public statements, news.
(AND our Ministers HAVE to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the Parliament, NOT to the satisfaction of the Cabinet, leading to many questions being answered by thick files made by the ministrial departments, leading to more questions)

How on earth is that going to be done by I-Phone, by citizens busy with their normal life ?
How are these citizens to be so well informed to be able to take informed decisions ?

 

[Patine]

We had this year in our parliament 4,143 motions already from the 150 MP's of our Tweede Kamer.
Add to that the questions on new laws to Ministers, on governing decisions, positions and public statements, news.
(AND our Ministers HAVE to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the Parliament, NOT to the satisfaction of the Cabinet, leading to many questions being answered by thick files made by the ministrial departments, leading to more questions)

How on earth is that going to be done by I-Phone, by citizens busy with their normal life ?
How are these citizens to be so well informed to be able to take informed decisions ?

Pericles' Democratic model had already broken down in an acropolis with the population of a small town by modern North American or European standards today, where every voting citizen was educated and in-touch and knowledgeable of all the major issues - they just became too busy with this and that to regularly attend the Citizen's Assembly.

 

[Traitorfish]

sociopathic cell-phone zombie youth [...] plague machines [...] technological disease

I'm not sure that you get to accuse young people of having poor social skills and call them diseased sociopaths

 

[Sickening]

Okay, so, now the program involves the state nationalising the smartphone industry. Or, because most smart phones are produced in a small minority of countries, establishing their own, state-run smartphone industries. Who is overseeing this? The politicians who it will make obsolete? The civil servants whose historical tendency is to resist any sort of nationalisation, let alone something as expensive as building your own industry from-scratch, Soviet-style? It's not enough to simply declare "Oh, the state can do X, Y and Z" when the infrastructure simply doesn't exist.

(Perhaps there's some confusion around the term "civil servant": I don't know how common it is in the United States, but in the UK and Commonwealth, it specifically means a state bureaucrat, it isn't equivalent to "public servant", which is a sort of nebulous ideological term meaning any elected or appointed official.)


The problem isn't that you're leaving a few civil servants hanging around, it's that you're concentrating all effective political power in the hands of civil servants. Periodic referenda, even frequent ones, do not constitute effective oversight, because the proposal, interpretation and application of any vote is decided by an unelected bureaucracy. What you're proposing reduces itself almost immediately to a technocratic dictatorship.

Happy New Year to all of you.
I believe on technocratic direct democracy where the power is on the hands of the people and not depending on one single leader. Don't we have enough already voting for someone and then to be misled by his/her words ? America and the EU cooperating in creating multiple gadget industries would certainly ensuring the economic progress of both continents.

To answer exactly traitorfish and hrothbern, of course not all policies have to be on the hands of the people. Matters such as annual budgeting, government restucturing etc. is of course of no public concern. However, foreign diplomacy and policies that would affect general public's livelihood must be discussed quickly and there is no other way other than using tech as the media to discuss people's aspirations. Spreading uncensored information quickly was the exact goal of creating a technocratic nation. How is it possible for Trump to won the election if not by utilizing similar way ?

And Patine, why are you so offended by them when it's just one of those things that signifies changing eras ? Those kids are you when you bought your first motorola / nokia.Vis-a-vis human interaction has been proven to be obsolete and ineffective way of communicating ideas anyways.

 

[Dekker]

There's the (largely under-addressed) issue of the absolutely destructive effects cell-phone proliferation is having on our society and culture - make those two words plural, because the range of this phenomenon is so vast - especially among the growing "sociopathic cell-phone zombie youth." I own a landline and a laptop, and they both stay at home when I go out. Does that sound shocking, or make me an anachronism? With society, culture, and inter-personal skills on a face-to-face disintegrating because of these hand-held "plague machines" as it is, I would fight tooth-and-nail against any legislation where I lived, or in solidarity, where any one else lived, that tied firmly and legally everyone's very political and legal rights ENTRIELY to this technological disease. Another good example of a technology with a good base idea and a vision to revolutionize - well, everything - but whose consequences became disastrous, in the end, that can be analyzed retrospectively is peaceful civilian nuclear power- which was actually just getting started when my mother - whose constantly pushing for me to get a cellphone - was being born and in infancy and toddlerhood in the early '50's.

At the end of the day it will only become more proliferated so rather than try to fight the future we should instead look at how to lessen the damaging effects of the technology, and find ways to utilize it for good and progress, and while the phone vote suggestion has other issues, such as having an even greater uniformed populace participating but not actually partaking in actual government, so really only seeming like democracy when it seems it would be up to whoever parties are in power who create the issues to vote on, the idea and intent to take advantage of these tools is in the right place. The internet ruined society just as much as it has helped it, and its same with phones. In themselves the machine is not the problem, it's the power brokers who design what the machine is used for that is the problem. Remember, Facebook, instagram, those notifications, were intentionally made to create the phone zombie we all so detest.

 

[Kyriakos]

We had this year in our parliament 4,143 motions already from the 150 MP's of our Tweede Kamer.
Add to that the questions on new laws to Ministers, on governing decisions, positions and public statements, news.
(AND our Ministers HAVE to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the Parliament, NOT to the satisfaction of the Cabinet, leading to many questions being answered by thick files made by the ministrial departments, leading to more questions)

How on earth is that going to be done by I-Phone, by citizens busy with their normal life ?
How are these citizens to be so well informed to be able to take informed decisions ?

At least mobile phones can't forge their uni degree, like that farcical pos, the dutch eurogroup chair

 

[Traitorfish]

I believe on technocratic direct democracy where the power is on the hands of the people and not depending on one single leader. Don't we have enough already voting for someone and then to be misled by his/her words ? America and the EU cooperating in creating multiple gadget industries would certainly ensuring the economic progress of both continents.

"Technocratic direct democracy" is a contradiction in terms. A society can simultaneously be run by technocrats and by the masses, any more than it could simultaneously be run by a dictator and by the masses.

Is this another terminology issue? "Technocracy" doesn't mean a technologically-advance society, it means a society in which power is wielded by technocrats: bureaucratic experts. Literally, it means something like "government by engineers", in practice, it means something like "government by policy wonks", a society run by government functionaries who are appointed on the basis of technical expertise.

To answer exactly traitorfish and hrothbern, of course not all policies have to be on the hands of the people. Matters such as annual budgeting, government restucturing etc. is of course of no public concern. However, foreign diplomacy and policies that would affect general public's livelihood must be discussed quickly and there is no other way other than using tech as the media to discuss people's aspirations. Spreading uncensored information quickly was the exact goal of creating a technocratic nation. How is it possible for Trump to won the election if not by utilizing similar way ?

The bolded statement is incredibly contentious. Governments stand and fall on budgets; in parliamentary systems, the failure to pass a budget serves as a de facto vote of no confidence, and has brought down governments. To say that this is of no concern to the public is to say that government is no of concern to the public. Occasional referenda cannot substitute for routine oversight by representatives or delegates, certainly not when the people who get to choose the questions, interpret the answer, and apply the policy, are doing so without even the most indirect public oversight.

 

[innonimatu]

Indeed, the budged, its allocation, is the most political thing a government does. They are more often than not the reason why governments fall, sometimes why wars start or end.

 

[Traitorfish]

Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not be easier [...] for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
Centrists: "This, but unironically."

 

[Yeekim]

Happy New Year to all of you.
I believe on technocratic direct democracy where the power is on the hands of the people and not depending on one single leader. Don't we have enough already voting for someone and then to be misled by his/her words ?

Because people voting directly can't be misled.
Brexit campaign proves that unequivocally.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Brexit for example was just a bad idea done too quick,

There was over a year (13 months) between the election of a conservative
government on a platform of holding a referendum and the referendum itself.

That's plenty of time for the electorate to consider it thoroughly.

 

[Sickening]

No, 13 months wasn't nearly enough to assess and manage all the risks that must be weathered after quitting the EU. Giving 13 months to decide for a grand divorce settlement is just like saying you dont give a duck about the marriage, even after you had experienced decades of struggles fighting the same enemy. It's idiotic, it's rude and effin arrogant.

 

[Sickening]

Because people voting directly can't be misled.
Brexit campaign proves that unequivocally.

Yep, because it is the nature of human being to seek knowledge and information that would give them advantages in life. However I also agree that Brexit campaign was a joke and it was an oversight by the opposition. Information war would be the future of us.

 

[Sickening]

Indeed, the budged, its allocation, is the most political thing a government does. They are more often than not the reason why governments fall, sometimes why wars start or end.

Nah, wars always begin for stupid excuses such as to defend reputation or to earn popularity. Age of exploration would never happen if Crusade had never even began.

Budget is not exactly as political as government's annual agenda. As open government is what being promoted globally, businesses are getting more difficulties to gain favors through gov "investments". What they only can do nowadays are influencing government policies through mass and social media.

 

[Sickening]

Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not be easier [...] for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
Centrists: "This, but unironically."

Oh well, we no longer living in a cold war era, but in a transitional age towards a new world where information spreads just by a click of a button. The legitimacy and stability of a government can be gone overnight just by gossips spreading on the internet at 2AM or fake news ads on facebook that was published 3 hours ago.

Our current way of governing and managing a nation is already obsolete and we have to recognise this problem early before other nations won the race.

 

[Sickening]

At the end of the day it will only become more proliferated so rather than try to fight the future we should instead look at how to lessen the damaging effects of the technology, and find ways to utilize it for good and progress, and while the phone vote suggestion has other issues, such as having an even greater uniformed populace participating but not actually partaking in actual government, so really only seeming like democracy when it seems it would be up to whoever parties are in power who create the issues to vote on, the idea and intent to take advantage of these tools is in the right place. The internet ruined society just as much as it has helped it, and its same with phones. In themselves the machine is not the problem, it's the power brokers who design what the machine is used for that is the problem. Remember, Facebook, instagram, those notifications, were intentionally made to create the phone zombie we all so detest.

I agree on more consideration and thoughts on how technology would change our society. However, the internet has changed our way of communicating with each other and we can't hold back progress.

Technologies may have damaged old values but certainly it also comes with new advantage for humans as it has connect people all over the world, change our perspective about how we keep peace between nations and how we are now able to see other nations as equals.