Re: [Demexp-dev] Thoughts on voting machines

[skaller]

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 13:28, Brian Hurt wrote:

> But the community as a whole needs ways to make decisions.  Do we include
> this patch, or that patch?  

Yep. You can see Python, where it went from dictator,
to at least a process for managing details (PEPs).

I also worked in a (ISO committee) process I favour strongly
over majority rule (which will never be democratic):
consensus.

Consensus formation is a good thing IMHO. It requires
discussion, and the outcome isn't law but protocol.

> This is an interesting and usefull project.  In many ways, more 
> interesting and usefull than the voting machine project my earlier 
> comments were aimed at.

Yes. My feeling is that the powers that be will ignore
what you think when it comes time to have electronic
voting. You have no hope of changing things just by
making voting marginally more secure.

To actually change things, you need to influence
people that make day to day decisions. They govern
what actually happens NOT politicians.

Easily the most powerful people globally are programmers.
Because they implement the systems that make the bulk
of economic decisions. Your power as a programmer
is weak simply because you can't communicate with
other programmers.

Sure, we can talk on a mailing list. But 10 million
programmers voting NO to the invasion of Iraq would 
have stopped it.

BTW: probably the most powerful group today are
investigative media reporters. Because they currently
DO have the ability to stand together in defence of
presenting their results on a powerful brain washing
system -- TV. They can bring down a US President.
Or con people into believing his lies -- both
of which have happened in recent history.

-- 
John Skaller, mailto:address@hidden
voice: 061-2-9660-0850, 
snail: PO BOX 401 Glebe NSW 2037 Australia
Checkout the Felix programming language http://felix.sf.net