<story><title>Lavabit SSL Cert Revoked</title><url>https://lavabit.com/?8-oct-2013</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thangalin</author><text>I have mocked-up a system for policy creation. The project is open; please contribute your thoughts. People say &amp;quot;it has flaws&amp;quot; but never explain the flaws, nor how to address them.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bitbucket.org&amp;#x2F;djarvis&amp;#x2F;world-politics&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would greatly appreciate constructive criticism. The system serves to educate everyone (openly and transparently) on implications of existing and upcoming policies.&lt;p&gt;If the idea intrigues you, check out what other people are doing along the same lines:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20Links&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bitbucket.org&amp;#x2F;djarvis&amp;#x2F;world-politics&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Related%20...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rather than getting to the point where citizens have to &amp;quot;mobilize against&amp;quot; the current government, we should be seeking to self-govern in such a way that mobilization is not necessary.</text></item><item><author>l33tbro</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m so sick of being sickened.  I hate that this is becoming the norm and we can&amp;#x27;t do anything about it.  I hate to spit cliches, but is this where my tax dollars go?&lt;p&gt;For me, govt and internet should almost be like church and state.  Where is the data around foiled terrorist plots?  I just can&amp;#x27;t stomach the obtuse logic that we need to pay our taxes to employ these virtual minders.  This is not what the internet is about.  It just seems so incredibly difficult to mobilise and take action against this shit ...&lt;p&gt;Btw, Ladar ... you&amp;#x27;ve been incredible in all of this (tips Stetson)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gregw134</author><text>I love the idea, but I don&amp;#x27;t think people should be allowed to have unlimited up or down votes. That would encourage whimsical opinions, and would make the site reflect the opinions of the most active and opinionated users instead of the average person. I think there needs to be a way to limit the voice of each user so each person has the same amount of influence.&lt;p&gt;One idea I like is to give each user 100 points to distribute among topics. Once the user has assigned a certain number of points for or against a position, they could then distribute those points amongst the comments that best represent their position. So if a user votes 20 points for gun control, gun control would get 20 points, and the user would have to choose which comments best support their position--5 points to this comment, 7 points for this comment, etc.&lt;p&gt;I think this would solve two problems: it would encourage thoughtful opinions to rise to the top, and it would give voice to the minority of voters that care passionately about a topic that the majority disagrees with or doesn&amp;#x27;t care about.</text></comment>
<story><title>Lavabit SSL Cert Revoked</title><url>https://lavabit.com/?8-oct-2013</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thangalin</author><text>I have mocked-up a system for policy creation. The project is open; please contribute your thoughts. People say &amp;quot;it has flaws&amp;quot; but never explain the flaws, nor how to address them.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bitbucket.org&amp;#x2F;djarvis&amp;#x2F;world-politics&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would greatly appreciate constructive criticism. The system serves to educate everyone (openly and transparently) on implications of existing and upcoming policies.&lt;p&gt;If the idea intrigues you, check out what other people are doing along the same lines:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/wiki/Related%20Links&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bitbucket.org&amp;#x2F;djarvis&amp;#x2F;world-politics&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Related%20...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rather than getting to the point where citizens have to &amp;quot;mobilize against&amp;quot; the current government, we should be seeking to self-govern in such a way that mobilization is not necessary.</text></item><item><author>l33tbro</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m so sick of being sickened.  I hate that this is becoming the norm and we can&amp;#x27;t do anything about it.  I hate to spit cliches, but is this where my tax dollars go?&lt;p&gt;For me, govt and internet should almost be like church and state.  Where is the data around foiled terrorist plots?  I just can&amp;#x27;t stomach the obtuse logic that we need to pay our taxes to employ these virtual minders.  This is not what the internet is about.  It just seems so incredibly difficult to mobilise and take action against this shit ...&lt;p&gt;Btw, Ladar ... you&amp;#x27;ve been incredible in all of this (tips Stetson)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Debugreality</author><text>I created a kind of micro discussion&amp;#x2F;decision making system that didn&amp;#x27;t generate much interest from people I talked to and perhaps shares a flaw with this concept.&lt;p&gt;Basically if you look at what people use text for online it usually isn&amp;#x27;t anything serious, even these discussions don&amp;#x27;t have all that much gravity and HN is probably the most serious site I&amp;#x27;ve seen.&lt;p&gt;Text also has less emotion and involvement attached and I think a lot of people won&amp;#x27;t connect with a text based system like this or won&amp;#x27;t feel comfortable contributing.&lt;p&gt;An idea for a way to feed peoples passions would be some kind of automatically generated video conference setup to split people into random think tank groups based on availability for each policy they indicate they want to be part of. Then perhaps one person, presumable someone that indicates they feel comfortable writing could contribute on behalf of their group to the text based policy page.</text></comment>