Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nuclear1 on December 07, 2010, 04:04:57 am
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http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-1587-hackers-strike-back-at-bank.html
Just hours after a Swiss bank froze access today to a legal defense fund established for WikiLeaks provocateur Julian Assange, a group of hackers have shut down the bank's Web site in an escalating "infowar."
A group calling itself Operation Payback took responsibility for the Internet attack on the Swiss bank, PostFinance, via its Twitter account. "We will fire at anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks," the group said in its announcement.
PostFinance had said it blocked access to the account, which contains about $41,000, and stopped accepting donations because Assange lied about his residency when he opened the account. Bank officials said Assange couldn't provide proof of Swiss residency, making the account invalid. His supporters, though, countered that the bank only took its action because of pressure from the U.S. government and other nations angry at Assange and WikiLeaks.
So...Anonymous is supporting Wikileaks now.
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really?
Actually, I think this would be their noble crusade, in their mind.
I'm starting to think the end of the ''free' internet' will be coming to an end this decade.
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god forbid CLASSIFIED material is censored, or that an illegal bank account is frozen.
wankers like this who feel it's their duty to attack anyone they don't like can be shut down along with wikileaks for all i care. the first i ever heard of "anonymous" i thought they were kinda amusing, but that was when they were hacking websites of the RIAA and stuff. i draw the line at throwing support behind treason. (that might be a little dramatic, but whatever)
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I have nothing against Wikileaks publishing compromising or embarrassing information about the dirty dealings going on in and between governments. This type of information shouldn't be "classified" in the first place. The only reason why "classified" political information exists in the first place is the self-interest-based philosophy of national states, and open environment of information would make it significantly harder for politicians to influence things so that their country would seem to do better than others.
The problem I have with indiscriminate publication of information is that some of it may actually be information pertinent to ongoing criminal investigation, law enforcement operations or lawful military operations, which may actually cause real harm to these processes.
I have no doubt that the amount of this harmful information is a small minority of the leaks published in WikiLeaks, but there probably are some, and the problem is that while the general public and WikiLeaks have absolutely no way of telling what information is harmful from this perspective, governments can simply label all of it harmful, and then I have no way of knowing if they're just trying to avoid being put into compromising or embarrassing position.
After all, preventing "embarrassing" leaks is technically easy. Don't do the embarrassing/compromising things in the first place, and come clean with information about compromising stuff rather than try to cover it up.
Good example would be the incident in Iraq where a helicopter gunship engaged a group of people identified as hostiles - in hindsight the identification as hostiles was more positive bias than any actual shown aggression by said people, but things like that sometimes happen.
Shoving it under the carpet doesn't make the fact it happened go away though, and when things like that are then leaked into public, it certainly does become more harmful than publishing the information in the first place would have done.
Which is better - a statement saying that a helicopter crew and mission control mistakenly identified a group of civilians as hostiles and apologizing for the tragic error, or the fact coming into daylight after the armed forces tried to keep it quiet?
For this reason, I am divided about WikiLeaks. On other hand, I see it as something that could potentially force politicians to be more open about their dealings, lest their dirty laundry comes into public knowledge in an uncontrollable fashion; on the other hand I recognize the potential risk that some of the information might cause for certain groups of people.
It isn't by any means a black or white issue where you should declare that you're either for WikiLeaks or against it.
Personally I don't condone the attacks against WikiLeaks or any other pages hosted in the internets, nor do I approve of the counter-attacks supposedly engineered by Anon.
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I too am of two minds about Wikileaks, but having taken a closer stuff they released this time, it's obvious that almost none of it was critical - just gossip. Nothing of true concern as far as national security goes.
However what's appalling is the environment and mentality exposed - that the political elite believes itself beyond public scrutiny and reproach.
...and the accusations and actions brought against Assange are not only ridiculous but worrying. I mean legally the man has done nothing he could be prosecuted for. He got his hands on data and disseminated it. It wasn't data of his own government and he didn't acquire it himself, he just accepted it from another source.
Rape? That's a bad joke. The guy has been willing to testify and face his accusers all this time... but even Sweden couldn't make up their mind whether the accusation could stand in court, and there's ample evidence that one of the "victims" is just trying to get revenge for Assange not being "faithful" and co-opted the other "victim" into her scheme. (The other accuser withdraw her statement after finding out she was being used in such a manner).
What really irks me though, is how the whole corporate media machine makes people swallow this stuff lock, stock and barrel without a shred of concise reporting.
Yeah, Assange could be a major dick - an egomaniac. It still doesn't warrant the over-reach and trumped up witch hunt that's being waged against him.
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wankers like this who feel it's their duty to attack anyone they don't like can be shut down along with wikileaks for all i care.
My thoughts as well.
Operation Payback? Wow, what a bunch of cocks. If you want to do something just in the world, start by going outside and saving an old grannie in a back alley from being stabbed, or start caring when you pass people on the street. Hell, start with standing up for small children on the train.
Actually, I think this would be their noble crusade, in their mind.
Mmm, it's quite tragic, in my opinion.
For this reason, I am divided about WikiLeaks. On other hand, I see it as something that could potentially force politicians to be more open about their dealings, lest their dirty laundry comes into public knowledge in an uncontrollable fashion; on the other hand I recognize the potential risk that some of the information might cause for certain groups of people.
Yeah, I'm with you here. I don't think now was such a good time to release that information though, and act as a catalyst for a bad situation getting worse.
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wankers like this who feel it's their duty to attack anyone they don't like can be shut down along with wikileaks for all i care.
I'm having trouble parsing this statement in a logically consistent manner, so I'm going to have to ask for a clarification.
Do you approve of people who feel it's their duty to attack WikiLeaks because they don't like it?
You should also note that WikiLeaks technically hasn't committed treason (since as far as I know, it is not a citizen of any known state). People submitting information there may have, but is that WikiLeaks' fault, the informants' fault, or those who did the stuff that the informant felt needed to become public?
Also, is it worse to become traitor to one's supposed allegiance, or one's ideals?
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Well I doubt many individuals would 'consider it their duty', to attack Wikileaks because they don't like it. I'm sure most who would attack WL because they don't like it just do it. :P
EDIT: You should also note that WikiLeaks technically hasn't committed treason (since as far as I know, it is not a citizen of any known state). People submitting information there may have, but is that WikiLeaks' fault, the informants' fault, or those who did the stuff that the informant felt needed to become public?
This is a good point, and one I'll admit to overlooking.
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god forbid CLASSIFIED material is censored, or that an illegal bank account is frozen.
Banks from the same country that don't give a flying **** about residency when it's some tin pot dictator storing money in their vaults.
Yet when some guy who posts papers on the internet has an account, suddenly it's something that needs to be shut down.
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Well, looks like he's handed himself in, so it will be interesting to see how things progress.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110
Somehow, I don't think they'll get away with any kind of kangaroo court on this occasion, so this may be amusing.
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Based on the stuff mentioned about said court case, I also think conviction (or hell, even prosecution) is unlikely, but we'll see how it goes.
Regardless, I have no doubt that a Mercader has been sent after him already - if not by some high-up government official somewhere pissed at him for being the front to WikiLeaks, then the Shadow Breaker will make an example of him for devaluation of the information... He'll probably need protection duty for the remainder of his days, whether he's sent to prison or not.
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I don't know. In many ways this guy is an icon of everything cyberpunk - the use of information technology to promote anarchic freedom and transparency no matter the cost.
It's just not clear whether he's actually a street sam or an attention whore. And it's ambiguous whether the information he released was in any way worth the possible costs. So hard to know.
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So...Anonymous is supporting Wikileaks now.
Anon has always supported WikiLeaks, even chanology.
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I don't know. In many ways this guy is an icon of everything cyberpunk - the use of information technology to promote anarchic freedom and transparency no matter the cost.
It's just not clear whether he's actually a street sam or an attention whore. And it's ambiguous whether the information he released was in any way worth the possible costs. So hard to know.
This article is relevant:
https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/#
Assange sees big governments as possible hotbeds for conspiracy. He uses the word not as something aimed at a big master plan (with an evil genius at the helm), but any coalition of individuals who share a common ideology or goal and rely on secrecy since their goal would the object of hostility.
In a lot of ways this describes big capital to a T, since more transfer of wealth - which is the only way to further make the super rich richer - is something that the general populace would be adamantly against, if the raw facts were laid before them.
By controlling the media, big capital can mask its own lobbying and control public opinion so its goals are masked in terms favored by the public even if the reality and the projected image of reality in the media don't match, just overlap enough to be plausible.
Assange says, that if communication protocols are tightened, this is works against the conspirators as it prevents them from forming new policies and reacting to the world, and their grip would inevitably slip.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110
The smell of fish has already begun to rise. Bail refused for an extradition order for someone who voluntarily handed themselves in? Most odd, it seems to me.
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I feel weird about wikileaks... Why can't diplomats have some privacy?
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I feel weird about wikileaks... Why can't diplomats have some privacy?
Because they're representing the public on the world stage, and the public has a right to know how they're representing us.
I just want to see what kind of information Wikileaks has on the banks.
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After enough of these arguments and discussions, I've come to realize that I'm of the exact same opinion as Herra. It is possible that Wikileaks puts individuals at risk, and that in itself is an understatement. But simultaneously, catering to the whims of those who help promote the risk placed upon those individuals is something which leaves a vile taste in my mouth. I have heard arguments before from those who ask why citizens do not trust their governments, or rather why they should trust their governments. In response, I must ask, what warrants me to trust completely in my government?
So, while at one hand, Wikileaks represents a dangerous entity which might endanger those who should not be placed at that level of risk, it also represents a medium by which the populace can actually see what their leaders are doing rather than being told by their leaders what they are doing. And with the latter being a variable which can range from accurate to completely falsified, I find a reason to advocate organizations such as Wikileaks. A government accountable for its actions is one which must abstain from corruption; an unchecked power has evil hidden within its walls.
And about the diplomacy/international relations documents? Are you surprised? Espionage and petty musings or data about the opposing power is nothing new - it's akin to an election, where red herrings and arbitrary claims are the name of the game to dismerit your opponet. These matters only get out of hand when it gives someone the rational to raise a weapon against you. And due to the nature of people (and thermodynamics), you cannot gain without loss. Thus, information like that does carry a weight. And, should you endorse its release, you can be held partailly responsible for the suffering it can bring. However and for what it's worth, if we can bring these foolish and often seemingly spiteful sentiments to light, there is the chance that we might let all of our walls down, and the supposed adversary might do the same. We have the chance of being rational human beings with other human beings. And that is worth something.
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I am in agreement with the content of the post above this one.
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If you elected an official (say, the President), based on the assumption that he or she is capable of doing their job, and one of the requisites of that job is that they'll appoint a proper person to handle diplomatic affairs, then shouldn't you assume that they will be doing something with the best interests of their country at heart? Why do you need to know what they're doing? If you trust the person you elected to lead properly, then you should trust that the people he appointed will lead properly.
If you don't trust the person you elected, then why did you elect him?
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The problem I have with indiscriminate publication of information is that some of it may actually be information pertinent to ongoing criminal investigation, law enforcement operations or lawful military operations, which may actually cause real harm to these processes.
The problem with this is that A) nobody has been harmed over the last batch of document leaks, as has been confirmed by a number of mainstream news services, and B) the documents from this leak were redacted once, sent to the New York Times, who sent them to THE WHITE HOUSE for ANOTHER round of censoring, and THEN published.
There's no lives at stake here except for Assange's.
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If you don't trust the person you elected, then why did you elect him?
We don't elect people. We vote for people. The ultimate outcome of the election is disproportionately influenced by elites and by blind trends. Enfranchisement doesn't end when you step out of the booth.
You talk about electing an official based on the assumption that he or she is capable of doing a job, but a lot of people will find themselves voting for someone who seems least incapable, least untrustworthy, least harmful. Even the people who designed the US government intentionally handicapped it.
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It's just not clear whether he's actually a street sam or an attention whore.
Have you actually read any of his press releases? The man promises big things, like releases about Russia, videos of Afghan civilians being massacred by US troops, leaks from inside BP with 'the good stuff'. It never comes. He calls US diplomacy a "tyrannical organization" when it's pretty clear reading the stuff he's leaked that it's anything but. His organization always uses the most inflammatory language possible.
Either he's in it for the attention, or he has the worst judgment ever. This is no crusade for transparency. It's pure sensationalism. And sooner or later, WikiLeaks is going to start making it all up. They may have already; some of the stuff in this most recent set of revelations is hardly a secret, and some of it bears a sharp resemblance to things that occurred in the past.
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It's a possibility that definitely worries me, yeah. But I'm still not ready to come down on one side or the other.
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i didn't think it was in question that this was sensationalism/attention whoring. i thought the debate here was "he's a dick, but he's got a point" vs. "he's a complete asshole and needs to be shot"
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i didn't think it was in question that this was sensationalism/attention whoring. i thought the debate here was "he's a dick, but he's got a point" vs. "he's a complete asshole and needs to be shot"
Not necessarily a bad way of putting it.
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I think his plans are working flawlessly.
He draws all the "dickhead" flak, and the other people of wikileaks go on about their business.
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I guess my main concern over this most recent round of releases is my belief that there are certain aspects of diplomacy, perhaps even the majority of them, that should remain under wraps. It's sort of the cost of Getting Things Done...there needs to be that confidence that neither side will go blabbing about the particulars, or else the mutual trust that enables many diplomatic maneuverings simply won't exist. I don't really see how making the whole process transparent truly benefits anyone: it makes the diplomats' jobs that much harder, and the general public simply gets riled up over a bunch of out-of-context information they didn't really need to know in the first place.
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If you don't trust the person you elected, then why did you elect him?
because the alternative was Sara Palin?
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
In terms of tactical voting they were.
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
No one else has a chance, so you might as well of thrown away your vote.
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Hell, in the midterm election a month ago, the Rs and Ds were the only names on my ballot. There aren't really other viable options.
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I guess my main concern over this most recent round of releases is my belief that there are certain aspects of diplomacy, perhaps even the majority of them, that should remain under wraps. It's sort of the cost of Getting Things Done...there needs to be that confidence that neither side will go blabbing about the particulars, or else the mutual trust that enables many diplomatic maneuverings simply won't exist. I don't really see how making the whole process transparent truly benefits anyone: it makes the diplomats' jobs that much harder, and the general public simply gets riled up over a bunch of out-of-context information they didn't really need to know in the first place.
Ultimately, secrecy only enables one thing, one thing that is unfortunately the basis of the current political system based on national states: All governments are tasked to advance their own country's interests, and not anyone else's.
With fully open dealings, this would become much harder to accomplish.
Of course, this tangent can further be extrapolated to a direction where we would start arguing whether or not national states are a viable means of managing the human population of Earth (it is my belief they are not), and how long will it take for the power of national states to diminish and a capable world wide system of governance to develop.
Because the fact of the matter is that as long as national states spend vast resources in their petty squabbling rather than resolving the real issues, our limited resources will diminish that much faster and the worst case scenario is that at some point, the overall standards of living will no longer be capable of rising, but they start to drop, regardless of advances in science and technology after that point.
Case in point - Iran wants a nuclear bomb [citation needed] when they could use the nuclear material as fuel in reactors to generate power - to have some kind of foil to a supposed nuclear threat from the west, or to have a first strike weapon though I doubt even the Iranians would be rabid enough to do that aside from Ahmadinejad. The fact they think they need a nuke can have three reasons - either they think someone would be ready and willing to use a nuke against them and they think they need a deterrant by entering MAD doctrine; or they want to have first strike capability; or it's strictly a political game with neither sides willing to actually ever use the nukes outside negotiations table as a chip for taking them seriously, or something.
Another example would be the incredible waste of human resources that goes on in strictly islamic countries in the Middle-East and Africa; roughly half of the population is refused real work, real education and real human rights, which causes incredible voluntary reduction to the productivity of the country, standards of living of the population at large, and also increases population growth to strain the already limited resources further - all because the religious and/or ideological leaders of the people want to stay in the position of secular authority, and they well know that all three factors - better education, higher standards of living, and more resources for fewer people - would reduce people's adherence to their authority.
Even in western industrial countries, the question whether national states really have a justification to exist on a wider perspective is valid.
National states require a degree of self-interest from their governments - by definition, the governments are tasked to do what is best for the country (whether their definition of "best for the country" agrees with the rest of the country is another question). In democratic states, the governments are elected and given mandate to govern the country as they see fit, but that doesn't mean they should be free of scrutiny during their tenure. That's called dictatorship (see the original definition of dictator if you are confused by this).
I don't know if the US system has any equivalent of this, but in Finland we have this so-called vote of no confidence. It means that if the government does something, and the members of parliament disagree with it, they can call a vote of no confidence against the government, and if it passes, a new government will be formed from the pool of members of the parliament.
But if the government is allowed to classify information indescriminately, simply because they say something is classified, that would mean the parliament might never find out they've done something that would warrant their removal.
Personally I would love for the bill preparation phase to be more transparent in Finland. Currently, bills are usually prepared in relative secrecy - especially the controversial ones such as the so called "mandatory media lisence" which sparked a lot of public opposition when it finally did come into public knowledge, but they did try to get it approved on a rather short schedule. Similarly I would love to know what kind of stuff was considered in the EU when they passed the edict that basically bans incandescent light bulbs in favour of so-called "energy saving" lamps - I have my suspicions about what were the real motivating factors behind that directive. Things like this I would very much love to have more information of.
In general, I would classify (heh) the information in the following groups:
Things like information about undercover intelligence operatives - I personally have no interest in, but I also think such things are fundamentally needless and are only necessitated by the existence of national states and their competition with each other. If not for the national states, national intelligence operatives wouldn't exist, and thus "national security" would not be threatened.
Things like information about unethical business practices - I would welcome, if only to make educated choices as a consumer and to show my contempt or support to different corporations.
Things like information about ongoing lawful military operations, ongoing criminal investigations or other law enforcement operations - I have no need to know this, and Wikileaks publishing this type of information I would not approve.
Things like information about screwed up military operations or illegitimate military operations, I would like to know about.
Things like information about people's private lives I have no interest in and it's none of my business either.
Can anyone think of other classifications for information?
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Case in point - Iran wants a nuclear bomb [citation needed] when they could use the nuclear material as fuel in reactors to generate power - to have some kind of foil to a supposed nuclear threat from the west, or to have a first strike weapon though I doubt even the Iranians would be rabid enough to do that aside from Ahmadinejad.
I would point out to you that he gets a lot of flak from the ruling councils as far too moderate. Those are the people who would be sitting with their finger on the nuclear button, not the elected (sort of) officials of the Iranian government.
Things like information about undercover intelligence operatives - I personally have no interest in, but I also think such things are fundamentally needless and are only necessitated by the existence of national states and their competition with each other. If not for the national states, national intelligence operatives wouldn't exist, and thus "national security" would not be threatened.
This is naive at best. If you had a world government today, Radical Islam would not go away. They would still oppose any world state. I could also point to narcoterroristic groups such as are currently overrunning Mexico, people like Timothy McVeigh, groups opposed to the current form of government (Europe's had a lot of them).
Unless you can stop humans from disagreeing, this need will never truly go away.
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I would point out to you that he [Ahmadinejad] gets a lot of flak from the ruling councils as far too moderate. Those are the people who would be sitting with their finger on the nuclear button, not the elected (sort of) officials of the Iranian government.
I am not too familiar with Iranian internal politics so I'll take your word for it.
If not for the national states, national intelligence operatives wouldn't exist, and thus "national security" would not be threatened.
This is naive at best. If you had a world government today, Radical Islam would not go away. They would still oppose any world state. I could also point to narcoterroristic groups such as are currently overrunning Mexico, people like Timothy McVeigh, groups opposed to the current form of government (Europe's had a lot of them).
Unless you can stop humans from disagreeing, this need will never truly go away.
Indeed. Though I was referring to matters of national security; national intelligence offices would have no business spying on other nations, if national states didn't exist.
If there was one capable world government, things like radical islam would be matters of global security rather than national security, and instead of national intelligence services we would have global intelligence services, tasked to take care of such things.
Point still being that it's a waste of resources to spy on other nations, and is only necessitated by the existence of national states. If not for that, those intelligence resources could be redirected to investigating actual global and local threats like terrorists, insurgents and other unsavoury elements of societies.
I may have been unclear on this.
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nations exist for a reason. they will never, and should never go away. arguments of "it wouldn't be necessary if..." are really irrelevent.
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nations exist for a reason. they will never, and should never go away. arguments of "it wouldn't be necessary if..." are really irrelevent.
Oh pooh. There are scenarios of varying probability in which nation-states become irrelevant.
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nations exist for a reason.
extrapolate
they will never, and should never go away.
justify this argument
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The nation state as it exists today is an incredibly recent construct. I doubt it will remain unchanged for the rest of human history.
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formalized nation-states, yes. but "nations", no. people have ALWAYS grouped together in similar cultures and ideals. back to the dawn of civilization. people WANT to identify with others like them. they don't want to be subject to cultures/ideals/governances that aren't their own. how many revolutions and independence movements have we seen to prove this? uniting the world under one banner just won't work, and in my opinion trying is unwise. it is the right of people to form nations, and it is the right of nations to defend themselves and act in their own interest.
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The nation state as it exists today is an incredibly recent construct. I doubt it will remain unchanged for the rest of human history.
Could some cracks in the concept of the nation-state already be starting to form? The Internet, and improved communications in general, are making the world a much smaller place, and (as we are presently discussing) secrecy is considerably harder for governments to maintain.
To the topic at hand: do I like seeing transparency in government? Yes. Do I like what WikiLeaks is doing? I honestly can't come up with a yes/no answer at this time. Assange most likely is being crucified unfairly by world governments, but are we really surprised at that? It's all fun and games when it's US secrets being exposed, but get several major world governments involved, then we have a problem.
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formalized nation-states, yes. but "nations", no. people have ALWAYS grouped together in similar cultures and ideals. back to the dawn of civilization. people WANT to identify with others like them. they don't want to be subject to cultures/ideals/governances that aren't their own. how many revolutions and independence movements have we seen to prove this? uniting the world under one banner just won't work, and in my opinion trying is unwise. it is the right of people to form nations, and it is the right of nations to defend themselves and act in their own interest.
You do realize that when it became advantageous to city-states to unite, they felt necessary to form an ideology that would unite the people within the newly-created borders into one nation?
The concept of "nations" did not exist before the emergence of national states. Nationalism, nations and national states developed side-by-side.
It is true that nationalism takes advantage of the human need to belong to a group, which is older than humanity itself, but the fact that humans are social animals doesn't translate to nations having existed forever. You should note that "nation" is not synonymous to "people" or "ethnic group".
You argue that people could never be united under a single world government, citing the numerous revolutions and independence movements.
Yet, with the exact same argument I could say that any national state whose population consists of more than one ethnic, religious or language group could never work, because each group would want autonomy or sovereignty.
However, they can and do work. Why? Because different ethnic, religious or language groups can identify as members of same nation, even though they don't have all that much in common except their place of living.
There is no reason why this could not be expanded into people identifying themselves as members of humanity, citizens of Earth.
The only problem is getting them to do so. It wouldn't be any less arbitrary as people identifying as members of this and that nationality.
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uniting the world under one banner just won't work
Now that's just quitter talk. :p
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Uniting the world under one banner isn't the solution. Creating separate city states is.
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Uniting the world under one banner isn't the solution. Creating separate city states is.
How's a city state supposed to mobilize the resources to get into space?
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It would take more than ten years to start making obscene profits from space exploration, so it clearly is not worth ever pursuing by anyone ever. :p
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Uniting the world under one banner isn't the solution. Creating separate city states is.
The problem with that is that it would only promote more competition between the city states, which wouldn't solve the problem of wasting resources into fundamentally un-necessary things.
Also, what Turambar said.
However, I must agree that within the world government, semi-autonomous city states or megalopolis-like provinces might not be a bad solution of governance.
Sadly, I don't see true unification being in the interests of world leading nations in quite a while - all the petty squabbles and waste of resources are, after all, profitable to certain lobbyist groups.
Ironically, I suspect the best thing that could happen to Earth would be an external threat of alien invasion. Anyone got the phone number for Vasudans?
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I hold my belief that a self sustained city-states under common laws but not common leaders is the way to go.
Those common laws of course are natural law, as Lock put it. Do not harm others or their property.
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I hold my belief that a self sustained city-states under common laws but not common leaders is the way to go.
And who will set the common law if not common leaders?
Or do you propose that legislative branch of power would be common to all, while executive and judicial branches of power would take care of day-to-day management and justice?
EDIT: The problem with self-sustained is that not every area has same amounts of resources.
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Basically yes.
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Ironically, I suspect the best thing that could happen to Earth would be an external threat of alien invasion.
Or failing that, a fabricated one. :p
I've always held that if I were a wealth billionaire the greatest legacy I could ever give humanity would be to trick them into thinking aliens are going to invade in a few years from now. :p
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You do realize that when it became advantageous to city-states to unite, they felt necessary to form an ideology that would unite the people within the newly-created borders into one nation?
Quite the opposite, I'd argue, when it comes to successes. Rome didn't push an ideology until it started to failure cascade. It pushed a lifestyle, a higher standard of living than the alternatives. Something similar could be said about the United States.
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That is the ideology. They don't call it The New York Dream. :p
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That is the ideology. They don't call it The New York Dream. :p
That's not ideology in the slightest. It's economics. The American Dream doesn't demand any political tenants, that's why it works. You can be anything you damn well please politically or in religion, that's not applicable. The same holds true for how the Romans did it.
You want ideology? Talk to the Republican party, they'll give you plenty.
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You do realize that when it became advantageous to city-states to unite, they felt necessary to form an ideology that would unite the people within the newly-created borders into one nation?
Quite the opposite, I'd argue, when it comes to successes. Rome didn't push an ideology until it started to failure cascade. It pushed a lifestyle, a higher standard of living than the alternatives. Something similar could be said about the United States.
Well, Rome was never a national state, it was a city state that bloated into a Republic by assimilating surrounding regions until it became an Empire.
I doubt there ever was a "Roman" identity widespread throughout the Empire, and the whole thing was built on continuous expansion. Yes, they did built stuff like roads, aqueducts and sewers, which could be argued to have increased the standard of living in occupied areas, but I don't think they occupied areas to increase their standard of living. They conquered more and more area because their economy demanded continuous growth, and they increased the standard of living in occupied areas because it happened to increase the productivity of those areas.
The American Dream doesn't demand any political tenants, that's why it works. You can be anything you damn well please politically or in religion, that's not applicable.
I was not aware that the American Dream actually worked. Meaning, it is not possible in current US of A for everyone to become successful and wealthy. The distribution of wealth is bound to be uneven and the situation is self-propagating.
Sure, small percentage can bounce up in wealth but it requires luck as well as work. And of course, these Cinderella stories become the basis for the continuing illusion of American Dream actually working.
Addendum - there's also a certain career path in the USA where you can't be anything you damn well please if you want to be successful.
Go ahead and try being successful, politician and publicly atheist at the same time. :p
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god i hate semantics battles. call it whatever; nation, city-state, empire, etc. cultural/geopolitical divides will always be present. people like having a "national" (again, substitute your favorite divider here) identity. every attempt at a single world empire has failed. the closest thing we have to world government now is generally laughed at. hell, we have a hard enough time trying to run a global football league.
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Just one alien invasion is all we need to prove you wrong. :p
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cultural/geopolitical divides will always be present.
So you keep saying, but I haven't so far seen any real argument to why it is so.
people like having a "national" (again, substitute your favorite divider here) identity.
No, people like belonging to a group. If they can either identify as belonging to humankind or being a citizen of Earth (which is not in any way less arbitrary group to belong to than a nation), or if they can satisfy their need for belonging in another fashion independent of governance, then the sense of belonging given by nationality would be redundant.
every attempt at a single world empire has failed.
a. pointing at a series of negatives does not prove that it will always fail.
b. every single empire in the world so far has failed regardless of whether or not they attempted to be a "single world empire" or not. In fact, one could argue that no empire so far has even attempted to be a single world empire.
c. Empire would be a completely bass ackward way of establishing a world wide governmental system, considering that empires subvert other regions under their rule rather than form an united government based on equality.
the closest thing we have to world government now is generally laughed at.
And that proves it shall always remain so? The United Nations is a valid concept, all it lacks at the moment is authority granted to it by national states.
The reason they don't have that authority is because the national states do not wish to give away any smidgen of their sovereignty. Losing independence is a valid concern only if one holds tight onto the concept of national states existing.
It's obvious that the world and its population wouldn't be receptive at this time to the deconstruction of national states and nationalism as an ideology. But you should be aware that great changes can happen relatively fast and unpredictably.
I sincerely hope some day national states will lose their meaning in the present sense, and become more of a part of cultural heritage, something that you can be proud of, but not something that would build an arbitrary wall of separation between everyone in your nation and the rest of humanity.
I believe national states are just a phase in the growing process of humanity. You're free to disagree, but consider what need would there be for national states when we eventually have to abandon our planet, provided that we survive in some way, shape or form up to that point...
hell, we have a hard enough time trying to run a global football league.
Amusing as this straw man is, it's also false - there's a very successful and popular global football league called World Championships Tournament, which culminates to World Championships Final Tournament every four years.
You may have heard of it.
This also has almost nothing to do with the conversation at hand, except that the teams there represent their respective nationalities.
Also - what karajorma said. Alien invastion would be cool. :p
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well, we'll see. maybe. i do admit the possibility, but it will be because we've now got a new level of self-identity: humans vs. aliens. until something to counter "humans" exists, we aren't gonna band together and form the nation-world of terra. even then, i believe it'll be more of just a new step in the heirarchy. i predict 'national' identities will remain and turn into something like the states in America back when we were young and the states were in fact largely independent but united.
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It could just as well be humans vs. all the problems plaguing the planet and us: pandemics, plagues, famine, water shortages, climate change...
Or how about "us vs. all the idiots in the past who allowed things to get this bad in the first place"?
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
In terms of tactical voting they were.
But only because everyone thought so.
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
In terms of tactical voting they were.
But only because everyone thought so.
So I vote for ___ candidate and they get +0.00000077% (1/130,000,000) of the popular vote. But, the important part is that popular vote doesn't mean jack **** outside your state. Obama won in NY by a 26% margin. Of 7,640,643 voters, 4.8 million (62.88%) voted for Obama. Neither Nader nor Barr would have had even a single electoral vote in NY if every Nader or Barr voter lived in the state. It might work in Maine or Nebraska, but it won't work in New York or any highly-populated state (California, Texas, Florida, etc.).
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cultural/geopolitical divides will always be present.
So you keep saying, but I haven't so far seen any real argument to why it is so.
Some cultures are just plain incompatible. So unless you destroy all of these cultures and merge them into one, there will be divides.
Ontopic: This was on the news here today. Though they apparantly didn't knew it is the handy work of Anon, they did mention 'operation payback'
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But only because everyone thought so.
Most people, approximately 40% of the population last I checked (admittedly a few years back), vote a straight party ticket every time. Another 10% swing their party ticket back and forth but still vote one or the other pretty much exclusively. Relatively few people appear to actually to do thinking.
So basically, even if those two had been able to capture a significant portion of the independent bloc, they're still screwed.
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This world government talk is some really interesting stuff and I agree with it all. However, I feel as though the "nation states should be and will be abolished" is a bit of a strawman argument towards the current issue. I feel like it really didn't answer the questions and comments put forth around the subject that stimulated this conversation: Why should nation states reveal all their bargaining positions now? Save for the aforementioned supranational global entity that places constraints on unitary actors, doesn't this all hinge on the fact that we won't be at a Hobbesian state of nature where actors stand to gain more if they defect instead of cooperate?
I feel as though this is simply an extension of the Democratic Peace Theory. This is probably Political Science's latest fascination for the past 50 years. To those not familiar with the concept, it's a theory stemming from the observation that generally open countries will cooperate with one another and everything is quite hunky dory between them. However, it also makes the observation that democratic states are much less receptive and less cooperative when interacting with closed, autocratic countries. It is likely that these types of actors stand to benefit more from defecting than cooperating and will more than gladly eat up any sort of new found openness in foreign policy for lunch.
And so, I have a pretty nuanced opinion on this latest batch of Wikileaks. I agree on principle that diplomatic cables, among other things, should be made public. However, pragmatically I don't think it's such a great idea right now when there still exists non-democratic states who don't have the necessary constraints (liberal free trade, democratically elected governance) placed on them to cooperate instead of defect.
But hey, once we've achieved homogeneous liberal governance in all nations, that will probably be the first stepping stone towards global governance anyway. Check out what the Europeans did once everyone in the neighborhood became a democracy.
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I don't think national states should be abolished - most likely, attempting a forced change like that would fail atrociously.
Instead I think the concept of national states will slowly become more and more obsolete and redundant, while the national identities of the people slowly morph into something larger. In the case of European Union, there was a lot of grumbling about "losing sovereignty" when Finland joined the Union. Yet, these days most people consider the EU a positive thing by and large, and I think despite people here still considering themselves prominently Finnish, they are also starting to consider themselves Europeans in addition to their own national identity.* And this has happened within 20 years (Finland joined the European Union officially in 1995).
It's possible that national states will naturally morph into larger power blocks. United States is an interesting case, because they mostly skipped the national state stage altogether - even though they have states in name, their national identity is that they are americans.
Time will tell what will happen in Africa, South America and Asia. Africa is way behind the rest of the world because they're still so screwed up after colonization, they don't really have proper historically developed national states even, they have a bunch of countries with arbitrarily drawn borders and in some areas, governments have little to no influence outside their capital - the countryside being ruled by tribal communities, religious authorities and/or warlords.
Middle and South America have countries with strong national states and strong national identities, but the political instability will likely prevent close co-operation in near future.
Asia is perhaps the most interesting place for unification speculation. For historical reasons, though, I doubt many of the countries would be too keen on forming an union of any kind with China (North Korea doesn't count, it's an anomaly). China being essentially a totalitarian regime makes other countries probably very unwilling to have anything to do with them, and if you add the history between, say China and Vietnam, China and Japan, China and Mongolia, and China and Korea, India and Pakistan... not to speak of the general Middle East cluster****, I don't see any Asian Unification process happening any time soon either.
But Swifty has a good point. Liberal, democratic factions would probably not co-operate with totalitarian regimes like China, and would likely feel uncomfortable even dealing with countries with dubious democratic integrity (such as Russia).
On the topic of wikileaks, I find myself largely agreeing with Swifty on most counts. However I dont know if it should be in anyone's interests to keep their "bargaining positions" hidden in the first place. Open international politics could potentially reduce the amount of miscommunications and misunderstandings - after all, politicians are only humans as well.
Case in point, Vietnam War. I hear Robert Strange McNamara went to Vietnam in some anniversary celebration to the ending of the war, and ended up talking with some North Vietnamese head honcho about the reasons for the war. He asked why the Americans went to Vietnam, and McNamara told them they were worried about the Chinese growing their sphere of incluence, and that they went there to keep the Vietnamese free from Chinese influence. As the story goes, the Vietnamese guy asked McNamara if he knew any of the history between China and Vietnam, since those countries had been warring for thousands of years, and that the Vietnamese had no intention of slaving themselves to the Chinese. They had just ejected the French from the country, freeing themselves from colonial rule for the first time in a long time, and they saw the Americans as another imperialist invader that intended to colonize the country, so of course they fought back.
Over a million North Vietnamese dead or missing, over half a million wounded; about 220000 South Vietnamese dead or missing, over a million wounded; almost 60000 american troops dead or missing and over 300000 wounded, not to mention all the PTSD victims...
...all for a crucial, critical error of judgement and misunderstanding for the motivations of each party, and for the cause of the whole war.
Keeping one's bargaining positions hidden from the negotiations until you decide to put them on the table is sometimes a good idea, but it can also cause tragic misjudgements. Especially if both sides have the power to totally eradicate the other... :nervous:
*One could argue that this "European Identity" has at least partially developed as a foil to the American influence on world politics during the reign of George II - especially the invasion of Iraq against the wishes of the United Nations (US justification for the war according to UN resolution 1441 hinged on the existense of WMD's which were not discovered and apparently never existed outside faked or "misinterpreted" intelligence reports), the practically unilateral support of Israel, general perceived attitude of "murricans", the willingness to act as the "World Police" even when asked.
Though, I have no idea if the UK citizens, or for that matter people in the old big European countries like Germany or France consider themselves "Europeans" in this sense.
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Ironically, I suspect the best thing that could happen to Earth would be an external threat of alien invasion.
Or failing that, a fabricated one. :p
I've always held that if I were a wealth billionaire the greatest legacy I could ever give humanity would be to trick them into thinking aliens are going to invade in a few years from now. :p
Ozymandias approves.
(http://www.marvel3dfilms.com/img/watchmen-squid-graphicnovel-img.jpg)
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That's what Nancy Leider has been trying to do for years ;)
Difference is, she actually believes it...
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Ironically, I suspect the best thing that could happen to Earth would be an external threat of alien invasion.
Or failing that, a fabricated one. :p
I've always held that if I were a wealth billionaire the greatest legacy I could ever give humanity would be to trick them into thinking aliens are going to invade in a few years from now. :p
Yeap! that would be a great legacy for the humanity, it would take us to the stars! And we all know now that there are Shivans there which means that we'll be well prepared.
Those who actually are billionaires though, tend to trick people into thinking that jokes like wikileaks are very very very important events.
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Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only names on the ticket.
In terms of tactical voting they were.
But only because everyone thought so.
It's easy for people from countries with Parliamentary systems to forget that the US system is literally set up that way.
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n00bs. ;)
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honestly I think we should get a parliament, a third house of congress with 100 members determined by proportional direct election.
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And they would do what exactly?
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vote on and introduce legislation....
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Don't we already have two houses that already do that? I'm just wondering what a third house of Congress would actually do.
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That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
Unicameral parliament with amount of representatives balanced for the population of the districts would remove a lot of unnecessary bureaucratic drag.
As an example, Finnish parliament has 200 representatives; in the elections, the country is divided into districts which each have lists of candidates, and the districts vote for their candidates. Technically the number of representatives from each district correlates with the population in said district, but due to the method used to calculate the votes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method) it's not always as simple as saying that the candidates with the highest amount of votes in their district would get a place in the parliament.
At any rate - from our 200-strong parliament, a government (Council of State) is formed and nominated by the president.
In terms of Montesquieu's separation of powers:
The president and the government represent the executive branch of power. Basically, they manage things on the high level. They are also responsible of preparation of new legislation, in conjunction with several committees (including the constitutional committee). They are accountable to the parliament, which can call for vote of no confidence against the government, in which case a new government is formed.
The parliament represents legislative branch of power. Their job is to decide on new legislation, whether to pass it or not. Technically, the president has the veto on new legislation, and if I recall right has the right to disband the parliament and call for new elections.
The Supreme court is the highest organ of judiciary branch of power, and it basically is responsible of ruling cases in which the legislation doesn't provide clear answers, and those rulings will be referred to as precedent afterwards. There is also the aforementioned constitutional committee which basically scrutinies new legislation proposals for breaches of the constitution.
The thing is, Finland is a relatively small country. Forming a functional government for five million people is somewhat different from forming a functional government for 300 million people. Proportional direct election would be problematic in USA. What would be the "block" of population that would have one representative? Would it be the 65,628 people in American Samoa? Or maybe the 544,270 people in Wyoming?
With 300 000 000 people, if you had one representative for every 500 000 people, you'd have a parliament of 600 people. House of Representatives has only 435 seats. Senate has 100 seats, two for each member state. As such, small states are grossly over-represented in the current US government.
In proportional direct election, a state like Wyoming shouldn't even have one whole representative in the House of Representatives. As far as population goes, the smaller states are grossly over-represented in the US congress as it is. So, you would need to have a much larger parliament if you wanted it to really work.
As an example, the European Parliament is a directly elected parliament, and it has currently 736 seats; each member state has a number of representatives proportional to its population. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament)
The biggest issue in parliamentary organ this large is actually running it.
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Just one alien invasion is all we need to prove you wrong. :p
Just curious, any historical basis for believing that? I'm not convinced that it's true, but I imagine there's some parallels to be drawn from history...
I tend to think that an alien invasion would have us playing the role of Native Americans vs colonizing Europeans.
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We fought him hard, we fought him well
Out on the plains we gave him hell
But many came, too much for Cree
Oh will we ever be set free
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*Long Post*
Our bicameral system is like a lot of the government, a compromise. During the Constitutional Convention, the small states wanted equal representation in Congress for the states, and the larger, more populous states wanted it based on population. Since both the small and large states were needed, everyone just decided to give the small states the Senate and the populous states the House of Representatives. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Constitution as intended was to be a union of the various colonies into one government while maintaining a large degree of sovereignty for the individual states, not to create an over-arching federal government similar to what European nations do. Congresspeople are elected by their states to represent that state's interests in Congress. The Senate was even originally chosen by the state legislatures so the state governments could have a say in the running of the federal government.
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That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.
There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.
The thing is, Finland is a relatively small country. Forming a functional government for five million people is somewhat different from forming a functional government for 300 million people. Proportional direct election would be problematic in USA. What would be the "block" of population that would have one representative? Would it be the 65,628 people in American Samoa? Or maybe the 544,270 people in Wyoming?
I agree. Too complicated. :P
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That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.
There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.
The thing is, Finland is a relatively small country. Forming a functional government for five million people is somewhat different from forming a functional government for 300 million people. Proportional direct election would be problematic in USA. What would be the "block" of population that would have one representative? Would it be the 65,628 people in American Samoa? Or maybe the 544,270 people in Wyoming?
I agree. Too complicated. :P
Then the other thing is, if there would be (for example) 600 representatives that run the entire Legislature, how would you fairly elect them so that they both represent their electors and their geographic areas? A district having 49% Republicans, 48% Democrats, and 3% Left-leaning Independents would have 1 representative who only represents half their electors. What it seems to me should happen is that the Electoral College be disbanded and direct election be the method for electing the nation's president. That way, Reps support individual districts, Senators individual states, and the President the popular opinion.
If that was the case, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000 with a split House (221r-212d) & Senate (50r-50d).
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That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.
There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.
Things like this can be mostly avoided if you have a set of supermajority rules for really important things and - ahem - if you have more than two parties.
Having more than two meaningful parties will make a situation where one party has more than half the votes extremely unlikely. It has happened only once in the history of Finnish Parliament - in 1916, when the Social Democratic Party of Finland secured 103 seats out of 200. Note that Finland was not even a sovereign country back then, but a Grand Duchy under Russian Empire.
One party majorities are very likely to happen with only two dominant parties.
When the number of dominant parties increases by even one, the odds of one of them scoring more than half the votes decreases dramatically. In case of Finland, there are four options by and large - the National Coalition Party, Centre Party, Social Democratic Party, and the rest (which includes minority parties like the Greens, Swedish People's Party, Christian Democratics and the populist party called "True Finns" which sadly seems to be gaining more and more support and seats lately). And considering how the parties co-operate to form governments and appoint positions in committees, even the smaller parties typically still have some influence.
Then the other thing is, if there would be (for example) 600 representatives that run the entire Legislature, how would you fairly elect them so that they both represent their electors and their geographic areas? A district having 49% Republicans, 48% Democrats, and 3% Left-leaning Independents would have 1 representative who only represents half their electors. What it seems to me should happen is that the Electoral College be disbanded and direct election be the method for electing the nation's president. That way, Reps support individual districts, Senators individual states, and the President the popular opinion.
If that was the case, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000 with a split House (221r-212d) & Senate (50r-50d).
Finnish presidents were chosen by an Electoral College until the 1994 elections, in which Martti Ahtisaari was elected the president on the second round in a direct election.
The problem of representatives having "split loyalties" depends on how many seats you have in the parliament, but a parliament's ability to function is inversely correlated with the number of seats in it.
There's also a possibility where each state elected a committee of representatives, and they would choose a spokesman from their midst who would be responsible of casting the votes on behalf of that group. For example, in a committee of nine representatives, you could have for example four Republicans and five Democrats, and the committee would have a number of votes to give; either so that each state's committee would have an equal amount of votes (like now), or so that the votes for each committee would be representative of their state's population.
The number of representatives selected for each committee would be up to the individual states; only one of them would appear in the senate and cast the votes as decided by the committee.
Of course, it would be an incredible hassle. However, in a country with a de facto two-party system, having two representatives of the state in the Senate has all likelyhood to be representative of the State's division - provided the division is close to 50% and both senators come from different parties. In a case where both senators come from the same party, the minority party's supporters are essentially unrepresented in the Senate. The committee system or whatever you want to call it would resolve that issue, at least to some extent.
But all this political talk is taking us further and further from the original topic. Not that I mind, it is the nature of conversations to diverge into new areas as they progress, just a remainder that originally we were talking about wikileaks and the related hactivist attacks against both wikileaks and against the financial services that stopped providing their services to wikileaks.
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Things like this can be mostly avoided if you have a set of supermajority rules for really important things and - ahem - if you have more than two parties.
Having more than two meaningful parties will make a situation where one party has more than half the votes extremely unlikely. It has happened only once in the history of Finnish Parliament - in 1916, when the Social Democratic Party of Finland secured 103 seats out of 200. Note that Finland was not even a sovereign country back then, but a Grand Duchy under Russian Empire.
One party majorities are very likely to happen with only two dominant parties.
When the number of dominant parties increases by even one, the odds of one of them scoring more than half the votes decreases dramatically. In case of Finland, there are four options by and large - the National Coalition Party, Centre Party, Social Democratic Party, and the rest (which includes minority parties like the Greens, Swedish People's Party, Christian Democratics and the populist party called "True Finns" which sadly seems to be gaining more and more support and seats lately). And considering how the parties co-operate to form governments and appoint positions in committees, even the smaller parties typically still have some influence.
True, but all the minor parties down here are nutjobs and working with them is akin to taking two steps backward. :P Seriously though, while I agree, I don't think the benefits of having coalitions formed instead of having one major party are really worth it, well, when observing the ridiculousness of parties like 'The Greens' down here, and such.
But all this political talk is taking us further and further from the original topic. Not that I mind, it is the nature of conversations to diverge into new areas as they progress, just a remainder that originally we were talking about wikileaks and the related hactivist attacks against both wikileaks and against the financial services that stopped providing their services to wikileaks.
This is true.
Kind of on-topic. (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/assange-moved-to-isolation-in-uk-jail/story-fn3dxity-1225969392920)
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True, but all the minor parties down here are nutjobs and working with them is akin to taking two steps backward. :P Seriously though, while I agree, I don't think the benefits of having coalitions formed instead of having one major party are really worth it, well, when observing the ridiculousness of parties like 'The Greens' down here, and such.
If the population who believes them is small, their vote will be small. That's the thing, it would be proportional.
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Not to further from the topic at hand, but in response to that, there's widespread disapproval with both major parties, and the more extreme parties are the ones perceived as the group with the ability and the will to enact positive change, rather than pussyfooting around major issues and such.
If you're still up for discussing it, I'd suggest we take it to PM's so as not to clutter/derail the thread.
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Not to further from the topic at hand, but in response to that, there's widespread disapproval with both major parties
Er... what? Not enough disapproval to actually give any other parties a shot though....
EDIT: Oh in Oz. Nm...
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approval is not required to maintain power. our congress has a FIVE percent approval rating. (or did at one point somewhat recently)
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I am a big believer in the one man, one vote rule, by way of the Vetinari variation.
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I think it should be 1 man 2 votes.
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That voting system Churchill or someone proposed was brilliant. :D
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UPDATE: Fox News' Glenn Beck has recently started going after Anonymous...and here's their reply:
Mr. Beck,
We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.
However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.
You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.
Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.
You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.
You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this - in fact, it pleases us.
Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.
Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.
We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.
You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.
Signed,
Anonymous
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UPDATE: Fox News' Glenn Beck has recently started going after Anonymous...and here's their reply:
Mr. Beck,
We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.
However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.
You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.
Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.
You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.
You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this - in fact, it pleases us.
Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.
Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.
We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.
You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.
Signed,
Anonymous
Good news, everyone! I have invented a device that makes you read text in your mind in Hugo Weaving's voice!
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I would not be surprised if there were a lot of Anon beck fans.
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My local newspaper did a piece on all the E-attacks amazon and paypal and the other companies that cut off wikileaks are getting. It was hilarious, since they talked about how it was a 'mysterious group of hackers calling themselves Anonymous'. The way they put it, it sounded like Anonymous was a group of ex-KGB hackers hiding somewhere within a Swiss bank hell bent on destroying the west and rebuilding the soviet union. It's like they did their research by reading another paper that didn't do THEIR research.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-anonymous-hierarchy-emerges
Hahaha, oh wow.
Looks like the Guardian got the "scoop."
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I love Anonymous and want them to be around forever. It's like cyberpunk come to life.
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Indeed. We salute thee, Anon.
:D
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As long as there are ways to preserve anonymity on the internet, Anonymous will exist. Just like they say, it's not any kind of formal organization, it's just the collective will of bunch of folks who are in it for the lulz.