How do I feel about hacking? Well it kind of freaks me out. I do not have a firewall, I do not have any virus software; I have a Mac. I thought I was protected. I believed the rumors saying "Macs can not get a virus." Well after the class discussion, I fear for the protection of my computer. What do I have floating around on my computer right now? Can someone see everything that I am doing?
On the topic of the "Civic Hacking" reading, I agree that if people are not interested in politics, moving politics online is not going to interest them. If a state representative is not available to meet in person, what makes you think he is available to answer his email, Twitter, or Facebook? There are already forums online that citizens have made about politics and government. I think those forums are working fine. Let's use the example of walking your dog in a restricted area. Are you going to go online and email a town representative asking if you can walk your dog in the area? It will probably take days if the representative even answers you at all. You could also go to an online forum and ask who else wants to walk their dog on that land. You will most likely get a response quickly from residents and together you could come up with a solution for the problem.
I don't fully agree with Crabtree's statement that if people aren't interested in politics, they won't be interested in e-democracy, because it doesn't address the reasons why they aren't interested in the first place. There has been a worldwide decline in voter turnout in democratic nations, and I think a lot of the reason is due to people's disillusion in the media. His idea that the state should be funding a "civic hacking" websites is great. This article dissects how social media was used during the 2010 UK election - seems we've come part of the way already!
ReplyDeleteWe could have a democracy where we work out the dog walking thing amongst ourselves without consulting or mediating with our local representative, that's still democracy right? Is the way that we perceive democracy limited by thinking that it has to officially involve a politician? Perhaps democracy is about the 'spirit of democracy' and about people just working together. Do we just assume that we need a mediator to convene for us? I was just thinking about the role of government and how 'much' versus how 'little' we need the State to do for us as citizens.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to define democracy. As I mentioned that democracy is relative to dictatorship, if there is no dictatorship, there is no alleged democracy. I agree with you, it is not valuable for a person to answer his emails in official position without state representative. In the other words, sate makes someone available and it is nothing to do with people who are not interested in politics. The fact is majority of people are beyond politics, people do not really care what is going on in politics. As Crabtree said “politics is like being stuck in a really difficult computer game”.
ReplyDeleteHeh surprised you didn't know that macs are just as easily attacked as windows systems. Anyway to my point here.
ReplyDeleteI agree that emailing a city council representative would likely have little to no affect, and that a forum most likely does a better job. But don't people also use these forums to plan and inevitably have confrontations anyway?
Nice analogy with walking the dog, I too was under the impression that macs couldn't get viruses until Ted spilt the beans, Nonetheless I still think macs are less likely to be hacked, they run better anyway...
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's possible to not have an interest in politics. I mean, just complaining about government services is having an interest in something political. As Jess said, social media is becoming more and more prominent in establishing political awareness, for example, I still go through my friends and see under the political beliefs section "Kevin 07", however, I doubt that many of these people would be able to tell me one policy that the Labor party had back then, in fact, a lot of them probably weren't even eligible to vote back then.
ReplyDeleteI think the internet is a great tool for extending democracy, however, many see it as a mechanism to promote direct democracy, which I believe would be inefficient. Not everyone has the time or care to invest a vote in every single decision.
I agree with Ben in that its impossible to not have an interest in politics.
ReplyDeleteSo often now people are voicing their politics concerns through social media such as facebook. Examples are issues relating to live exports, qantas, asylum seekers and many more.