THE BLOG
of John Gelles
April 25, 2006At a rally in favor of American foreign policy, including regime change in Iraq (in Fall 2003), Karen Loberg (the Ventura Star) took the picture. It made the front page. I was famous for a day.
Topic:
INTERACTIVE AGENDA DATABASES
Copyrighted or other imported essay --- or if none then main body of blog: The idea of Google (or another angel-advertising revenue supporter) maintaining a database of political agendas is appealing. To followers of Mises, Hayek and Friedman, who think we vote for otherwise non-existent "free markets", when we buy a hot dog for a dollar, something---more the product of mind than tummy---is thought by some of us to be better.
When we realize, however, that the Blogosphere, USENET, e-Forums, etc., have given millions of people the desire and opportunity to write "letters to the editor", or engage in "vanity publishing", (that few would have imagined possible before 1980,) we are forced (or should be) to ask --toward what end?
Is it to have a voice in creating the law? To supplement representative democracy with something more than biased and inaccurate opinion polls? To calm the rage so many feel when unjust and unjustifiable disparity in income and political power flourishes in every democracy (as well as every tyranny)?
IF it is any of these, THEN the whole array of cheap media to which so many are addicted turns out to be the "garbage" of the old "garbage in--garbage out" critique of computer software, course ware and data files.
Can agenda databases be any better? (Note the plural "bases" to insist that more than one is necessary to infuse the vision with pluralism not dogmatism.) Can differences between individual free thinkers actually help create better law: law that might result in the end of poverty; reduced pollution; and reduced corruption, violence and war?
For a feel of some of the problem involved, read an Economist review here.
Stewing around with these questions in mind (in place of sleep), I was fearful the whole vision of a database (as a way to bring factions together and resolve insignificant difference of opinion) was flawed: people have a need to disagree almost as strong as the need to find consensus. My friend James Cumes, I believe, considered the heart of the matter in his study of narcissism.
If we are doomed to found our factions on subjective feelings more than logical difference, then we may not be able to escape the trap of envy, hate and murder that tore anti-capitalism apart in the 20th Century.
Still, as I wrote yesterday, a speech by Ray Kurzweil tells of progress from when we invented the wheel until today and tomorrow: he tells it sweetly and gives any reader hope that objectivity is not impossible--that it will win the day.
Tomorrow I sincerely hope I will return to the example of "wealth, debt and money" as a starting point a few agendas we may like: there are, after all, reforms with strong focus on (a) full employment, or (b) interest-free loans for infrastructure needs, or (c) debt-free federal spending for what it buys and how it could end poverty very fast, or (d) basic income to do the same as "c" but directly empower consumers more than the parliaments they elect. We may need an agenda for each-- and a way to measure the likely appeal of any to a wider audience.
John Gelles
