SpiralTruth

I’m reading Lawrence Lessig’s Remix, which makes a very passionate argument for moving away from the 20th century copyright laws that the big media companies seem to have a death grip on, even as technology pushes onward and these laws seem more and more ridiculous. I thought I’d find some more information on his work and ended up watching this presentation on his site: I find this very interesting for a number of reasons:

1. I’m becoming more convinced that although President Elect Obama is a great orator and an inspiring figure, he didn’t win the election. Nor did the people who voted for him win the election. This is a good thing because while even the best politicians can be swayed by power and even the most sincere voters by their emotions, memes can’t be bought. What is a meme? Susan Blackmore describes memes as: “ideas that replicate themselves from brain to brain like a virus”.

To the skeptics who doubt whether Obama will be able to deliver on his promise of change: you’re focusing on the wrong person. I think he knows it. He alludes to it when he says things like: “This election has never been about me“. Yes, it’s a very effective way to position yourself as a “man of the people”. But it would be a mistake to cynically chalk statements like that up to good PR. It would be political suicide to push a meme like this to the point where it makes its own momentum without plans to deliver. Only the chronically dumb would put themselves in a position like that, and the chronically dumb are all leaving the White House on January 20th, 2009. No need to put your trust in a politician. The meme can take it from here for a good while before losing steam. That said, I think Obama’s going to give it even more momentum. 2. The recently created change-congress.org (sort of like change.gov – recognize a theme?) has reached 15% of it’s goal of 1166 candidates or actual representatives in Congress. A quick check shows that at least a few of those who have pledged their support towards a Congress that is not influenced by money from lobbyists and committed to more transparency are currently in office. The site’s IPLEDGE list with its “Pester Now” button beside every candidate, representative, or senator is a stroke of genius. Just $6 suggests that for $6 a person per year, campaigns could be publicly funded and the excessive influence of big business on government reduced dramatically. It doesn’t really matter whether any one of these sites takes off and is embraced by the government. What’s important is that they’re all out there. This is not a simple election. It’s a revolution. But unlike the revolutions of the past, this one is happening without guns. 3. The ease at which challenges like these can now be put into action is amazing. Do we have one yet in Canada? I’m going to start looking. And if there isn’t something like this, we should make it. Let’s send a message to our “leaders”. They’re going to listen to us on our terms if they want to avoid our incessant pestering. It’s going to become easier and easier to (a) know what’s going on behind our backs and (b) make sure we all have a say in it. 4. I’ve wondered for years why we couldn’t have a version of democracy closer to the direct democracy practiced by the ancient Greeks. Certainly there would need to be checks and balances and tweaks here and there to ensure against the tyranny of the majority and spots of madness and caprice that can sweep up the majority of a population for a time. But our current representational democracies are not designed the way they are because of these worries alone. Having more of a direct hand in the affairs of a nation was simply not feasible without the technology we now have. And I think sites like these prove that, like it or not, we’re moving in that direction. We do indeed live in interesting times…