Connected Conversations

I haven’t watched this video in years. Perhaps the greatest speech ever recorded on video.

2. politics holidays, martin luther king jr, mlk, video

It is exhilarating news that Google is going to step up to bat against China for the case of freedom of information. I think that Jonathan Zittrain has a great take on the situation:

My hope, and expectation, is that Google engineers who might have been a bit halfhearted about implementing censorship mandates in google.cn could be full-throttle in coming up with ways for Google to be viewed despite any network interruptions between site and user. There are lots of unexplored options here. They’re unexplored not because they’re infeasible, but because most sites would rather not provoke a government that filters. So they don’t undertake to get information out in ways that might evade blockages. Here, Google would have nothing more to lose, so could pioneer some new approaches. Circumvention of filtering (or other blockages, for that matter) tends to happen on the user side of things, seeking out proxies like the Tor network, or anonymizer.com.

I love how Zittrain examines the situation from a strategic perspective, with moves and responses. I also find it provocative to consider what a massive organization like Google could do to help Chinese citizens workaround government filters.

But I think that Zittrain does not follow his chess game to its ultimate conclusion. If Google can help a large minority of Chinese citizens to get unfettered access to information, the Chinese government will press the US to enforce its policies. Presumably, Google can win the spy-vs-spy tech game with China. But China has a lot of political chips to cash in to try to win the support of the US government to rein in Google.

Already, the State Department is recognizing that this issue is extremely important (although they have not yet announced a policy or substantive statement). But when push comes to shove, will it support Google in its battle vs. China?

I certainly hope it does. Go google!

1. technology, 2. politics Censorship, China, google, Jonathan Zittrain, policy

How copyright shapes, and is shaped by, the values we wish to promote in culture and society? Should copyright promote a society of consumers or a society of producers? How has technology changed the very paradigm that copyright was envisioned by our founders? Lessig’s lecture is a tour de force.

1. technology, 2. politics

Fred Wilson wrote an interesting list of 10 characteristics of great companies. My contribution was suggesting an 11th characteristic: “Great companies fail repeatedly - and learn from their mistakes. ” But even more importantly, check out this classic Michael Jordan ad that is the inspiration for that idea:

My transcription of it:

Michael Jordan talking: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Gives me tingles to watch it!

1. technology, 2. politics, 3. et cetera FAIL, Fred Wilson, great companies, Michael Jordan, top 10

I worry that the townhall on health care may give many Americans the wrong impression about what is possible for citizen deliberation. So, I was very happy to see Jim Fishkin’s interesting editorial in the NYT explaining how deliberative polling would be a better alternative. Here’s how he frames the issue:

“CONGRESS on Your Corner” has turned into “Your Congressperson Cornered.” Around the country, lawmakers are finding their town hall meetings disrupted by hecklers, many echoing anti-health-care-reform messages from talk radio and cable television. Supporters of reform will surely countermobilize, leading to more outbursts and demonstrations. Forget, for a moment, that these impassioned voters have turned these meetings into political sideshows. Are town halls actually the best way for lawmakers to connect with their constituents?

The two key insights from Fishkin’s deliberative polling design: (1) you can use random sampling to ensure that every citizen is equally likely to be invited to participate and (2) deliberations require structure (e.g., information packets and moderated small group discussions).

Although there are some quibbles with his methods (a la the snarky title “Towhnalls by Invitation” given by the NYT editorial board), I think that deliberative polls are exactly the right form of public consultation for this kind of issue. And Jim and his colleagues have had demonstrated success in contexts even more contentious than the current health care debate in the US:

At the center, we have collaborated on more than 50 deliberative polls around the world. The process has certainly been shown to help overcome sharp divisions. In a 2007 deliberative poll in Northern Ireland on education reform, the percentage willing to agree that “most Catholics” or “most Protestants” were “open to reason” rose 16 points. Those agreeing that most Protestants or Catholics were “trustworthy” also increased considerably.

One we held in Bulgaria, about policies toward the Roma, or Gypsies, produced strongly reconciliatory policies at a time when loud fringe groups wanted to build walls around the Roma communities. And in a deliberative poll in Brussels just before the recent European Union elections, people from 27 countries, partaking in discussions in 21 languages, moved to support more tolerant policies toward immigrants.

Jim concludes by asks us to imagine with these deliberative polls could work for improving the health care debate. I think the answer to that is “yes.” But even more broadly, I think the question is: how improve the design of our democracy to facilitate “more civil and constructive” as these contentious issues continue to be raised? Hopefully we can improve the current dialogue on health care, but also make progress on improving the environment for politics and issues for future issues as well.

2. politics

Peter Thiel, founding CEO of PayPal and early Facebook investor, has written an controversial and interesting essay “The Education of a Libertarian.” The controversial part is where blames the death of “capitalistic democracy” on welfare and women:

“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.”

But interesting part is where he proposes a realistic utopia for Libertarians. In particular, he proposes that “seasteading” is the best hope for a libertarian utopia since it is “more realistic than space travel” and less “imaginary” than an escape to cyberspace.

(As an aside, he presents a novel argument that current financial crisis was created by too much government rather than unfetter capitalism. He thinks that the crisis was “facilitated by a government that insuranced against all sorts of moral hazards.”)

He acknowledges that his past efforts to promote libertarianism have been less effective than he’d like because his was just “preaching to the choir.”  So, if you can’t convert everyone to libertarianism, who needs them?  Retreat to cyberspace for the time being, then to islands in the sea.  But ultimately, we ought to have a separate space pod for each Libertarian — that is utopia indeed.

Regardless of your political ideology, I think that this essay is provocative and worth reading in its entirity;.  Enjoy!

1. technology, 2. politics 2. politics, cyberspace, Libertarianism, outer space, Peter Thiel, United States

Funny video. Ironically, though, these particular kids seem to be doing just fine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEqir1Mh7Pk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

1. technology, 2. politics education, kids, protest, videos

Key people from Youtube (Steve Grove), Facebook (Randi Zuckerberg) and Twitter (Chris Sacca) talk about “Government 2.0“. Very interesting commentary about who is driving the show: it’s Obama and then a bunch of small protestors, etc., from around the world. An interesting 50 minutes.

A good question at the end about what is the new role of the fourth estate. But no good answers to the problem of outreach vs. accountability.

1. technology, 2. politics 2. politics, Chris Sacca, facebook, future, Randi Zuckerberg, twitter, youtube

Dick Cheney can really raise my dander. Watching this video of how defends the indefensible makes my blood curdle. Perhaps the most appalling aspect is that he was too cowardly to defend these horrible policies when he was in power, and he could have been held to account for his decisions in a meaningful way.

I do not think that Obama should engage Cheney on the issue of torture. The Obama administration should reach out to Republicans in Congress and issue a joint statement that Cheney’s recent media tour is entirely self-serving, and distracts the nation from the real issues at home and abroad.

And we should figure out a way to banish apologist-in-chief and fellow dead-ender Bill Kristol to an even deeper, darker corner of the Internet.

2. politics Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Torture

A talk by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. Absolutely brilliant and riveting.

2. politics lambs, Mike Rowe, society, TED, video

Holy cow - what it means to be too big to fail.

AIG Risk & Bankruptcy Report