Thoughts on Democracy: Then and Now

This is my starter post on open government. First I'll examine the idea that modern technology makes pure democracy an option. I don't know if anyone is even advancing this idea, but I guess reading about Descartes makes me want to examine the fundamental assumptions of an idea before going on the rest of it.

In the late 1700s the founders of the United States decided that a perfect democracy was a bad idea because:

• The colonies were too spread out (there was no way to manage every body's input.)
• Most people were uneducated
• Even educated people argue bitterly about how to run society

Flash forward to 2012. Now we have the potential to overcome the first problem, managing everyone's input. We either have the software or could develop it quickly if we put our minds to it.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty What?

I like quantum physics. I'm not a physics major, and I don't know any of the math involved, but that hasn't stopped me so far from learning about the concepts. I find the ideas to be fascinating looks into the way our universe operates. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle  was brought up in class as a marker in the transition from classical, Newtonian physics to the modern physics we love and confuse people with today.

Don't give up! I know many people will want to because I said things like Heisenberg and quantum. But you can do this, and it's good food for thought. Also it's a handy way to impress dates. (Okay, so that last part isn't true. Physicists aren't known for their love lives.)

This is even going to relate to class by the time I'm through. Here's a cool youtube video to explain Heisenberg's uncertainty principle:

So essentially, science proved a limit to what science can do. We can know an electron's position and we can know its momentum, but not both at the same time. And the more we know of one, the less we can be certain about the other.

We're Gonna Compute Like It's 1995

One of the textbooks I was assigned to read is Life on the Screen, by Dr. Sherry Turkle. She's a psychotherapist and taught at MIT for twenty years, so she's uniquely prepared at address the subject. I began reading it, interested to learn if (and if yes, then to what degree) computers were sucking out my soul.

Near the beginning of the book she describes the psychology involved in playing online multiplayer games. I'm with you, Dr. Turkle, I think to myself. World of Warcrft, I expect her to say next. But no, the games she begins describing are TEXT-BASED. Incredulous, I turned to the front of my ebook. Copyright 1995?

I couldn't believe a textbook involving computers that was printed 12 years ago could still be relevant. Fortunately I decided to press on, and was rewarded to see that Turkle had identified important insights that have actually become more relevant. (She accurately saw the direction computer dedvelopment was going.)

Here's a point of hers that I found interesting:

 From the days of Babbage's analytical engine and into the 1980s people had viewed computers with the philosophy of modernism. By modernism she means that assumption the Western world has had since the Renaissance that everything in the universe (and certainly our world) can be categorized, broken into its component parts, and fully understood if studied properly. The world was a system of gears, pulleys, and levers waiting to be discovered, cataloged, and manipulated.

Forget Answers; I Want Questions

Lately I find myself reading for the sake of obtaining information. This appears to be a good idea, but in fact, I suspect it is not the most effective way to gain wisdom and knowledge. There is an abundance of accessible information in the world. Finding answers isn't the hard part, asking good questions is.

Here's an example. Right now one of the books I'm reading (I usually read about three at a time, cycling between them on whims) is Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. It's a non-fiction book about Orwell's experience as a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War/Attempted Revolution of the 1930s. Why am I reading it? Because the National Review listed it as one of the 10 best nonfiction books of the century and it's less than 200 pages, so I figured I could finish it quickly. The book could have been about nearly anything and I would have read it if it met those two criteria (another factor is that I obtained it deeply discounted as a discontinued textbook.) I didn't even know that Spain had had a civil war ever. I just figured whatever I learned reading this book would be useful to me.

I am right about that, I think. What I learn will be useful. And I find the book mildly interesting. But I can't escape the suspicion that I would be better off using what I already know to ask pointed questions about the world, or really, any subject. I could find sources with with to research the answer easily, and my reading would have more purpose. My current process is passive; the questioning process requires activity and effort. (Both, of course, are better than watching TV all day, so I can feel good about that.)

Hello Digital Civilization community. I'm Gabriel, but you can call me Gabe. I'm a late addition to this class, but glad to be here nonetheless. Ariel--we go way back--got me interested in this class. I'm not always certain that much of what people post on their blogs is worth anyone's time (it is so precious.) But I readily acknowledge that there are some posts that are valuable additions to the potion of humanity that they reach. I am not certain that my own posts will be worth your reading, but I they may well be. Uncertainty is before us. Anyway, I'm not the one in charge of your time. I'm just going to throw what I've got into our conversations and see what happens.

So, the 17th century...Good times. I don't know much about it specifically off of the top of my head.

So after a brief refresher by Wikipedia's 17th Century page, I still feel fairly uninformed about the subject. Colonization of the Americas--that was big. The North American colonies that would become the United States of America are a hopeful element In bitter contrast is the exponential expansion of the slave trade. It was bad in North America but nowhere near as bad as the South American mining outfits. Some great thinkers came during the 1700s. Sir Isaac Newton's laws of physics and articulation of the influence of gravity were, of course, scientific breakthroughs on a grand scale. Only within the last century--with the studies done in modern physics--are we beginning to see holes in his principles.