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posted by martyb on Friday April 03 2020, @01:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the eternal-vigilance dept.

The Dangers of Moving All of Democracy Online:

To protect governments as well as people's rights from coronavirus, we need to use tech as a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

[...] Governments around the world are struggling to deal with the public health and economic challenges of coronavirus. While many have pointed to how authoritarian regimes exacerbated the pandemic, we've so far paid dangerously little attention to coronavirus's challenge to democracy.

In a democracy, citizens need to be able to vote, politicians to deliberate, and people to move about, meet, and act collectively. Democratic politics is a mixture of mass involvement and endless meetings. All this is hard when people can be infected with a potentially deadly virus if someone simply coughs nearby. The obvious answer might seem to be to move democracy to the internet, but some parts of democracy translate badly to an online world, while others are already being undermined by emergency powers (for example, Hungary's parliament just passed a law that allows the prime minister to rule by decree) and by the rise of digital surveillance.

[...] Democratic politics also happens in the streets, at political rallies, public meetings, and demonstrations. It is hard to see how such mass gatherings will return any time soon if they continue to be dangerous, or even banned, on grounds of public health.

[...] state efforts to fight the virus by tracking citizens might undermine democracy by concentrating power in the hands of an unaccountable authority. This might even happen from the bottom up. Citizens in fear of contagion might start liking the idea of ubiquitous and decentralized surveillance as a service, as evidenced by the popularity of coronavirus symptom-tracking apps in the UK and elsewhere.

[...] Some pundits argue that information technology is the answer to democracy's problems. There would be no risk of catching coronavirus if physical democracy became virtual.

[...] online voting systems, such as Voatz, which was used in the 2018 midterms in West Virginia, have critical security vulnerabilities. As cryptographer Matt Blaze says, many experts believe internet voting is a bad idea.

Online voting may one day provide the illusion of democracy while actually destroying it.


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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @01:52AM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @01:52AM (#978528)

    It's xi jin flu pooh that suppressed the Chinese doctors sounding out alarm for the disease.

    It's xi jin flu pooh that spread ridonculous notion of the virus' us origin.

    Fuck xi the pooh. Fuck CCP. The Chinese needs to rise up. Your illlustriious history don't mean shit when your country move to the tune of jackass regime.

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  • (Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:04AM (#978532)

    Nah those crematoriums are not running full steam. Those are not boxes of urns. They are all better! They have never lied about numbers before to look good. Duh!

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:18AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:18AM (#978538)

    It is the trump flu pooh that suppressed the severity so that the stock market wouldn't get spooked and hurt his reelection efforts.

    It is the trump flu pooh that spread ridonculous notions about it being under control and will magically go away, and thus didn't get the CDC moving on it early.

    Fuck trump the pooh. Fuck Republicans. The people need to rise up. Your illlustriious history doesn't mean shit when your country move to the tune of jackass regime.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:32AM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:32AM (#978546)

      You can rag on trump all you want, and I won't get in the way, but this virus originated in China, and it's the Xi flu pooh CCP that let it spread.

      It's not the Chinese, certainly not Chinese Americans not even Chinese Chinese (remember, it's the Chinese docs that tried to sound out the alarm), but the CCP that Xi the fucking flu pooh lords over.

      In fact, not just Trump, it's the boomers. Our pitiful medical system got exposed for real. The most powerful country in the world can't even care for its own citizens. Sick people don't even go for medical care cuz it will bankrupt them even with insurance.

      Shining city on the hill my ass, more like smoldering pile of heap that even Soviet Ruskies laugh at.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:57AM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:57AM (#978555)

        All wealthy countries, even those poor countries, have universal healthcare.

        America, the bestest and grestest country in the world? The best we managed was the pitiful obama-care. Who's to blame?

        You boomers. Fuck you.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Hartree on Friday April 03 2020, @03:50AM (4 children)

          by Hartree (195) on Friday April 03 2020, @03:50AM (#978579)

          Remember when the Boomers were saying "Don't trust anyone over thirty" and how things would be different when they were in charge?

          I do. And I have the same expectations for the current "Ok, Boomer" quoters. i.e. You'll end up just as jaded, evil and disappointing as they did.

          And I may be dead by then, but maybe some tiny part of you will look into the mirror and ask your age wrinkled face, "When did I turn into my old man?"

          Emperor Palpatine:

          *Muwahahahahahaha!*

          /Emperor Palpatine.

          • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by captain normal on Friday April 03 2020, @05:19AM

            by captain normal (2205) on Friday April 03 2020, @05:19AM (#978600)

            I've been saying for years, "Don't trust anyone under 30". Did anyone listen, nope of course not "cause all have been entranced by celebrities on tv. Just like our "Acting President" who can't remember his lines and keeps missing his marks.

            --
            When life isn't going right, go left.
          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:29AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:29AM (#978604)

            And I have the same expectations for the current "Ok, Boomer" quoters. i.e. You'll end up just as jaded, evil and disappointing as they did.

            But judging by previous generations, only the Boomer-X transition has led to an overall decline in opportunity and social mobility.

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @06:30AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @06:30AM (#978625)

            Remember when the Boomers were saying "Don't trust anyone over thirty" and how things would be different when they were in charge?

            You must be really old if you remember when the Boomers were saying that.

            Just between you and me, how did you beat the Spanish Flu?

            • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday April 03 2020, @09:56PM

              by Hartree (195) on Friday April 03 2020, @09:56PM (#978885)

              "You must be really old if you remember when the Boomers were saying that."

              Not surprising at all, because I'm technically one of them.

              I was born in 1962, which means I'm the last year of most definitions of the Boomers. I still remember things like Bobby Kennedy's funeral (I was disconcerted my Saturday morning cartoons were pre-empted. What else would you expect from a 6 year old?) and the first moon landing when I was 7, it's not terribly surprising that I remember things from the late 1960s. I'm all of 57 years old. My oldest brother is 68. though I doubt he ever said that, save as a joke.

              I know that must seem only slightly less than the pyramids to you. I also had older parents who were both in WW2, dad as a medic in Europe and mom as a War Department employee first in the US and then in Japan during the occupation. So, my outlook is pretty long. Things like when my father's medical battalion setting up outside Dachau just after it was liberated to treat the prisoners are as real to me as things your parents talked about.

              To those today, the Vietnam War, which I remember the body counts from, the blockade Nixon implemented, etc. must be as far back as the Spanish American War was to me, let alone the 1918 Spanish flu which was 4 years before my parents were born.

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:25AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:25AM (#978603)

        Our pitiful medical system got exposed for real. The most powerful country in the world can't even care for its own citizens. Sick people don't even go for medical care cuz it will bankrupt them even with insurance.

        It's not just the US, but half the countries in Europe that are in crisis. Not because of this petty disease, but because of government interference in our lives. I'm less worried about my parents getting COVID-19 than them getting sick on anything else or hurt, because health facilities are cut off unless the patient shows signs of flu-b. Cost is not much an issue for high risk aged people, because they have Medicare. No, the tragedy is that they're fucking the people out of their livelihoods right now while they are cowering in fear at home in front of the idiot box, with the police on speed dial so they can report people going to the park.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @04:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @04:01AM (#978582)

      I really want to know who modded this "insightful.'

      I can only guess the chicom 50 cents army, eh.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 03 2020, @04:47PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 03 2020, @04:47PM (#978791) Journal

      It is the trump flu pooh that suppressed the severity so that the stock market wouldn't get spooked and hurt his reelection efforts.

      At least Trump had the foresight to send all our ventilators and masks to China because he knew we would never need them for something not any worse than the flu.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.