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from the secret-negotiations-are-always-good-for-the-people dept.
Apparently, Greenpeace got their hands on a version of the TTIP documents and plans to release them to the public at today, Monday 2nd of May, 11:00am (UTC+2) from Netherlands, while at the same time giving a press conference at the re:publica. While Greenpeace is apparently mainly concerned about the loss of the precautionary principle (in Europe, if a product is thought to pose a risk to the population or environment, it is prohibited until proven safe, as opposed to the US where it is permitted until proven harmful. According to Greenpeace (sorry, only in German), this is a reason that in US, 170 genetically manipulated plants are in the agricultural market, while in Europe it is only one.
While these mainly environmental concerns deserve some consideration, the more fundamental issue is that such a far-reaching contract, invalidating many of hard fought-for consumers rights in one coup and affecting half a billion people alone in Europe, is negotiated secretly. This is entirely unworthy of any democratic government system.
The documents are available for download.
(Score: 1) by Bethany.Saint on Monday May 02 2016, @04:20PM
Was kidding about the algorithms. Reference to AI/Robot uprising tropes. Should have put a grin.
If you have thoughts on how to achieve a less corrupt governing body, please share. Really.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @09:11PM
Actually, in the future, I see algorithms being....
Hold on. Getting ahead of myself.
First, I would like to direct your attention here:
arxiv.org/abs/0907.0455
Yeah yeah yeah, Ig Noble and all that. But the paper does prove a point- general selection (i.e.- elections) criteria are flawed, and as rule promote people to their highest level of incompetence (corruption). This probably more than anything else is why 99% incumbency in elections leads to disastrous results.
So term limits you say? Nope, the paper makes quite clear: you get the best results by choosing people at random.
Demarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition [wikipedia.org]
Now, I could go on and on in mind numbing detail (I've been thinking about this for a long time) of how many problems you solve by adopting at least some aspects of this (diminished the influence of money in politics, mitigated by a large degree the tyranny of majority rule, etc.), but I'm more than willing to defend my charges against criticisms.
And, best of all, I've figured out a way to easily transition to this without a revolution: create a third house of congress of three representatives from each state to serve. Give them the power to only debate and vote on bills. And give them essentially the line item veto to amend bills.
That's it.
Oh, and increase the number of elected officials by x% (this will require some finagling to get right, and the percentage will vary with population size) to make buying elections more costly.
You've maintained the better parts of a constitutional republic, but you have direct citizen oversight to stop bad legislation before it begins.
You've also made politics a zero sum game as it's possible for anyone to serve.
(Score: 1) by Bethany.Saint on Monday May 02 2016, @10:33PM
Very interesting. Didn't know about sortition/demarchy at all. It's going to take a bit of pondering. Thanks for the info.