The Role of the Internet in Fostering Democracy and Capitalism

With the state of democracy and capitalism these days, the Internet is a place of hope. As it is now, the Internet is increasing becoming an open town hall and marketplace with increasing low cost to enter. This means that people with ideas have a chance to present them to a larger audience and the ideas that are found to be more valuable get more attention and raise to the top. If this environment is maintained, there is hope that the days of government for sale will come to an end.

Perhaps you had a more straight forward way of saying it:
At Google: Nov. 14, 2007 Mountain View California (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k)
"The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history and we have to keep it that way."

And you recognize the same troubles with Democracy and Capitalism that I share
At Google: Nov. 14, 2007 Mountain View California (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nnj7r1wCD4&feature=channel)

4:15-4:40 (my best attempts to transcribe)
"I have taken on the special interests in the past and won. And I have an instinct, a bias to push against the status quo which I think is really needed right now to because Washington has become captive because of special interests that are making decisions not based on reason, not based on competition on innovation but often based on who has the most juice, who has the most clout."

What we publicly know about The ACTA Treaty (my points derived from the Nov. 4, 2009 BOL Podcast # 1099 (6:00-14:30)

Main Points:
-Global copyright
-current administration involved in secret discussions
-Proposed 3 strikes, French style system w/no judicial process, ie 3 accusations from right's holders = no internet for life
-ISP required to police; no more safe harbors; ISPs serving executive and judicial roles
-will stifle user generated content

You really should listen to this yourselves. Either they have big misunderstandings and you should make public comments to make things right OR you don't understand the way the Internet works OR special interests have gotten to you too.

How is this treaty consistent with your position?

I can live with a government at war, with no universal health, with a poor economy and that is unwilling to make changes to improve our environment. All of these things will follow if we keep improving openness and democratic discussion on the web.

Get this right and the rest will follow.

My vote depends on it.
Your legacy depends on it.

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You can post a comment for the Obama Administration at http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

The Soda Fountain Model

While sitting at a once local sandwich restaurant earlier today, I reflected on The Soda Fountain Model of distribution. This model relies on the efficiency of allowing the customer to serve themselves. It is based on the assumption that the customer can be trusted to be responsible with a resource (soda) that is being provided in a way that they can choose how much to take. This model rejects the idea that customers can not be trusted. The reassuring thing is that business chooses this model meaning that in the current environment it is more cost effective to accept the loss that might be generated by irresponsible customers than to pay the wages of an employee filling up that soda.

I believe that this model can and should be applied more often in education and in raising children. Instead of focusing our time on micromanaging tasks, we should guide our children through these tasks and leave them to manage themselves. This is not done in a haphazard manner. We must place the figurative soda fountain in a public place, hand out the cups and be ready to step in when (and only when) extreme abuses occur. We need to have an environment where our children see others respecting the "soda fountain" on a regular basis. And we need to be sure that they have enough of what we need, often the child who cheats the soda fountain is not being as much deviant as reflecting a skill set that is often necessary for survival. This is not an excuse, but as a reason why I have seen less well off children abusing soda fountains.

What Anti-Regulators Aren't Complaining About (and more)

A letter to:

Planet Money Staff,

Show #116, like many others had plenty of mentions about the troubles of regulations. With the high degree regularity of that we hear free market and (de)regulation mentioned one might forget the other major way that sweeping government policy effects markets, creating incentives, "picking winners". We don't hear these free market, deregulation self declared fiscal conservatives ranting about how corporate welfare has created monopolies. We don't hear about how these monopolies stifle regulation, buying up patents and shelving them, creating an environment where new ideas don't have a chance to rise to emerge in the form of new business. Is it not true that If a business spends money on it, they must offer value. Shouldn't lobbing expenses be an indication that big business is pulling big brother into the market too much.

Currently I see the Internet as the largest engine of innovation. I have been watching the discussion about Net Neutrality carefully. My opinion is that it is the wrong fix for the right problem. What we really need is simpler policy that makes fiber work like other public resources. Perhaps the public street model. The trouble is that the industry is happy with it's corporate welfare. While it asks not to be regulated, it takes money. I like the argument that we should do with telecommunications what we did with banks that took bailout money. We should say, "If government programs create favorable markets then you also must accept regulation. Give up the government programs and you will no longer be regulated."

These ideas connect with a few topics that I would love to hear discussed on planet money:
Copyrights vs. Creative Commons (open source) - Copyrights promise an innovator the rights to make money from their innovation for a reasonable amount of time. If they are necessary, why have Creative Commons licenses been adopted by many innovators.
Google - A new (GenX) model for business. The Google innovation is much more than its founding idea, index the whole web. Google captures creativity in the way they structure work and their workplaces (20% time). Crowd sourced ideas. Google gets the larger public and smaller developer communities to participate in improving their products. We can all see the "Big" in Google, but I have yet to find the "evil". Has the promise of the human potential movement in HR arrived?
Charter Schools - As a teacher, I have done some digging, looking for signs that charters are solvent and providing quality innovation with little to say for it. Is the market capturing innovation as promised here?
Thanks for providing short, simple and powerful content,

Tim Patterson