How would Steemit help deal with the problem of lobbyists? [dTube]

kevincox (43) · 7 years ago (edited)

We have been living a certain way our entire lives. With certain rules, restrictions, and limitations that become so normal, you can’t even notice them—like a fish not noticing he’s been in water his entire life. So it’s easy to see why it is difficult for the average person to comprehend the true potential of Cryptography and Blockchain technology—which is to decentralize the world.

If you’ve studied technology and quantum mechanics at all, then you know that it is a 100% certainty that we will all be free one day. Free from power structures or centralized institutions that are able to exert influence over us. And even free from the need to have things like “currencies” at all. Scarcity is a phenomenon that does not exist elsewhere in the universe—we just have it here because those said power structures have set up zero sum games for us to operate in. But with the rise of crypto, that power will begin to steadily decrease, as we are just now beginning to see.

As long as there exists scarcity, steemit is the first to market in the decentralized information game, but it will not be the last, nor “beat out the rest”. That’s not how free markets work. Companies, platforms, and special groups do not win in perfect competition environments—we ALL win, simultaneously. In other words, the individual—you and me—wins.

The crypto space (not steemit itself) is indeed a free market in its infancy, far from perfect, yet, but it’ll get there. This means steemit will have plenty of long term competition biting at its heels. It’ll be up to them to compete to devise a system that provides information in an honest manner, or the people simply walk to the next best thing.

It’s difficult to comprehend the efficiency of a free market because you and I have never seen one—not even close. But once the world learns how to use decentralized computing, the world as we know it will radically change.

The idea of “lobbying” will quickly become a thing of the past—or, at minimum, a grossly inefficient choice.

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9 votes

thumaung (37) · 7 years ago

Good comment you did it.

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https://steemit.com/life/@muhammadilyas93/stop-following-your-dreams-and-do-this-instead

muhammadilyas93 (33) · 7 years ago

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generation (55) · 7 years ago (edited)

I think blockchain technology will help empower the people and create a more decentralized world where corruption would have a much more difficult time to exist. It will be so much easier to vote without wondering if they counted the votes correctly. I also believe that making the donations transparent instead of anonymous are better because it will be a no brainier to see who is behind who.

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4 votes

tronthetechie (56) · 7 years ago

I think a better idea than making every donation completely anonymous would be to make every donation extremely transparent.

It isn't that hard to confirm that you are the one who sent funds even if it is all anonymous, but it is impossible to refute a block chain transaction (successfully).

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6 votes

jaredcwillis (60) · 7 years ago

I can't believe it's taken me this long to find your blog. This is a very interesting subject. I have a few thoughts on this.

I appreciate your discussion on campaign finance, because, as you mentioned, campaign finance is the true lever when it comes to the power of certain industries. Lobbyists, in general, are only as powerful as the industries that they work for.

Another aspect that you did not mention was the subject of term limits. This is not as much of an issue at the federal level, but many states impose term limits on their legislators, which causes the revolving door problem to be worse. It also causes legislators to be more reliant on lobbyists, because their ability to become a subject matter expert on the political process is hampered by the limits on their time in office. For example, in Florida, legislators are capped at 8 years in office. So, you run into the situation where you have lobbyists that have been around the process for 30+ years and know it better than the legislators, who then rely on the lobbyists expertise.

I have long thought that campaign finance will be strongly impacted by cryptocurrency, though I do have some concerns. For example, what is to prevent foreign powers or bad actors from pumping anonymous money into our elections and directly influencing the outcomes? Also, how do you ensure true anonymity?

I enjoyed your perspective, and have followed you. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work!

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terenceplizga (48) · 7 years ago (edited)

David, your video presentation is based on some very naive ideas.

You advocate for anonymous political donations, but history shows us that anonymity makes things worse. Anonymity gives the wealthiest families in the country the ability to hold onto the most destructive, anticultural ideas and push for social policies that benefit themselves and hurt everyone else. PACs and dark money have made politics worse, not better.

Lobbying can be good. Doctors can inform politicians about the realities of clinical practice. Engineers can inform politicians about cyberterrorism. Economists can inform politicians about banking and international trade.

The problem is corruption, when the lobbying advocates something that would benefit a small group of people while imposing a harm to everyone else. And corruption lives and breathes in secrecy: secret meetings, secret travel, secret bank accounts, secret agendas, secret donations.

If you want to eliminate corruption, eliminate secrecy. All meetings with a politician should be recorded and made available to the public. All campaign contributions should be made by individuals (not collective groups or corporations), and the details must be made public. Corporations should be barred from making campaign contributions.

Why bar corporations? That's easy. Under current law, a corporation must make all of its decisions only one way: to increase profits. Corporate managers would breach their fiduciary duty to shareholders and the company if they made any decision contrary to that. And that one simple fact drives all corporations to push for social policies that benefit themselves, often at the expense of the majority of the population.

The government should have the ability to force corporations out of the political finance game because corporations are entities created by the state. They can't exist without it. They can and should be recognized as legal entities only under a narrowly defined set of reasons. And political speech is not one of them. We protect corporations with an awesome power: civil lawsuits are barred from piercing the "corporate veil" (you can't sue corporate managers individually for their misdeeds). In exchange for that incredibly powerful shield, we the public have a right to demand that corporations be barred from involvement in campaign finance.

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davidpakman (76) · 7 years ago

you are misunderstanding the type of anonymity I was proposing.

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lightnight (25) · 7 years ago

Nice video!!

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djay921 (37) · 7 years ago

Can someone elaborate more . I didn't understand !

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3 votes

raziakmal (29) · 7 years ago

please back like me

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cannabiscanada (42) · 7 years ago

The whole idea of the Decentralization movement is just that - a decentralization of power, finances, opinions, networks, businesses etc. A fracturing of large, hegemonic players in markets, to smaller, less influential ones.

Thus, I am assuming that plenty more platforms are going to fill more niche areas of Social Media, with different demographics depending on many different variables. Although it would be sweet for Steemit to be the "next facebook" - the allure would wear off as it would be too influential at disseminating information. It is my hope that decentralization will make it impossible to control large societal narratives like they are today.

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3 votes

jhonsnow2 (3) · 7 years ago

Nice post.I respect you very much because you contribute to steemit.I will do activities like you.I would like to extend the steemit.

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3 votes

ordosjc (66) · 7 years ago

cryptocurrencies revolutionized the world, that's why I'm on the best platform of the 21st century, called steemit.

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endless.drugs (65) · 7 years ago

I think that this platform can definitely do this, I love to see how decentralized this community is! This could finance other people to politicians...

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vitya98 (24) · 7 years ago

super

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pearlvickky (47) · 7 years ago

this is great cudos

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fuckmylife (59) · 7 years ago

I think lobbyists are an important asset to society. Every product or service has a right to be litigated and promoted as long as it is not offence of illegal. What Steem can help to do is, unearth all the lobbyists that engage in partisan politics and deviate from their original agendas, to fulfil or satisfy their own person objectives through bribery and other illicit acts.

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apiprincz (52) · 7 years ago

Interesting piece to think about. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

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funbobby51 (59) · 7 years ago

(1) what to other Steemians think about fixing this problem
I am thinking about becoming a lobbiest for Steemit!
(2) what do Steemians think about how the Steem blockchain could impact lobbying?
It's brilliant, I hadn't thought about it before just now but we could decentralize the whole thing and send K Street down the river like we will do to YouTube, Facebook, and twitter!

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socent (59) · 7 years ago

I think your video interview brought up a great point about allowing only anonymous donations to politicians because it could (and should) drop the level of handwashing that seems to be so prevalent in the government today. I totally agree with your view. Thanks for the post!- Ivy

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empato365 (64) · 7 years ago

I do think the best thing to do is for steemit to work well on their blockhain secuirity system

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mahaw (59) · 7 years ago

Thank you very much for this post.

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locreai (32) · 7 years ago (edited)

It depends on if the owners have a selling point. If they are corruptible the blockchain itself can be used in one fashion, or another

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clumsysilverdad (64) · 7 years ago

Right after the A.I. epiphany all lobbyists will be eliminated...complete system clean and reboot!!!

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gofissure8911 (25) · 7 years ago

Drain the lobby!

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hhumaira (51) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your valuable and informative post about crypto & so on.
We can gather a lot of information by your post.
By dint of, we can increase our skill that is beneficial for all steemians.
I will always visit your site & wait for your upcoming post.
Thanks @davidpakman
@Resteem,upvote & follow has done.

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respectome (44) · 7 years ago

Good work, followed you!

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gofissure8911 (25) · 7 years ago

Drain the Lobby!

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rodent (42) · 7 years ago

Well, I don't think steem is the best bet for what you want. Our DPoS elections are definitely not anonymous. lol.

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braxton101 (58) · 7 years ago

Well since we are on a decentralized platform I think that promotes technology growth outside the normal political system. For instance facebook is a pro lobbyist site in my eyes. I think the fact that we help promote small people can help becouse lobbyists are all about promoting the political elite.

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mintberrycrunch (25) · 7 years ago

followed

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knowthycrypto (43) · 7 years ago

People would give more IMO. if you could give money to someone that others might seem shady in this way. Good idea.

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piyasmarty121287 (44) · 7 years ago

Good post, i like it

I wish you success

@davidpakman

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jamc129 (35) · 7 years ago

Nice post bro !Thanks for your valuable and informative post! greetings from venezuela.

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farimalik (25) · 7 years ago

great information, thanks for sharing.

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bitgeek (62) · 7 years ago

Congratulations @davidpakman, this post is the forth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 1282 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $18428.13. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.

If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.

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blankspace (42) · 7 years ago

nice post and the whole idea about blockchain technology will help people

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ahmeddimassi (53) · 7 years ago

You Got an upvote because this content is good and must be upvoted .

(This reply for the good contents only ) Keep going .

We all working for the good content any good content will be upvoted :)

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tychoxi (55) · 7 years ago

...pitchforks?

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studgriffin (48) · 7 years ago

Lobbying will always be a problem as long as money exists. Even public funding is a problem to some degree, as those with money can support candidates and those without money can't, making it a uneven distribution of power. And if lobbying was eliminated, there would be many issues that would never even be presented, as they wouldn't be public interest.

And even public interest is often wrong... For instance, no one wanted a wall before donald started yapping about one, and now it has become a national issue. He has given it public interest through his divisiveness.

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fourfourfun (55) · 7 years ago

Not sure. Right now, is there anything to stop lobbying groups with all their financial might installing themselves on Steemit and directing opinion? Not really. It’s been proven that if you have enough money you can make yourself immune to flagging and can also take down your opponents. It’s just another structure to take advantage of. In fact, being decentralised does nothing bar provide mechanics to take control.

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octavianfeodot (52) · 7 years ago

I really think steem blockchain will deal with lobbying in a positive way. We just need time to find out and fix the issues found on the platform.

Thank you for sharing!

If you're intersted in posts of valuable content on crypto you can check out my blog.

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wendie (47) · 7 years ago

It comes down to being transparent and not willing to compromise no matter the cost

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fabianmani (53) · 7 years ago

1 lobbying has to do with trying to influence a person judgement, so I think if everyone is taught integrity, it will go a long way to solve the problem, I've seen people failing honourably without trying to lobby their way around. 2 I think steemit being an open platform makes is hard to lobby because nothing is hidden, everyone has access to everything, so transparency is the key

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jamesleekorea (31) · 7 years ago

nice post!
f4f please!
i follow you.

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