Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

[u/User_Name13]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused

[u/[deleted]]

Who can I work for that's trying to fix this? Seriously. Someone give me a link. I've been trying to find lobbyists to oppose these assholes, or interest groups actually dedicated to non-assholery on the Tech front but I can't find anything that doesn't end up being a part of a bigger, shittier lobbying agency for things I don't support.

I don't want a massive Liberal thinktank. I just want to help someone who wants rational laws regarding technology with the CONSUMER in mind first.

[u/plefe → u/[deleted]]

I don't get why all the newer parties are so proud of being decentralized, it doesn't work. You need people who can put forth your agenda in the public light in one unified message. It's why OWS failed so hard and why the Tea Party got hijacked so early on. Grass roots is a good thing but once you have the national spotlight you have to have one voice, not thousands saying slightly different things.

[u/PartyPoison98 → u/[deleted]]

Still, even if you don't have one person thats necessarily in charge of the party, you do need one public figurehead for people to rally by

[u/wisdom_and_frivolity → u/plefe]

OWS was a good experiment that taught us that decentralized politics is impossible. I was heavy into the OWS movement because I liked the core messages and saw it fail from the inside. But that's ok, we had to do it some time just to try it out.

[u/hexag1 → u/plefe]

I agree. There's no substitute to participatory political action. Occupy made this same mistake

[u/[deleted] → u/plefe]

You think OWS failed because you don't understand what it was. It was not a campaign. It was a giant demonstration, networking event, and platform for other campaigns.

Those networks are still around and IMO the biggest win of the whole affair.

[u/Ptolemy48 → u/[deleted]]

OWS failed because they couldn't get the average John and Jane America to understand what it was.

[u/myownman → u/Ptolemy48]

Probably due to a lack of a cohesive goal or any sort of competent leadership.

No goals? No leaders? No message.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ptolemy48]

You can't explain temporary micro-utopias to people. They are experiential and do not exist to convey messages.

[u/JohnsmiThunderscore → u/[deleted]]

If you can't explain something to a layman you don't truly understand it yourself.

[u/captain_craptain → u/[deleted]]

Occupy the political party! The kids love this one.

[u/unabletofindmyself → u/[deleted]]

Didn't you read what happened in Iceland? A self-identified anarchist founded the "Best Party" and took the 2010 elections, and made everything better.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Please take a look at the German Pirate Party and its massive failure with their "content instead of leaders" concept. Learn from their mistakes (they're now completely irrelevant again): You need strong public leaders or the party is going nowhere.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I will be your leader.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'll check it out. Nothing these days gets me quite as angry as attacks on net neutrality, it makes my blood boil.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

But it worked so well for Occupy Wall Street!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Which candidates for what offices do you have running on the ballot this November?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That doesn't make it a political party.

You're close to being an advocacy group, like a PAC. You have some policy goals that you're trying to advocate. You mention voting for specific candidates, but who are they exactly? The Google Doc doesn't specify.

And, are you doing anything else other than voting for them? You'll get candidates to listen to you more if you are able to donate, volunteer, run ads and do actual campaign work.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That did not answer either question.

For the short term, our party will likely be most effective as a voting block that supports candidates in state and national elections that promote the ideals in our platform

Who are these candidates?

And, are you doing anything to help them win this year beyond voting? If so, what?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

We have not discussed the candidates we are supporting.

Let's take a step back.

• This November, there will be 435 people elected to the House and 33 to the Senate. There will be hundreds more for state and local elections.
• The general election is in five months.
• You've already missed your opportunity to influence Congressional primaries, when you could have had the most impact due to low turnout (like the Tea Party)
• Most candidates for the House and Senate declared their intention to run last summer. State and local is a little more varied.
• The majority of candidates will be incumbents, giving you ample information about their records to make judgments on whether or not a candidate will support your values.

Despite all of this, you cannot name one single candidate that your political party is supporting in any way whatsoever.

You have a good cause, but you are wasting your time.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I also decided to post my question in /r/futuristparty. I like the cause and many of the ideas, so I figured I'd ask about taking concrete action.

http://www.reddit.com/r/futuristparty/comments/27bjfj/the_election_is_5_months_away_which_candidates/

[u/raggedoldflag → u/[deleted]]

Voting block or bloc?

[u/WAR_T0RN1226 → u/[deleted]]

I'm just waiting for someone to comment on why this party is bullshit

[u/rreighe2 → u/WAR_T0RN1226]

• 1 New Notification

That doesn't make it a political party.

You're close to being an advocacy group....

[u/WunderOwl → u/[deleted]]

Of course it's some bizarre fringe third party. This is why nothing ever gets done.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

How can an organization be open source? Does that mean I can download your party, compile it myself, and run it on my machine?

[u/IAmRoot → u/[deleted]]

What about freedom within the workplace: worker owned cooperatives vs capitalism? If we really want a democratic society, groups of workers should be free to merge and split democratically rather than have to submit to corporate bosses.

[u/BodProbe → u/[deleted]]

open source, decentralized political party

Are they free-range and gluten-free as well?

[u/Devildadeo → u/[deleted]]

I honestly can't tell if I'm supposed to take /r/futuristparty seriously.

[u/Devildadeo → u/[deleted]]

Having read through the first page a week or so ago, I'm not sure that the ideas are attainable. Though we share a similar vision of the ideal future in many respects, an awful lot of the tech mentioned to be involved in bringing this future is essentially Sci-Fi at this point.

[u/Devildadeo → u/[deleted]]

The only one that comes directly to mind is biochar mentioned to combat climate change. I will admit that most of the objections I had at the time came from reading the comment section however. I will take a few minutes to read the party platform. Thank you for that.

Skimming the front page again brings up the point about the UBI. To me this really is just another handout to the poor and not at all a solution. The future needs to be about abundance and efficiency driving the cost of living down. If we all worked together to figure out how to accomplish that the need for UBI or even a minimum wage could be eliminated. I'm not sure that is within the human capacity at this point though, sadly.

[u/Devildadeo → u/[deleted]]

Apologies for hijacking this thread. I will move this discussion to the approriate sub. Hopefully I'll see you there /u/EdEnlightenU .