You And I Both Know That As

And With A Practice Of Writing Comes A Certain Important Integrity. A Culture Filled With Bloggers Thinks Differently About Politics Or Public Affairs, If Only Because More Have Been Forced Through The Discipline Of Showing In Writing Why A Leads To B.

The More Important Point, However, Is Not About What The Money Does. It's About What Has To Be Done To Get The Money. The Effect Of The Money Might Be (democratically) Benign. But What Is Done To Secure That Money Is Not Necessarily Benign. To Miss This Point Is To Betray The Robin Hood Fallacy: The Fact That The Loot Was Distributed Justly Doesn't Excuse The Means Taken To Secure It.

The Crystal Ball Has A Question Mark In Its Center. There Are Some Fundamental Choices To Be Made. We Will Either Choose To Continue To Wage A Hopeless War To Preserve The Existing Architecture For Copyright By Upping The Stakes And Using Better Weapons To Make Sure That People Respect It. If We Do This, Public Support For Copyright Will Continue To Weaken, Pushing Creativity Underground And Producing A Generation That Is Alienated From The Copyright Concept.

I Find Focusing Clearly On The Problem Is The First Step To Seeing A Solution. The Problem Is (a) The Insane Amount Of Time Spent Raising Money From (b) A Freakishly Tiny Proportion Of America. Basically .05% Are The "relevant Funders" Of Campaigns, Meaning Candidates Can't Help But Be Overly Sensitive To The Views Of That Tiny Fraction Relative To The Rest Of Us. If That's The Problem, Then The Solution Is To Spread The Funders Out: To Increase The Range Of Us Who Are The Relevant Funders Of Elections, Through Schemes Like Vouchers Or Coupons Given To Every Voter.

If Zero Percent Of The Elites Support Something, Very Low Chance It's Going To Pass, If 100% Support Something, Very High Chance It's Going To Pass. Same Thing For Organized Interest Groups. But For The Average Voter, It's A Flat Line. Which Says It Doesn't Matter Whether Zero Percent Of The Public Believes Something Or 100% Of The Average Voters Believe Something - It Doesn't Affect The Probability That That Thing Will Be Enacted.