I received an audience question: How would you deal with the problem of lobbying and lobbyists?
I have thoughts, but am also wondering (1) what to other Steemians think about fixing this problem, and (2) what do Steemians think about how the Steem blockchain could impact lobbying?
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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.
Good comment you did it.
https://steemit.com/life/@muhammadilyas93/stop-following-your-dreams-and-do-this-instead
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.
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).
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!
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.
you are misunderstanding the type of anonymity I was proposing.
Nice video!!
Can someone elaborate more . I didn't understand !
please back like me
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.
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.