As someone on the ground in Germany I can tell that a lot of Germans, even techies are still confused and not sure what the Pirate Party represents or what their actual political program is, which greatly devalues what ever recent wins they have acquired. Unfortunately a political party must be about more than just transparency and better IP policies (I agree with both though) or at least that is how the Germans see the Pirates.
While that is true, I don't think it is so clear what the other parties stand for, either. At least when it comes to spending the billions. It doesn't seem as if the established parties where so successful with their economics.
As a techie my perception is that the pirate party is not about a program, it's about the process.
They use an internet based system called "liquid feedback" for collaboration. Every member can propose stuff. Every member gets one vote. The highest voted stuff becomes the program.
All of this happens online.
Yes, it's still young and immature. But please compare to how your conventional political party operates and tell me with a straight face it doesn't sound like a good idea.
Politicians should vote based on their visions and beliefs or visions and beliefs shared by the party. This is just random, populistic and doesn't have any real meaning.
I want to know from a political party how will they deal with real issues. With low employment rate. With bad economy. With good economy. Where will they invest, where will they cut.
"We will vote about that later" is definitevely a terrible answer.
Voting yes or no without discussing why doesn't lead to good policy outcomes.
Consensus works far better for policy; 90% of people might read something and think it sounds good, while 10% of people might spot a terrible flaw. Simply voting would let the policy be ratified with the flaw, while in a consensus process the facilitator would let each side present their views, and someone might come up with a proposal that addresses the flaw and satisfies everyone.
Consensus doesn't need 100% agreement, and even when you get down to the most fundamental agreements, people with the same facts who are aware of each others viewpoints can still disagree (at which point the majority view has to win), but the process should continue until that point is reached. This process does require some subjective decision making (e.g. around when consensus has been reached), so it can't yet be fully automated.
I'm not a member of the pirate party (so can't speak for them), but I want to avoid fueling concerns with my simplified description of their system.
I don't think their goal is automating the decisions, their goal is to add much needed efficiency and transparency to the process by taking it online.
When you look at their software then it's a web-forum with a purpose-built voting/karma system.
For the first time I (a non-member) can go to the website of a political party, read their discussions, learn who is proposing what, who is voting for what and what the dominating opinions are.
You and I may not agree with their (lack of) positions on various subjects. But, as I understand it, it takes nothing more than an online-registration to join in on a discussion, and to present your own ideas on a level playground.
As far as I am concerned that's an overdue breath of fresh air.
Unless you prefer the state-of-the-art; backroom-politics with an "old boys club" calling the shots...
Ideally, it shouldn't need to be more than that. A voting system where you rank, say, five candidates from different parties could support several small parties which are biased against in most current democratic systems.
If you thought first-past-the-post was bad, wait for the new innovative top-two system to further spread, which is flat out eliminating the third party completely.
Sounds like a run-off voting system. The French use a similar system to elect their presidents, as far as I know. Is that right? Have you looked at the French experiences?
It sort of should. Otherwise, one-trick candidates who really have no idea about economics or foreign policy can win, say, a presidential election on a campaign based on, say, pro-life vs pro-choice or prohibition or their stance on one particular social program.
Germany has proportional representation. It's absolutely reasonable for parties in those systems to run on small policy platforms, especially if they're not expecting to receive a large share of the vote.
The Pirate Party, if it gets into government, will invariably be a member of a coalition with limited power to influence policy. In the aftermath of elections it may have limited bargaining power as a balance of power/kingmaker party. In both of these situations it makes sense for it to be a "one-trick candidate", using its influence to deal with the issues that it cares about, and staying more or less quiet on issues that the larger parties care more about.
They are basically throwing the electorate at them with all the new laws and proposals for Internet disconnection and all that. They probably don't even see it coming.
> They are basically throwing the electorate at them
I think they're primarily throwing the non-electorate.
Many young people don't vote because they perceive it to be about boring, old people stuff they don't really get nor care about. They barely know what are inflation or the ECB fund rate, they certainly don't have any advice about who's going to act on it in the most constructive way.
Now mess with their Internets, and suddenly they understand what the poll is about. Politicians have tailored their rhetorics for a world in which retired people vote, whereas youngsters don't. It looks like it's changing.
Yet it doesn't prevent them from having an advice about it, it seems.
Hypothesis: when you're young, you can dismiss these stuff and have no advice about them, because they're grown-ups stuff. As you age, you have to admit that they're for smarter people, not merely older ones.
Fairly certain. WW2 is now 66 years past, and the 20's and 30's are more a cultural memory than anything else. Sure, people get the concept, but they don't have the visceral reaction older people had to it, or the drive to monitor it constantly.
How do you think Germany got suckered into the Euro in the first place?
You are by far overestimating the general public interest into such topics. Also, there are enough people who think that banning internet for something they think is at least as much a crime as shoplifting is absolutely appropriate.
However, I have to admit that I get a tiny weeny bit optimistic.
But: similar "interest group" parties (Grüne, anyone?) tend to lose their focus, and their competence, with time.
Posting voting polls in which your favorite party scores well, especially directly before elections, falls under political agitation category. Could we please keep this out of HN?
I'm suprised that party which seeks to seriously impair (if not completely blow) the software industry gets so much applause here.
This website is called Hacker News. They pretty much represent the Hacker ethic in form of a political party. Its getting posted here because its intressting to alot of Americans that don't have a party like this in america.
How exactlly do the impair the software industry? Some (don't know how many exactlly) of the guys that got elected into the berlin parlament work together in a software startup. One of them even owns it. Why would they destroy the industry many of them work in?
If you are selling software product and all means of fighting with unauthorized redistribution are taken away from you then you are screwed. That's all I have to say.
Well then, there is your problem. Your business model does no longer work (or rather, is slowly but inevitably failing) - you cannot force people to pay for the distribution of infinitely copyable data, and neither can you ultimately force them to pay you to use it.
My question is: How exactly does this entitle you to demand laws to save your business model?
You could apply the very same argument you are using against Free Software (the libre kind), which is still nonsense.
Besides, generations of industries have been put out of business by technical advancements. I don't see why the software industry (or any digital media industry, for that matter) should be the first to have a special exception just because they whine loud enough.
How about you stop complaining about inevitable progress and instead try to find new ways to make ends meet? Adapt or face being made obsolete - it's that simple, really.
There is an interest in the Pirate Party movement which is rooted in the hacker scene. So, I thought this would be an interesting update for those outside Germany.
Just because I benefit from some copyrights doesn't mean I completely agree with the direction copyright law is taking, much less patent or privacy laws. (I'm not a pirate party member or anything — just explaining where the sympathy comes from.)
> I'm suprised that party which seeks to seriously impair (if not completely blow) the software industry gets so much applause here.
Yeah, you may want to explain exactly how. To me it seems like the pirate party's values are right in line with your average software developer's values.
Just because you don't agree with a political party's agenda does not mean news about that party isn't HN material.
The software industry is holding back the tech industry like you cannot believe. If not for Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC during the 80s and 90s tech would be far more prevalent. Almost every security bug in an MS product was already noted and fixed in VMS and other OSes that were feature-complete before MS-DOS began.
We just happen to be in one of the first real industries (media is popular but not strictly useful, so not an industry for the purposes of this) whose product can be copied without incremental cost. Instead of throwing up artificial barriers around this to try to perpetuate our old-world business models we should be leveraging this and creating all the value we can.
Besides, making software free (by removing the ability to demand money for it) doesn't mean nobody would be paid to work on it. Many (most?) full-time Linux devs are paid. Probably 95% of software isn't a for-sale product, and of the bit that is, much of that could probably be supported other ways.
