Scott Reents Holds Forth

Last week you asked online activist Scott Reents about his organization The Democracy Project, about online political action, about the worth of political involvement in general. He's obliged with some lengthy, thoughtful answers. If nothing else, his words should give you pause when you vote -- or don't.

Query
by Modern_Celt

Considering the speed of internet communication is this going to make it even more difficult for those in the Western states to care about the election? After all, most of the networks already predict a winner LONG before the poles out west close.

Scott Reents: Internet or no Internet, your individual vote is mathematically meaningless in determining the outcome of an election anyway, and exit polls already exist to remind you of this fact.

Still, the speed of the Internet is an important factor in our overall participation in politics. For example, MoveOn was able to organize and channel millions of people opposed to Clinton's impeachment in a matter of weeks. Normally, organizations can't mobilize their membership around pending legislation or regulations, because the window of opportunity before they are enacted is too small. This makes a truly grassroots organization an impossibility without the Internet, because there must always be organizational management to serve as proxies to (hopefully) represent their members interests.

How does the medium change the message?
by Squirrel Killer

I think most of us have a pretty good understanding of the ways in which the Internet affects the method of political communications. Instead of phone banking and lit drops, you can use e-mail lists and Web sites, to cite just two examples.

However, the more interesting question, in my mind, is how the Internet, as a medium, affects the message. How do you view political content changing as a response to the new methods available? Will political content move more to the extremes, since politicians can target more effectively, or will it move more mainstream, since more people are brought into the political arena.

Beyond the message, how will the internet affect political outcomes? Are there any potential policy options that become possible with the new methods available?

Scott: Will the Internet affect the "message" of political communication? Absolutely.

The medium is the message, which is to say that the characteristics of the Internet imply that certain messages work and certain messages do not work. The fact that there is so much choice on the Internet means that messages that are pure rhetoric and are not informative do not work; users can and will click elsewhere. The fact that hyperlinking is so common means that messages that don't link to supporting material are assumed to be hiding something. The fact that online publishing is so inexpensive means that users won't accept superficial explanations of positions and values.

Politicians CAN continue to make Web sites that are nothing more than glorified brochures, but who will visit them? Right now, I think that people visit them for the novelty, and because they don't really know what to expect, but that will not last if they continue to treat their users like fools.

Now, you raise an interesting point about the impact of politicians being able to "target" more effectively. To talk to most Internet marketers/campaigners these days, you'd think that "targeted" communication was the essence of the Internet, and was the highest form of interactivite communication. Wrong. Targeted communication is not of the Internet. It is of direct mail. It's a method used to improve response rates (like, from 3% to 4%, a 33% improvement!), to save money on postage, to hit the right hot buttons, blah, blah, blah. And it's not interactive; the communication is essentially as one way as broadcast television -- just more accurate.

Which is to say that I agree with your suggestion that targeting results in more extreme messages and a more stratified electorate, and I think that's dangerous.

It's also the way that the Internet politics space will move if left to develop by itself. In the last 12 months, sites like Grassroots.com ("Your political action network"), Voter.com ("Delivering democracy to your desktop"), Speakout.com ("Speak Out. Be Heard."), Vote.com ("Your vote will always be sent where it counts"), have all started with the premise of being able to aggregate site users and then sell targeted access (via e-mail, banner ads, etc.) to political campaigns, a prospect that I think is unhealthy for democracy.

That's why I wrote the essay -- to describe the way that political campaigns SHOULD be using the Internet for communication, and to try to set a higher standard for what people expect online. I don't think that an Internet of primarily targeted political messages is an inevitability, but it certainly is a possibility.

Will candidates ever really do this?
by El Volio

Interesting article. As a fairly neutral U.S. citizen, it occurs to me that, to many, the ideas expressed here are applied versions of general democratic ideals. Most voters would like to see more information about what candidates actually are proposing, and many want objective comparisons from unbiased sources.

But that's not politics. Never has been, and probably never will be.

So here's the question: Do you think that candidate sites are ever actually likely to provide objective data? Or do you think there will ever be a truly unbiased, trusted source (perhaps like the way the media should be) where specific information about tax cut proposals and so forth will be located?

Scott: You've exposed the dirty little secret of my essay, which is that I expect that 90% (at least) of politicians currently running would ignore my advice, should they read and understand it. So you're right in once sense; there are very few candidate sites today that remotely do what I prescribe, and most political advisers would consider such steps suicide because they violate the most important rule in their book: don't give up control.

But I don't think that means that it won't happen, any more than the fact that Microsoft hasn't supported open software means that open software isn't happening. My argument is simply that the traditional mode of campaigning doesn't work very well on the Internet, and so those that continue in the traditional mode will have to do so somewhere other than the Internet. And as important as this medium is becoming, that is a more and more unsustainable strategy.

And there are examples of candidates who are doing the right things. Ventura took some baby steps in the right direction with his e-mail lists. This Congressional candidate in Idaho is doing a very good job of running a citizen-centric campaign on the Internet, and so far succeeding. I'm sure there are others, though they are still few and far between. You will see more and more of them, and if you don't, you should consider starting your own. There are also 6,700 unofficial candidate sites put up by individuals that could potentially do things that the candidate would never allow his official site to do.

Let me also clarify one point, which is that I'm not suggesting that candidates build sites that are purely unbiased presentations of information. No, there is clearly still a role for opinion and leadership and values, but the best sites will present these in the context of information that people are looking for.

Candidates would be smart to try to emerge as reliable framers of issues -- the ones that attempt to set the scope of the problem, identify relevant evidence, outline competing values, etc. This is one of the most powerful positions to be in, but you can only do this if respect opposing viewpoints and treat them fairly. Frames are never the Congressional and state level, that people will be able to demonstrably say that the Internet had a measurable impact on the outcome of elections.

More importantly, the 2000 elections are key because they will begin to set the standard for political communication on the Internet. Millions of dollars is being invested in building online political resources -- campaign-oriented, commercial, nonprofit, government, etc. -- and the way that that is invested will have a tremendous impact over the way the political Internet develops over the next 20 years.

Will it be a commercial Yahoo model of aggregating lots of users and then auctioning off access to them to the highest bidders? Will it be a broadcast model, trying to attract as many eyeballs without giving up any real control? Or will it be a civic model, empowering citizens to take a more meaningful role in the running of the government?

If it is the latter, I believe that it could have far-reaching impacts on many facets of politics, from the two-party system to the role of soft money and PACs to the types of legislation that gets enacted.

detailed content
by geekpress

One reason, in my opinion, that politicians don't provide detailed content on their Web sites about policy proposals is the concern that what they say will come back to bite them, a la "No New Taxes." Concrete policy proposals can be used against them once in office, for it is easier to measure someone's actions against written statements than soundbytes and speeches.

So, given this strong incentive to keep proposals vague, what other incentives can we offer politicians to pony up the details of their plans for us?

Scott: You're absolutely right, that politicians are wary of detailed proposals coming back to bite them, although I'd say "no new taxes," was missing some of the elements of a detailed proposal (like, detail).

Getting politicians to offer more detail requires that citizens have a way of demanding more. Imagine if there were a forum open to all candidates who agreed to abide by the rules of the forum -- citizens ask the questions, are allowed follow-up questions, and candidates can answer or not, but the entire forum is aware of what you answer and don't. Well, no candidates would come, because candidates insist on control over the information they have to give up. What if, however, the forum contained 10%, 20%, or even 50% of the likely voters. I bet you'd see a lot more interest. There would be the credible threat that at least one candidate (particularly the one who was trailing in the polls) would show up, and then all candidates would be forced to show up. I propose that that forum can be built on the Internet, and I bet some of you are smart enough to come up with a way to figure out which questions to ask.

Politicians are opportunistic; they will do what they need to do to win. So, the answer to getting them to pony up more information is to make it a necessary component of winning.

The truth is, there is a subtle collusion between politicians and traditional media. Traditional media want to make money from politicians showing up on their talk shows, buying ads, granting interviews, participating in debates, and they don't care deeply about making these things particularly meaningful. Thus, politicians hold the upper hand -- as long as they can deliver entertainment (ala sound bytes, debate one-liners, etc.) -- they do not have to give up any real control. Politicians give media what they want; media gives politicians what they want.

Is Internet driving a societal shift?
by Noel

In your essay you say, "the expectations of people on the Internet are different and more demanding than citizens' expectations in general."

Are these higher expectations a result of being on the Internet, or does Internet access self-select people that have higher expectations?

Will the influx of people onto the Internet raise the expectations of the general populace, or will it dilute the expectations of the Internet community?

Scott: It's a little bit of both. However, I believe that higher expectations is more a result of the medium than of the particular people who have chosen to use the medium. I'm not saying that the Internet improves people -- makes them more critical, more involved, more interested in learning, better judges of argument -- but I am saying that on the Internet a message transplanted from "traditional media" doesn't look right to most Internet users.

In my research into Internet behavior, I've found that there is about am 18-month period of acclimitazation online, after which people are much more likely to do more "sophisticated" activities (e.g., personalizing information, registering, purchasing, changing default start-up pages, etc.), and this observation holds true as much for the people who first went online in 1996 as it does for the people who just went online last year.

This suggests to me that people's expectations and use of the medium is not set when they come online, but rather evolves over time. I believe that this increased sophistication comes with an increasing degree of impatience: people understand what types of sites work and what type don't, and they leave sites that don't.

Why are libertarians better represented on the net?
by Russ Nelson

So why do Internet political polls always generate results which are more skewed towards the libertarian philosophy? Is it because they don't "count" and so people feel more free to vote how they feel? Or is it because people who are drawn to the net value freedom more than security?

Scott: Most Internet polls do a very poor job of being scientific, so I would be very wary of concluding that Harry Browne's apparent popularity among Internet users is real. The most important factor, in my opinion, is that non-mainstream parties like the Libertarians do better in Internet polls because these marginilized groups feel a greater desire to participate in these polls, as a way of generating awareness for their movements.

Still, there is certainly a more libertarian ethic on the Internet, and in the same way that I think that people become more sophisticated with time, I think that people begin to value the freedom of the Internet with time. In my experience, the strongest advocates of regulating speech on the Internet are those who have the least amount of experience with it. However, if you look at party affiliations, voting behavior, etc. of Internet users, it's what you'd expect from a group of people with above average education and income (Pew Research has done some nice, though a bit dated research on the subject).

Realistically, does the net matter?
by neowintermute

Can we realistically say that the Internet is making a difference in the political process? Can a basically unknown candidate like Ralph Nader get a resonable number of votes thanks to just his web site? Or are people really just going to the Web sites of the candidates they hear about on television? In the closed capitalist mind space we inhabit, big monetary interests determine the range of possibilities people think are viable.

According to a recent IBM/Altavista study, even on the net the big money sites like Yahoo "basically control the flow of information". So can we really think that the net is going to suddenly bring us democracy despite the nondemocratic nature of our entire economy/political system?

Scott: I wouldn't go so far as to say that our economic-political system is nondemocratic. I'd be the first to say that there are aspects that don't work as well as we'd like, but these are easily outweighed by the institutions and processes that are democratic.

Still, the degree to which information is controlled by corporate interests is disturbing. Ralph Nader is unlikely to get many votes just because of his Web site, and he's someone with actually quite a bit of promotional muscle behind him. One of the main reasons is that the traditional method of finding information on the Net, the search engine, tends to reinforce the hierarchies of offline power structures

To me, this says that the Net will not matter if left to develop in its "natural" commercial fashion. Because this is an election year, there is a unique opportunity for efforts that define the political Internet outside of this commercial environment. Millions are for the first time looking for political information and interaction, which means that it's not nearly as difficult (ie, expensive) as it has been/will be to get a site that captures a fair amount of this traffic. And if done correctly, ie, in a citizen-centric fashion, such a site should be able to use this jump-start to create a community that endures and matters. Anyway, that's the bet I've taken in leaving my .com job (and stock options) to start the Democracy Project.

I'm sure most of you are cognizant of the power -- commercial, political, spiritual, whatever -- that slashdot has. In pitching the Democracy Project to foundations and other "civicly-minded" folks, I almost always point to slashdot as an example of the potential power of the Internet.

Slashdot gives the average person the ability to address a forum of hundreds of thousands of people. I contend that that is unique in the history of the world, and that development is revolutionary in the way that Gutenberg's printing press was revolutionary.

What about a Slashdot for politics? Is there a space for something like this? Absolutely. In fact there is probably room for many Slashdots for politics. In its own way, Slashdot is arguably already a Slashdot for politics, with the discussions about Columbine, digital copyright, CDA, etc. Now, I know that the idea of Slashdot as a political forum is a controversial one, so I'm not saying that Slashdot should be more political. I'm just saying that the model has already shown that the Internet has the potential to effect meaningful change on the way our political system works.

noted
by jbarnett

It has been noted that Al Gore is popular among geeks for many reaons, for example he invented the Internet, runs Linux on his Web site and hides cool little things in his HTML source. What do you think other Presidential candidates have to do or are doing to "compete" with Al Gore for the Geek vote?

Bill Clinton raised a lot of votes by "reaching out" to the Youth of America, do you think Al Gore will continue to "reach out" to the Geeks of America in the same aspect as Clinton did a few years back?

In your personal opinon who is the more 31337 hAx0r: Gore or Bush? And Finally the question everyone is dying to know the answer to: If pited against each other in a roman style caged deathmatch, who would win, Gore or Bush?

Scott: I certainly hope that geeks will base their voting decisions on more than what operating system a candidate's Web site is running. In all likelihood, Al Gore had nothing to do with that decision, and the fact that his Webmaster hides cool things in his HTML will not have any impact on what Gore might or might not do as president. These things are almost entirely symbolic, which isn't surprising since the majority of discourse among the presidential candidates is symbolic rather than substantive.

Of course, Al Gore will "reach out" to the youth of America, but the question is, will he do it in a way that matters or will it be mostly about posting pictures of Al in front of a computer on his Web site? Bush, too. I see them in a dead heat for last in truly reaching out to the YOA.

Now, as for the roman-style caged deathmatch, do you mean Catharginian or Syracusean rules?

'Ender's Game'
by ZetaPotential

A system very similar to what you advocate has been described in some detail in Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game. In that book, Card describes online bulletin boards where people "share information, organize and build consensus around issues," to quote your essay. A central part of this book is that two genius pre-teens write intelligent posts and counterposts in a way that manipulates public opinion on crucial political issues, for their own advancement.

So, my question is this: If someday the majority of people formulate their political opinions based on what they read in forums similar to Slashdot, will it be possible for individuals or organizations to manipulate the "public discourse" in such a way that advances their own agendas? If so, what type of steps would you advocate to reduce this type of "political trolling"?

Scott: A friend showed me Ender's Game, and I agree that what I'm advocating has a lot in common with that vision of political discourse. Clearly, there are some very difficult questions about how you preserve the sanctity of an online "townhall," and I'd be lying if I said I knew all the answers, but I do have some thoughts.

One thing they didn't do in Ender's Game was to verify that each participant on the boards was unique. There should have been a way to verify that people were unique individuals in such a way that still allowed them their right to anonymity. This would have kept Peter and Valentine from using fake identities to serve as foils and practice posters. This kind of anonymous authentication would be an important feature of an online townhall.

Ultimately, however, the real threat they posed is was a result of their geniuses and proclivity to manipulate. There will always be demogogues, and keeping them from masquerading won't keep them from manipulating. Caveat emptor.

There are lots of other vulnerabilities in an online townhall, but I think the most dangerous is the power that the "management" has to use the rules of the townhall to serve their own interests. Absolute vodka, er power, corrupts absolutely, as they say. There need to be safeguards to ensure that the people who set the rules are ultimately accountable to the people who use the site. For example, at the Democracy Project we are designing our site to have as little management involvement as possible. There are certain management powers that exist on Slashdot (e.g., bitchslapping) that we don't think belong in an online townhall. We have also organized ourselves legally in such a way that we will allow registrants on our site (after it has critical mass) to remove the management in a vote of no-confidence. We don't expect this to be a regular event, but it's a safeguard that provides a last resort of accountability.

Candidates and their records
by Remus Shepherd

You talk about what the political parties should do to improve their Web sites, but don't mention what people outside political circles can accomplish. The Web sites you list in your article do *not* have what everyone says they want: An unbiased checklist of issues referenced to the candidates and their voting record.

Forget the political parties for a moment, as I don't believe they'll ever report unbiased information. That leaves us, the people.

Do you think there is room for a grassroots organization to collect the voting histories of candidates and publicize their records? If so, why doesn't such an organization already exist? Could such an organization thrive, or would it be besieged by political candidates who don't want their true voting histories known?

Scott: First, there are already sites that collect and report the candidate's records. I recommend USA Democracy, Project Vote-Smart, and THOMAS as excellent sources of info on candidate positions, voting records, and public statements.

But your broader question is important, because I think that as valuable as these and other political information sites are, they leave a gap that could (should) be filled by a grassroots effort.

The unbiased checklist of positions is a good, but incomplete way to make voting decisions. It's unlikely to include references to the most current, relevant issues. It overly reduces the complexity of how legislators make voting decisions (the best policy makers are generally not dogmatic and are good compromisers). And the list of issues is defined and arbitrary, which makes you wonder who got to decide which issues to include on the list.

So, the gap to me is the open, online townhall, an alternative source of information and political deliberation, an example of which we've described at our Web site, and are currently developing. This would allow everyone the opportunity to offer their own checklists, or point to others who have developed checklists that they agree with. But in addition, it would allow discussion of the most current events, and more importantly, the competing values that underlie policy proposals, neither of which will ever be adequately addressed by a position checklist.

Can such an organization thrive? I believe so. Grassroots organizations draw their strength from their membership, and so are not dependent on the approval of candidates in order to exist. So long as such an organization could provide a valuable service to its membership, it could endure. In fact, I'd say that such an organization would HAVE to be grassroots, because it must be independent of the political players in order to be effective. Lack of grassroots support is one of the reasons why it's unlikely that USA Democracy, Vote-Smart, THOMAS, and the commercial sites discussed above will realize the full vision of the Citizen-centric Internet.

Thanks all. If you want to be alerted when we launch our site, sign up here

Scott

www.democracyproject.org

Political solution ...

I am for a tougher stance by the public of their prospective elected officials. I say that we shoot them in the head with a .45. If they live, they were destined to rule. If they die, they obviously had poor constitution. Once no one wants to be an elected official, we could throw this method of doing things away and start from scratch.

I realize this wouldn't stop anything, but it would allow my to see some stupid people get shot in the head.

Bad Mojo [rps.net]

The sites referenced are *not* useful.

In answer to my question, Scott replied that there were sites available that provided voting records for candidates. I disagree...or at least, I find the sites available are practically useless.

USA Democracy [usademocracy.com] lists bills in the current session of Congress and how legislators voted on each bill. They don't appear to have old records, so you can't look 8 years in the past to see if a candidate's vote has been consistent. They allow you to vote on bills and compare your vote to your representatives' vote...but you cannot compare your representatives to their election opponents, nor can you look at presidential candidates or politicians in another district. Nice setup, but nearly worthless to me.

THOMAS [loc.gov] is similar to USA Democracy but with an archive, so you can look at past votes. Still, it gives information only on federal officeholders, and you have to look through the bill history to collate information about a candidate. Yuck.

Project Vote-Smart [vote-smart.org] is a bit closer to what I'd like to see: It lists candidates, not just incumbents, although it only has voting record for federal incumbents. Thus, there are no records at all for George W. Bush (no info on state bills and positions) and the latest records for Al Gore are from 1992 when he was a senator. A dribble of info on this site, nothing more.

I want information on a candidate from *before* he became a senator. I want information on what he claims to support cross-referenced to how he's actually voted. I want to see the state legislature voting records...what the hell has George W. Bush been doing in Texas? And I want to compare candidates side-by-side on the same page.

I am a registered independant, and I am shopping for a vote. The candidates are products to me -- I want the same kind of shopping experience I get when comparing hardware on a retailer's site. Full info and directly comparable data, nothing less will do.

I hope Scott's Democracy Project has what I'm looking for. Oh, well, if it doesn't, I can always compete with him by putting up my own site in 2004.

Re:The truth about electoral politics...

True democracy cannot exist unless it is ... b) pervasive, so that the vote is carried into every part of society, whether organization, production, education, etc., ... e) tolerant of dissent and disagreement, both of which are necessary for a healthy society

These two are mutually exclusive -- the more "pervasive" the vote (i.e. the fewer areas in which an individual can blow off the majority and do what he wants) the less room is left for any form of dissent.
/.

Voting meaningless?

Internet or no Internet, your individual vote is mathematically meaningless in determining the outcome of an election anyway, and exit polls already exist to remind you of this fact.

While I understand the idea behind this comment, I take some offense to its implied message. Yes... individual votes don't matter a hell of a lot in this world. Yeah, that idea is reenforced. Informed votes who are overtaken by the malaise of "I shouldn't bother voting," end up becoming members of the saddest group in existance: people who could have made a chance but didn't.

I don't pretend to think that my vote is really that important, but I know that people like me - reasonably well-educated people - are quite likely to be driven off by the apparent futility of the electoral process. I force myself to vote because I know that my individual vote might not mean much, but the aggregate of my demographic's vote does. ...and if my demographic is apathetic, then people like me will be underrepresented.

You present a cynical view of the political process. Don't make it worse by reenforcing that particular perception.

I think he hit the nail right on the head

In an ideal world, polititians will be straighforward about their life, their polities, etc, and put their plans right out on the table. Instead, we get the current system, where polititians philander, cheat, dupe the public, etc. Will I think that the Internet will change things, maybe a little, but for the most part, the parties will keep trying to make all their policies and ways about reaching a means seem noble, and anything else evil, or more recently, uncompassionate.

Now, the problem I see with putting everything out on the table, is that if you do, you get rid of all the fun of watching your favorite politicos (Gore, Bush, et al) change their positions on every issue in five minute intervals, because we've finally nailed them to the wall on where they stand.

Would Rob Malda do this?

We have also organized ourselves legally in such a way that we will allow registrants on our site (after it has critical mass) to remove the management in a vote of no-confidence. We don't expect this to be a regular event, but it's a safeguard that provides a last resort of accountability.

That's a very interesting idea. Has anybody presented it to Andover.net?

(No offense to Malda and crew, I think they do a great job. But it's still an interesting idea.)

The truth about electoral politics...

We hear constantly that the USA is a "democracy", as though everything that occurs in this society is due to the will of the people. This is completely false, and any basic knowledge of history and political science will prove this point.

Our state is an Electoral Republic. We choose, every so many years who will rule for the next term. In the case of the president, our vote can be completely overwritten by the Electoral College. Therefore, a Green Party candidate has no opportunity to win the presidency unless the Electoral College has a large contingency of Green Party members.

Average citizens have almost never had the opportunity to perform the actions necessary for a true democracy. Actions such as proposing legislation and voting directly on issues are left up to those who are elected, in the hopes that they will represent those who elected them. Unfortunately, as anybody who has studied centralized political systems will readily admit, they are very easily corrupted by wealth and power.

My contention is that this is how the "founding fathers" intended the process. We cannot forget that those who signed the Declaration of Independance and crafted the Constitution were not landless farmers, or slaves, or even independant merchants. They were wealthy aristocrats who came from well-endowed families. Thus, it was in their best interest to craft a political process that would serve the needs of themselves and those like them. Their goal was a "plutocracy" and they have certainly achieved one of the greatest plutocracies in history.

But intentions aside, there are many flaws with calling the U.S. a "democracy," since it ignores the fact that even the false electoral democracy exists only on the governmental level. The vote, whether in the false electoral sense, or the true and direct sense, does not exist when a citizen enters institutions such as their place of employment, or even public institutions such as public schools. "Democracy" is something that is distant, unattached, and meaningless, and yet it is immortalized in the rhetoric of the political parties.

True democracy cannot exist unless it is a) localized, with each community receiving the autonomy to make the decisions that affect their livelihood, b) pervasive, so that the vote is carried into every part of society, whether organization, production, education, etc., c) participatory, such that nobody is excluded from proposing ideas, modifications, or a repeal of what already exists, d) egalitarian, where no person is given greater weight over anothers, e) tolerant of dissent and disagreement, both of which are necessary for a healthy society, and f) when representatives are necessary, those representatives can be immediately recalled and replaced if they do not represent the will of those they represent.

The internet will not further the "democracy" that we currently have. It may open great possibilities for true democracy, but the electoral sham that we have to deal with cannot be reformed. It can only be destroyed and replaced.

I will not be voting in the next election, nor in any election after that. I refuse to give my name to a system which can so easily be diverted and corrupted. Does this imply that I am apolitical? Far from it. But in a system which insists that individuals cannot make a difference, I will use everything in my power to do so. If this means breaking their laws, so be it. There are ills that need to be cured, and apathy is the only criminal element in dealing with those ills.

Frequently Asked Questions [infoshop.org]

Michael Chisari
[e-mail]

Internet speech and political speech

I'm not saying that the Internet improves people -- makes them more critical, more involved, more interested in learning, better judges of argument

I think that the Internet does all of those things. Once a person leaves school, unless that person becomes a professional writer, he or she will probably never have the opportunity or desire to write a critical essay again. Since I started posting to BITNET groups, mailing lists, and now internet sites like Slashdot, I've posted hundreds of messages here and on other groups, and enjoyed countless interesting postings, while wading through thousands of postings containing logical fallacies. [intrepidsoftware.com] Reents says that, ... on the Internet a message transplanted from "traditional media" doesn't look right to most Internet users. He's right, and I think that the reason is mostly because on a group like slashdot, you just can't get away with the sort of logical fallacies that are the foundation of most political speech.

Try this. If you've never seen the list, go to the link above and study all of the different kinds of logical fallacies and errors. Next time you hear a political speech, by any candidate, pick out all of the fallacies. You'll be amazed by how many you'll find. Political speech, as it is practiced through the mass media, is not the art of producing rational, coherent arguments. Political speech, as practiced through the mass media, is about creating a vague, content-free comforting image. That doesn't translate well to the internet. On the internet, if someone uses those sorts of arguments on a newsgroup, their arguments are quickly ripped to shreds by followup posts and are discredited ... which is the main difference between a forum like Slashdot, and a forum like a televised debate, where the candidates are deferred to and allowed to change the subject, make fallacious arguments, and ignore the questions, without ever being questioned.

No one is immune to it. One of my recent posts had a really poorly thought out transition into an unrelated topic. Someone called me on it, and he was right. I've called other people on things like that. There's nothing that makes you want to be a better writer then having your posting roundly ripped to shreds by someone with a better sense of argument then you. It's a learning experience, and the Internet is the only place I've found this learning experience to be available. When you write a class essay, only the teacher and you read your work. Only the internet provides a large enough audience for a non-professional writer to be truly humiliated in front of his or her peers ... a valuable, if painful learning experience.

On the internet, either your ideas are sound, or they are not. If you are writing like an idiot, people will tell you.