I believe that government exists for no reason more fundamental than providing a mechanism for a population to communicate amongst itself. A just government facilitates communication within its populace; an unjust one seeks to prevent it. Openness and Democracy versus Secrecy and Censorship.

It seems to me that Slashdot has already solved the hardest part of the problem. Five years ago you could easily dismiss a direct democracy on the grounds that no system exists for allowing a nation-sized group of people to communicate with each other. You can't do that today.

I think that Slashdot is the most interesting thing to happen to civilization since the Printing Press. And some day more people will appreciate that, too. When else in the history of Mankind has a stadium-sized group of people come together for an interesting and more-or-less intelligent discussion? It's never happened. Why don't more people think that's significant in its own right? Wait for it.

So the hardest problem of a Direct Democracy (hereon simply "Democracy") is communication. And we've got a framework in place that solves it. How exciting. So now, with the aid of others, I'm trying to figure out how to solve all the problems that are less important, individually, but just as important, collectively.

AbiWord's PayPal Donation Fund Robbed

The Free State Project

Visiting the World, as a Geek

If anyone else is reading this, I'm just trying to keep track of the stories I don't want to forget. How do you do it? (don't say 'bookmarks' =)

I'm not sure if it's been done before or not, perhaps it's due for a repeat post, but the people should definitely be asked about their favorite discussions. I think the 'Visiting the World as a Geek' is the best one I've read to date.