phillyharper.com

“Party leaders advocate sweeping reforms. Now it’s your turn. Tell us in 100 words what you would do to improve the way our country is run. We will publish the best ideas”

That’s the challenge those folk over at The Times have thrown down, so I’m going to have a crack of the whip. Reason being that when I first saw the challenge I wondered how many people above the age of 40 would dish out their old world wisdom; I haven’t done any research but I’d hedge a guess at it being the majority. I’m 23, and the old world hasn’t corrupted me yet, so here is my effort to represent the young.

Make Westminister a public museum to the ‘old system’. The sweeping reform must be the complete abolition of the current political system. We don’t need politicians any more, technology lets us represent ourselves.

Employ direct democracy through an open source web application so that everyone can have their say and shape policy like the masses shaped Wikipedia. Collaborate online with new ideas for all aspects of life, vote on new policy, new diplomats and new public servants. Everything is monitored by the public, including the budget. We don’t need crooks, liars and mercenaries, we can do this ourselves.

99 words

The expansion

Young people are turned off by politics because it’s completely alien to them. It’s so slow and arduous, where are the ideas? Where is the fun? Where is the creativity? It’s a bunch of old people in suits being boring, they’re the definition of boring, and they’re constantly watching their back so they don’t trip up by saying “I smoked a joint in school.”

None of us care that you smoked a joint in school. None of us care that you took ecstasy at a rave in 1989. We don’t care that you’re gay, straight or bi. We don’t even care if you’re into nazi sex orgys or hardcore pornography (as long as you pay for it). What we care about are ideas, and your total lack of them. In fact, you’re entire work place soaks ideas up like a rabid nappy then ejects them into the Thames to be washed out to sea never to be seen again.

The houses of parliament hasn’t become a political arm wrestle, that’s exactly what it is. On one side are people with ideas, and on the other are people who oppose them. The entire shape of the debating chamber ensures an “us vs them” atmosphere remains constant. Left wing, right wing, pro-choice, pro-life, athiest, theist, conservative, liberal, it’s all opposition politics that ensures you achieve next to nothing. Congratulations on acting like children for the past 400 years, especially the last 10 years where we had the unfortunate ability to watch you act like children on BBC Parliament.

While you’re desperately keeping up appearances, having nervous breakdowns, and tearing down anything anyone comes up with,we’re collaborating online. We’re not terrified of our own ideas, you guys are. We’re not terrified of being wrong, you guys are. You guys aren’t capable of working together, we are. You guys wear a uniform, we don’t. You guys work in a little boys club, we don’t. Your workplace is invite only, ours isn’t. We’re coming up with more ideas than your system has splattered together throughout it’s entire history. You just don’t “get” what we’re doing and you don’t get the significance of it.

You represent us to fight for our causes. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t need representing any more, we all have a voice and we can even aggregate and analyze that voice. We’ve already been doing it for at least five years. The first part of your job is obsolete, you just don’t know it yet.

Secondly, if we remove the bells and whistles from your job description, essentially, you guys decide how much money to take from us and where that money should go. You redistribute wealth in a manner (I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here) you think is in the nations best interest. Well we can do that ourselves with technology, it’s our money, so we can be as transparent as we like. We need an application that allows us to see exactly what’s going on, where money is coming in, where money is going out, where it’s needed, where it’s not, who is too rich, who is too poor, who is corrupting, who is working hard, who is half assing, who is developing ideas, where money is missing, where there is a surplus. That’s not an exhaustive list of things it needs but I expect the gaps will be filled in by some other collaborator I’ve never met. Special thankyou to whoever that person might be.

Don’t worry, we can design it and build it ourselves, you needn’t be a part of it. We’ve already put together the biggest encyclopedia the world has ever seen and built an operating system from scratch. Your pity isn’t needed here. I just represented myself and put forward my own idea, you weren’t involved and more people listened to me than there are members of parliament. See how easy it is?

I’m not worried about it really, I know that if it doesn’t happen now, it will happen later. Online progress is unstoppable. Manifest Destiny 2.0.

The world needs our ideas more than ever. You’ve had your crack of the whip and from our angle it was a piss poor effort. Admittedly, you didn’t have the best tools at your disposal but nevertheless you all managed to look like idiots. Especially Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears, you two really did take the biscuit.

For hundreds of years we were convinced the world was flat. It isn’t. For hundreds of years you people lived and breathed party politics thinking it works. It doesn’t.

We don’t need you. Go and get real jobs and fiddle the private sectors expenses all you want, just don’t expect anyone to believe the myth that you represent us. You don’t.