One touted advantage of the Internet is its ability to become a tool for instant polling and perhaps even voting. That may be somewhat useful for leaming whether we prefer Bachelor No. 1 or Bachelor No. 3, but heaven help us if it becomes a tool of government.
American democracy is beginning to creak as it tries to keep up with the constantly accelerating pace of a hypercompetitive society. We have phones in our cars and our briefcases, lest an important call be put off for (gasp!) a whole hour. We've hurried the progression from post to fax to e-mail to get closer to instant communications. Each generation of processor or memory or operating system must be replaced every 18 months or investors (and sometimes even users) begin to howl.
That's the way business is, and we've all become so used to it that we think the same pace must pertain to politics. Each new president or new Congress has 100 days to solve all the ills of society, and if they fail, kick the bums out. Applying the schedules of business to politics is a mistake. American government was designed to grind slowly, and for good reason. Reasoned debate is critical if good policy is to result, and that takes more than a week. If you can't convince people your proposal is productive, maybe it isn't. If a bill takes a while to become law, there is that much more time to catch a bad one and either change it or kill it (e.g., the bill that would have made it a crime to transmit "indecent" material). Gridlock might even be beneficial on occasion-if the country is so divided on a problem, maybe a solution shouldn't be imposed on it until opinion swings decisively one way or another.
People form opinions quickly, often based on few facts, sometimes even only on intuition. I live in New York state, where plenty of acquaintances voted for George Pataki because he claimed he would cut the budget -- a worthy goal. But now I hear some of these same people complaining about Gov. Pataki because they don't like his cutting into programs for medical aid, welfare, mass transit and public services.
Public opinion is fickle, and as people begin to understand an issue better, their opinions often change. Instant polling and frequent on-line voting would undermine anything resembhng long-term policy-making if in response government feels compelled to move in one direction one month, then head in the opposite direction the next.
The upshot is that the Internet is a new tool, and we would be well advised to understand how it is used best before we misuse it.
bsanto@eet.cmp.com
Taken from the April 24, 1995 issue of
Electronic Engineering Times