[118998] in Cypherpunks
The Online "Game" Of Politics! (was Re: RCFoC for Oct. 11, 1999 -
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Tue Oct 12 13:10:50 1999
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Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 12:20:50 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
The more things change...
Cheers,
RAH
At 4:28 PM -0400 on 10/7/99, Harrow, Jeffrey wrote:
>
> The Online "Game" Of Politics!
>
>
>
> The Internet is pretty good at turning people from passive couch
> potato observers into active participants through Email, chat rooms,
> instant messaging, and the like. But innovators such as Korean
> student Shin Cheol-ho are finding ways to entice average people to
> actively, if subtly, participate in government.
>
> According to the Sept. 14 ABCnews.com
> (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/trading_politicians99
> 0914.html) and RCFoC reader Danny Mayer, it seems that Cheol-ho has
> created an online "game" called Posdaq, which places "shares" of
> South Korea's senior politicians "up for sale." Participants use a
> starting stake of fake money to buy and sell shares of these
> politicians, and like a traditional stock market, their overall
> "wealth" (redeemable for prizes) rises and falls based on the
> success of the politicians in which they've invested.
>
> But the resulting real-time, ad hoc "popularity poll" seems to be
> anything but fake to the politicians who are under this gun of
> public scrutiny -- rather than just campaigning every four years,
> politicians are watching their "share price" rise and fall, and are
> posting their positions and plans to encourage people to buy shares
> and raise their Posdaq "value."
>
> Come next election, could contenders tout a high "Posdaq price" as
> one example of how well they're doing? On the seamier side, could
> politicians look for less than above-board ways to artificially
> elevate their "share price?" Could, one day, a significant decline
> in a politician's Posdaq price trigger a very real vote of
> no-confidence? (Posdaq is at http://www.posdaq.com/ , but you'll
> have to be able to read Korean.)
>
> Political polls are nothing new of course, but this idea, of making
> it a day-in and day-out affair, is obviously grabbing the public's,
> and so the politicians', attention. And that can't help but be a
> good thing.
>
> Posdaq is also an example of how the Web can shift the capital of
> "influence" in ways never imagined -- this college student's Web
> site has come to the daily attention of his country's leaders, and
> Cheol-ho now finds himself with a weekly political commentary spot
> on a major Korean radio station.
>
> And of course on the Internet, today it's Korea, but tomorrow it
> could well be the world --how long might it be before EACH of our
> countries has its own version of Posdaq?
>
> Politicians -- watch out!
>
> The Web -- very much affecting the balance of power...
>
>
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
