TED Community » Matthew Madden

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: A system/structure for collaboration of ideas and vote from everyone to create, and contribute to the development of products,gov policies

  Mar 20 2012: What your saying is a possible solution to the problem I mentioned, but I think it only makes sense in theory. People with personal access would have much more "say" then a demographic that has to group together and come to a compromise to present as "their" idea. I would be much more willing to contribute to the process since I have extremely convenient access, and much less willing to go to the local library, fight over a computer, and then input my opinion on policy decisions. People already have a hard time showing up to vote, and that's available to all of eligible voting and commonly a once every two years activity for those who decide to participate.
  
  Another problem with the idea is validating that each persons opinion is actually theirs. In a perfect world where corruption does not exist, this would not be a problem...but unfortunately it is and will continue to be.
  
  One more, is that we are not all specialists. The majority of the voting population has no expertise when it comes to policy creation, no idea how to predict outcomes. This is why we elect people with similiar ideals, but with a higher expertise( not to mention the staff of advisors and economic specialists).
  
  Ill say again, this is a great idea, and would contribute to the demographic process. I just think it only sounds good idealogically, not necessarily in reality. There are countless ideas out there that sound great in theory but wont really work out in practice. But I will always encourage brainstorming about ways to fix or enhance our current situation.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What will the world be like in 20 years?

  Mar 20 2012: Our current govt is stifling investment in a sound economic future. With budget cuts hitting education and R&D, I have little hope for the immediate future. We became a real superpower by this method of simple social engineering, sending people to college who cant afford it, thereby creating a strong, widespread middle class. Currently, middle class wages are stagnant and the wealthy is at an all time high and growing fast. A strong middle class is the driving force of a periphery economy, and currently the middle class is getting hit hard by the big dogs on wall street. Out with the old, in with the new, I think our generation with create a more promising direction with more opportunity for success for the average Joe, in turn maintaining our internationally dominant economic power.

• A comment on Conversation: Do religions evolve?

  Mar 20 2012: Benefits of believing give us our subconscious motivation to be religious. Religions with no formal leadership or administration tend to evolve less, like the Protestant branch of Christianity.....while Catholicism has an extensive administrative body that decides the direction for the future of the church, which functions almost analogous to a corporation following consumer demand. For example, Catholics have embraced evolution has an extrapolated explanation of creationism.

• A comment on Conversation: A system/structure for collaboration of ideas and vote from everyone to create, and contribute to the development of products,gov policies

  Mar 20 2012: I think this is a great idea. The only thing is, only 65-70% of theUS population has easy access to broadband Internet. If policy decisions were to be based on this program, Internet access would have be extremely extensive. With the current system, this would be interpreted as discrimination against the less fortunate.