[Info-vax] Completely OT: Frank Lloyd Wright

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <50711576$0$45194$c3e8da3$b280bf18 at news.astraweb.com>, JF
Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes: 

First, most online petitions are worthless and usually a sign of
slactivism ( http://www.snopes.com/info/glossary.asp#slack ).  See below
for an article on internet petitions from snopes.com (I can't find a
direct link to it now).  (This is not to say that no online petition
ever did any good, but most positive examples of that involve not the
petition per se, but someone who actually had the power to do something
learning about the issue, in which case he probably could have learned
about it through a more efficient means than an internet petition.) 

(An exception are parliamentary positions, where parliament is forced to 
debate the topic if a certain number of signatures are obtained, and 
some parliaments have an online version of this.)

> Politicians have learned to respect social network's power, and on-line
> petitions are part of the arsenal of social networks. A major internet
> policy in canada was overturned in part due to such an on-line petition.

Apart from what I personally think about this law (which I know nothing
about), which doesn't matter anyway, unless a majority of Canadians were
in favour of overturning the policy, then this is a VERY BAD development
for democracy.  Division of labour and hence representative democracy is
a good thing.  I don't want to live in a society where the rules are
determined by people who have nothing better to do than organize online
positions, sign them (and perhaps fake signatures).  (To be sure,
plebiscites are sometimes necessary if the opinion of the population is
vastly different than that in parliament, but that needs to be an
official plebiscite, not just this hour's online petition.) 

---------8<--------------------------------------------------------------------

Internet Petitions

Claim: Signing and circulating online petitions is an effective way of 
remedying important issues.

Status: False.

Origins: The 2000s have seen the birth of an Internet phenomenon: the e-
petition. It offers instant comfort to those outraged by the latest ills 
of the world through its implicit assurance that affixing their names to 
a statement decrying a situation and demanding change will make a 
difference. That assurance is a severely flawed one for a multitude of 
reasons.

Often petitions contain no information about whom they are ultimately 
intended for and instead are no more than outpourings of outrage. 
Expressions of outrage are fine and good, but if they don't reach 
someone who can have impact on the core problem, they're wasted. Thus, a 
petition that doesn't clearly identify the intended recipient may have 
some small value as a way for its signers to work off angst, but as an 
instrument of social change it fails miserably.

Even those that clearly identify the intended recipient don't come with 
a guarantee that the person slated to receive the document is in any 
position to influence matters. A misdirected petition is of no more use 
than an undirected one --- though the voices it contains may be shouting, 
they won't be heard.

Even well-addressed, well-thought-out petitions have their problems, 
chief among them the lack of a guarantee that anyone is collecting and 
collating the signatures or will deliver the completed documents to the 
right parties. The mere existence of a petition doesn't warrant that 
anyone will do anything with it once it is completed.

Moreover, petitions aren't the instruments of social change we'd so 
dearly love to believe they are. Yes, a petition festooned with a 
zillion signatures can have some influence, but only as a tangible proof 
of a subset of public opinion, and only upon those whose welfare is 
dependent upon public opinion (eg. politicians). Those signatures aren't 
votes, and they aren't treated as such by the governing bodies that have 
to decide on the tough questions of our times. At best, they're seen as 
an indication of the public's will, no more.

Petitions calling for the erection of a firefighters memorial or to have 
next Thursday designated national performing arts day have some small 
hope of success, but all bets are off when the question becomes more 
complex ("Let's solve the problem of poverty in the USA") or when acts 
taking place on foreign soil are the subject of the angst ("Let's end 
child rape in South Africa"). Difficult problems don't suddenly yield up 
simple solutions just because a great many fervently hope they would, 
nor do foreign governments feel impelled to change conditions in their 
countries just because folks in other lands are upset by them.

All of the above applies to hand-signed and cyber petitions alike. E-
petitions, however, have one further shortcoming inherent to them that 
entirely undercut any value the same documents might have had in paper-
and-ink form.

Paper-and-ink petitions are signed in a variety of handwriting styles, 
each unique to its signer. Consequently, signatures on a paper-and-ink 
petition cannot easily be faked else certain glaring similarities would 
show up in one entry after another.

E-petitions, however, come with no such assurance --- the same person 
could have generated all of the signatures. Moreover, it takes little by 
way of programming skills to create a sequence of code that will 
randomly generate fake names, e-mail addresses, and cities (or whatever 
combination of same the e-petition calls for). Once written, such a 
program can be executed with a keystroke, resulting in the effortless 
generation of thousands upon thousands of "signatures."

Those in a position to influence anything know this and thus accord e-
petitions only slightly more respect than they would a blank sheet of 
paper. Thus, even the best written, properly addressed, and lovingly 
delivered e-petitions whose every signature was scrupulously vetted by 
the petition's creator fall into the same vortex of disbelief at the 
receiving end that less carefully shepherded missives find themselves 
relegated to.

Okay, so the average e-petition isn't ultimately worth the pixels it 
took to create it --- why are they so popular?

In a world beset by complex problems, the solutions of which will take 
enormous amounts of time, money, and commitment, such simplification as 
the e-petition provides a welcome relief. Imagine having the power to 
solve those problems! Moreover, imagine having it merely at the click of 
a mouse!

Such is the appeal. A sense of powerlessness and lack of control over 
events played out on the grand scale becomes replaced by the certainty 
that real change can be brought about at the cost of no more effort than 
it takes to type a few characters on a keyboard, just enough to display 
one's name on a growing list of equally committed cyber activists. 
Through the magic of the e-petition, those left feeling like bystanders 
to important events are transformed into powerful agents for social 
change. It's heady stuff.

It's also illusion.

E-petitions are the latest manifestation of slacktivism, the search for 
the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue 
without having had to actually get one's hands dirty or open one's 
wallet. It's slacktivism that prompts us to forward appeals for business 
cards on behalf of a dying child intent upon having his name recorded in 
the Guinness World Book of Records or exhortations to others to continue 
circulating a particular e-mail because some big company has supposedly 
promised that every forward will generate monies for the care of a 
particular dying child. Likewise, it's slacktivism that prompts us to 
want to join a boycott of designated gas companies or eschew buying 
gasoline on a particular day rather than reduce our personal consumption 
of fossil fuels by driving less and taking the bus more often. 
Slacktivism comes in many forms (and there are many other illustrations 
of it on this web site; our goal was merely to offer a few examples 
rather than provide a definitive list), but its key defining 
characteristic is its central theme of doing good with little or no 
effort on the part of person inspired to participate in the forwarding, 
exhorting, collecting, or e-signing.

For many, e-petitions satisfy the need to feel they are doing good and 
thus somewhat quell that nagging feeling they should be doing more to 
make the world a better place. As such, they serve a purpose as an 
outlet for those who "sign" such missives experience a personal sense of 
accomplishment in tandem with the warming sensation of having come to 
society's aid. Good feels like it has been done in two directions for 
the signature helping a worthy cause, and the act of signing helping the 
person who was moved to add his name to the petition. E-petitions are 
sexy even when they don't have a hope in hell of helping to accomplish 
their stated goals because they afford us an opportunity to bestow upon 
ourselves a pat on the back rather than continue to feel guilty about 
not doing our part. That nothing is really getting accomplished is 
almost beside the point; we believe we've been part of something 
worthwhile and so feel better about ourselves.

Because e-petitions are as popular as they are, a number of web sites 
have sprung up to service the interest in them. That these web sites 
exist doesn't impart to the lowly cyber petition any more credibility 
than it previously had, nor does it imbue it with any more power to 
effect change. The presence of web sites devoted to them (even well-
constructed authoritative-looking ones) changes nothing about e-
petitions' inherent shortcomings. Those tempted to confuse the 
appearance of legitimacy with legitimacy itself should keep in mind that 
many a mark has been conned out of his life's savings by a smooth talker 
who had a fancy, seemingly well-staffed office and impressive letterhead. 
Looks ain't everything.

We're not going to offer an opinion on whether one site or another is 
legitimate (i.e. the petitions it houses are actually delivered to those 
they were intended for and all the "signatures" visitors provide are 
actually appended to them). Those questions are far better directed by 
interested readers to the sites themselves. Rather, we're going to 
acquaint our readers with one further point they might not otherwise be 
taking into consideration.

Many of these sites display banner ads that generate revenues for the 
sites' operators. That means every time someone visits to view or sign a 
petition, the site's owners earn revenue. This happens whether or not 
there are any real petitions, whether or not any petitions are delivered 
to their stated recipients, whether or not the "signatures" collected 
are appended to them, whether or not only the "signatures" collected are 
appended (versus the site's owners adding to the list names they have 
generated). An entirely bogus petition site will make money for its 
owners just as well as a real one would because revenue is dependent on 
how many visit the site, not upon how many petitions are completed and 
delivered to the named recipients, nor upon how useful cyber petitions 
are.

Granted, a great many sites (e-petition and otherwise, such as this one) 
carry advertising banners, and granted, the revenues gained through that 
are often the only thing that keeps those sites operating. The presence 
of ads doesn't indicate anything about the quality or integrity of a 
site that bears them, but that those ads are there should be taken into 
consideration when musing "Does this site exist for the purpose I would 
otherwise think it does?"

No matter what else can be said against cyber petitions (and so far 
we've said a great deal), they do serve one actual valuable purpose: 
They can sometimes be useful tools with which to acquaint folks with 
situations they might otherwise have little, if any, knowledge of. For 
instance, in those days prior to the September 11 attacks and the 
subsequent war on the Taliban, a cyber petition decrying the condition 
of women in Afghanistan worked to enlighten many as to what was going on 
half a world away. That the premise of the petition was horribly flawed 
("If only the Taliban knew they were doing a bad thing, they'd stop") 
doesn't change that it worked to bring information to people.

Of course, that same valid purpose could be better served by essays 
circulated on the Internet. Essays, at least, don't foster this growing 
climate of slacktivism, of participation at no cost, of lasting social 
change achieved through no effort.

Those truly committed to righting the wrongs of the world are encouraged 
to take pen in hand and craft actual letters to their congressmen or to 
whomever they deem are the appropriate people to contact about 
particular issues. Real letters (the kind that are written in a person's 
own words and sent through the regular mail) are accorded far more 
respect than form letters (let alone petitions), and that should be kept 
in mind by those intent upon being heard. Yes, the effort it takes is 
far larger. But so is the potential for making an actual difference.