IRAQ: Bomb Iraq! With Ballots, says Tom Bell

From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 23:37:54 MST

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    I only recently discovered this provocative and creative article by
    Tom W. Bell, who is hopefully known and respected by all of us, from
    last October:
    http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-100402A0

    > The case for invading Iraq would command deeper and wider support,
    > however, if we had good evidence that the Iraqi people want outside help
    > in overthrowing Saddam Hussein. But given his tyrannical grip on power,
    > how can we find out what his victim-citizens want? By bombing Iraq into
    > a democracy.
    >
    > Imagine a "ballot bomblet" - a small, cheap, battery-powered device that
    > allows one person one vote on one issue. U.S. military would scatter
    > ballots bomblets across Iraq in the same way that they might later scatter
    > explosive bomblets: by airborne express. Far from killing Iraqis, however,
    > ballot bomblets could save them.
    >
    > Each ballot bomblet would transmit its single "yes" or "no" vote
    > wirelessly to overhead planes or satellites, to secret local receiving
    > stations, or even to other ballot bomblets via a packet-switched,
    > peer-to-peer network. No matter how they get their messages out,
    > ballot bomblets would let the Iraqi people bypass Hussein's censorship
    > and express their opinions directly to the U.S. and the rest of the
    > world. Only by voting from a distance - "televoting" - can those whom
    > Hussein subjects to his rule freely voice their objections.

    I think this idea is best evaluated in a larger context than the specifics
    of the current Iraq situation. More generally it will undoubtedly be
    the case for some time that the citizens of many countries will suffer
    leadership which does not command popular support. If some technology
    like this could be used to make this fact public in an undeniable way,
    it would impair the government's ability to distort the reality of the
    situation and give itself a veneer of legitimacy.

    The transparency offered by "ballot bomblets" could be generalized to
    other kinds of information channels. I think there may have already
    been campaigns to drop radios in some situations, and eventually even
    internet access terminals will be small and cheap enough to be seeded
    widely for availability to all.

    Unfortunately recent events have shown that even with access to
    information, unfettered communications, and strong common interests,
    communities can develop high levels of mutually hostile perceptions due
    to cultural and historical differences. I still hope and believe that
    we will be able to develop new institutions and mechanisms that will
    exploit the information flows of the modern age to reconcile these kinds
    of differences.

    The direction I see as most promising is to separate values from facts,
    and then to use something like Robin Hanson's Idea Futures market to
    balance and moderate factual disagreements. Think of the current disputes
    between the U.S. and Europe as potential differences in the sense of
    electricity or mechanics. Then imagine that you could get rich off of
    that differential. Mechanisms to expose the costs of stupidity, to allow
    people to literally profit from blindness and prejudice in others, could
    go a huge way towards helping the human race to see with unclouded vision.

    Hal



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