On Wednesday, January 18th, 2012, we Changed the World of Democracy. Heck the word Democracy changed that day. Or at least Democracy's previous definition became a little more accurate that day.
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"Democracy in its purest or most ideal form would be a society in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives." --Wikipedia
(Did you catch that? we could look it up on Wikipedia because it's not shut down.)
Let's get this right out into the open - Politics isn't usually the thing that gets us fired up. Just like going to the gym or eating more broccoli, it's one of those things that we know we ought to participate in more, but the cost of [genuine] participation is high. And we don't do anything half-assed. It's difficult sometimes and it doesn't matter how important it is or how much we know it's right. When it comes down to it, not many of us have convinced ourselves that a single instance of participation has any impact on the eventual outcome when it all comes down to it.
But this week all of that changed, because the Cost of Participation in Democracy has been significantly lowered.
Our democracy got a little bit closer to being truly democratized. A bill (#SOPA), with nobile intentions, to be fair, was about to make it's way through Congress. And, to be honest... all the evil, and the fail, and the suck hidden behind the hashtag #SOPA, is really not their fault. At least 80% of the Software Engineers, Digital Strategists, & Software Product Managers that we know would struggle to come up with a universally acceptable solution to the Online Piracy problem. So it's hard to be surprised or disappointed by the solutions proposed by a bunch of Millennials' grandpas in Washington. Seriously, what chance do they have?
But they gave it a shot. And, regretfully, they were influenced a lot more by RIAA and MPAA Lobbyists than by sane or brilliant people looking for a universally acceptible compromise. So it's really not that shocking that the whole entire Internet was disappointed in the proposal that came out of the Political System that was designed by a bunch of guys in a Town Hall in Virginia in the late 1700's.
We... all of us... can finally influence our legal system in a way that was never before possible. There was a Social Revolution that Wednesday. It lasted just a day, but that doesn't really give us all a sense of its true scale. The World united quickly and passionately. Lobbying doesn't just come from guys in suits in Washington anymore. It comes from us. We invented massively multiplayer political lobbying and we applied it's force for the first time ever. And we can guarantee it won't be the last. The World is Changing.
