Welcome to my second post discussing Utopia. To see the first, just click the “Older Post” link at the bottom of the page.
In
creating the large disorganized pile of notes that will eventually take
coherent form here, I’ve realized that most of my ideas won’t work as
intended without a well-informed populace. I’d love to add
well-educated to that, but education is a separate topic that I will
address later. It’s impossible to prevent willful ignorance, but we can
at least minimize unintentional ignorance. I’ve come up with two
things that I think would do the job.
The
first is universal broadband internet access. Make the internet a
public utility, no different than electricity, water, or sewer. I don’t
care so much about the actual implementation. In some locales it could
be community wi-fi, in others fiber or copper, or perhaps even
satellite. No one should be required to take advantage of it, but it
needs to be available to everyone.
The
second is trickier to implement, but probably far more important. It’s
the idea of “qualified news media”. In order to be called “news”, such
media must clearly mark the difference between fact and opinion,
publish prominent retractions and corrections of material published as
factual that is wrong or misleading, and disclose any financial ties to
people or organizations in their stories. And it must be made freely
available to the public.
Any
individual or organization that meets these requirements can be a
qualified news source. Citizen journalism is not only allowed; it is
encouraged. In fact, I see no reason foreign news services couldn’t set
up local news outlets, as long as they follow all the rules.
The
people have a right to correct, factual information that can be
trusted. The news must be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. And it must be constitutionally protected from persecution
or prosecution. The truth must never be a crime, under any
circumstances.
I’m
not exactly sure how to protect legitimately classified information
from inappropriate release while still guaranteeing the journalistic
rights I’ve already outlined. I’d be happy to hear your suggestions.
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Perhaps have a separate elected committee from different walks of life that would determine whether a particular bit of classified information is safe/appropriate to be unclassified for the particular project the journalist was working on ... they would need to come from different walks of life, though, otherwise it would be too easy to reach a well-intentioned but poorly decisioned assessment.
ReplyDeleteThe separate committee I think is an idea that would have wide applicability to many of my ideas about government. The trick is to gather enough qualified experts without a conflict of interest.
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