Madison and Hamilton might retch at the vision of sofa spuds choosing to ratify or eradicate NAFTA with a click-click of their remote controls or a beep-beep of their touch-tone phones. Our Founding Fathers, in their white wigs, feared that the lower classes would vote to seize their property. So they intentionally created a representative republic, not a full-fledged democracy, to keep power out of the hands of the masses. But others at the Constitutional Convention were notably less paranoid. Thomas Jefferson might find electronic town meetings an absolute scream.
Predictor: Schwartz, Evan I.
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article about digital democracy for Wired magazine, Evan I. Schwartz writes: ”But ask the average person on the street whether he or she can do a better job than the average politician, and the answer will usually be: Hell yes! … The public seems to be saying this: We are already deluged with results from opinion polls in which uninformed people are abruptly telephoned and questioned. Why not give us a chance to take part in voting on topics we have taken the time to understand? Madison and Hamilton might retch at the vision of sofa spuds choosing to ratify or eradicate NAFTA with a click-click of their remote controls or a beep-beep of their touch-tone phones. Our Founding Fathers, in their white wigs, feared that the lower classes would vote to seize their property. So they intentionally created a representative republic, not a full-fledged democracy, to keep power out of the hands of the masses. But others at the Constitutional Convention were notably less paranoid. Thomas Jefferson might find electronic town meetings an absolute scream.”
Biography:Evan Schwartz was a 1990s journalist with a computer science degree who covered information technology. He was a former editor at Business Week, where he covered software and digital media and was part of teams that won a National Magazine Award and a Computer Press Award. He also wrote for the New York Times, Wired, and MIT’s Technology Review. His books include “Webonomics” and “Digital Darwinism.” (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Direct Democracy: Are You Ready for the Democracy Channel?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/e.dem_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney