Pirate Party Germany now at 8% in nationwide polls

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1726590

by FrojoS • 15 years ago

150 40 15 years ago

taiwannews.com.tw

They are basically throwing the electorate at them with all the new laws and proposals for Internet disconnection and all that. They probably don't even see it coming.

thwarted• 15 years ago

I'm having trouble parsing this. Who is "they", and are both "they"s the same people?

masklinn• 15 years ago

> Who is "they"

Incumbent german politicians, from the "traditional" german parties, I think.

> and are both "they"s the same people?

That's how I read it.

gimpf• 15 years ago

You are by far overestimating the general public interest into such topics. Also, there are enough people who think that banning internet for something they think is at least as much a crime as shoplifting is absolutely appropriate.

However, I have to admit that I get a tiny weeny bit optimistic.

But: similar "interest group" parties (Grüne, anyone?) tend to lose their focus, and their competence, with time.

Summary: Too soon to tell.

fab13n2• 15 years ago

> They are basically throwing the electorate at them

I think they're primarily throwing the non-electorate.

Many young people don't vote because they perceive it to be about boring, old people stuff they don't really get nor care about. They barely know what are inflation or the ECB fund rate, they certainly don't have any advice about who's going to act on it in the most constructive way.

Now mess with their Internets, and suddenly they understand what the poll is about. Politicians have tailored their rhetorics for a world in which retired people vote, whereas youngsters don't. It looks like it's changing.

jbooth• 15 years ago

Most old people barely know what inflation or the ECB/fed fund rate are, either, just sayin.

kayoone• 15 years ago

This is good, it shows that the people dont like the mess the current government is producing.

Igor_Bratnikov• 15 years ago

As someone on the ground in Germany I can tell that a lot of Germans, even techies are still confused and not sure what the Pirate Party represents or what their actual political program is, which greatly devalues what ever recent wins they have acquired. Unfortunately a political party must be about more than just transparency and better IP policies (I agree with both though) or at least that is how the Germans see the Pirates.

yason• 15 years ago

Ideally, it shouldn't need to be more than that. A voting system where you rank, say, five candidates from different parties could support several small parties which are biased against in most current democratic systems.

eru2• 15 years ago

Yes, but at least proportional voting isn't as bad as first-past-the-post in this regard.

IgorPartola2• 15 years ago

It sort of should. Otherwise, one-trick candidates who really have no idea about economics or foreign policy can win, say, a presidential election on a campaign based on, say, pro-life vs pro-choice or prohibition or their stance on one particular social program.

gersh• 15 years ago

What are their IP policies? Do they want to abolish all copyrights and patents? Do they just want shorter terms?

treo• 15 years ago

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

This are their current goals. They want to allow private copying. So selling the copy would still be illegal.

Concerning patents: "We reject patents unanimously onto organisms and genes on business ideas and also to software"

sqrt2• 15 years ago

According to their latest election manifesto (https://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Bundestagswahl_2009/Wahlprogra...) their main points are:

* legalisation of non-commercial copying

* prohibition of DRM technologies

* right to derive from existing works

* reduction of copyright terms (expiration with death of the author or earlier)

* (continued) prohibition of patents on software, business models, genes and seeds

Tichy• 15 years ago

While that is true, I don't think it is so clear what the other parties stand for, either. At least when it comes to spending the billions. It doesn't seem as if the established parties where so successful with their economics.

moe2• 15 years ago

As a techie my perception is that the pirate party is not about a program, it's about the process.

They use an internet based system called "liquid feedback" for collaboration. Every member can propose stuff. Every member gets one vote. The highest voted stuff becomes the program. All of this happens online.

Yes, it's still young and immature. But please compare to how your conventional political party operates and tell me with a straight face it doesn't sound like a good idea.

https://lqfb.piratenpartei.de/

runn1ng• 15 years ago

I think it is a terrible idea.

Politicians should vote based on their visions and beliefs or visions and beliefs shared by the party. This is just random, populistic and doesn't have any real meaning.

I want to know from a political party how will they deal with real issues. With low employment rate. With bad economy. With good economy. Where will they invest, where will they cut.

"We will vote about that later" is definitevely a terrible answer.

A1kmm• 15 years ago

Voting yes or no without discussing why doesn't lead to good policy outcomes.

Consensus works far better for policy; 90% of people might read something and think it sounds good, while 10% of people might spot a terrible flaw. Simply voting would let the policy be ratified with the flaw, while in a consensus process the facilitator would let each side present their views, and someone might come up with a proposal that addresses the flaw and satisfies everyone.

Consensus doesn't need 100% agreement, and even when you get down to the most fundamental agreements, people with the same facts who are aware of each others viewpoints can still disagree (at which point the majority view has to win), but the process should continue until that point is reached. This process does require some subjective decision making (e.g. around when consensus has been reached), so it can't yet be fully automated.

rmoriz• 15 years ago

So what do we learn out of this? Move your buttocks and bring in your skills and time:

http://twitpic.com/6tg4l9 (that's Marina Weisband, Member of the Board, Piratenpartei Deutschland)

jarek-foksa2• 15 years ago

Posting voting polls in which your favorite party scores well, especially directly before elections, falls under political agitation category. Could we please keep this out of HN?

I'm suprised that party which seeks to seriously impair (if not completely blow) the software industry gets so much applause here.

chc• 15 years ago

Just because I benefit from some copyrights doesn't mean I completely agree with the direction copyright law is taking, much less patent or privacy laws. (I'm not a pirate party member or anything — just explaining where the sympathy comes from.)

nickik• 15 years ago

This website is called Hacker News. They pretty much represent the Hacker ethic in form of a political party. Its getting posted here because its intressting to alot of Americans that don't have a party like this in america.

How exactlly do the impair the software industry? Some (don't know how many exactlly) of the guys that got elected into the berlin parlament work together in a software startup. One of them even owns it. Why would they destroy the industry many of them work in?

jarek-foksa2• 15 years ago

I meant HN as a startup scene.

If you are selling software product and all means of fighting with unauthorized redistribution are taken away from you then you are screwed. That's all I have to say.

FrojoS• 15 years ago

There is an interest in the Pirate Party movement which is rooted in the hacker scene. So, I thought this would be an interesting update for those outside Germany.

BTW. The next scheduled election is 2 years away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_German_federal_election so its half time right now for the German Bundestag.

mtogo• 15 years ago

> I'm suprised that party which seeks to seriously impair (if not completely blow) the software industry gets so much applause here.

Yeah, you may want to explain exactly how. To me it seems like the pirate party's values are right in line with your average software developer's values.

Just because you don't agree with a political party's agenda does not mean news about that party isn't HN material.

wnight• 15 years ago

The software industry is holding back the tech industry like you cannot believe. If not for Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC during the 80s and 90s tech would be far more prevalent. Almost every security bug in an MS product was already noted and fixed in VMS and other OSes that were feature-complete before MS-DOS began.

We just happen to be in one of the first real industries (media is popular but not strictly useful, so not an industry for the purposes of this) whose product can be copied without incremental cost. Instead of throwing up artificial barriers around this to try to perpetuate our old-world business models we should be leveraging this and creating all the value we can.

Besides, making software free (by removing the ability to demand money for it) doesn't mean nobody would be paid to work on it. Many (most?) full-time Linux devs are paid. Probably 95% of software isn't a for-sale product, and of the bit that is, much of that could probably be supported other ways.

Pirate Party Germany now at 8% in nationwide polls

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