In the Tek 149 Logan prophecised that the future of government is on the internet. ... What like now in Estonia? I am 24 years old and I have never voted offline.
Things I can do as an Estonian Citizen online.
*Online voting
*Encrypted email traffic
*digitally signing documents (completely recognized by the state)
*Secure banking (when becoming a client of an Estonian bank ONLINE!)
*setting up a company online in under 10 minutes.
*E healthcare (unlike healthcare.gov it works from the beginning)
And many more extremely useful services.
On top the Estonian government is going to offer all the people on the planet E-citizenships so you could join us in the future. At first you can sign up to it only in Estonia but by 2015 you are supposed to be able to become a E-citizen in all Estonian embassies
You get a ID card that has an encrypted chip in it with what you can log into services and in addition scrape ice off the windshield of your car in the morning.
Here is a link to the areas of use of our ID-cards
Also connectivity should be classified as a necessity & a basic human right.
e.g. in Finland everyone must have access to a 1Mbps connection at the very minimum since 2010, by 2015 everyone should have access to a 100Mbps connection no matter where you live.
I just saw this on Vice News and it sounds amazing. Yet another reason why I am considering moving to Europe (if it was only easier to make a living as a teacher in all countries). In the future, I will definitely consider signing up for Estonian e-citizenship when they make the online embassies.
I wish the US were as forward looking as Estonia and Finland. If anyone wants to know what Russia could have been, read about the recent history of Estonia (1991-now). They could have been a basket case like Ukraine or Belarus, but instead they build a modern democracy.
The key is security. Using YT, Twitch and so on would be safe if they were extremely secure. .... I don't think that is the case :D. I can log in to the voting ecosystem using my ID-card and several passwords or through my online banking account.
Populism would be a bad idea since it would allow the majority (middle clasd urban/suburban dewllers) to effectively remove all voice from the minority (poor urban and all rural citizens). A representative republic still works better for such a diverse and large nation as the US. Now I would not be against voting for representatives via the net though.
But the voting would have to be secure or then we face Chuck Norris and Terra Strong being voted in as politicians.