Benjamin Oakes

Hi, I'm Ben Oakes and this is my geek blog. Currently, I'm a Ruby/JavaScript Developer at Continuity Control. Previously, I was a Software Developer at Hedgeye, a Research Assistant in the Early Social Cognition Lab at Yale University and a student at the University of Iowa. I also organize ICRuby and OpenHack Iowa City, and previously organized NewHaven.rb. I have an amazing wife named Danielle Oakes.

How the Internet will (one day) transform government

October 2nd, 2012 by Ben

I’ve seen some of the experimenting that people have done with bringing legal code (i.e., laws) to GitHub. As an open source developer, I think Clay has it right when he says that transparency is only one side of openness and that citizen created bills are (hopefully) inevitable. After all, our government is too important to leave exclusively to politicians.

Or, you know, the Internet will just be a place we go to see funny pictures of cats. It’s what we make of it.

Update: Just as an experiment, I made a repository for the laws of Iowa because I couldn’t find an existing one. I’m experimenting to see if any others are interesed as well, based on star count or contributions.

Video: Clay Shirky: How the Internet will (one day) transform government