For (currently) free Kindle books, David Weber's On Basilisk Station is the first book in the space-opera Honor Harrington series. The second book The Honor of the Queen, is one of my favorites in the entire series. Eric Flint's 1632 turned into a massive and awesome alternate-history series. If you'd like to delve into Alaskan-based murder mysteries, give Dana Stabenow's A Cold Day For Murder a try as the first in the some eighteen book Kate Shugak series.

For paid Kindle books, there's Hugh Howey's Wool Omnibus is the beginning of the dystopian Silo series; the followup Shift Omnibus is actually a prequel trilogy that I haven't gotten yet but is very readable. Naomi Novik's first novel in the alt-history Temeraire series, His Majesty's Dragon, is currently $.99.

In print, Elizabeth Moon's military fantasy The Deed of Paksenarrion is available used for a very affordable price and is an epic series. The Cage was my introduction to a fantasy universe written by SM Stirling, Shirley Meier, and Karen Wehrstein. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander is a sort of alternate history/light romance series set in Scotland that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Brent Weeks' assassin-based (excuse me, wetboy) fantasy Night Angel Trilogy was recently released as an omnibus edition. Empire from the Ashes collects Weber's Dahak sci-fi trilogy into an omnibus edition. Weber and John Ringo co-wrote March Upcountry and the other three novels in the sci-fi Prince Roger quadrilogy. If you haven't tried Harry Turtledove's alt-history sci-fi WW2 'Worldwar' series, In the Balance starts off a little slow plot-wise but picks up good speed. EE Knight's sci-fi/futuristic fantasy Vampire Earth starts off with Way of the Wolf. Mercedes Lackey wrote the modern-fantasy Born to Run with Larry Dixon, and the rest of the SERRAted Edge books with various other authors. Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk and slightly dystopian Snow Crash is hilarious and awesome. Maggie Furey's Aurian is the first of a fantasy quadrilogy that I enjoyed many years ago.

If you're at all familiar with the Warhammer 40k universe, the Eisenhorn Omnibus is Dan Abnett's wonderful look into the life of an Imperial Inquisitor. He's also written a popular series about the Tanith First-and-Only Imperial Guard regiment starting with The Founding Omnibus. He also wrote the first book in the Horus Heresy series, Horus Rising (I highly recommend reading the first three novels together as a trilogy and then cherry-picking the rest).

... and if you've read all that already, I'll be impressed.

Edit: Why yes, I do read a lot. Why do you ask?

Since you actually put a modicum of thought into your post I'll return the favor and maybe learn something. As a disclaimer, I'll note that many of my opinions and views, while not verbatim, are sourced from Noam Chomsky who himself draws from libertarian socialism and what he calls Enlightenment ideals or values. I'd be the first one to say that I rigorously scrutinize every belief, but whether I meet the burden of proof is for you to decide, not me. As such if you find the ideas behind my post at least interesting, then you should check out a few resources I'll put at the bottom of this post.

It's quite amusing to me that when you referenced the "George Zimmermann trial," I was quite unaware. Ever since I ascertained the true nature of television, I avoid it as much as possible. I take the fact that I didn't follow the reference, given that it was the "primary thing [on tv]," as a sign of my success at completely disconnecting from that medium in favor of others — dominantly reddit and Hacker News supplemented with various online newspapers. I'll characterize the forms of media later to elucidate why I choose reddit over T.V., but the reason is probably as plainly apparent to you as me.

I would like to return to the proposition I questioned you reaffirmed — that it is government that is the locus of political power — and deconstruct it a bit.

As I see it, there exists a metaphysical political space or field in which all of what we call "politics" takes place. I'll consider only domestic politics to simplify things. In the political space, there are a number of metaphysical actors, each with interests that they act in the space to preserve, and each with views. An actor isn't necessarily a single person — it's a metaphysical entity. It becomes clearer if you try to isolate individual actors like government, press, etc. Where is the government? In some sense we are all part of civil society and government, though some more than others. There's no one physical place, no one or many physical entities that clearly delineates government from non-government. In certain contexts for example, ordinary citizens can be considered legal actors of the government, like in Ferguson v. City of Charleston where doctors and nurses administering drug tests on behalf of the government were considered government actors and thus the object of their search is protected by the Fourth Amendment.

So a few actors in this space are clearly the press and the government as we've been talking about. Recall the question "What are the press?" If we look carefully we'll find that all major media organizations are corporations, and quite large ones at that. The New York Times Company had 2.4 billion dollars in revenue in 2009. It's dwarfed by Time Warner (47 billion), Walt Disney (38 billion), News Corp. (33 billion), and so on. In fact, Time Warner is the 159^th biggest corporation by revenue... period. If the press are corporations, and the press are actors in the political space, then what reason do we have to say that it's corporations that are actors in the space rather than just the press? None, and with this realization unlocks the next step of analysis.

Each actor in the political space behaves according to its own interests and has its own views, but we already know from what happened on Meet the Press with Glenn Greenwald that it's not the case that the press always act cohesively. If we analyze our concept of a political actor a bit more, we can see that even though, say, the New York Times is an individual actor, its journalists are as well. It would seem that the New York Times's political behaviors emerge at least partially from its smaller parts. By analogy to a vector space, we can explain the New York Times partially by saying that it is the result after adding up all of the forces of the individual journalists. Conflicts happen when those resultant vectors clash. So this model can explain the fact that the Guardian, while still a member of the press, can act in a way contrary to the press as a whole.

A quote I find is instructive at this point, is that "politics is the shadow cast by ... business over society," and that "attenuation of the shadow will not change its substance," by John Dewey. For Dewey, as for Chomsky, government is the result when you combine the views and actions of literally all the people. The next dimension to incorporate to the space would be a magnitude — the degree to which the actor cares, or the opposite of the level of apathy. For some actors, indeed many as you know yourself, care very little. Since government is the result of all the people in the space, if most of the people don't care, then the policies and actions and views of the government are going to reflect the ones of those who do care, and if we examine the policies of the government we can find very quickly the source of the disease.

You identify the disease as "money," as does Lawrence Lessig in the book "Republic, Lost". I don't think that's quite right. Money isn't an actor in the political space. What is money's opinion on the drug war? We need to distinguish a few things here. First, it's certainly true that political and economic power (money) are tightly linked. You don't need to look ^(source-pdf) very far to see that. Again, it's not a one way relationship either. Economic power leads "reflexively" to political power, to borrow some words from Chomsky. Political power obviously entrenches economic power. Money is certainly an externality, transmitting forces here and there through individual actors in the political space, but it's not a "force" per se.

I am at once amazed but unsurprised that you think that it's the press that is being bludgeoned by the government when to me it is so clear that the roles are reversed. To be sure there is some coercion in both directions, but recall the fact that the New York Times prevailed in the Pentagon Papers case. Recall that the Washington Post, a newspaper owned and operated in the jurisdiction of the United States, had no trouble publishing the leaks. In fact, when the government coerces the press they tend to get really pissed off about it. Notice that previous article is by the editorial board of the New York Times. The New York Times and others are hitting back hard on the government in the way intellectuals do best — shockingly harsh criticism — and it's quite a sight to watch sometimes.

Well, I have more to say but I'll just cut this short so you can respond if you wish. As promised, here are a few related things that would be easy to pick up:

• • *
    
    

1. The documentary "Manufacturing Consent" focusing on Noam Chomsky goes over a lot of this. Also see the book by the same name.
   
2. The lecture given by Chomsky in 1993 entitled "Apathy and Anarchy."
   
3. The lecture given by Chomsky in 1970 entitled "[Government in the Future]
   (http://tangibleinfo.blogspot.com/2006/11/noam-chomsky-lecture-from-1970-full.html)."
   
4. Yet another Chomsky lecture: "Lessons of Vietnam," from 1985.
   
5. Yet another Chomsky lecture: "Columbia Vive" on the drug war.

I really like romantic comedies but it's so difficult to find good ones because they tend to get lost amongst the serious stuff on kindle. But recently I've stumbled on enough that Kindle's gotten better at recommending them to me, which is great.

I'd recommend the following:

• Wallbanger, a rom-com about two neighbours.
  
• The Island, a steamy drama about two a shipwrecked teacher & student.
  
• The Wishes, more of a general chick-lit comedy, but good none-the-less.
  
• Can You Keep a Secret?, a rom-com about a girl who tells her life story to a stranger when their plane appears to be crashing.
  
• Anything by Nicholas Sparks.
  
• Anything by Marian Keyes, I'm a particular fan of Sushi For Beginners.
  
• Twenty Eight and a Half Wishes. I really rooted for the main character (who predicts her own death).
  
• Eversea, oh my god sooo trashy. It's one of those "small town girl falls in love with famous guy" books but I got way sucked in!
  
• Baby & Bump, sappy new single mother + new love type of book but still a good read
  
  
  The good thing about the Kindle Store is that you can download and read the first few chapters before committing to buying the rest.

Hi! I'm Fabrina Glitchlace
---
I like yoga pants, pumpkin spice lattes, and I love Sci-Fi. Two of my self-published novellas are free on Google Play Books until November 11th.
---
Shitlord In the Anus of Madness, Dystipian Sci-Fi, ~12000 Words

>Like all great artists do, Shia tried to become his art. He tried to be a force for good in the world. He tried to change minds. He tried his best to elevate consciousness; to help people realize their potential for self actualization. He tried to enable them to become like him: Master of their own destiny. To not let their dreams be dreams. But instead, he ended up exhausting his social capital, leaving sloppy personal messes in his wake which could not be cleaned. He became unemployable. Toxic. He was pushed out by those who had once accepted him. He was dumped. Now he hungers for the success that he once tasted.

Available DRM-Free as MP3 Audiobook, PDF, ePub, and mobi file format eBooks.

Get Access to these and more by becoming my Patron at $1


Also Available On:

• Bandcamp ($7)
  
  
• Amazon/Audible ($1)/($6):
  
  
• Google Play Books (Free!):
  
  
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  The Zero Day Proposal, Mystery Sci-Fi, ~26000 Words
  
  >Daniqua was just a regular single woman; hungry, horny, and trying to make it on her own in the world. But her past came calling and now her weekend plans are FUBAR. Will she play her role, prevent nuclear annihilation, and win financial freedom? What will be her answer to The Zero Day Proposal?
  
  Available DRM-Free as MP3 Audiobook, PDF, ePub, and mobi file format eBooks.
  
  Get Access to these and more by becoming my Patron at $1
  
  
  
  Also Available On:
  
  
• Bandcamp ($7)
  
  
• Amazon/Audible ($1)/($6)
  
  
• Google Play Books (Free!)
  
  

I'd like to give you an unbiased view of his books but I'm afraid when it comes Alastair Reynolds I suffer from a blatent case of fanboyism; he's the only good scifi writer novelist us Welsh have (nearly insulted all the Doctor Who fans there), it still amazes me how many great scifi writers Scotland produces in comparison.

I believe his characterisation improves, this was after all his first novel.

His biggest strength IMHO is his worldbuilding, I can't get enough of his Revelation Space universe. His second novel set in the Revelation Space universe (although can be read as stand-alone) Chasm City is my favourite as it started me on my journey through his universe and generally got me hooked on all his writing.

The last one The Prefect set before the melding plague was also excellent, I'm hoping he writes a few more over this time period after finishing 'Poseidons Children'.

TLDR; I'd recommend to keep on reading, you will be rewarded.

1. Natural Capitalism - Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Most businesses still operate according to a world view that hasn't changed since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Then, natural resources were abundant and labor was the limiting factor of production. But now, there's a surplus of people, while natural capital natural resources and the ecological systems that provide vital life-support services is scarce and relatively expensive. In this groundbreaking blueprint for a new economy, three leading business visionaries explain how the world is on the verge of a new industrial revolution.
   
   
2. The Information Diet. The modern human animal spends upwards of 11 hours out of every 24 in a state of constant consumption. Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. We're all battling a storm of distractions, buffeted with notifications and tempted by tasty tidbits of information. And just as too much junk food can lead to obesity, too much junk information can lead to cluelessness.
   
   
3. Republic, Lost. With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic - and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left - Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system.
   
   
4. Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing. A generational and global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for about 95% of music consumption. Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. Although Chris Anderson puts forward an intriguing argument in this cheerful, optimistic book, many critics remained unconvinced.

The Tracy Crosswhite series is great. #1 is amazing, #2 is good, #3 is great. All 3 should be on there

Here's the first one

https://smile.amazon.com/My-Sisters-Grave-Tracy-Crosswhite/dp/1477825576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468195805&sr=8-1&keywords=my+sisters+grave


If you like historical fiction:

The Bloodletter's Daughter - https://smile.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Daughter-Novel-Old-Bohemia/dp/1612184650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468195859&sr=8-1&keywords=the+bloodletters+daughter

Finding Rebecca - https://smile.amazon.com/Finding-Rebecca-Eoin-Dempsey/dp/1477826106/ref=pd_sim_14_14?ie=UTF8&dpID=51kT87odLLL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=2MXBCM8PT2WQ9832G1EK

What She Left Behind (this is half HF half modern day, the HF part is really good) - https://smile.amazon.com/What-Behind-Ellen-Marie-Wiseman/dp/0758278454/ref=pd_sim_14_21?ie=UTF8&dpID=61bLHO4EiEL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR109%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=2MXBCM8PT2WQ9832G1EK

Also this one's creepy:
Follow You Home - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SLWQGUM/ref=s9_hps_bw_g351_i8?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-2&pf_rd_r=N3FAE2BPBRHHX56Y8Y5X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2247349782&pf_rd_i=9069934011

Hangman's Daughter - https://smile.amazon.com/Hangmans-Daughter-Tales/dp/054774501X/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&dpID=41PTaeYQpZL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR214%2C320_&psc=1&refRID=2MXBCM8PT2WQ9832G1EK

This one's good:

The One That Got Away - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B007GFGTAW/ref=s9_al_bw_g351_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-5&pf_rd_r=N3FAE2BPBRHHX56Y8Y5X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2074617362&pf_rd_i=9069934011


Sorry this is one giant mess of a comment. Hopefully at least one of these sounds good for you

When you design a multiplayer game, you're trying to design incentives and rules to channel players' competitive energy and aggression into an experience that's fun and fair for everyone. That's true of a community-based site as well.

Back in the 90s me and my friend and CounterPAC cofounder, Zack Booth Simpson, were working on a game called Netstorm. At that time John McCain and Russ Feingold were just starting their campaign finance reform effort. We got to thinking - it's great that they're doing that, but there's a paradox in the government trying to regulate itself. The guys with money are always going to react faster than the legislators and regulators.

That made us wonder whether you could have a private organization that would be on the "good guy" side. We had various ideas, but no time or money to make it happen.

Now I do have the money, and I stepped back from Kongregate to make the time.

> Also as a British reader - where can I find more info on PACs and the American political system?

I love this essay Lessig wrote last month: https://medium.com/@lessig/whats-so-bad-about-a-superpac-c7cbcf617b58.

His book is great too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446576433/

I thought I would go through my Audible library and pick some books to recommend.

A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

I remember thinking at the time of reading this that it felt a bit like one of the Robot stories from Asimov. Released in 2015, it's maybe one of the most classic-sci-fi feeling books that I've read in a while.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Fairly unique feel to this one. I'm not a die-hard Gibson fan, and this one isn't future science fiction but very worth a read in my opinion.

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

This one is admittedly hard to follow at times, though this may be a matter of the translation more than anything else.

Three novels by Peter Clines: 14, The Fold, and Paradox Bound

Peter Clines is one of those that is capable of capturing some of the feeling of classic sci-fi, especially with The Fold. He also sometimes mixes in a bit of Lovecraft for good measure.

Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson

Very short listen / read, but pretty good. I wouldn't put this on the same level as The Emperor's Soul, but it's enjoyable.

Two books by Rob Reid: Year Zero, and After On

Definitely not future sci-fi, they are still science fiction though they also serve as commentary on Silicon Valley.

Hey thanks!!

Some of them are really really cheesy. Then others are wildly entertaining.

Here are some romance novels that still free on Amazon and I've enjoyed:

Dragonfly

Babysitting the Baumgartners. (SUPER SMUTTY)

[A Cold Dark Place]
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IR4J6RY?redirect=true&ref_=kinw_myk_ro_title)

Carrots Only free with Kindle Unlimited right now. And not a romance novel. But was quite good.

Bruce Sterling's Zeitgeist is right up modern reference alley.

Other people have mentioned William Giibson's early cyberpunk work, but frankly his more recent novels like Idoru, Pattern Recognition, and Virtual Light are every bit as good.

In depth travel through fictional (though not VR) worlds is well handled in L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Compleat Enchanter series.

Lastly, John Myers Myers' Silverlock is pretty much the literary reference motherload.

Saying there's no hope is just an excuse for apathy imo. It just takes the right creative solution and the public will to support it. I don't know nearly enough to argue Citizen's United, but I have heard some good ideas that don't conflict with the court ruling. If you have the time/inclination I strongly recommend Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig. He also has some great Youtube videos.

Edited Spelling

Gillian Flynn is one of my favorites, and I group her with Denise Mina, Tana French, Sara Gran, and Elizabeth Hand. These are the books that I recommend to start each writer:

• Elizabeth Hand - Generation Loss
  
• Denise Mina - Garnethill
  
• Tana French - In the Woods
  
• Sara Gran - Dope or Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead
  
  I HIGHLY recommend all of these -- they're all biting and well written and thrilling in different ways.

I love Kinsey Milhone! I want O is for Outlaw pretty please. Sue Grafton is my favorite author.

merp is almost prim spelled backwards. My favorite word is family.

THANK YOU FOR THE CONTEST!!

I love everything Sherlock Holmes! If you like reading about Holmes, a fantastic series was developed by Laurie R King about Holmes in his post-Moriarty years where he gains a young female apprentice. The first book is called The Beekeeper's Apprentice. It is one of my all time favorite series, I highly recommend it.

If you enjoy paranormal romances, I think you'll love Lauren Sweet's genie hero Jasper. He is a sarcastic, sexy prankster. :)

In celebration of my new novel being released, I'm giving away copies of Original Blues over Memorial Day weekend. Amazon actually charges me a few pennies for each download, so if you like it, I'd really appreciate any positive review you'd care to send its way.

My new full length novel is called Party of Assassins. I also write an occasional blog called The Sea of Stars and Time

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N63A1OL

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01N63A1OL

Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01N63A1OL

If you enjoy the eBook, I'd be thrilled if you left a short review! Thanks, Jack :)

^(Note: these are all books I've read and can recommend from experience.)

David Brin's Sundiver is a detective mystery. Likewise his Existence is a mystery about a recently discovered artifact, though its presentation with multiple perspectives lacks the singular detective tone of Sundiver. It's not as much of a mystery/thriller more of a mystery/adventure. It is also one of the overall best science fiction novels I've ever read; the writing is top notch, the characters superbly lifelike, the tone excellent, and the overall reading experience enjoyable and filled with a realistic optimism.

Gregory Benford's Artifact is an investigative mystery about a strange artifact. His Timescape is about a strange phenomenon.

Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God is an investigative mystery about a strange artifact.

Asimov's The End of Eternity is a classic mystery/thriller.

Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect and Chasm City are both standalone detective mysteries. His Revelation Space is similar, but does not have the same classic mystery tone.

Greg Bear's Queen of Angels and Slant are both standalone detective mysteries.

I seem to recall the Second Foundation (Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos, Foundation's Triumph) trilogy by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin having some mystery aspects. I think one of them at least is a detective mystery, but I can't remember which right now.

Dan Simmons' Ilium/Olympos is a sort of detective mystery, but its tone is much more action/adventure despite the protagonist's undertakings to determine what in the world is going on.

Joan D. Vinge's Cat Trilogy (Psion, Catspaw, and Dreamfall) are detective mysteries.

Julian May's Perseus Spur is a detective mystery. It's pretty light-hearted and a lot of fun to read. Something you would pick up at an airport bookstore and not be at all disappointed with. I can't speak for the other two books in the trilogy, haven't read them yet. Just ordered them off Amazon for $4 a piece.

I could go on, but I think that should keep you busy for a while.

 

^(Edited to clarify the tone of some suggestions. Some are more traditional mystery/thriller, while others are more adventure/mystery, more alike to Indiana Jones than a noir detective.)

I have reread Jumper a few times. I found it many years before the movie. While the movie was ok. I enjoy the books original world better. I didn't like the paladin thing.

He also has other non jumper books that are very good.

• Jumper by Steven Gould (Jumper, Reflex, Jumper: Griffin's Story, Impulse, [Shade](https://www.google.com/#q=Steven Gould AND Shade)))
  
  
• Non Series Books by Steven Gould (7th Sigma, Blind Waves, Helm, Wildside))

Free e-books today!

r/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H764YSS- "Detective Wings", a story about a special detective cases and his target of 100% solved cases

r/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GTRY25Z- "Sam's Theory", a short story about a woman who loses everything and starts questioning her past relationships

r/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HHM6W4T- "Mousetrapped", a story about an immortal woman who faces childbirth and motherhood and a special relationship with her immortal husband

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

Lawrence Lessig has done some excellent work on describing how exactly we got here and how, perhaps, we might get out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

BTW, his book "Republic Lost" is amazing!

Wake up Reddit! Don't let the American Anti-Corruption Act die...

The American Anti-Corruption Act (AACA) was published in Nov 2012. It reached 300,000 citizen co-sponsors by January 2013 but since then has slowed to a crawl. As of writing this there are only about 400,000 signatures. If this sluggish pace continues, support for the AACA will be too weak to pressure congress into making it law.

What's most disappointing is that the internet communities the AACA was most depending on for its success have practically ignored it. There's hardly been any attention generated for the AACA on Reddit over these past 6 months, yet I'm constantly reading comments from Redditors complaining about the excessive influence of money in American democracy and expressing frustration at not knowing how to solve the problem. Meanwhile, well-known activists Lawrence Lessig and Trevor Potter have collaborated to publish a comprehensive solution (the AACA) and a plan for making it law, and Reddit barely notices. I know Reddit can do better because of the strong opposition it showed to SOPA.

So what gives Reddit? Let's wake up already and get the AACA the exposure it needs.

Link to become a citizen co-sponsor of the American Anti-Corruption Act and learn more about it (becoming a citizen co-sponsor just means adding your name to the petition):
http://anticorruptionact.org


Other informative links:

American Anti-Corruption Act: full text and details

American Anti-Corruption Act: analysis of how well individual act provisions will hold up in the Supreme Court (summary: most should be fine)

Lawrence Lessig AMA

Lawrence Lessig TED Talk

Lawrence Lessig Book: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It

Trevor Potter AMA

OpenSecrets.org: tracks the political money trail

OpenCongress.org: tracks the political money trail, the life cycle of congressional bills, and representative's voting records

EDIT: It appears the link to the video might be down right now. It's basically just a clever commercial highlighting how our senators are practically whoring themselves for political money.

Steven Gould's Blind Waves is not so much about climate change so much as it's set in a future in which the polar ice caps have melted and sea levels have risen by 100'.

I don't think this book is quite as good as Gould's Jumper or Wildside, but it has a different style and I enjoyed it.

The American Anti-Corruption Act (AACA) was published in Nov 2012. It reached 300,000 citizen co-sponsors by January 2013 but since then has slowed to a crawl. As of writing this there are only 365,906 signatures. If this sluggish pace continues, support for the AACA will be too weak to pressure congress into making it law.

What's most disappointing is that the internet communities the AACA was most depending on for its success have practically ignored it. There's hardly been any attention generated for the AACA on Reddit over these past 6 months, yet I'm constantly reading comments from Redditors complaining about the excessive influence of money in American democracy and expressing frustration for not knowing how to solve the problem. Meanwhile, well-known activists Lawrence Lessig and Trevor Potter have collaborated to publish a comprehensive solution (the AACA) and a plan for making it law, and Reddit barely notices. It's this type of apathetic laziness that has been the greatest impediment to fixing politics in America, and I know Reddit can do better because of how active we were in opposing SOPA.

So what gives Reddit? Let's wake up already and get the AACA the exposure it needs.

Link to become a citizen co-sponsor of the American Anti-Corruption Act and learn more about it (becoming a citizen co-sponsor just means adding your name to the petition):
http://anticorruptionact.org


Other informative links:

American Anti-Corruption Act: full text and details

American Anti-Corruption Act: analysis of how well individual act provisions will hold up in the Supreme Court (summary: most should be fine)

Lawrence Lessig AMA

Lawrence Lessig TED Talk

Lawrence Lessig Book: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It

Trevor Potter AMA

OpenSecrets.org: tracks the political money trail

OpenCongress.org: tracks the political money trail, the life cycle of congressional bills, and representative's voting records

For a great book on the subject of how current campaign financing laws indeed completely corrupt law-makers, I suggest Lawrence Lessig's Republic, Lost (and here's his video). He founded the rootstriker movement to make it his current life mission to overhaul campaign financing laws -- it won't be easy, but it's not a crazy idea at all, and you can help: http://mayday.us

I have two books for you to read:

Influence: Science and Practice

Republic Lost

They both lay out very good reasons for why downplaying the potential sway that dinners, parties, or other favors have on your behavior is not a good idea.

Your fix could be even swifter. Drop points 1 and 3 until 2 is implemented. Fix the dependence that politicians have on corporate money, and actual democratic reform becomes possible. So long as congressmen have to campaign, and so long as it costs money, and so long as they can get that money from big donors, the big donors will have much more power than little donors or mere voters. The big donors don't like progressive taxes, equal representation, or big government programs that they can't profiteer. They won't allow reform so long as they have the power.

Issues of free speech make it hard to convince everybody we can limit money spent on political speech. The Citizens United decision illustrates this. We can definitely limit politicians' campaigns, contributions thereto, and gifts, but the Koch brothers can make their own ads and Fox can keep a big portion of voters uninformed. We probably have to come up with a plan to fund political campaigns publicly and democratically. I'm a big fan of Lawrence Lessig's work on this.

Hi, I’m sorry your having problems. For some reason the amazon.com link seems to be having issues and I’m looking into it.

However the .co.uk work is active and (more importantly) free!

Hopefully, this will work www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07L8MLLWC

The problem goes beyond "influencing those gullible voters with TV ads!". It affects whose issues get discussed in the legislature, who has direct access to discussing issues with elected officials, and what elected officials consider before taking a position on an issue.

Try this: you're a back-bencher in the majority party from a rural district. You support conservation and protecting the environment for future generations. Your election is coming up later this year, and you have a viable opponent.

A bill comes before the legislature that would legalize a risky & unproven (note: not taking a side on fracking here, just establishing that a controversy exists) method of extracting energy from the ground, and your district happens to contain lots of that potential energy.

You have usually opposed bills like this in the past- once making a speech that made national news. That particular bill failed on a close vote.

A company or industry PAC makes it known that it will spend up to $1m US attacking any candidate that opposes the above-mentioned bill. This is a credible threat from a wealthy, well-connected group. They also make it known privately that they will endorse and heavily fund your opponent should you be outspoken in your opposition

Knowing all of this, how do you vote? Even better, do you do another speech that makes national news? would you still be as outspoken as you were in the past?

edit- Much of this example is shamelessly lifted from Prof. Lawrence Lessig's excellent Republic Lost. Read it and decide for yourself!

Unfortunately while 1 vote is indeed 1 vote, the people we get to choose with our votes are not willing/able to act in our best interest. Campaign finance law in the USA effectively creates a "shadow election" in which only those who can raise a lot of money for their campaigns are able to run for office. This means that the people we can choose with our votes have already been pre-selected -- not by their ability to represent our interests, but by their connections to wealthy donors that enabled their campaigns. Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig is a great read about the corruption stemming from bad campaign finance laws and how they disempower voters.

Lessig just released a book about how money corrupts politics, including his ideas about how we can change that. It's on my reading list for winter break for sure, and it sounds exactly like what you're looking for. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433

And if you want a preview, check out this awesome talk Lessig gave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc

Lately, Bruce Bartlett's The Benefit and the Burden and Lawrence Lessig's Republic Lost. Mostly issue politics and future of country type of stuff. That said, I have a bachelor's in poli sci and went to grad school for political theory (ad then went to law school), so my choice materials may be a bit different than most. But you should still read both of those (especially Republic Lost).

i didn't know it was my job to take seriously people who can't understand the complexities of campaign finance and democratic government. if you want to read an enlightening book, i would suggest this: http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334193301&sr=8-1

A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow.

Cold Storage by John Straley.

You might like John Krakauer's Into the Wild. Though Alaskans don't have the same romantic feelings about Chris McCandless as most of the rest of the US; we mostly regard him as an idiot.

A Kodiak Bear Mauling by R. Keith Rogan.



And don't overlook The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

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amazon .
This is the book that does the most explanation of the author's concept of demarchy which, in many ways, is like what you wrote.

You've got the top post on reddit at the moment and you mention Dr. Lessig, give a shout out to his book!

You should all read it!

Gut reaction: Off with their heads.

Sensible reaction: What can we do, as a reasonable, rational group of concerned citizens, to end this problem?

I'm in the middle of reading Lessig's Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It in the hopes of finding a sensible answer.

Here's what I'm talking about...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m1EYX10ERN0GN1/ref=ent_fb_link

Here's a good place to start:
http://vimeo.com/rootstrikers/anti-corruption-pledge

This is well documented. Lessig has written about it in a very accessible way.

Amazon DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01N63A1OL/

Two really big topics I have started to get very interested in, a lot in part due to reddit actually.

[The Healing of America by T.R Reid] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Healing-America-Global-Cheaper/dp/0143118218)

[Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig] (http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=)

The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds explores this concept.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0441017223/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483490567&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+prefect+alastair+reynolds&dpPl=1&dpID=51iQJzpWbDL&ref=plSrch

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

How do you feel about this book? http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433

Republic Lost - Lawrence Lessig

I've always respected Larry Lessig's work -- he fought copyright until a few years ago, when he switched to fighting corruption in government.

He just wrote a book called "Republic, Lost" about it. One of the things he proposes is public funding of elections, where each voter gets an amount of money they can allocate among the candidates they support.

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt

no. If you are concerned about the issue, read Larry Lessig's book, Republic Lost. There are proposals in how to change things without subverting the will of the people.

Sorry, we're just too far apart for my responses to be worth my time. You're not looking at the negative effects enough, and seem to be very pro-Government. You're also not providing your case for why we should allow lobbying, thus I'm not learning anything new from this discussion. Rather than respond to your points, as this will likely go back and forth for quite a while, I'd rather list a few books/articles that are anti-lobbying for your consideration. Perhaps you could offer some pro-lobbying books/articles, just in case my position is wrong (which I sincerely don't think it is). Here's the anti-lobbying links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States

http://www.amazon.com/Prophets-War-Lockheed-Military-Industrial-Complex/dp/1568586973

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lobbying_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_lobbying_in_the_United_States

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/a-pocket-guide-to-lobbying-in-the-united-states/

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/03/627471/private-prisons-spend-45-million-on-lobbying-rake-in-51-billion-for-immigrant-detention-alone/

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php

http://business.time.com/2011/05/26/did-lobbying-cause-the-financial-crisis/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/us/politics/05loans.html?pagewanted=all

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443589304577637773840176082.html?google_editors_picks=true

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8854-the-top-five-special-interest-groups-lobbying-to-keep-marijuana-illegal

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2013/pro-cispa-backers-spend-over-100-times-more-lobbying-opponents/

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/13/30-major-u-s-companies-spent-more-on-lobbying-than-taxes/

http://www.npr.org/2009/02/18/100706260/so-damn-much-money-the-influence-of-lobbyists

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/our-corrupt-politics-its-not-all-money/?pagination=false

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446576433?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446576433

Edit: I'd be surprised if you found any pro-lobbying articles/books that weren't written by politicians, bureaucrats, pundits, or lobbyists.

Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig is a pretty good place to start.

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433

Lessig's premise is basically that the big problem isn't corruption in the traditional sense. If you picture it as politicians being handed paper bags full of cash under the table in exchange for voting a certain way on a certain bill, that sort of thing really isn't all that widespread. The big problem is the completely legal economy of favors and undue influence that exists, which prevents both liberals and conservatives from making any progress on many of their policy objectives.

Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier is another book that has a lot to say about corruption, but he approaches the problem from the perspective of examining the various systems that society puts in place to compel good behavior from its members, and how those systems fail.

http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Outliers-Enabling-Society-Thrive/dp/1118143302

You should read Lessig's "Republic, Lost" if you haven't already. He talks about Congress's dependence corruption (as opposed to quid pro quo corruption) and shows how publicly-financed campaigns could fix our broken political system.

Lessig has done a TED talk on campaign finance and also written a stellar book on the subject. He knows his shit.

Have you read Lawrence Lessig's thoughts on how money corrupts congress?

If so, do you agree that this sort of lobbying and corruption is a problem?

If so, is there anything that you can do, and what is it?

(Entire book here, and a Google talk about it here)

I share your frustration, but what you propose is 1) not going to happen and 2) not going to solve the long-term problems. Take the time to read Lawrence Lessig's [Republic Lost] (http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323053002&sr=8-1). It has a very sophisticated understanding of the problem, and difficult but real potential solutions.

When home is no longer safe, where do you run to?


Leaving behind her newly crowned husband to oversee Pettraud, Duchess Jacqueline Arienta Xavier returns home to Saphire for the first time in months. While the War Council looms ever closer, the Duchess is eager to get back to work upon her return to the duchy. Yet, soon after her homecoming, a harrowing attack within the halls of the palace forces Jax to flee from court. Seeking refuge behind the walls of the fortified Galensmore estate, Jax and her friends prepare to wait out the storm until the culprit behind the palace attack is apprehended. It's not until a member of the Galensmore household turns up dead that Jax realizes danger is closer than ever before.


Peril strikes the heart of Duchess Jacqueline's court in SOVEREIGN SIEGED.

​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RC2D7V6/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4