@ Josh, I realise that the post is pretty much ideology free, and respect that. It’s an interesting topic that certainly warrants some debate.

Certainly it is hard to have that discussion without some discussion of the politics, but your political ideology doesn’t really matter in this. Two people on the same side of the political fence may disagree that this is a good idea, while two people diametrically opposed when it comes to political policy might think Digg-style voting on political issues is a brilliant idea. :)

does this not rather heavily infringe the SP “No politics” rule?!

Don’t confuse our policy that applies to conversations in our discussion forums with the topics we choose to write about on our blogs.

Small note though…..does this not rather heavily infringe the SP “No politics” rule?!

Today, our governments are controlled by a relatively small number of people (the politicians and technocrats),
who control many aspects of our lives, from taxes and government spending to regulation of the Internet and commerce. But imagine that open-source alternatives for these functions, perhaps one at a time, are created and grow in acceptance. This may be difficult to imagine, but take an example of schools.

Currently, knowledge and the teaching of that knowledge is in the hands of a few, from elementary to highschools to higher education. But why do we need to go through the public or private school system, and why does Harvard and Stanford and
MIT control the education of our professionals and academics?

Homeschooling, for example, is a growing movement that allows parents to regain control of their child’s education, to move away from an authoritarian setting of mind control and towards one of learning, of questioning, of critical thinking — and that’s really what education should be. Please understand that I’m not blaming the teachers — they are good people with good intentions, but they are bound by the school system, which is really controlled by our government. The open-source concept can be applied to higher education: imagine an online school for programmers or accountants or businesspeople, where the real professionals decide the curriculum and teach the classes and give out the certificates. If this alternative grows in acceptance (and this will take a long time to happen), there is no reason why a Harvard
business degree would be better than an open-source one, which would also be much less expensive

Email is another example of how a government function can be co-opted, as the postal system is less necessary than before — fewer people use the postal system to write letters, and the days of getting bills in the mail may soon be a thing of the past. Perhaps not every government function can be co-opted (although it’s possible), but if enough government services become obsolete because of better alternatives, the justification of taxes becomes weaker. Open-source helping of the poor, instead of government welfare. Open-source medical help, instead of the government’s public health system. There are many possibilities.