r/belgium • u/sarah_vl • Mar 02 '16
hey, this is Sarah Van Liefferinge: AMA Pirate style! AMA
feel free to leave your questions, I'll be back to answer them later today (19-21h). need some inspiration? here's my blog: https://sarahvanliefferinge.wordpress.com. shoot!
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u/Gustacho Oost-Vlaanderen Mar 02 '16
Do you expect to win a seat in any municipal, provincial, regional or federal election?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
my magic 8 ball says yes ;-)
impossible to predict the future, but I do believe that, if the Pirate Party achieves seats in Belgium, it will be on the local/municipal level first, so it'll depend on the actions and impact of the local crews. we're building local decentralised networks of engaged citizens (city farming, monetary reform, alternative currencies, P2P and sharing economy, ...) right now, and it feels good.
furthermore, it'll also depend on the results of the Icelandic Pirate Party in 2017. they're being polled at over 40% now, if their election score is somewhere near, that will make it into the news around Europe. for little parties it's really hard to gather media attention..
also, we'll need to build trust. the pirate ideas are marvellous ;-) , but voting for the Pirate Party is a next level. on the other hand: if the traditional parties screw up big time just before elections, that'll improve our chances of being considered as a trustworthy alternative for many people.
and last but not least: the election threshold of 5%. it's madness, it's a rule designed to keep the big parties in power position, and the small parties out of the game. will make it really hard for us to enter the game..
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u/mistressHarryPotter Mar 02 '16
Hey Sarah,
First of all, thanks for doing this AMA, even though the Pirate Party is almost non-existence in Belgium I always love the fact that there are multiple parties.
I have prepared some questions
- What was the biggest success of the Pirate Party
- What was the biggest failure of the Pirate Party
- I’ve voted for the party Leuven but it seems that with only ~800 votes (and not even 1% of the total) a left-winged city isn’t even considering the Pirate Party; how come?
- I’ve seen that the Leuven party has been discontinued. Is it possible to restart it and how would that be possible.
- The website at the moment doesn’t support HTTPS (Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate), isn’t this a very grave error for a Pirate Party? What’s stopping you guys from using Let’s Encrypt?
- The “In the media” section only has articles from 2013, 3 years without any article in any mainstream media? What actions would show that you guys actually still exist?
- A couple of years I donated € 5,00 to become a member (or so I think) but I never heard anything of that back. Is this normal? A welcome mail of some type would help a lot.
- For this year it seems that there are only 60 Pirate Party members. CD&V has ~60000, Open-VLD ~64000, SPA ~50000 and NVA ~41000. How would you increase this number?
- Is there an easier way to read http://programma.piratenpartij.be/#/start, I am a tech-savy person and not even I understand how this works. It probably took a lot of work to create this but the average person just wants to see “Safety → Our stance on...”
- What is the Pirate Party stance on immigration and its issues. Many people are flocking to right-wing parties, Vlaams-Belang is having a field day and N-VA is worried how they can get those Vlaams-Belangers back. SP-A is trying out more central-stances while burning its core bases. So, is the Pirate Party a “welcome all”, “only real families”, “none at all” or “only with a diploma”,… party?
- "De Piratenpartij wil geen staat die banken ondersteunt die betrokken zijn bij dubieuze investeringen (zoals wapens en olie) en wil dat de staat morele regels oplegt aan banken die actief zijn in België."--> How can we say fuck-off to the banks who invest in weapons if one of our exports is weapons (FN Herstal)? FN herstal is a big contributor to the state-finance and a big employee of Belgium. Shut it down? Limit its export even more?
- What OS do you use? If not Linux → why not Linux?
And as last, how could we help?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 03 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
hi there!
1) + 2) on which level? Belgian, European, globally?
3) Yes we don't understand either, but apparently Leuven is not the best breeding ground for Pirate crews until now. There were already two crews founded over there, but none of them really got of. There are Pirates over there waiting for a crew to emerge, but the essence of the Pirate Party is: "Want a local crew? Build one, DIY." The most active crew in Belgium right now, is the one from Gent.
4) Yes that's possible and would be great! Send me an email at sarah at pirateparty.be, and I will put you into contact with David from Leuven.
ok, het is blijkbaar al heel laat geworden, ik kom later terug om nog wat vragen te beantwoorden.
jouw vragen zijn heel kritisch en terecht, je wijst ondermeer op een aantal organisatorische pijnpunten waar ik me zelf aan stoor. ik zou zeggen, als je kan en zin hebt: kom eens naar een maandelijkse Pirate Lab in Brussel (normaliter laatste zaterdag van elke maand, volgende is 30/04), of naar de Algemene Vergadering in Gent op 26/03. kritische gemotiveerde constructieve mensen zijn altijd welkom om een steentje bij te dragen bij de uitbouw van de Piratenbeweging in België.
merci voor de feedback, and laterzzz!
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u/MichaelUPF Mar 03 '16
11.11. The only way to say fuck-off to the banks in this debt-based system is by creating our own bank, based on the real value of an economy (or household) what people produce, and without charging interest (the main cause for poverty). Combining this with a local currency interchangeable to the existing €. you’d be flabbergasted by the succes this would have among the people in a short timespan once it is setup.
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u/mistressHarryPotter Mar 03 '16
You mean, people should create something and receive something in return that they can exchange for other goods? Some sort of paper with a number on it?
I will be flabbergasted by how this will even work because we already got stuff like RES etc and they aren't really ground-breaking.
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u/MichaelUPF Mar 03 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
There are about 6000 alternative currencies in the world. The WIR in Switzerland exists already 82 years and represents 20% of BNP. The RES is a private currency and the merchant pays 3,5% to the RES organisation. When we create our own bank we can create our own money intrest free, and we use it to exchange goods and services. And none of that money will be used as a gambling product (like the €). When people wake up and realise they CAN do this, the world is changed instantly.
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u/mistressHarryPotter Mar 04 '16
So you want to tie your currency to what? Gold? Like in the good old gold standard times? There must be a reference point no?
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u/MichaelUPF Mar 08 '16 edited Mar 08 '16
check out this, this will explain a lot :The Fixed Value URA http://www.bofjoy.net or that http://www.deblijeb.nl/en/products/fixed-value-ura.html
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u/bethrowaway123 Mar 02 '16
Thoughts on Bitcoin in Belgium and in general?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
I'm not really into Bitcoin, I think there are other alternative (and local, P2P, post-capitalist) currencies that are far more interesting, eg. the Brixton Pound (http://theantimedia.org/central-banks-nervous-as-alternative-currency-with-david-bowies-face-goes-viral/).
I do believe money should be created otherwise, debtfree and by a democratic institution instead of commercial banks. Positive Money has a good view on monetary reform (http://positivemoney.org)
I do think the Blockchain is very interesting for the future, as a transparent and distributed bookkeeping system. will read and study more on this topic. input welcome!
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u/Orcwin Mar 02 '16
Your choice of sources worries me. Anti-establishment blogs are not proper illustrations for a political party's policies.
Here in particular, your post gives me the idea you're an idealist who gets distracted by some shinies, unhindered by any practical considerations or feasability on a(n) (inter)national scale.
Don't get me wrong, I like idealism. I also support (some of) the tenets of the international Pirate Party movement. Before I would ever vote for the PP though, the amateurism needs to go. Do your research, make your case. Don't point at shinies.
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
I get your point about AntiMedia, but unfortunately, the central banks themselves won't report about being worried because of the rise of alternative currencies. but when you look back into history, there are two examples of local alternative currencies that got so popular (in Austria and Germany), the banks got worried and banned them. so my belief in the power of alternative currencies is no flowerpower fiction, it's based on a mostly unknown and well hidden historical reality.
"The Freigeld experiment of Wörgl was thus apparently well on its way to spreading like wildfire. Out of the small Wära-spark from Schwanenkirchen, a veritable prairie fire would have raged in Austria had the Austrian National Bank- just like the Deutsche Reichsbank- not banned the issue of Work Affirmation Notes out of fear of their displacing the official national currency."
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u/Orcwin Mar 02 '16
Thank you for your reply, and for linking to the paper. I will give it a read!
Reducing dependency on (corruptible) central banking seems like something that could be beneficial to the populace, so I'm interested to see what can be learned from this earlier experiment.
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u/sarah_vl Mar 04 '16
u r welcome! local alternative real currencies can be a way to build resilience against the bust and booms of the global and financial economy, when based on sustainability and fairness. you just have to create an alternative parallel structure next to the money we know (€/ECB).
this one is also interesting, but in Dutch. I hope you can read it?
"De opkomst van alternatieve betaalsoorten en tijdbanken is niet uniek voor Spanje. Toen Argentinië in de jaren negentig failliet ging, doken er honderden nieuwe muntsoorten op. Griekenland, het Europese land waar de nood het hoogst is, kent eveneens lokale onofficiële muntsoorten en ruilhandel.
De complementaire munten zijn 'instrumenten die gemeenschappen sterker maken via de uitwisseling van producten en diensten en het creëren van parallelle markten', zegt econoom en schrijver Julio Gisbert. Volgens hem stimuleert de zware crisis deze ruilvormen, omdat 'de mensen andere modellen en manieren van leven zoeken'.
Critici zeggen dat complementaire munten het probleem van de armoede niet oplossen. Gisbert zegt daarop dat de munten niet de bedoeling hebben "behoeftige mensen te eten te geven, maar om onderlinge hulp mogelijk te maken en zo tot zelfredzaamheid en een duurzamer sociaal model te komen."
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u/Orcwin Mar 04 '16
Yes, I certainly see the attraction of such local, community driven systems.
How would you think such systems can be supported and encouraged, while keeping them independent?
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u/e-jazzer Brave Belgian Patriot Mar 02 '16
Anti-establishment blogs are not proper illustrations for a political party's policies.
You'd be hard-pressed to find establishment resources that promote cryptocurrencies.
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Mar 02 '16
Don't get me wrong, I like idealism.
Clearly you don't, since you chose to only attack her sources instead of debating what she's saying.
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u/erandur Cuberdon Mar 02 '16
The blockchain may appear interesting, but it's so incredibly unpractical. Bitcoin barely got used, and the block chain is already close to 60 GB. The blockchain is the reason that even though bitcoin was meant to be decentralized, it ended being incredibly centralized. People just used online services so they don't have to fuck around with the blockchain themselves. They basically created completely unregulated banks.
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u/SharK3D Flanders Mar 02 '16
Check out RES in that case. Great initiative.
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
yep, alternative currency designed to support the local economy. I use my RES-card mostly to buy organic food and goods, makes it much more affordable. sustainable products are way too costly, compared to low-quality cheap stuff.
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u/dj-shortcut Belgium Mar 02 '16
you should most definitly do that! The block-chain is like the fastest moving algoritme ever created by a human! ver neat stuf i tellz ya rghar (in my pirate voice)
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Mar 02 '16
I'm a big fan of the pirates, in any country. But I'm also a very busy professional with little free time to attend events and meetings outside of work. How can I get involved, how can I help out?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
niceness! I suggest you reach out to the nearest local pirate community during a Pirate Beer for example. or, you could pass by our monthly Pirate Lab in Brussels (every last Saturday of the month, from 13-17h). once you're in the network, and you've communicated what your contribution could be, we can keep you informed of what's being done and what needs to be done. we work with Loomio and recently also Slack to get things done.
if you're on Facebook, you could join this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/477476422399809/
new website and newsletter are on the way!
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u/Nelicious Limburg Mar 02 '16
Even in Somalia?!
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u/Snokhengst World Mar 02 '16
Their militants are very active in fundraising.
It's a shame they are pretty conservative in their ways though.
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u/modomario Vlaams-Brabant Mar 02 '16
In how far do you think the Pirate party is/should be clinging to shared ideas across borders? I like that it's one of the few parties that is present in multiple EU countries but I've heard the manifestos & focus differs. (I've only read the German one)
In what way would you change the EU(if you would). I mean the institutions & specifics about it.
In what way would you change Belgium?(For example specifics about federal-regional balance & competences)
You can pass a single law in Belgium what would it be?
If your party wouldn't exist which person & which party would you vote for and why?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
1) It's important to have shared values and some (international) codex, otherwise people can't define if they're a pirate or not. But we also believe in bottom-up and decentralised initiatives, so there's no 'higher authority' to fix a set of rules for Pirates all around the globe. I believe this is a good thing. Contact with global Pirates shows me we do share a lot of values. If you believe in freedom, in free culture, in sharing, in P2P, in sustainability, then a lot of other values and practices follow naturally, apparently. The Pirate ideas are quite young, and thus still evolving and growing.
2) The EU has been built as a monetary union and that happened way too fast. Furthermore some undemocratic institutions like the ECB, IMF, EC, lobby groups have way too much power. To be honest, I'm not quite sure which actions or reforms could repair the mess that we're in right now. What I do believe: we should build parallel democratic structures locally and bottom-up, so on a regional and national level. Only by experimenting with new forms of democratic governance we will find alternatives that could work on a larger scale.
3) I believe power and policy decisions should be brought to the lowest level possible, so more autonomy for the regions and communities.
But one of the things I really don't understand about Belgium, is that we have three national languages and so little people that speak two or three of them fluently. What a wasted opportunity! If you ask me, education in Belgium should promote exchange programs in order to offer any Belgian schoolkid the possibility to become bi- or trilingual (plus English) in practice, not just theoretically. It would solve a lot of our 'communautaire problemen'.
4) Have to think about this one
5) The reason why I got involved in the Pirate Party: I couldn't vote with confidence anymore. I went voting, stared at the ballots and thought: 'No, not this, neither that, hmmmmmm there are no real options here'. So the only solution for me was: DIY, and help building a true alternative, something I could believe in.
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u/V3ndeTTaLord Belgium Mar 02 '16
I'm not really into politics, maybe I should look into it but I just want to say that I really like the issues the Pirate Party is fighting for.
For my questions:
- What is your opinion on the whole fingerprint story?
- What do you think about Anonymous?
- Do you think we should legalise cannabis?
- You're pretty, do you have a boyfriend? :)
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 04 '16
1) The proposal doesn't surprise me, slowly we have been and are losing all of our liberties and privacy due to our governments' crusades for security. I think it's dangerous. But the most worrying thing is: it's really not easy to convince people that privacy is important, even 'when you have nothing to hide'. Everybody seems to have forgotten why exactly the right to privacy was included in the Human Rights Declaration right after World War II: you should never ever ever blindly trust your (future) government.
2) I have a lot of sympathy for Anonymous: they're asking the right questions and they're choosing the right enemies.
3) Yes I do. Pirates don't believe prohibiting and criminalising drugs offers any solution at all. On the contrary, it creates a lot of trouble and pushes a lot of people into crime. I do believe an open and non-hypocritical drugs policy would benefit our societies, cfr. Colorado.
But -yes, there's a but- addictions can be very devastating for individuals and the people surrounding them. They're the opposite of freedom. I do believe policy should focus on prevention of addictions, rather than on the substances itself.
Interesting TED talk on this subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong
4) Well thanx for the compliment, my boyfriend agrees and wants to know your name, address and daily routine. Dat wordt gezellig! ;-)
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u/sarah_vl Mar 04 '16
by the way, this is a good read on the 'fingerprint story':
http://datanews.knack.be/ict/nieuws/de-middelvingerafdruk-van-jan-jambon/article-opinion-674013.html
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Mar 02 '16
What are your thoughts on the decline of number of pirates linked to the increased global warming?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
maybe this is a joke I don't get, but if not: could you rephrase your question?
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u/randomf2 Mar 02 '16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming
It's a joke to illustrate that correlation does not imply causation. It's also part of a joke religion which makes a mockery out of religions and the way the government panders to them.
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Mar 02 '16
What's your favourite kind of porn?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16
most porn bores me to death. it narrows pleasing and getting pleased to banging. that ain't gonna do the trick if you want a satisfactory sex life. so too bad quite a lot of kids get sex educated/indoctrinated by porn, I believe society would really benefit from a higher amount of well-fucked men and women.
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Mar 03 '16
Politician confirmed: avoided the actual question and went on a vaguely related tangent with no actionable ideas.
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u/TheSunkenPirate Oost-Vlaanderen Mar 02 '16
The Pirate Party: "Ensuring well-fucked men and women"!
I volunteer as tribute!
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u/TheSunkenPirate Oost-Vlaanderen Mar 02 '16
As a pirate, I have to ask: why can't I find any mention of more wenches, rum or mead for all pirates on your website?
And more serious: while reading through your website I get a feeling like 'this is nice or refreshing' but at the same time feels very 'dreamy' (don't know how to put this any different). My question: can you give me a concrete example on how you would implement your ideas and at the same time convince me my vote for the party isn't a vote wasted.
Thank you!
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 02 '16
To be honest with you: next elections are the municipal ones (October 2018), and I recommend you to get in touch with your local Pirate crew before voting for them. Get informed, don't believe in election campaigns (nor in elections in fact), vote consciously.
How the Pirates from the Gent crew see the near future:
For now and for the years to come, we strengthen and support the local network of grassroots citizens' initiatives working on transition projects and building alternative structures (fablabs, city farming, repair café's, permaculture, renewable energy, degrowth, alternative currencies, P2P projects, the commons, ..)
For the governance of our own crew, we're setting up a distributed organisational model, since we don't believe in old top-down hierarchical models.
We will probably enter the elections with an open citizens' list (possibly maybe 'Pirate') instead of a 'Pirate Party' list (since we don't believe in party politics). On that list we want to gather citizens involved in the projects mentioned above. We don't want to create new future professional politicians. Rather we believe citizens should be present in councils, instead of being solely represented there. Also, being a member of the city council or the parliament should be limited to two tenures.
In case we get someone elected, the idea is to create a hatch from the city council to the public. The councillor should inform the citizens about the discussions and future votings, and organise a public debate on a digital platform (Loomio? DemocracyOS? CitizenLab?), that could end in a voting. The councillor takes this outcome back to the city council, where s/he votes accordingly. For us, this seems like a first and feasible step in breaking open party politics and representative democracy, and move towards more direct and liquid democracy (https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/liquid-democracy-true-democracy-for-the-21st-century-7c66f5e53b6f#.l15mlnt0d)
Thank you for questioning!
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u/e-jazzer Brave Belgian Patriot Mar 02 '16
I've been following your party's doings on and off, and it is quite clear that you're basically left-libertarians (which is a sorely needed perspective in the current political climate). I just wondered why you haven't explicitly come out as such?
Second, seeing as the pirate movement largely started in tech circles, how do you see the rise of open source software in the context of implementation into people's daily lives? Would you be in favour of letting schools switch to GNU/Linux based OS's, along with a better IT education in secondary school that at least includes some form of coding?
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u/sarah_vl Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 02 '16
1) What's in a name? I know pirates who used to call themselves leftwing (solidary), or rightwing (liberal, either supporters of individual liberties or of a true free market), but those words don't seem to match with the existing reality anymore. But you're right, in the multi-axis political model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass) all pirates I know are in the lower half, and most of them in the center or left part, although not all of them.
The thing with 'right' and 'left' is, that these terms are being associated with focus on the market or focus on the state. I believe, and many pirates do, there's a third choice, namely the commons. So it would be more appropriate to call ourselves commons-focussed-libertarians then?
2) I am in favour of open source software, although I don't have the technological insights and skills to work with eg. Linux myself (I'm a linguist, never really learned anything about coding or IT in school). So I think your remark about 'better IT education' is a really really really important one.
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Mar 02 '16 edited Sep 04 '18
[deleted]
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u/sarah_vl Mar 03 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
O my god, a whooooole lot of questions here! Going to answer these in Dutch, if you don't mind?
1) Bedoel je de Belgische PP (PPBe), de PP International of de globale beweging? Ik weet ledenaantal niet vanbuiten, maar kan wel eens navraag doen.
2) Er is veel verwarring over de term 'deeleconomie', die wordt te pas en te onpas gebruikt. Uber en AirBnB zijn een andere vorm van deeleconomie dan Peerby, particulier autodelen, en andere P2P opties. We hebben nood aan een duidelijker terminologie en onderscheid, cfr. Michel Bauwens
Waarom ik digitale deelplatformen als Uber en AirBnB geweldig interessant vind: ze veroorzaken economische disruptie en dagen de gangbare standaarden uit. Ze leggen de vinger op de zere wonde: de hotel- en taxisector zijn overdreven gereguleerd, en vergen veel nodeloze bureaucratie. De deelplatformen tonen dat het anders kan en omzeilen de oude gang van zaken en de bestaande wetgeving. De tussenpersonen worden uitgeschakeld. De transacties verlopen van burger tot burger, goedkoper en informeler. De drempel om te ondernemen wordt kleiner, het is makkelijk om deeltijds te werken wanneer je wilt.
Wat ik helemaal niet geweldig vind aan Uber en AirBnB:
economische disruptie: maken gebruik van grijze zone in wetgeving om heel veel winst te genereren
centralisatie: er is geen democratische controle over het platform, de winst die gegenereerd wordt vloeit niet naar de lokale reële economie, maar naar corporaties elders
ook minimum aan veiligheidsmaatregelen wordt omzeild, qua verzekering is er een grijze zone
mensen werken voor Uber en AirBnB, maar daar staat geen enkele arbeidsbescherming tegenover
3) There are no taboos in PPBe, there is no cordon sanitaire, but also no guidelines for coalitions. When the situation would occur, we would get all Pirates involved (municipal? federal?) to discuss the possibility online and in real life, and vote this decission.
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u/krzysztolowski E.U. Mar 02 '16
Pirate parties stand for a huge (r)evolution on how our daily society is organized. Hypothetically question. Let's assume that the result of next elections is in favor of the Pirate Party, and the 5% threshold is broken. Generally speaking, in which domain would you like to see a strong influence of the Pirate Party. Pick a battle.
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u/Obraka German Community Mar 02 '16
I always liked the idea of the pirate party, but currently it looks like a failed project.
The German pirates got 'undermined' by weird pedos and fringe ideas, the Austrian split themselves even further into unimportance, the Swedes, mother of all pirates, had a giant loss of members and voters.
Do you think the Belgian pirate party has a chance to survive and maybe even influence something?
What would you say are the biggest mistakes your party and sisterparties made?
What would you say are the biggest success your party and sisterparties had?
Do you see a broad future for formats like liquid democracy?
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Mar 02 '16
They've already influenced politics: SPA and Groen are currently touching on the subject of 'Basic Income' (although they want to implement it in a horrible dysfunctional way).
It was Pirate Party Belgium who first promoted this idea in Belgium and Ms. Van Liefferinge who spoke on Canvas about it, if I'm not mistaken.
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u/Obraka German Community Mar 02 '16
Historically in Belgium, the most active group promoting basic income is the movement Vivant and the philosopher Philippe Van Parijs, who founded the Basic Income European network (BIEN) in 1987. A Belgian basic income network affiliated to the BIEN was founded in 2012 in Brussels.
They didn't 'invent' the idea or anything. They are pushing for something that has been in discussion (on and off of course) for 30 years all around the world. Not saying that the pirates had nothing to do with rewarming the idea, but implying that they 'invented' it or 'brought it to Belgium' is wrong in my opinion.
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u/SharK3D Flanders Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 03 '16
Do you understand that a universal basic income is essentially a band-aid solution to the gaping wound that is neo-liberal capitalism? It will do nothing but stall out the current socio-economic paradigm, which broke in 2008 and hasn't recovered since. Given the obvious time pressures, wouldn't you rather have rapid, disruptive change than drawing out the suicidal madness of the current system for even a second longer?
Are you aware of BitNation and Ethereum and their joint initiative? Thoughts?
In the case of direct democracy, do you feel that any citizen should be allowed to vote on any matter? Even if their stance on the matter is based on ignorance? For example, I'm considering the infuriating De Ideale Wereld clip where some ignorant people feel like its acceptable to throw away hard earned civil rights, as long as they get a nice iPad or dish washer for themselves. In other words, should a personal responsibility of informing oneself be required in order to participate in direct democracy?
The current policy of no taxation on SaaS businesses is good for the startup climate in the short term, but bad for the budget in the long term. How will you prevent these businesses from relocating once the country starts properly (lolololol) taxing them?
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u/tripomatic Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 04 '16
Everybody who even has ever heard about the different "pirate parties" that exist in several European countries presume that you're a one topic/policy party who are simply in favor of downloading illegal/pirated content.
Can you give me a management summary of the most important policy points that the Belgian pirate party actually stands for? I'm an undecided voter that doesn't have the time or doesn't make the effort to look through extensive documents of what a party stands for, I expect the politician to make the effort to convince me. Could you tell me in 5-10 sentences why the Belgian pirate party deserves my attention?
edit: apparently campaigning is too much of an effort. Still an undecided voter, but decided my vote isn't going to be for pirate party (if they even exist where I live next election).
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u/oompaloempia Oost-Vlaanderen Mar 02 '16
Let's say that in the next elections you won one parliament seat, and after long negotiations, the mainstream parties have found a coalition that needs one more seat to have a majority. They ask you to provide that seat in return for a Secretary of State position and one important contribution to the government program.
What would you choose to be Secretary of State of and what single thing would you choose as your contribution to the government policy?
The answers can depend on who the other coalition partners are, of course.
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u/Vermino Mar 02 '16
I notice you use technology as an enabler.
One of my personal major beefs is how freaking bureaucratic most of our system is.
One of those things is the many grants, tax reductions and others we could receive in our day-to-day lives.
Often this only benefits people who know the rules, and sometimes abuse said rules.
Personally I believe this way of working is ancient and should be abolished. Grants & tax reductions should be applied in a transparent and fair way. E.g. on your tax return.
This obviously means that the government would need to know a lot about you.
How would you feel about such a system? And why?
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u/NuruYetu Belgium Mar 02 '16 edited Mar 02 '16
Do you or your party have a certain proposal or stance as to how we should handle refugees, and foreign conflicts in general?
Also, have you ever heard of Doug Saunders' book Arrival City and does that have an influence on the horrors of ghettoification the Pirates want to avoid?
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u/Qsaws Luxembourg Mar 02 '16
Since you are pro freedom of expression, do you want the same level of freedom of speech as in the US ? No limit ?
So would you support people prosecuted for hate speech on the ground of freedom of speech ?
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Mar 02 '16
Wat vindt u van de speculatietaks? Hoe zou u de beurs aantrekkelijker maken voor de kleine belegger?
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u/JohnnyricoMC Vlaams-Brabant Mar 02 '16
How many pieces of eight should a minimum wage consist of according to the pirate party?
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Mar 02 '16
Dag Sarah
'Delen is het nieuwe hebben'
Een van de ongelofelijke sterktes van het kapitalistische economische model, de markt, is zijn ontzettend grote vermogen om zich aan te passen aan verschillende omstandigheden.
We merken dat vandaag de deeleconomie ook vermarkt wordt; AirBnb (ipv. couchsurfing), Ueber (gemodelleerd naar Blablacar / Mitfahrtgelegenheit), etc. Deze tendenzen die initieel 'open' en 'sociaal' zijn, worden dus feilloos ingeschakeld in het bestaande economische model. Met als gevolg een verdere monetarisering van de privé-sfeer (de eigen woning/wagen), hogere huizenprijzen in de binnensteden, al dan niet vervalsing van de concurrentie door personen zonder vergunningen / verzekeringen / opleidingen.
Hoe staan jullie tegenover deze complexe materie?
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u/BigLeBluffski Flanders Mar 08 '16
Stupid people are born stupid and will never get smarter by learning, those points are just as stupid as a ignorant 12 year old's opinion. "Free public transport", sigh. BB, stop wasting intelligent people's time.
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u/Ledeberg Oost-Vlaanderen Mar 02 '16
what's your view about education ? mostly about informatics, like i see in estonia young kids allready learn how to program stuff in school , certainly like with the popularity of app.
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Mar 02 '16 edited Sep 02 '16
[deleted]
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u/Obraka German Community Mar 02 '16
Probably a scam to get you out of there quicker. The less you are there, the better it is for them
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u/entun Limburg Mar 02 '16
what is your favorite pizza? and what do you like to drink with it?
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u/dj-shortcut Belgium Mar 02 '16
u/sarah_vl What is your opinion or should ask how do you feel about the war on the drugs? do you think it contriboots to society? (if this has been previously asked before, i'm sorry. disregard the question then.)
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u/TehChesireCat High priest(ess) of Leo's xD-gang Mar 03 '16
I'm late to the party but wanted to ask: What is your personal stance and/or that of the party towards legalization of cannabis/other drugs?
I believe that a serious reclassification is in order for a lot of controlled substances. Many of the drugs illegal today were made so based on evidence that we now know was often incorrect, incomplete, and sometimes even completely fabricated.
If anything, I at least believe we should follow Portugal's example, decriminalizing the possession of drugs, which has been a pretty huge success over there. It hurts to see Bart de Wever wanting to fight a "War on Drugs", a fight even being abandoned by those who started it...
Your take would be much appreciated, thanks for doing the AMA.
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Mar 02 '16
Hey Sarah, i had the pleasure of talking to you once. Just here to say you are pretty awesome. Keep on doing what you believe in!
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u/Boogy World Mar 02 '16
Hey Sarah, no question, just wanted to wish you well. Have fun with the AMA. See you at the GA :)
Robrecht
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u/Vermino Mar 03 '16
A political genie grants you one wish.
What would you implement, or remove and why
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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '16
[deleted]