Accountability arenas

Overview
Civilization currently has four (possibly five) major official arenas in which issues are ultimately resolved by dialogue and disputation.
 * science
 * markets
 * democracy (voting)
 * the court system
 * the internet (newly emerging; new but still fairly crude tools rapidly being developed)

Public discussion of issues has traditionally taken place in a number of additional venues:
 * mainstream media:
 * newspapers (editorials and letters)
 * television (debates, editorials)
 * town meetings (generally overburdened and barely adequate for dealing with local issues)

Related Pages

 * Issuepedia:Dispute Resolution Technology: The invention and rapid spread of computers, as well as the extremely rapid development of new software, is causing new computer/internet-based tools to arise on a scale measurable in years or months.

Recent Events
Newspapers and television have become increasingly compromised all over the world by media consolidation. Within the 🇺🇸, the Bush II administration has been engaged in anti-democratic efforts to undermine the effectiveness of many or most of these arenas.

Links

 * 2006-04-05 When only the glib win, we all lose