7) SOCIAL    RELATIONS

Nowadays, we notice the birth of a new kind of social relations, founded on technology. In the future a new system will rule relationships between people. Thanks to telematics everybody will bring his vote to the whole community and in this way has the power to decide. Once the citizen has this opportunity, for the first time he will become a political life protagonist, replacing politicians. It is a historical event that has never happened before; technological progress will make it possible. The famous “common house” would be realised thanks to telematics. In this way everybody, from everywhere and at any moment, could get in touch to make agreements concerning the community’s interests. All of us could link up with the local and the central authorities at any time of the day and watch national and local broadcasts through television, computers, or any other media that will have been invented. Telematics offers equal opportunities and the power to choose people from different social background. It levels the influence guarding respect of different ideas and decision can have more value than another one. Only numbers have a quantitative value, while each idea is supposed to have a qualitative value. Some people reply it is impossible for the people to make decisions. It would be an ingenuous and fast solution. They affirm this solution to be a paradox and that nothing similar has never happened before, we think it is time to carry out our proposal. In the rich world there is not ignorance any more, this is proven by modern media. We think that the false and dishonest bureaucrats are just afraid to lose their privileges. With our new system, the administration is within everyone’s reach. We can get in contact with it from our house, with no fear, not being conditioned by external influences. We would finally be the owners of our choices, represented by a government whose aim is to work properly under people’s control. In this way, we obtain a kind of permanent assembly composed by the members of the whole community. From home, everyone will be free to join the administration whenever he wants. It will be possible to watch the broadcasts at any time too. In fact, media will broadcast all day long, and the most interesting subjects can be recorded. Adopting the new system, nobody would enjoy privileges or make profit of the situation. More or less transparent alliances would have no reason to exist. There would be no more dirty deals. People’s relations with the Civil Service, would take place only in an official way, any attempts to cheat would not work. The masses would not approve it. To create a model of a democratic system ruled by technology, would fit a little village with no more than 15,000 inhabitants. Let’s think, for example, of a little village of the Po Valley like Bussolengo. Here we find a main center with 90% of the inhabitants, while the remaining 10% is dislocated in the surroundings. It is a small and flat country. With a well hidden aerial that works at a low frequency, it is possible to reach all the village’s houses. The near villages would not be not disturbed and anyway their aerials work at an higher frequency. To attract people from Bussolengo attention, we can transmit the broadcast of a delicate matter that causes polemics between the citizens. This would be the closing to the traffic of Bussolengo main square. This is the square “XXVI Aprile”, considered the main meeting point of the village. First, of all it would be transmitted all day long for two weeks, a talk-show introducing well-known experts of Bussolengo. These are: an architect specialised in city planning, councillors responsible for traffic and the ones for trade (the tradesmen are always the more interested in this kind of discussions), some citizen, a tradesman, a street trader (every weeks in the square takes place a local market). In a word, everyone wants to express his opinion . They will be asked to suggest a solution to the problem, each one of them will be able to own opinion. TV programs can be recorded free in broadcasting studios with all the technical aids. They will be “undertitled” by concerning information. So people will read at what time there are talk-shows they can take part in personally or calling from home. Undertitles will give more details about the TV program. Furthermore, adopting “Delphi’s method, the Data Processing Center will transmit the percentage of people agreed with the closing to the traffic of the square. There will be 3 possibility: the choice n°1 (for the closing of the traffic), the choice n° 2 (against the closing), and the choice n° 3 (for a part-time closing). Once the time for the broadcast is off, it is possible to vote with a telephone call, at any time for 15 days. Citizens will be asked by an answering machine to make their choices by dialling numbers on the telephone. First of all they have to register themselves by a personal and secret code number. For each secret code, there is only one opportunity to choose. This latter, is immediately registered by the Data Processing Center with no further possibility to change it. There are a large amount of questions to vote on as well as a fixed time for the talk-show and time to choose. This process concerns only the first period. After some time, people will get more involved in the whole matter. They will be asked to put more effort for a better result. Techinics offers us many opportunities, but the citizens has to get only gradually involved. For this reason, during the broadcasts, the same questions are rise several times and for a long period, so that the people get used to telematics. At the beginning computer will not be used because the people have to understand telematics first. Once we have convinced Bussolengo municipality to fund the purchasing of a Data Processing Center and of a broadcasting station, we would give the task to some University Faculty to realise an accurately detailed plan involving volunteer students. These can study in a practical way the subjects of their exams.

Ottorino Rizzi 1992 e successivi.

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