HOWTO win the nerd vote

By Cory Doctorow at 4:07 am Friday, Oct 24

Matt "Metafilter" Haughey's laid out a 10-point plan for winning the nerd vote that I heartily endorse -- this is a platform I'd stand up and salute if any politician had the guts to endorse it. The points are: Broadband everywhere, universal healthcare, no federal tax on Internet purchases, renewed commitment to education, renewed commitment to science, real changes to transportation, early voting by mail, revamping copyright, a better job from the patent office, and open government.

1. Broadband Everywhere. I want crazy South Korea/Japan style broadband I've heard about for years: 100Mbps (upload and download) fiber connections for less than $50/month with unlimited bandwidth and the ability to run your own servers. I know the US is a big spread out country and it makes this stuff somewhat difficult/costly, but it's an ambitious goal with a ton of payoff. We don't have manufacturing jobs in the US anymore: we don't make things, we don't build things, we don't sew things here, but we do have lots of ideas and inventions.

The economy of the future in the US is going to be intertwined with the internet and if every man, woman, and child in America has all the internet access they could ever need and could quickly program, build, and deploy their own stuff on their own mega-fast lines, we'd have a million and one programmers and designers and crafters and more contributing to a new vibrant future economy. If fiber everywhere is too much, at least get 3G coverage in more places.

How to get my nerd vote