At a minimum, vote AGAINST the corrupt. If that means your vote gets wasted, so be it - if you're worried about legitimizing it, instead legitimize your opposition. If there becomes a sizable (and measured!) block of disaffected votes that politicians can try to grab, maybe they'll just do that.

Not voting just legitimizes the view that you complain but don't act.

(And if you're sick of your options being so bad, start trying to get different voting methods in place locally in the interest of getting them in place on a larger scale. First Past the Post is a terrible voting system)

Preferential voting, or "how to vote for your real choices and not throw away your vote"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method#Comparison_tabl...

This is a good example of a common sense reform that strengthens every ideal that we are supposed to hold dear in this country, but that threatens the establishment powers therefore stands zero chance of happening.

..uh well with a defeatist attitude you've just validated a self fulfilling prophecy without even trying.

Do you know why money matters in politics? Because it buys votes. Politicians are willing to sell their opinions for money because it is expensive to run a campaign convincing people who are otherwise apathetic to vote for you. And that is were most political campaigns are won because most people who aren't apathetic about an election have already made up their mind before the campaigns' marketing efforts even start up.

It all comes back to votes.

Yeah, and if you don't vote you get what the money wants without a fight. If you work to create things like Uber, to solve a first-world problem such as "mediocre taxis" you should be able to work towards a communication system that can combat traditional marketing and its effect on voting patterns. Otherwise, you're just admitting it's "hard" and you don't want to work on "hard" problems...

>> work towards a communication system that can combat traditional marketing and its effect on voting patterns

We already did something like that. Obama got elected due to some internet based marketing innovations. Guess what happened next ? both parties copied those methods(AFAIK), and now we're at the same point, where resources matter.

Yup. A few lines of code and an app can totally bypass decades of psychological research regarding marketing.

Worked for open-source software. In a relatively short time (10 years +/-?), the traditional capitalistic model which worked for centuries seems to have been supplanted to at least some degree. I was thinking of several things: 1) Modern technology to provide direct communication, 2) Sheer numbers of people in each age cohort and 3) The desire to effect change.

Social media can slaughter a movie in a day or two. I would think it would have a useful effect on its users, assuming they were willing to make the effort.

Open Source was the capitalist response to Free Software, capturing the cost reduction of shared and unpaid voluntary work and reselling it as closed systems. If anything, it underlines the point that any change will be subverted and used against its originators.