Major studies have indicated that some people won because of that announcement. They would have been voted out, had the people who were planning to go to the polls, gone to the polls. IT made it possible. All sorts of other interesting things are happening. If every major issue becomes a poll that everybody participates in on a weekly or daily basis that is very different from the kind of democracy and representation that we are used to.
Freedom is a human value that is often ignored until it is taken away.
Professor Bynum considered the plight of the severely disabled. Normally that person would require other people to wash, feed and take care of him or her. That person would not be able to hold down a job or function in a normal way. Now take a computer system that is especially designed for such a person to use, for example, if that person can wink an eye it can activate a computer. Then with the right software, you can do word processing, database management you can surf the web, you can do just about anything anybody else can do.