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Prior to class on Thursday, I was unfamiliar with E-Estonia, but upon hearing its description in class, it immediately sparked my interest. E-Citizens? That's crazy! In many ways, Estonia is following ideas which have already been suggested by a number of political thinkers. Specifially, I'm talking about online voting. Estonia allows citizens to vote in elections from their personal computer, I would think to increase voter turnout. While many people in the US may object to such an idea, saying someone would undoubtably hack into the system, it likely works much better in Estonia sheerly because of its small size. Government officials can keep a closer watch and have better control over the servers that we could have in the US. Online voting has then spiraled into online everything - registering businesses, paying taxes, looking up health records, even paying for parking or vending machines. Everything is further connected, founded in order to make things easier, and innovative. Should the server remain secure and functioning, I would think E-Estonia would skyrocket Estonia's economy. More relevant to our course, though, is the social implications of an E-society. If you can do so much from home, what happens to community?

I am excited to learn more about E-Estonia, and I wonder if it is the direction the world is heading. I still have not learned very much about E-citizenship, but I know it wil be an interesting topic with interesting implications. If you can have citizens in all areas of the world, it would really break down the idea of geography weighing heavily on community and notions of nationalism. I want to know how this society really came about and is sustained, the role of social media, and the overall satisfaction of Estonians.