Techdirt Podcast Episode 80: Can Direct Democracy Work?
from the good-vote-bad-vote dept
Technology has made "direct democracy" — letting citizens vote on specific, granular issues instead of just electing representatives — more viable than ever, but does that mean it's a good idea? This week, we discuss the ins and outs of direct democracy, including a special addendum on the surprising results of the Brexit referendum.
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Filed Under: brexit, direct democracy, podcast, politics, voting
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nope
No one WANTS it to work. If we cannot even keep an indirect Democracy, which is a Republic working how in the fuck sticks do you expect a direct democracy to work.
There is a fundamental problem with people in general. The majority cannot and will not effectively rule itself.
A democracy is two wolves and 1 lamb deciding what is for lunch.
A democracy will stand until they citizens learn that they can vote themselves largess through the government.
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Electronic voting machines are as good as encryption with multiple back doors. Voting on the web is less secure.
The average person has basically no knowledge on which to make decisions. Look at the recent string of elected officials/candidates.
Democracy/Republic may be better than anything else, but they devolve to oligarchy backed by police states.
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Re:
We can say the same for 99% of the politicians.
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Electronic voting machines are as good as encryption with multiple back doors. Voting on the web is less secure.
The average person has basically no knowledge on which to make decisions. Look at the recent string of elected officials/candidates.
Democracy/Republic may be better than anything else, but they devolve to oligarchy backed by police states.
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Problems of democracy?
However, I can take a shot at why technology is making things worse, and it comes down to bad economic models. Consider the google, for example. On the surface, it looks great and extremely profitable, but in their never-ending quest for more of your time and attention because they NEVER have a "big enough" profit, they are now focused on stuffing your eyeballs and earholes with exactly what you want to hear for fear of losing your attention.
Per my sig, freedom (as a justification for democracy) is about meaningful and unconstrained choice. Choice is NOT meaningful when all of the information has been slanted in favor of not offending you. Even worse, choice is NOT unconstrained when your personal information is being collected and used to manipulate you.
Not just the google, but I think they are probably the worst corporation on these lines. The 'no evil' thing is dead. The google's current motto must be "All your attention are belong to us, the google."
Weirdly enough, I think there is a solution, and it could begin on websites such as TechDirt. It would involve a different economic model focused on SOLVING the problems that the website's articles (or videos etc.) are telling us about.
My new motto is "Details available upon (polite) request, or even better if maybe you have a better idea."
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Our current system is broken due to First Past the Post voting.
They way to fix things is a truly representative government, which requires a change to the voting method. STV voting is the minimum fairly simple to explain. It focuses on making as many voters happy as possible and is a good topic for one of those famous California propositions.
CGP Grey recently did several videos on STV elections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI for the first one.
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How about in congress?
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ultimate direct democracy
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Why are majorities more tyranical than ruling minorities?
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Christ, can someone shut up the loudmouth?
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24 States already have direct democracy and it works pretty well
Ballot initiatives are initiated by voters, so WE get to set the agenda. Referendums are referred by legislatures to voters. It's fair to say that the Brexit vote was an overreaction caused by the inability of the *citizens* of the European Union to set the agenda, with corporations in charge thru "Representatives."
This is an example of what 4-term New York Governor Al Smith said: "If there's a problem with democracy, the solution is more democracy." European voters need to set the agenda with ballot initiatives like voters in 24 US states.
Commenters are correct that internet is not secure for voting -because ballots are anonymous, unlike credit card or other financial transactions. While Flux, Liquid Voting, etc are very convenient, they are not necessary.
I've beenorking formore and better direct democracy for 27 years, including directly with Senator Mike Gravel. Here's my latest article: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/2/1508657/-Why-Bernie-Sanders-should-put-Direct-Democracy-on- top-of-our-agenda
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Don't replace, improve
Our current election technology allows for much error and potential corruption. If an effort was made in the electronic voting arena that was wholly open source, software, hardware, firmware, wares I haven't thought of, and vetted for a long time on the Internets that it might become at least as reliable as our current technology, and maybe even better.
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Idealistic
Also, government is a complex system. How it chooses between two outcomes is almost always irrelevant to my life. How does anyone know which is the right answer? There might not even be a right answer. Why should I invest any more time on it?
Many economists think voting is a waste of time.
And finally, is democracy important or the appearance of democracy? Does it actually matter if all we have is democracy theater?
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