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Liquid democracy?
- Thread starter Will Wiley
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untermensche
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Where democracy needs to become a part of everyday life is at the workplace.
Dictatorship in the workplace is a primitive concept.
Dictatorship in the workplace is a primitive concept.
Jimmy Higgins
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It is a brilliant idea! Nothing will ever get done, but it is brilliant. Power to the people!
Though, I am curious, what is the difference between "full decisional control" and anarchy? Government needs to main parts, something to create laws and something to enforce laws. "Full decisional control" would seem to hamstring government on the second part.
Though, I am curious, what is the difference between "full decisional control" and anarchy? Government needs to main parts, something to create laws and something to enforce laws. "Full decisional control" would seem to hamstring government on the second part.
Who gets defined as an expert? I don't want some creationist deciding what's taught in my kids' biology class simply because a bunch of morons delegated their votes to him.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
Most any form of government will work if the populace is educated and informed. The more educated and more informed, regardless what style government, things will continue to improve imho.
So instead of trying to invent utopian government systems let's just get educated. If people are still living their lives for a 2000 year old flying Suprjew, we have a problem that no style of government can fix.
So instead of trying to invent utopian government systems let's just get educated. If people are still living their lives for a 2000 year old flying Suprjew, we have a problem that no style of government can fix.
If direct democracy was going to solve our problems I imagine representative democracy would solve them too.
If one views representative democracy as failing, I imagine one would expect direct democracy to be even more prone to failure for the same reasons.
The key premise being whether the average person is or isn't sufficiently knowledgeable and engaged with complicated issues to make good decisions for others about them.
Acquaintance with reality leads me to believe a great many people are not.
If one views representative democracy as failing, I imagine one would expect direct democracy to be even more prone to failure for the same reasons.
The key premise being whether the average person is or isn't sufficiently knowledgeable and engaged with complicated issues to make good decisions for others about them.
Acquaintance with reality leads me to believe a great many people are not.
untermensche
Contributor
Only if the representatives actually represented the interests of the people they are supposed to represent, as opposed to our current disaster where only those with great wealth have any representation in government.
Jimmy Higgins
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Big money has usually had notable influence with Government. This isn't a new phenomenon.
If people were effective at voting they would.
untermensche
Contributor
People have a lot to overcome.
A media that distorts and is in bed with politicians for one.
How do 60% of the people one day suddenly support an invasion of Iraq?
There are strong forces working against the interests of ordinary people and practically nobody working for them.
And with direct democracy people would get what they want good and hard.
We'd probably be invading some country or setting up some internment camp every week.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
And what is to protect us from pseudo-experts? Climate deniers, right winged economists and other nonsense that gains a plurality of acceptance among the great unwashed?
Bomb#20
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The general concept seems sound to me, and in the computer age there's no good reason not to do it -- classic representative democracy is an 18th-century solution to an 18th-century communication problem that no longer exists. The devil is always in the details, though. I think the "delegate their voting power to different experts in different domains" idea is a recipe for handing excessive power to whichever official or committee is authorized to categorize bills into domains and decide which of your proxies represents you on each bill. It's probably safer to only have one person you authorize to represent you. If there's a bill coming to a vote where you don't trust her to represent you properly you can always vote on it yourself and thereby subtract one from her voting weight on that bill, or else pick a different legislator to represent you. In this sort of system there's no reason to ever hold elections or have terms of office -- anybody can change who represents him at the drop of a hat. Besides, in a legislature with hundreds or thousands of representatives, you should have no trouble finding somebody whose thinking is pretty much in sync with yours -- none of this holding your nose and voting for the lesser evil because every party disagrees with you in a big way on something important.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
A proposal. Everybody starts out with 1 vote. One can take a test, prepared by experts to judge your basic knowledge of an issue. And according to your test score gain more votes. Knowing the amount of national debt gets you more voting power than somebody who does not, on economic issue voting. For example, the CBO estimates the Bush tax cuts of 2003 currently represent 24% of current deficits. If one knows that, one should be given more voting power. Somebody who thinks foreign aid represents a high proportion of our deficet does not gain anything from being ignorant on this point, which many people are. Thus those too lazy to take a test, or whose information is faulty due to Faux news agitprop do not have as much power as those who do their homework properly.
So on a liquid democracy vote on an economic issue, John may have 1 vote but Jane might have 22 votes. Lets put a big fat thumb on the scale for the smart and well informed voter.
So on a liquid democracy vote on an economic issue, John may have 1 vote but Jane might have 22 votes. Lets put a big fat thumb on the scale for the smart and well informed voter.
Who prepares these answers? If one analysis shows that Bush's tax cuts are responsible for 24% of the deficit and another says that this is wrong and they're only responsible for 12% of the debt, how many votes does a guy who says it's 12% get? If an economics PhD makes a minor math mistake in his indepth analysis and ends up with 12% and some dude vaguely recalls the number 24 from the news scroll on the bottom of the screen while he was checking for the sports scores, I don't think that second guy should be the one with more voting power. Additionally, if you say it's 23%, do you get more votes than someone who says it's 50% or are you both just wrong?
Is there a time limit on the tests? If I answer 24% in one second because I know the answer off the top of my head and another guy answers 24% after taking thirty seconds to do a google search and find the answer, do we get marked the same?
Also, how are these tests administered? Given that partisan groups would have the correct answers online or emailed out to their supporters within minutes of them becoming available, they'd seem to measure one's ability to get groups of people to type in answers far more than they'd measure how informed any of the people completing the test actually are. They're not going to limit voting to a five minute period, they're not going to individually monitor the millions of people who want to vote and there are going to be a finite number of possible questions, so the most likely outcome of this system would seem to completely undermine the entire rationale of this system.
tupac chopra
Veteran Member
Take a test? lol
arkirk
Veteran Member
When you seriously consider this proposition you begin to realize that it too boils down to some sort of popularity contest. A politician puts words together to soothe, lure, intimidate, and frighten the voter into voting for him or her. Somehow we have to sort out humanistic values and skim off all the allure of fraudulent efforts by some to attain power and wealth. Reagan's "shining city on the hill" was just an off hand reference to Utopia...something that never was and never will be. His lack of human values was eclipsed temporarily with his Utopian tales. I was in Reagan Country the other day (Simi Valley and environs) (the home of his ranch and his library) and it did not appear as a shining city at all but rather an extremely inefficient carbon consumptive commuter community. People will vote for that place without any notion of what it means to the rest of the world. I am not trying to be undemocratic, yet it seems our democracy has given us our current problems.
I have opposed "experts" in public permitting hearings who were liars. We ended up winning only because there were enough of us and we were determined to uncover their lies. It's not a pretty picture. What I am getting at is that I think corruption could easily invade this Liquid Democracy type system and that it might not solve as many problems as you would like. Figures may not lie, but liars can figure and I have seen the best of paid liars figure very profitably indeed.
Ya, it's like what joedad said above - the only real solution is an educated and informed public. If you have that and you're living in a dictatorship, the dictator will pretty much be forced to make educated and informed decisions because the maintenance costs of going against public opinion would end up seriously cutting into the amount of free time he has to play with his pet tigers. If you don't have that, any form of democracy runs into serious errors which can't really be overcome.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
There are a number of government agencies that are tasked with examining the facts and getting them right. Such as the CBO. One can download the CBO's historical tables and examine the facts for yourself. If you can open them up in a spread sheet. The national debt day by day is available on line.
Under Bush and the GOP senate an house, this doubled from $6.07 trillion to $11.929 trillion under Bush. Who gave us all that debt? The Democrats shriek the wingy dingers. Well no. Lots of economists have debunked the idea the GOP is good for the economy. Using the official figures. What we need to do is incentivize learning the facts. Survey's have demonstrated many Americans are just plain ignorant. 10% did not know the Earth orbited the Sun for example. Do we want them voting on science issues?
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...le-sams-money-goes-to-foreign-aid-guess-again
In December, the Kaiser Family Foundation polled 1,505 people. Only 1 in 20 knew the right answer: less than 1 percent of the $4 trillion federal budget goes to foreign aid. The average respondent estimated that 26 percent went toward assisting other countries.
If you can't even find Iraq on a map, should your vote count as much as somebody who has a basic grasp of where Iraq is and other details about that nation?