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I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals. In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time s

I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals. In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. They'd at most have read the opinions of some journalists or listened to a news reporter, and would make their decision after discussions between similar poorly informed friends/colleagues. Fierce debates != well-informed debates. We elect representatives because it's known that the body politic, once it reaches a large size, doesn't have the time to be well-informed on all decisions they'd need to make as a pure democracy. To suggest so exposes a serious need for a second look at the situation. Representative democracy isn't elective oligarchy.

Ntrails 11y ago
Switzerland, actually, is bloody good at this referendum thing. They do it all the time, and because of that the level of debate is relatively high and the populace make far better choices than you would see in a country without the same situation.
- _delirium 11y ago
  Can you point to a Swiss referendum campaign with a high level of debate? I've only closely followed one referendum campaign in Switzerland, I'll admit, but the level of debate in that one was quite low, even by the standards of a typical European election campaign. That was the 2014 referendum on whether to put quotas on Schengen-zone immigration [1]. It was basically the usual shouting match over immigration you'd expect anywhere, full of a lot of vitriol and not much in the way of rational debate or accurate statistics. The outcome was also what you'd expect anywhere else too, predictable more by demographics than argumentation: rural areas and less-educated people voted to restrict immigration, cities and the highly educated voted not to, so the final outcome depended mainly on voter turnout among each of those groups. Since getting your base as riled up as possible is a better way of getting turnout than rational debate, that's what both sides did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_February_2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_...
- vanilla-almond 11y ago
  >the level of debate is relatively high and the populace make far better choices than you would see in a country without the same situation. What about the Swiss referendum on an absolute ban on the construction of minarets? (note: not a ban on building mosques) Switzerland, like many other European countries, has planning laws that decide on the architectural appropriateness of a building in its surrounding environment on a case-by-case basis. But this referendum, passed by a majority of the Swiss population, placed a complete ban on a minaret ever being built again in Switzerland. That was a completely democratic decision by the people of Switzerland. But was it based on informed debate? Or reactionary and emotional appeals? [1] [1]http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/11/ch-1.jpg http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/11/ch-1.jpg
  - vixen99 11y ago
    Wonderful buttons for pressing eh? "Reactionary" & "Emotional" - words which in the absence of qualification are essentially meaningless or as in this case, take on the perjorative meaning you like to confer on them, to justify an unargued position. However great the temptation, I take note that HN is not the venue for a continuation of this debate.
    - elbear 11y ago
      What would be a non-emotional reason for banning the construction of minarets?
wazoox 11y ago
> I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals. Actually all of them. > In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. Because most people have been mercilessly been beaten into obedience, and the belief that they aren't actually able to think by themselves, that they're inferior to the oligarchs in command (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man). In 2005, in France, the "referendum on a European Constitution" lit an immense debate, and there was an incredibly well-formed decision on an enormously obtuse tome of legalese. You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience. If you think people aren't able to think and decide autonomously for themselves, you are actively opposing democracy. Ordinary elective oligarchy is the ideology that mostly pass as "democracy" nowadays, but please don't stay abused and go on pretending you like democracy when you don't.
- tonfa 11y ago
  > You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience. Or in 90%+ of the case they just follow the opinion of the federal council.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- dozzie 11y ago
  > [...] (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man). I would be surprised if he would be better than The Garbageman. http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman
- ethbro 11y ago
  Both of you are correct. The problem with direct democracy these days is that it ignores the power of mass media, which is to say it ignores the influence of money on a statistically significant portion of the voters. Premise 1: if you continue adding people to the voting pool on an issue, at some point (X) you're going to exceed the number of people who have interest / time / capability to render themselves informed. When you do, mass media begins to exert a much greater effect on the outcome (as these people are more susceptible to having their opinions swayed). Premise 2: If you shrink the pool of potential voters, but keep the money involved the same, then corruption increases -- There are of course things you can do legally to fight both of these negative outcomes, but I feel you'll always be fighting the basic tendencies. The solution then isn't direct democracy (where mass media overrides logic) or oligarchy (where corruption rules) but some point in between.
isolate 11y ago
> Representative democracy isn't elective oligarchy. It's kind of funny, because when I looked up the word oligarchy, I noticed that Wikipedia had an entry for the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#United_States
- zipwitch 11y ago
  Both the ruling class and the public of the 21st Century United States have a great deal of emotional investment in pretending that we are some sort of hyper-equitable nation, governed wisely by the public in the interests of freedom and the general good, instead of our government being a plutocratic shit-show.
  - isolate 11y ago
    To be fair, the indoctrination starts at a very young age.
nailer 11y ago
> In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision It is the responsibility of those advocating for a position in favour/against fractional reserves to inform voters and debate in front of them. Experts who can't or refuse to communicate to laypersons on matters than concern the latter are near useless.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. Do they study laws, ethics, psychology, sociology, or criminology before making laws? The average voter on any issue is not educated. Why should any issue be given special consideration for this? And if this is an issue with every issue, then the issue is with democracy itself.
green7ea 11y ago
We can observe from the american congress that an elected minority is no better informed than the population at large. They have passed laws that were far to large for them to have read in the given time, they don't even have debates.

Ntrails 11y ago

Switzerland, actually, is bloody good at this referendum thing. They do it all the time, and because of that the level of debate is relatively high and the populace make far better choices than you would see in a country without the same situation.

_delirium 11y ago
Can you point to a Swiss referendum campaign with a high level of debate? I've only closely followed one referendum campaign in Switzerland, I'll admit, but the level of debate in that one was quite low, even by the standards of a typical European election campaign. That was the 2014 referendum on whether to put quotas on Schengen-zone immigration [1]. It was basically the usual shouting match over immigration you'd expect anywhere, full of a lot of vitriol and not much in the way of rational debate or accurate statistics. The outcome was also what you'd expect anywhere else too, predictable more by demographics than argumentation: rural areas and less-educated people voted to restrict immigration, cities and the highly educated voted not to, so the final outcome depended mainly on voter turnout among each of those groups. Since getting your base as riled up as possible is a better way of getting turnout than rational debate, that's what both sides did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_February_2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_...
vanilla-almond 11y ago
>the level of debate is relatively high and the populace make far better choices than you would see in a country without the same situation. What about the Swiss referendum on an absolute ban on the construction of minarets? (note: not a ban on building mosques) Switzerland, like many other European countries, has planning laws that decide on the architectural appropriateness of a building in its surrounding environment on a case-by-case basis. But this referendum, passed by a majority of the Swiss population, placed a complete ban on a minaret ever being built again in Switzerland. That was a completely democratic decision by the people of Switzerland. But was it based on informed debate? Or reactionary and emotional appeals? [1] [1]http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/11/ch-1.jpg http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/11/ch-1.jpg
- vixen99 11y ago
  Wonderful buttons for pressing eh? "Reactionary" & "Emotional" - words which in the absence of qualification are essentially meaningless or as in this case, take on the perjorative meaning you like to confer on them, to justify an unargued position. However great the temptation, I take note that HN is not the venue for a continuation of this debate.
  - elbear 11y ago
    What would be a non-emotional reason for banning the construction of minarets?

wazoox 11y ago

> I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals. Actually all of them. > In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. Because most people have been mercilessly been beaten into obedience, and the belief that they aren't actually able to think by themselves, that they're inferior to the oligarchs in command (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man). In 2005, in France, the "referendum on a European Constitution" lit an immense debate, and there was an incredibly well-formed decision on an enormously obtuse tome of legalese. You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience. If you think people aren't able to think and decide autonomously for themselves, you are actively opposing democracy. Ordinary elective oligarchy is the ideology that mostly pass as "democracy" nowadays, but please don't stay abused and go on pretending you like democracy when you don't.

tonfa 11y ago
> You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience. Or in 90%+ of the case they just follow the opinion of the federal council.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dozzie 11y ago
> [...] (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man). I would be surprised if he would be better than The Garbageman. http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman
ethbro 11y ago
Both of you are correct. The problem with direct democracy these days is that it ignores the power of mass media, which is to say it ignores the influence of money on a statistically significant portion of the voters. Premise 1: if you continue adding people to the voting pool on an issue, at some point (X) you're going to exceed the number of people who have interest / time / capability to render themselves informed. When you do, mass media begins to exert a much greater effect on the outcome (as these people are more susceptible to having their opinions swayed). Premise 2: If you shrink the pool of potential voters, but keep the money involved the same, then corruption increases -- There are of course things you can do legally to fight both of these negative outcomes, but I feel you'll always be fighting the basic tendencies. The solution then isn't direct democracy (where mass media overrides logic) or oligarchy (where corruption rules) but some point in between.

isolate 11y ago

> Representative democracy isn't elective oligarchy. It's kind of funny, because when I looked up the word oligarchy, I noticed that Wikipedia had an entry for the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#United_States

zipwitch 11y ago
Both the ruling class and the public of the 21st Century United States have a great deal of emotional investment in pretending that we are some sort of hyper-equitable nation, governed wisely by the public in the interests of freedom and the general good, instead of our government being a plutocratic shit-show.
- isolate 11y ago
  To be fair, the indoctrination starts at a very young age.

nailer 11y ago

> In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision It is the responsibility of those advocating for a position in favour/against fractional reserves to inform voters and debate in front of them. Experts who can't or refuse to communicate to laypersons on matters than concern the latter are near useless.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. Do they study laws, ethics, psychology, sociology, or criminology before making laws? The average voter on any issue is not educated. Why should any issue be given special consideration for this? And if this is an issue with every issue, then the issue is with democracy itself.

green7ea 11y ago

We can observe from the american congress that an elected minority is no better informed than the population at large. They have passed laws that were far to large for them to have read in the given time, they don't even have debates.