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A "representative democracy" is one specifically where the average voter doesn't need to be informed enough to really understand all the issues, and that's supp

A "representative democracy" is one specifically where the average voter doesn't need to be informed enough to really understand all the issues, and that's supposed to be its advantage. In contrast, direct democracy is best when all the voters (have the time to) understand the issues. But that's not very pragmatic, so we do representative democracy. But of course, that has its own issues, as what to understand moves from "the issues" to "the candidates". Somehow, this reminded me of this bit by Douglas Adams From "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" (in part): "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-ancient-democracy-you-see-you http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-...

Houshalter 11y ago
I understand the purpose of representative democracy. In theory voters vote for representatives instead of policies, but in reality they do vote for policies. And in practice representatives to pander to voters, and various other interests.
Frqy3 11y ago
With the infrastructure available today we should be able to do a hybrid direct-representative model and also have multiple representative delegations that we can change on an ad-hoc basis (i.e. not just at elections). For example, on some issues, I might like to do the research and make my own decision, while for other issues I might trust and delegate to a representative for that set of issues, and for a third set of issues I might trust and delegate to a different representative.

Houshalter 11y ago

I understand the purpose of representative democracy. In theory voters vote for representatives instead of policies, but in reality they do vote for policies. And in practice representatives to pander to voters, and various other interests.

Frqy3 11y ago

With the infrastructure available today we should be able to do a hybrid direct-representative model and also have multiple representative delegations that we can change on an ad-hoc basis (i.e. not just at elections). For example, on some issues, I might like to do the research and make my own decision, while for other issues I might trust and delegate to a representative for that set of issues, and for a third set of issues I might trust and delegate to a different representative.