12 ms·

I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need

• oldmanjay 10y ago
  Being "the best wrestler" is basically Trump's campaign strategy so that concept may well be tested soon
  • bobjordan 10y ago
    This will no doubt give Trump some twitter scale ammo, given his bickering with the UK, who discussed banning him.
    • fixermark 10y ago
      He's already spent some of it hilariously on completely misinterpreting the results vis-a-vis Scotland.
  • methehack 10y ago
    Not sure, but I think that may have been a reference to "Idiocracy", the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy The president of the future is a professional wrestler, iirc.
    • mh-cx 10y ago
      He was actually also a porn star. I see that coming during my lifetime.
  • ludamad 10y ago
    Relevant https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2016/03/AP_070401031037/lead_960.jpg?1457977379 https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2016/03/AP_0...
• Eupolemos 10y ago
  Democracy works just fine, but it needs _some_ responsibility or bad stuff happens. These last 5-10 years have been horrible for the EU. On the hight of this current migration crisis, the UK decides to hold their election. If I didn't know Cameron was pro EU, I'd see it as a completely UKIP-skewered dickmove. The UK is letting go, just as the "tug-of-war" gets even more hairy. There's a lot to be critical about with the EU, but going our separate ways isn't the solution for Europe vs the world. And at the height of this crisis it is just... cowardice? I don't know.
• Inthenameofmine 10y ago
  > We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments have been a staple of especially the British political system. I am amazed at the low level of discussion in the UK even by their representatives. Direct democracy is something that has to be done regularly, otherwise you end up with situations like the UK or California.
  • yincrash 10y ago
    Switzerland is also much smaller than the UK or California in most respects.
    • runako 10y ago
      This is a curious claim, so I did a little checking. It turns out that Switzerland is smaller than the Los Angeles metro area both in GDP and population.
      • raverbashing 10y ago
        Are you sure? It seems it's comparable in size, but not smaller Take a look http://mapfrappe.com/?show=40241 http://mapfrappe.com/?show=40241 (it's a rough sketch of Switzerland but the size should be right) Edit: yes, I think parent meant population, not actual size
        • runako 10y ago
          You're right that Switzerland is physically bigger than the LA metro area. I didn't compare land masses. Edit: Also, Wikipedia is possibly a better source for comparing sizes of landmasses.
        • deleted 10y ago
          [deleted]
• nbouscal 10y ago
  What prominent lies from Remain? There was a lot of what people were calling scaremongering, but if you look at the markets it looks like it was pretty accurate. I've seen thorough takedowns of blatant lies from Leave, but haven't seen anything similar for Remain.
  • ixtli 10y ago
    https://www.facebook.com/WTFlockNews/videos/1132580646806052 https://www.facebook.com/WTFlockNews/videos/1132580646806052 Nigel Farage made direct, public claims that the "money going to the EU" would be redirected to the NHS. An hour after the referendum he went on TV claiming that his adverts aren't what he said. This is just the most recent, flaming pile of noxious vomit to come from him but not the only one. EDIT: I completely misread the parent post. My bad! :)
    • daleharvey 10y ago
      "What prominent lies from Remain?" Farage was campaigning to leave.
      • ixtli 10y ago
        Yeah I completely misread the parent comment. My only defense is that because of the time difference I was up very late last night watching coverage of this, so I probably need some coffee XD
    • ComputerGuru 10y ago
      GP was asking about lies from Remain's side. Most of the filth and bilge we've been seeing has been racist, xenophobic bigotry from the organisers of the Leave campaign, speaking to populist fears and dreams. Reminds me a lot of Trump's campaign here in the US.
  • jdietrich 10y ago
    Full Fact, an independent fact-checking charity, have been critical of the campaign on both sides. https://fullfact.org/europe/ https://fullfact.org/europe/
• rayiner 10y ago
  Democracy is fine. The intellectual class just needs to learn to respect it. There is pretty much nothing that deserves to be decided by the will of the people--their values, their emotions, their world views--than the question of "what body politic do I want to belong to?" The deep irony of the anti-Brexit narrative is that the same people would froth at the mouth if you said "India would've been better off economically if it hadn't separated from the British Empire." Whether or not that's true, it's an argument--like the anti-Brexit rhetoric--misses the point completely.
  • rtpg 10y ago
    Honestly the India comparison is "slightly" exaggerated. British people could vote for European MPs. It's not like the UK was colonised by Europe. There is devolution of sovereignty but you're gonna basically end up with that with the kind of trade pacts the EU demands anyways. Lots of symbolism involved of course.
    • rayiner 10y ago
      I'm not saying it's literally as bad as colonization. But the symbolism is useful in showing that the focus on economic impacts is utterly misguided. Democracy isn't about optimizing for economics; it's about people deciding how they want to be governed. "Who should be able to tell me what to do?" That's a sacrosanct decision! It shouldn't be made by bureaucrats and intellectuals looking at the impact on currency prices.
      • sgustard 10y ago
        The EU does not "govern" Britain in any meaningful sense, but I agree the "independence" strawman was a strong motivator for the separatist movement.
        • rayiner 10y ago
          It does: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV%3Al14522 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV%3... > The regulation is directly applicable in all EU countries. This means that it: > - applies immediately as the norm in all EU countries, without needing to be transposed into national law, > - creates rights and obligations for individuals and they can therefore invoke it directly before national courts, > - can be used as a reference by individuals in their relationship with other individuals, EU countries or EU authorities.
• cjjuice 10y ago
  Plato was always cautious of Democracy. If you are interested I would recommend give his "Republic" a read.
  • chirau 10y ago
    In it is suggested a form of government called epistocracy. It has a lot of merit in my opinion. The basic principle is 'rule of the knowers'. We elect knowledgeable people into power and let them make decisions. We don't vote on what medication a sick child should get, why should we vote on what remedy a sick economy needs? Let the knowledgeable that we have chosen make the prescription.
    • cjjuice 10y ago
      Philosopher Kings. Full of virtue, detached from ego, completely dedicated to the expansion of the common good. If only.
    • ionised 10y ago
      We already have the knowledgeable in power, the banks. They understand how global economics works better than anyone and they manipulate it to their own ends and to the detriment of all others.
    • semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      You also have Heinlein's concept from Starship Troopers: only those who have committed a year of their life to serving the common good for no pay (food and accomodation covered) earn the right to vote. If that "public service" was of non military nature (unlike in Starship Troopers), I think it would be an interesting system. On the opposite end of the scale is the concept of Demarchy, found in several SciFis, where there are no elected politicians, and technology enables everyone to vote on everything constantly.
    • thomasahle 10y ago
      We basically already have this. During the economic crisis, there wasn't a lot of voting on how to save the banks. It's interesting whether brexit and trump will really have that much of an effect, or if we are already mostly living in a technocracy. England also has the house of lords.
• zghst 10y ago
  You're against democracy because people had the right to decide what was in their interest and not the government or big business??
  • k__ 10y ago
    That's fallacy. The big business that decides is the media.
    • zghst 10y ago
      The media is a big business owned by special interest and wealthy elites. Obviously all the scare tactics used in the media did not work on the voters.
      • k__ 10y ago
        I think it was exactly the opposite.
        • zghst 10y ago
          I'm curious, I'd like to hear more =)
          • makomk 10y ago
            Our biggest newspapers, the Sun and the Daily Mail, have huge political influence here. They were both strongly pro-Brexit, as was the Telegraph. They've also been anti-EU for decades.
            • k__ 10y ago
              That was my impression, thank you.
  • arcticbull 10y ago
    My take on it is that direct democracy doesn't make sense for this type of complex and nuanced decision. The general population isn't in the business of politics and scare tactics on both sides aren't going to educate them on the nuances and detailed implications of a decision like leaving the EU. That's why we vote for representatives who make it their job to understand, and vote accordingly -- representative democracy and direct democracy are two different things. People feel qualified to weigh in on any political issue because that's always been that narrative. I see it asking the general population, without any further information to vote one day or whether Apple should move factories out of China. You know literally nothing about what's going on, so how could you possibly make that decision for Apple? That's up to their board.
• jneal 10y ago
  The problem with democracy is the people are easily influenced by false truths. I'm all for democracy, but I also realize that a well informed vote and an uninformed vote are equal and therein lies the problem. It's not really something that can be fixed within a true democracy.
  • lawpoop 10y ago
    Isn't that a problem with all forms of government? That the people in charge can be influenced by false truths?
    • jessaustin 10y ago
      When there are "people in charge", them being misinformed is the least of one's worries. The bigger problem is that they are very well informed about how their actions affect their own interests.
      • zghst 10y ago
        Actually being misinformed is the top worry. That's why we have intelligence agencies.
        • jessaustin 10y ago
          Sarcasm?
      • lawpoop 10y ago
        I don't know, it seems that people of all political stripes believe that the politicians in other parties are grossly misinformed. I could point to countless examples to politicians in my party and others.
    • ovulator 10y ago
      Not with God Kings & Theocracy, their truth is the truth by definition and will override any preexisting truths.
  • 10y ago
• advertising 10y ago
  Does democracy not scale very well when the population is too large to personally know your representatives?
  • netcan 10y ago
    Representation is itself a scaling hack :). Plato and aristotle had the perfect number at 5000, the number of people who can hear a speaker in a forum. Plus, their slaves, servants, women and other property.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• lawpoop 10y ago
  I think one solution is to hold the vote open for an extended period of time-- weeks, say. Keep an updated tally going at all time. That way, it's not just a high-stakes, one day event. Everyone will have a chance to vote, and nobody can (rightfully) say, "I wish I had voted, it didn't go the way I wanted" or "If I had known, I would have voted". You will know, and there will be time for you to vote still. If I understand correctly, there were heavy rains that affected the turnout for this vote. Should something this important really be that affected by the weather?
  • aidos 10y ago
    That's an interesting idea, could you change your vote? There was a lot of rain. Flooding / trains cancelled - biggest thunderstorm I've seen in the UK since moving here 13 years ago. In this case I think it probably made a difference, because those that were fighting to leave were more likely to turn out.
    • lawpoop 10y ago
      I go back and forth on changing your vote. Arguments for would be learning something new, or breaking information during the period of the vote. For instance, if a news story broke about a politician, or something hidden in the wording of a bill would be highlighted, then one might want to change their vote. Also, propaganda/information campaigns would ramp up towards the end of the vote, which could be good or bad. Arguments against are basically logistical burden and opportunity for fraud. It's simpler for one vote, cast in stone.
  • mamon 10y ago
    There is a huge logistics issue with the poll spanning more than one day: cast votes must be kept safe. The longer the voting period is the more expensive it becomes and more prone to tampering results.
    • lawpoop 10y ago
      I agree with you about the logistics; it might be a better idea for an online voting system (which carries its own set of concerns). However, assuming one cannot change their vote, I disagree that there is more opportunity for tampering. Each count of the vote is basically a statistical sampling, and it should stay relatively the same. Here in the US, all elections are handled locally, at the county level. If there is fraud, it's hard to detect the day of the election, so the fraudulent vote becomes part of the official ballot count. Sure, months later, poll workers, voters, and politicians can be prosecuted for election fraud, but at that point, the election has already long been decided. It's very rare that a real recount is held that becomes the actual result. It's easy for fraud to become the accepted results. However, with a long voting period with daily rolling counts, there is more opportunity for scrutiny, statistical methods, recounts, etc. If anything funny happens, it will be easier to detect with more time, and prevent it from becoming the official results.
• npt4279 10y ago
  A Republic works nicely. Many issues are too detailed and complex for referendums. That's why we elect people whose only job is to study those details. Otherwise, we make policy decisions based on who has the best propaganda that incites fear or hatred.
• Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
  My favored election procedure works like this: Every citizen takes a standardized test when they reach the age of majority, preferably Raven's matrices. This test would be used for scholastic and career purposes, aside from government. A representative body of 150 people is randomly selected from those in the top 0.1 percent every N years. The IQ test filters for intelligence, obviously. Random sampling serves as an anticorruption mechanism, increasing the cost of influencing leaders before they are elected. It also strongly reduces the incentive to game the test. And unlike most other election procedures does not maximally select for those most interested in fame and power. These representatives are given very, very high salaries so there is significant incentive to take the position.
  • znpy 10y ago
    This is so wrong on so many levels. 1. IQ test has been shown not to represent actual "intelligence" 2. Intelligence does not mean justice, fairness or anything else. 3. Conflict of interest. What if the so called "most intelligent" people have some interest in the voting? 4. Trainning. I'm pretty sure anyone could end up in resulting a genius by trainning on problem sets for IQ tests. 5. Being smart doesn't automatically make you a good people. Smart and asshole are not mutually exclusive.
    • cookiecaper 10y ago
      Although I believe there is value to the IQ metric, I agree with you that raw intelligence should not be the way we choose our governors/reps/etc. As if democracy didn't have enough struggles, telecommunications (and especially television) have forever changed the way that the people choose their representatives. Superficialities are much more important now than they were pre-1960, and everything we get is filtered through the media outlets that control the television broadcasts; if they dislike someone, all they have to do is repeatedly re-broadcast a single unflattering yelp and that person's prospects are done. [0] We need to learn to deal with that. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwkNnMrsx7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwkNnMrsx7Q
    • Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
• zaphar 10y ago
  Democracy works when those participating are both educable and rational. Monarchies, Dictatorships, Oligarchies work if the ones in charge are educable, compassionate, and rational. Democracy wins out a little since the checks and balances of rule by a majority tend to make it a little bit easier to counter the worst excesses of rule by a few. So as a working base it's a good starting point. Republics are even better since they make it possible for rational actors to prevent the worst consequences of demogoguery and mob rule. Nothing is perfect though they all have weaknesses. You can't fix government without fixing people. And that doesn't look likely anytime soon.
• aidos 10y ago
  So I was thinking today, we could weight the votes by life expectancy. The fewer years left in your life, the less your vote counts. In this case I wouldn't have to go home and explain to my children why it is that they probably won't be allowed to go and live in Europe for a bit when they hit their 20s anymore.
  • delboy88 10y ago
    Can you explain to me why your children won't be allowed to live in Europe for a bit, if the UK is not in the EU?
  • jstimpfle 10y ago
    That would be a pretty one-sided weighting. And it penalizes not only age but education and "wisdom" (assuming these are correlated).
    • zghst 10y ago
      I think for the majority of the population, it does
  • sbmassey 10y ago
    So I imagine that mens votes would count less than womens, at a particular age, and similarly for people in high risk occupations or who are obese or who have a fatal disease.
  • zghst 10y ago
    They can still go and live in Europe, not a big deal
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    I do not think you'll have to explain them that they will be just as welcome as everybody else.
    • zepto 10y ago
      What are you talking about? Prior to Brexit, British citizens could live and work in European countries without qualification. This is not true for the rest of the world.
• psyc 10y ago
  Maybe politicians should have to pass a semi-"objective" process that is like the ideal for university admissions. They have to demonstrate (in a formal way, not by spending millions to broadcast their message to the people) that they are smart and prosocial.
  • thomasahle 10y ago
    I don't actually doubt most of the politicians are pretty smart. Cameron elegantly managed to use the promise of an EU election to form the first majority government for 30 years. Now Boris Johnson managed to use the election to get Cameron to resign and possibly tale over the government himself. If only they used their smarts.. smarter.
• dv_dt 10y ago
  It's pie in the sky, but I'm interested in the idea of "immediate delegation representative voting" (that's a phrase I just made up because I don't know if it has a formal name). How it would work would be that you still have your default elected representative for most issues, but on a per-vote basis, a citizen could override the default and designate an alternate representative for that vote, including themselves. So if a citizen felt that a particular person was a better expert on an issue then their representative - they could designate that person to study the bill/policy in depth and cast their vote. One effect here is that if multiple citizens delegate the same people, then those delegates could spend more time studying the issue than an individual voter. Another effect is that we might get representatives for issues (other than our normal political reps) who would collect voting blocks which could bypass the normal political lobby money path. As with many human endeavours, it might turn out to be an even bigger circus, but being able to selectively bypass one default representative has the nice potential of short circuiting the pattern of currying favors with entrenched politicians. The approach is sort of a hybrid of direct representation while still allowing 'expertise' to come into the system.
• barnacs 10y ago
  Democracy can work but we all need to practice and support it. The citizens need to have leftover mental energy and time from everyday life to think and learn about politics, form opinions and engage in discussions with each other. Academia needs to be heavily invonved to provide unbiased, politically independent facts, pros and cons for each choice. And there may be a role for online platforms as well to support direct democracy, proving information and a forum for discourse.
  • zghst 10y ago
    We cannot trust academia, they are a special interest in their own right. Their power depends on bureaucracy and big government, not to mention that their field is incredibly undemocratic itself, lots of research is funded or excluded depending on the political flavor of leaders.
    • barnacs 10y ago
      Indeed, academia as we know it is somewhat broken. We can either fix it or replace it completely (eg. by some crowdfunded model) and give it a new name. Either way, democracy would greatly benefit from an independent information source. While there are some purely subjective decisions to make in a society, a lot of them have some objective underlying facts (eg. is smoking harmful? is there a global warming?). Without an independent information provider, there's no way the average citizen could cast an informed vote on these matters.
      • zghst 10y ago
        +1 a million times. Maybe we should have an AI consult the voter before voting
• devy 10y ago
  FDR summed it up pretty nicely in this quote: Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. And it seems that a lot of Britons requires exactly that: education before making a wise decision. [1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.htm http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.h...
  • ultramancool 10y ago
    Are you trying to imply they didn't "make a wise decision" or perhaps that your political opposition is stupid?
    • manarth 10y ago
      This is being widely reported: "The higher the level of education, the higher the EU support". > "According the polls, university graduates were the most likely people to want to remain in the EU - while those with a GCSE or equivalent as their highest qualification were more likely to back Brexit." > "Those with no education tended to vote Brexit" Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/eu-referendum-how-the-results-compare-to-the-uks-educated-old-an/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/eu-referendum-how...
      • sliverstorm 10y ago
        That doesn't really mean "smart people vote for remain", could just as easily be because EU membership has different impact for different classes.
        • ZenoArrow 10y ago
          During the UK EU referendum, I realised something about politics... When people don't know enough about the issues, they'll vote based on the emotional framing of the issues. This makes them incredibly predictable, and I'm talking about people on both sides of the debate. On the Leave side, uninformed voters were drawn to a protectionist mentality. On the Remain side, people were drawn towards a collaborative mentality. If people are happy to be low information voters, it almost doesn't matter what the other side is voting for, you'll never consider it, you'll just fall in line with what your peers are likely to vote for. There are many formally educated people I saw fall for the low information voter trap, so again this cuts across the board. If I ever run for office, my lead policy is going to be free puppies for everyone. If people aren't smart enough to take opposing viewpoints seriously then you may as well cut to the chase and appeal directly to their emotions, and pretty much everyone loves puppies. ;-)
• jlos 10y ago
  >> We haven't figured this shit out yet. It depends on whether you view democracy as a process to perfect society or mitigate against social harm. If you think democracy should perfect (or even just improve) society, it will often seem ridiculous. Knowledgable voters don't determine the outcome of elections and referrendums, and instead the mass of voters who understand the least about the issues at hand determine their outcome. From this perspective, Aristotle's was probably onto something when he thought democracy was better named ochlocracy (i.e. 'mob rule'). However, if you understand that the purpose of democracy is to mitigate against social harm, then the drawbacks make sense. This would be the perspective of Alexander Hamilton and co. in the Federalist Papers. The tendency of political parties and factions, this view claims, is to benefit themselves at the expense of the greater society, and in fact often harming the greater society (e.g. North Korea). Assuming parties will seek their self interest at the expense of the common good, democracy is an institution which means the best interest of the parties is to get people to vote for them, which means they have to do things people actually want. From this perspective, democracy is certainly a problematic process but brings peace and prosperity because it tends, on the whole, to align the parties self interest with the perceived good of the society.
• Spooky23 10y ago
  I think it's too easy to get lost in the details. Look at the map. London wanted in. Scotland wanted in. The rest of the country is dissatisfied with their state and want out. Look at the US map and you see similar things. You can call the populace stupid and ignorant, but by doing so you're displaying your own form of ignorance. Lots of facts and figures and economic models can be used to say that everything is just peachy, but the ground truth tells a different story.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    The major fallacy at work here is that in-or-out may not be correlated with solving the problems of the dissatisfied portion. Out may well make their problems worse rather than to improve their state.
    • zepto 10y ago
      It may make their problems worse, but the status-quo has been failing to make things better for decades, so they are willing to take a risk.
      • jacquesm 10y ago
        Change for change's sake is rarely a good idea. It helps if you have a good idea that things will be better after the change you propose because you can see some causal chain leading to that better situation.
        • zepto 10y ago
          This is only true if you are in a position of having enough power and resource to perform that analysis. If you don't have that resource or power, change for change's sake is rational. Put another way - when you know your leaders are taking you in the wrong direction, then a random alternative is a rational choice if it is the only other option.
    • Spooky23 10y ago
      People react to things in different ways. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend, whether or not that actually makes sense. Look at the reaction on a forum like this which represents the upper middle class business-oriented citizen towards the societal impact of tech. Globalism is seen as an opportunity here, not a threat. Politicians, media, academia and business have told millions of people that things are great, but they are the problem -- they lack education, skills, wherewithal and have expectations for prosperity that are misaligned with reality. So they lash out. They think to themselves "If some douche from the Bank of England or the Conservatives doesn't like this, that's good enough for me." That's democracy -- it's a messy business. Is that a "good" reaction? History will judge. Depending on your POV, the crowd is either wise or rabble. But -- the critique that democracy is somehow broken is an incredible leap of ignorance. We (speaking from the US perspective) have been offered a sham of a democracy that isn't meeting the needs of many. We're very fortunate that we live in an age where peaceful democratic revolution results in a bad day/weeks for stocks. A hundred years ago, you'd have mobs in the streets and soldiers with bayonets shooting into crowds.
• tosseraccount 10y ago
  This is the smug style in the new politics. The notion that the people don't know what's best for them. Bottom line is the working man hasn't cashed in like the global elite and their sympathizers.
  • zghst 10y ago
    Essentially the left wing showing its true face. Gov't decides, citizen obeys
• kamaal 10y ago
  >>The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling structure. Most politicians and the main parties (especially before the opportunists jumped in) were against leaving. So was the financial sector and most big businesses. If you want to do X, just because people you hate don't like to do X is really a very wrong way to be making decisions about anything. In general this sort of behaviour doesn't lead to a good ending.
• rdiddly 10y ago
  It's worth noting that the entire context of this discussion about democracy is an article that could be an effort by the Post (an arm of the neocon establishment) and Google (ditto) to spin a perfectly legitimate albeit narrowly-decided exercise of self-determination as a catastrophic blunder by idiots. Of course they would say that.
• mikeash 10y ago
  I thought it was remarkable that the course of an entire nation can be so greatly changed by a 51.9% victory in a single vote. Seems like such an important change should require a supermajority of some sort. (And, of course, the original choice to join ought to have as well.) People are fickle and easily divided. For normal elections, we hold them regularly, and that gives people a chance to correct their mistakes or change their minds. But for something like this, there isn't going to be another vote in a few years where people might decide to go back, it's likely to be once and done, at least for decades. The bar for change should be higher when it's like that.
  • kilroy123 10y ago
    I agree. It seems like a 2/3 majority would have been better.
  • flubert 10y ago
    I'm wondering if someone can fill us in on the history of the UK's entrance into the EU. Was there a vote at all? It seems complicated by the whole European Community thing.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      Great question. I perused Wikipedia a bit, and it seems like the relevant event would be the UK joining the European Communities, which eventually transformed into the EU. The UK government directly decided to join, but a referendum was held two years later, and "stay" won with 67% of the vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Commun... The formal entry into the EU was done with the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and didn't have a referendum, but it was basically a direct continuation of their EC membership. Although I imagine someone opposed to EU membership might argue that this was the most important point, and the people did not have their say in it.
    • ZenoArrow 10y ago
      The EU has evolved over the years. The UK joined the EEC (a predecessor to the EU) in 1973. In 1975, there was a UK referendum about whether to stay in the EEC, where 67% of voters chose to stay. Since then there were a number of treaties which expanded the economic and political reach of the EEC, including the Maastricht Treaty, agreed upon in 1992, which was when the EEC became part of the newly formed EU. Whilst some countries held a referendum over the Maastricht Treaty, the UK was not one of them. Since 1992, it could be argued that the biggest change to the EU was the Lisbon Treaty. You can read more about it here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon To be clear, between 1975 and 2016 there were no UK referendums on EU membership, so technically yesterday's vote was the first time the UK public was consulted about being a member of the EU. In contrast to the EU, the EEC was much smaller in scope, though it's clear that the architects behind the EEC always intended it to become a much bigger political player. "There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection…. The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit." Jean Monnet, 1943 https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet
• ocfx 10y ago
  When political votes go your way I bet you don't start questioning the need for an absolute authority. This is literally just throwing a tantrum because you didn't get your way. The EU always was and always will be cancer and Britain leaving will be the first of many. We tried it out, it doesn't work, let's go back to sovereign nations working together on their own terms.
• pmelendez 10y ago
  > We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? I have been reflecting about this for a long time (as Venezuelan I witnessed how people can be manipulated and divided easily) I have this crazy idea that countries should provide a "voting license" that would require the study of the matter to be chosen previous to the election process. The motto should the same that driving... It is a privilege not a right although everyone has the right to apply for it
  • Analemma_ 10y ago
    Unfortunately, this proposal has its own set of problems. The southern United States had such a system for a long time, and in practice its only use was to keep black people from voting. I doubt that exact problem would happen again, but "voting licenses" come fraught with peril that they will be used to keep out the opinions of the "undesirables", whatever they may be at the moment.
• vox_mollis 10y ago
  If governments and supragovernmental bodies didn't wield so much power over our lives, the outcome of elections wouldn't matter nearly as much.
• XplodingForce 10y ago
  This may be a good time to question whether all votes in a democracy should be weighed equally, and how technology can make a difference to solve the problems of modern democracy. Most modern democracies are representative democracies with aspects of direct democracy (in the form of referendums) using some sort of voting system. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of a representative democracy, but that most problems arise from the way the voting system is commonly implemented. As far as I know, all modern democracies implement their primary voting using votes with equal weight. Some democracies, like the United States, have a layer of indirection (the electoral college), but still their primary votes are all weighed equally. While all people should be equal in the eyes of the law and with regard to human rights, there are good arguments that political votes should not be equal. Even with an equal total say for all citizens, it should be possible to weigh different topics that they have a say in towards areas that they are best qualified to make decisions about. Imagine a political system where all citizens get to vote on representative experts per subject, with an implementation similar to PageRank. People who are indicated to be more qualified for a subject through both historical metrics (previous votes) and objective metrics (qualifications like a degree or work experience) get a stronger vote on representatives for that subject. The elected representatives could either advise politicians (in a binding fashion) or make political decisions directly. This system could strongly reduce a large problem of current democracies that the Brexit vote highlights: all people get an equal say about all issues, regardless of their ability to make qualified judgments about those issues. Of course there are significant problems with such a weighed voting system, primarily how to make a system that weighs each person's vote fairly and accurately, and who gets to decide how the voting system itself works. This is where modern technology could play a role: by designing a digital voting system that is simple to understand and transparent, so that it can be audited by average citizens. In order to work well, I think this system should be strongly based on the scientific method and should therefore evaluate empirical evidence, instead of emotional sentiments. Another important aspect would be to learn from history, instead of overlooking its lessons. This means the system should be strongly based on political systems that have been shown throughout history to work best, like democracy. It also means that the system should avoid the historical pitfalls of political systems, like concentrating power to a specific group of people. It would be great to know whether HN thinks that such a system could be designed, or that these ideas are utopian and wont work.
• nsomaru 10y ago
  Disclaimer: armchair politik. Benevolent dictatorship. Someone who can think better than mostly everyone and is dedicated to service to the nation above all else. In theory (s)he always makes the best decision because (s)he is not swayed by excess emotion and is able to keep the best interest of the nation in view at all times. Another option arises if we have a truly objective test of benevolent rationality (yes I just made that term up now), then we could weight votes by this measure; this will change political rhetoric from emotional to rational and it would encourage all members of society to become more rational.
  • rm445 10y ago
    A reasonable strategy, so long as one accepts from the outset that no human could be a sufficiently competent dictator, and even if occasionally someone was 'close enough' then succession crises would de-stabilise the system. We need to design and build our own benevolent dictator, and then keep it running and upgraded as needed :-)
• xivzgrev 10y ago
  I for one welcome our new robot overlords