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Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting system
by jacques_chester 10y ago
Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting systems, the outliers are moderated by the median, whose concerns are typically less emotional (abortion, guns) and more economic (price of milk, mortgage rates).
Political parties are a concentrated form of voluntary voting.
One of the reasons the USA's primaries system is such a caricature factory is because it's a concentrated form of a concentrated form of voluntary voting.
There are many people who propose models like these and don't think through the end game. The end game is that any party where elected representatives have their votes directly controlled by party members is a party that will be instantly stacked by well-organised single-issue whackjobs.
You like crypto? Too bad, the terrorists use it, vote it down. You're OK with gay marriage? Too bad, Jesus is agin it, vote it down.
Techno-utopianism doesn't solve for the fundamental constraint, which is that people will always disagree. No system can create smooth consensus. What is left is to design a safe, functioning system. Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal, which is why we have representative democracy instead.
- mbrock 10y agoRepresentative forms of democracy can be implemented on top of direct democracy, no?
- ZenoArrow 10y agoYes, you're right, it can. I believe liquid democracy is a good compromise between the two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8
- HairyGing3r 10y agoThere are a few groups trying to promote liquid democracy utilising a blockchain. I'm really looking forward to see which one will be in the right place and in the right time to grab that Network Effect. Nice proposal, looking forward what will come of it.
- jacques_chester 10y agoDo you mean "having a representative vote mechanically according to the results of another direct vote"? Sure, for the purposes of argument, you could draw a distinction. The dynamics will look like direct democracy. With all the troubles there attending. I imagine it would last until someone helpfully circulated a copy of Burke's Speech to the Electors of Bristol.
- mbrock 10y agoI mean delegating one's default vote to a "party" or "representative". Could you explain why that leads to trouble? I'm not familiar with that speech.
- jacques_chester 10y ago> I mean delegating one's default vote to a "party" or "representative". This is representative democracy, isn't it? I'm confused. > I'm not familiar with that speech. It's a short speech and worth reading as one of the clearest explanations of a representative's role: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.h...
- abecedarius 10y ago> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.
- riffraff 10y ago180 years is not much, other kind of republics fared better (the roman republic lasted 500 years, and the venetian republic more than 1000). Also, the direct democracy in, e.g. Athens actually encompassed a very limited number of people (adult males owners of land) so it's not 100% comparable with a modern version. I do agree we should try more things though.
- abecedarius 10y agoOwning land was not required. In Pericles's time they did add a requirement that both parents be Athenians, not just the father. I agree that the details and context matter, and there are a lot of details beyond "all the citizens can vote". (Here are some that HN readers ought to find cool: http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.html http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.ht...)
- jacques_chester 10y agoClassical Greece was a cultural diaspora of politically distinct city-states, which experienced very turbulent politics, swinging between systems of oligarchy, tyranny and democracy. In fact, the Greek example that is often pointed to as an example of how not to do it. Even by the Greeks, who watched the dynamics up close. See, for example, Plato's fondness for tyranny of him and his buddies over democracy.
- abecedarius 10y agoThe Greeks had turbulent politics both before and after the democratic period. I'm kind of impressed by the resilience of Athenian democracy. Plato's a great example of how much better antidemocratic views seem to have survived subsequent transmission. Whenever we read historical judgments instead of facts we need to keep in mind we're seeing what managed to keep getting copied over almost two millennia until the printing press, almost all of the time under ideologies where the prince's word was law.
- ommunist 10y ago"Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal, which is why we have representative democracy instead." <~ I think there have been reasons other than that, which led you to representative democracy. Can you present evidence of the abysmal performance of direct democracy? Well, may be Scandinavian tings do not scale for nations size of the US, but look, Switzerland has direct democracy since 1291, being formalized in the 19th century system of referendums and that works just fine.
- jacques_chester 10y agoSwiss direct democracy is rather more constrained than Athens and most of it originates from elected representatives, with an option for citizen-initiated referenda. California has ballot initiatives, several of which have removed the legislature's powers in some taxes and some spending. Possibly to the detriment of the state, especially since it has dramatically narrowed the tax base.