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> At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it

> At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. You're quietly assuming a lot there. Let's stop after the first sentence -- "At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are." Ah! So you're proposing monarchy? But no, you're not, because you then introduce the fictional "average voter", thereby fitting democracy into the "someone" framework. I think this is a bad way of looking at it. Democracy isn't a "someone". Democracy is an aggregation mechanism. You contrast having everyone vote with only having a subset vote; but you don't question the assumption that the only aggregation mechanism is the standard sort of voting. If you ask me, there's one aggregation mechanism that looks like it could actually improve upon democracy, and that's futarchy. Of course, it's untried. But the point is that there are more degrees of freedom here than you seem to realize.

marcosdumay 10y ago
Well, that futarchy replaces hired experts with a panel of future bets. Future bets aren't very reliable, but well, it's something that could be tried - who knows, it may work. Anyway, on this context you are just begging the question. There's no novelty in there for the democratic process, just for the technocratical one.
- Sniffnoy 10y ago
  I mean, the point is that it's a different sort of aggregation mechanism. It's not one that makes sense for everything, though, so yes there is still a democratic component. Regardless, like I said, it's just an illustration -- there are other sorts of aggregation mechanisms one could use, that are more universally applicable. For instance, there's quadratic voting (not something I actually endorse, but an interesting idea). Again, this is just an illustration.

marcosdumay 10y ago

Well, that futarchy replaces hired experts with a panel of future bets. Future bets aren't very reliable, but well, it's something that could be tried - who knows, it may work. Anyway, on this context you are just begging the question. There's no novelty in there for the democratic process, just for the technocratical one.

Sniffnoy 10y ago
I mean, the point is that it's a different sort of aggregation mechanism. It's not one that makes sense for everything, though, so yes there is still a democratic component. Regardless, like I said, it's just an illustration -- there are other sorts of aggregation mechanisms one could use, that are more universally applicable. For instance, there's quadratic voting (not something I actually endorse, but an interesting idea). Again, this is just an illustration.