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>I take it you live in a country where people are ok to see other people living off the street because they presumably "failed"? I live in Spain, there's no su

>I take it you live in a country where people are ok to see other people living off the street because they presumably "failed"? I live in Spain, there's no such thing here. What I propose is for people to have the ability to specify what their taxes are spent on. I dislike it when government wastes tax money on useless or corrupt projects, military, police, surveillance and other such things, which I personally would not support if I had the choice. I would invest that money in more schools, hospitals, etc. This would change what we now call 'government' from raw money spenders into project managers who seek public funding. Citizens can fund public projects from their phones and get involved in the debates, votes, etc. That's real-time democracy - no need for elections or politicians, just technocrats who monitor the needs of society and ask people for funding. Think about it for a while and you'll notice lots of positive consequences of such a system.

oelmekki 10y ago
I like the idea of being able to choose where taxes are spent, but maybe not in totality. If people choose for the whole attribution, they'll certainly spend everything in healthcare when them or one of their family member will be sick, then on infrastructure when they'll want to make a road trip, etc. But totally agree that people should have a bigger role to play in governments decisions. That being said, thinking having a central government is the problem is extreme. Your examples and suggestions simply demonstrate we need more democracy, not less government. EDIT: yeah, thinking about it twice, it definitely needs to be only a part of the taxes you can choose where to allocate, and thus some kind of administration to decide about the rest. Think about this scenario: You live in a country where unemployment is high and sickness are low. People will naturally spend most of the budget in reforms allowing for more jobs, because they, or people they know, are unemployed. But there are sick people, with no budget. If the amount sick people pay in tax is enough to heal them, that's ok. Now, imagine it costs more, like, you need expansive medicine to cure a virus. People will still invest in job reforms, until they hear about a big epidemic that threatens them. Only then will they start to allocate taxes to healthcare, which will cost way more because the epidemic will be already there. With no fixed budgeting failsafe, such a system will naturally create a lot of epidemics, and other problems caused because small problems are not fixed early enough. Also, those who have rare problems are screwed and will fall first, so you'll probably having a less creative and risk taking society.
ceejay 10y ago
There appears to be some merit to what you're proposing. But what about long-term issues, such as climate change, etc. How are a group of people going to convince a large enough group to pay money for it, and who is going to enforce it? Also, things that don't affect majority of people will probably never get enough funding. For example blindness. How many blind people do you know? And do you think anyone is going to be convinced that a single kickstarter-type campaign is going to solve it? I imagine even the most motivated donors will start considering dropping out after 2 decades of spending money when they've produced no measurable results to curing blindness (or paralysis, cancer, etc). EDIT: In fact, the more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious this sort of system couldn't work on a massive scale (such as a scale necessary to do what a government does). Each person is probably only going to be able to comprehend the need to address perhaps hundreds of specific issues. But my guess is that governments, in total, deal with probably 10's of thousands if not more different types of issues on a daily basis. Not only that but those issues that a citizen does comprehend, will he / she need to keep up with how each issue is being addressed? After all, otherwise I'm potentially just throwing money down a rat hole. Sounds like more than just a full-time job on its own. How would one find enough time to do that and still make money to bring home to their families, etc..
- smokeyj 10y ago
  OP was making a principled stance for a more direct democracy. When you argue against a more direct democracy, doesn't that make you scratch your chin and wonder if you really support democracy at all? Do you really support your fellow man and his pursuit of happiness, or do you know what's best for him and wish to dictate how he lives. Based on what you wrote, you don't support democracy at all - which may possibly be a valid view.
  - wav-part 10y ago
    Democracy is socially-accepted extortion from successful. So any proposed Democracy 2.0 that reduce welfare spending, will be met with opposition from people. This predicts quite many behaviours of people that supposedely support Freedom/Independece/etc.
  - 10y ago

oelmekki 10y ago

I like the idea of being able to choose where taxes are spent, but maybe not in totality. If people choose for the whole attribution, they'll certainly spend everything in healthcare when them or one of their family member will be sick, then on infrastructure when they'll want to make a road trip, etc. But totally agree that people should have a bigger role to play in governments decisions. That being said, thinking having a central government is the problem is extreme. Your examples and suggestions simply demonstrate we need more democracy, not less government. EDIT: yeah, thinking about it twice, it definitely needs to be only a part of the taxes you can choose where to allocate, and thus some kind of administration to decide about the rest. Think about this scenario: You live in a country where unemployment is high and sickness are low. People will naturally spend most of the budget in reforms allowing for more jobs, because they, or people they know, are unemployed. But there are sick people, with no budget. If the amount sick people pay in tax is enough to heal them, that's ok. Now, imagine it costs more, like, you need expansive medicine to cure a virus. People will still invest in job reforms, until they hear about a big epidemic that threatens them. Only then will they start to allocate taxes to healthcare, which will cost way more because the epidemic will be already there. With no fixed budgeting failsafe, such a system will naturally create a lot of epidemics, and other problems caused because small problems are not fixed early enough. Also, those who have rare problems are screwed and will fall first, so you'll probably having a less creative and risk taking society.

ceejay 10y ago

There appears to be some merit to what you're proposing. But what about long-term issues, such as climate change, etc. How are a group of people going to convince a large enough group to pay money for it, and who is going to enforce it? Also, things that don't affect majority of people will probably never get enough funding. For example blindness. How many blind people do you know? And do you think anyone is going to be convinced that a single kickstarter-type campaign is going to solve it? I imagine even the most motivated donors will start considering dropping out after 2 decades of spending money when they've produced no measurable results to curing blindness (or paralysis, cancer, etc). EDIT: In fact, the more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious this sort of system couldn't work on a massive scale (such as a scale necessary to do what a government does). Each person is probably only going to be able to comprehend the need to address perhaps hundreds of specific issues. But my guess is that governments, in total, deal with probably 10's of thousands if not more different types of issues on a daily basis. Not only that but those issues that a citizen does comprehend, will he / she need to keep up with how each issue is being addressed? After all, otherwise I'm potentially just throwing money down a rat hole. Sounds like more than just a full-time job on its own. How would one find enough time to do that and still make money to bring home to their families, etc..

smokeyj 10y ago
OP was making a principled stance for a more direct democracy. When you argue against a more direct democracy, doesn't that make you scratch your chin and wonder if you really support democracy at all? Do you really support your fellow man and his pursuit of happiness, or do you know what's best for him and wish to dictate how he lives. Based on what you wrote, you don't support democracy at all - which may possibly be a valid view.
- wav-part 10y ago
  Democracy is socially-accepted extortion from successful. So any proposed Democracy 2.0 that reduce welfare spending, will be met with opposition from people. This predicts quite many behaviours of people that supposedely support Freedom/Independece/etc.
- 10y ago