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I would like to argue that voting rights are more about accountability than policy. Who cares who the "best" leader is - free society requires leaders who owe i

by SerLava 10y ago

I would like to argue that voting rights are more about accountability than policy. Who cares who the "best" leader is - free society requires leaders who owe it to citizens.

EGreg 10y ago
And I would argue that voting for representatives is far inferior to polling. It's susceptible to gerrymandering, poor turnout and much more. But if you're going to vote for representatives and Presidents, at least use the Approval vote. The system used in every state except Maine suffers from spoiler effects, and devolves into a self perpetuating two party system that polarizes the population into two camps that hate each other for things that no one person can really change by voting, and deride third parties as a "waste of a vote". Sound familiar? That's why I don't want to participate in this voting system.
- chongli 10y ago
  Polling is far more opaque and highly susceptible to corruption. Any pollster worth his or her salt can get exactly the outcome desired by tweaking the protocol and consumers of the poll results are none the wiser. I'd almost go so far as to say that polls are garbage and shouldn't even exist, let alone replace voting, but that may be going too far.
  - EGreg 10y ago
    If polls are garbage then voting is even more garbage. At least polling can use statistical sampling to esimate the true result. For the expense of elections and polling and paying for all the campaigns and media and hoopla you could have incredible amount of polling, from many organizations, and figure out what people actualy want. As it is, no matter how many people want eg certain gun control regulations, or not to go to war with a country, it will never happen due to special interests. It is far harder to fool all the people all the time than to buy off and control some of the people all the time.
stephen_g 10y ago
I think this is spot on. I think this is the best explanation of why more democratic systems tend to work so much better for governing large groups than other systems. It's not that large groups make good decisions, it's that the more accountable politicians are, the better they tend to govern. This is why I think direct democracy isn't a good idea. I suspect it would be far better to work on reducing corruption and increasing accountability of our representatives than to have people vote on policy directly.
- SapphireSun 10y ago
  If you guys are interested in the underlying mechanisms of democracy, this book was pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Despite-Itself-System-Shouldnt/dp/0262017237 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Despite-Itself-System-Shoul... It goes into detail on aspects of crowd wisdom, accountability, and a feeling of loyalty from the elected to the electorate.
marcosdumay 10y ago
Democracy is the form of government that is free of bloody revolutions. I'm not even sure it has any other qualities. But this one is already enough to make it better than anything else we have around. Democracy will lead to accountability only to the extent that your "collective mind" consider it worth fighting for. If it doesn't you'll get no accountability at all.

by SerLava 10y ago

I would like to argue that voting rights are more about accountability than policy. Who cares who the "best" leader is - free society requires leaders who owe it to citizens.

EGreg 10y ago

And I would argue that voting for representatives is far inferior to polling. It's susceptible to gerrymandering, poor turnout and much more. But if you're going to vote for representatives and Presidents, at least use the Approval vote. The system used in every state except Maine suffers from spoiler effects, and devolves into a self perpetuating two party system that polarizes the population into two camps that hate each other for things that no one person can really change by voting, and deride third parties as a "waste of a vote". Sound familiar? That's why I don't want to participate in this voting system.

chongli 10y ago
Polling is far more opaque and highly susceptible to corruption. Any pollster worth his or her salt can get exactly the outcome desired by tweaking the protocol and consumers of the poll results are none the wiser. I'd almost go so far as to say that polls are garbage and shouldn't even exist, let alone replace voting, but that may be going too far.
- EGreg 10y ago
  If polls are garbage then voting is even more garbage. At least polling can use statistical sampling to esimate the true result. For the expense of elections and polling and paying for all the campaigns and media and hoopla you could have incredible amount of polling, from many organizations, and figure out what people actualy want. As it is, no matter how many people want eg certain gun control regulations, or not to go to war with a country, it will never happen due to special interests. It is far harder to fool all the people all the time than to buy off and control some of the people all the time.

stephen_g 10y ago

I think this is spot on. I think this is the best explanation of why more democratic systems tend to work so much better for governing large groups than other systems. It's not that large groups make good decisions, it's that the more accountable politicians are, the better they tend to govern. This is why I think direct democracy isn't a good idea. I suspect it would be far better to work on reducing corruption and increasing accountability of our representatives than to have people vote on policy directly.

SapphireSun 10y ago
If you guys are interested in the underlying mechanisms of democracy, this book was pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Despite-Itself-System-Shouldnt/dp/0262017237 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Despite-Itself-System-Shoul... It goes into detail on aspects of crowd wisdom, accountability, and a feeling of loyalty from the elected to the electorate.

marcosdumay 10y ago

Democracy is the form of government that is free of bloody revolutions. I'm not even sure it has any other qualities. But this one is already enough to make it better than anything else we have around. Democracy will lead to accountability only to the extent that your "collective mind" consider it worth fighting for. If it doesn't you'll get no accountability at all.