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I didn't read the whole article, so maybe they address this, but instead of letting people buy votes with money, which favors the rich, why not allocate an equa

• troupe 9y ago
  Interesting idea. The difference I see is that with the payments, the money goes back to the voting pool. So a rich person buying lots of votes for something they care about, gives money to everyone else which increases everyone's ability to vote with more weight on things they care about.
  • ykler 9y ago
    I suppose, although with the money system it seem like there is this crazy hyperparameter of how much a single vote costs. Plus, if you want to make things more economically equal (which is something we should want), you can do that with redistributive taxation. There are pragmatic considerations of what can get passed, but the same is true of voting reform. (Many people will make their decisions based on whether it will benefit their causes. This is why, for example, we have gerrymandering and left-right polarization on issues like making voter registration easy or allowing felons to vote or electoral college reform. General principles take a backseat, perhaps even rightly to some extent, to what one believes will lead to good outcomes.)
    • HelloNurse 9y ago
      Vote cost is not a crazy hyperparameter: it's only an arbitrary unit of measure. If votes "cost twice as much" everyone buys sqrt(Xi/2) votes rather than sqrt(Xi), by spending a fixed sum Xi that depends on the utility of winning the vote. Results are unchanged.