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Go down the path even more and you land at direct democracy, where every citizen can vote on any legislative decision. Corporations can not buy half the people.

Go down the path even more and you land at direct democracy, where every citizen can vote on any legislative decision. Corporations can not buy half the people. Because it can be a lot of work to dive into the details of a decision every citizen could delegate his vote to someone he trusts - delegate his vote in general, per topic (economical decisions to Betty, foreign affairs to Tom) or just for a single decision. You can change your vote delegation any time. This is Liquid Democracy. Our current parliaments are just a special case of Liquid Democracy: You delegate your vote on all decisions to a single person but you can choose only between a handful of people and are not allowed to change your choice of delegation for the next 4 years. Different Pirate Parties all over Europe tried to establish this new concept of democracy but I am afraid it was not well understood/they did not explain it well enough.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
The Athenians had real problems with direct democracy. Plato is still relevant: Plato rejected Athenian democracy on the basis that such democracies were anarchic societies without internal unity, that they followed citizens' impulses rather than pursuing the common good, that democracies are unable to allow a sufficient number of their citizens to have their voices heard, and that such democracies were typically run by fools. Plato attacked Athenian democracies for mistaking anarchy for freedom. The lack of coherent unity in Athenian democracy made Plato conclude that such democracies were a mere collection of individuals occupying a common space rather than a form of political organization. Corporations don't need to buy off half the people, they just need to convince a winning minority to go along, which you've made easy because you've divided all of your political issues into things people pick and chose not out of expertise but out of ignorance. There are other issues like control of the agenda which aren't obvious but hugely relevant to controlling democracies. Was Prop 8 in Cali, with lots of outsiders weighing in on limiting other people's rights a good thing? This is my macabre favorite story about Athenian democracy: The news of the victory itself was met with jubilation at Athens. Their joy was tempered, however, by the aftermath of the battle, in which a storm prevented the ships assigned to rescue the survivors of the 25 disabled or sunken Athenian triremes from performing their duties, and a great number of sailors drowned. A fury erupted at Athens when the public learned of this, and after a bitter struggle in the assembly six of the eight generals who had commanded the fleet were tried as a group and executed. Sucked for those generals. Win the battle, lost men due to storms, then you get executed because the mob is angry and some orators know how to harness that. Modern direct democracy wouldn't be voting on executing people, but you can see where things can get just as twisted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arginusae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arginusae spoiler: the Athenians lost the war. Turns out getting rid of winning generals cause you're mad is dumb.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Plato preferred aristocracy; how many people do you think would like to live under a government that abandoned any pretense and outright called itself an aristocracy?
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Does that make his criticisms of democracy any less valid?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Well, yes, for two reasons: 1. If democracy is bad, we should have some other system. Surely we should take into account the proposed alternative when we consider any criticism of democracy itself. 2. Implicitly any reference to the writings of Plato is burnished by the image of "wisdom of the ancients," so it is worth considering the flaws of these philosophers' work.
      - aaron-lebo 9y ago
        Direct democracy has flaws, we do have another system: representative democracy. The Greeks were certainly wise, but my main point is this is not untrod ground, we've got at least 2000 years of experience to draw from.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Athenian democracy also frankly looks pretty different from direct democracy as is being proposed in this thread since it was made possible by the existence of slaves who did not participate. The Greeks were wise (or I guess we should say the ones whose writings we still read) but they were humans and products of their time.
    - skariel123 9y ago
      Democracy is still better than any alternative
colordrops 9y ago
> Corporations can not buy half the people. They can get them for free. See Fox News and Facebook.
frankydp 9y ago
Corporations can not buy half the people. You don't have to buy anyone just influence. You can buy influence by: building a media platform that everyone uses, buying a media platform that everyone uses, building a media source, or buying a bunch of media sources. Or most economically buying a handful of the most valuable Influencers, because most people love to love someone, and the platforms for Influencers are infinite now. Most of the representation drawbacks to current systems you mentioned are intended to be safe guards against human whim, and to mitigate the power of super Influencers, originally the church. A substantial portion of the bureaucracy, forced slowness, involved in current systems are also deliberately placed for the same reasons. When I look for causes for the current issues regarding ineffectiveness of parliaments, beyond their structure, I think that the huge change in the PERCEIVED ease of communication is having huge impacts on the actions of delegates. While all of us communicate a huge amount more than 30 years ago, I believe that generally we convey less. What is actually being conveyed by the current communication tools is relegated to the most compelling. The most effective communications are usually the topics with the most emotion charging them, because emotion conveys the most information in the current deluge of communication. All of that hyper emotional and constant communication nearly paralyzes delegates, and also pushes all of us towards divisiveness because "for and against" become almost completely dogmatic as a result of level of emotion embedded.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

The Athenians had real problems with direct democracy. Plato is still relevant: Plato rejected Athenian democracy on the basis that such democracies were anarchic societies without internal unity, that they followed citizens' impulses rather than pursuing the common good, that democracies are unable to allow a sufficient number of their citizens to have their voices heard, and that such democracies were typically run by fools. Plato attacked Athenian democracies for mistaking anarchy for freedom. The lack of coherent unity in Athenian democracy made Plato conclude that such democracies were a mere collection of individuals occupying a common space rather than a form of political organization. Corporations don't need to buy off half the people, they just need to convince a winning minority to go along, which you've made easy because you've divided all of your political issues into things people pick and chose not out of expertise but out of ignorance. There are other issues like control of the agenda which aren't obvious but hugely relevant to controlling democracies. Was Prop 8 in Cali, with lots of outsiders weighing in on limiting other people's rights a good thing? This is my macabre favorite story about Athenian democracy: The news of the victory itself was met with jubilation at Athens. Their joy was tempered, however, by the aftermath of the battle, in which a storm prevented the ships assigned to rescue the survivors of the 25 disabled or sunken Athenian triremes from performing their duties, and a great number of sailors drowned. A fury erupted at Athens when the public learned of this, and after a bitter struggle in the assembly six of the eight generals who had commanded the fleet were tried as a group and executed. Sucked for those generals. Win the battle, lost men due to storms, then you get executed because the mob is angry and some orators know how to harness that. Modern direct democracy wouldn't be voting on executing people, but you can see where things can get just as twisted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arginusae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arginusae spoiler: the Athenians lost the war. Turns out getting rid of winning generals cause you're mad is dumb.

emodendroket 9y ago
Plato preferred aristocracy; how many people do you think would like to live under a government that abandoned any pretense and outright called itself an aristocracy?
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Does that make his criticisms of democracy any less valid?
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Well, yes, for two reasons: 1. If democracy is bad, we should have some other system. Surely we should take into account the proposed alternative when we consider any criticism of democracy itself. 2. Implicitly any reference to the writings of Plato is burnished by the image of "wisdom of the ancients," so it is worth considering the flaws of these philosophers' work.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      Direct democracy has flaws, we do have another system: representative democracy. The Greeks were certainly wise, but my main point is this is not untrod ground, we've got at least 2000 years of experience to draw from.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Athenian democracy also frankly looks pretty different from direct democracy as is being proposed in this thread since it was made possible by the existence of slaves who did not participate. The Greeks were wise (or I guess we should say the ones whose writings we still read) but they were humans and products of their time.
  - skariel123 9y ago
    Democracy is still better than any alternative

colordrops 9y ago

> Corporations can not buy half the people. They can get them for free. See Fox News and Facebook.

frankydp 9y ago

Corporations can not buy half the people. You don't have to buy anyone just influence. You can buy influence by: building a media platform that everyone uses, buying a media platform that everyone uses, building a media source, or buying a bunch of media sources. Or most economically buying a handful of the most valuable Influencers, because most people love to love someone, and the platforms for Influencers are infinite now. Most of the representation drawbacks to current systems you mentioned are intended to be safe guards against human whim, and to mitigate the power of super Influencers, originally the church. A substantial portion of the bureaucracy, forced slowness, involved in current systems are also deliberately placed for the same reasons. When I look for causes for the current issues regarding ineffectiveness of parliaments, beyond their structure, I think that the huge change in the PERCEIVED ease of communication is having huge impacts on the actions of delegates. While all of us communicate a huge amount more than 30 years ago, I believe that generally we convey less. What is actually being conveyed by the current communication tools is relegated to the most compelling. The most effective communications are usually the topics with the most emotion charging them, because emotion conveys the most information in the current deluge of communication. All of that hyper emotional and constant communication nearly paralyzes delegates, and also pushes all of us towards divisiveness because "for and against" become almost completely dogmatic as a result of level of emotion embedded.