4 ms·

Couldn't you have both? You have the right to a direct vote, but you also have the option to bestow your vote to a representative to cast for you. Seems like a

by jadbox 7y ago

Couldn't you have both? You have the right to a direct vote, but you also have the option to bestow your vote to a representative to cast for you. Seems like a neat idea and solves many of these structureless problems. Many people know that a topic is out of their reach or interest, but they may know someone knowledgable to give their vote to to cast for them. If they feel that person doesn't represent them, they can immediately reclaim their direct voting right.

js8 7y ago
That's typically called semidirect democracy and is usually what the direct democracy proponents call for.
behringer 7y ago
That's what not voting does...
- jadbox 7y ago
  Oh god, no. By not voting, I've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average (which might be entirely counter to the direction I want). By giving my vote to someone else to cast, I temporarily empower my leader who stands for my principles or movement, who may understand better which policies to vote for on my behalf.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    >By not voting, I've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average (which might be entirely counter to the direction I want). By having a democracy you've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average, by not voting you've surrendered to what the rest of the crowd wants by average, and as the size of the crowd grows the distinction between these two states of surrender approaches zero.
Leherenn 7y ago
I can't reply to js8 due to the indentation level, but that's somewhat new to me. Semi-direct democracy when people use the term seems more related to some occasions where everyone has a chance to participate in a decision, through an initiative, referendum or similar. Wikipedia describes it like this. But it does not talk about cases where you could opt-in to vote on every decision, and if you did not your representative would vote for you. Basically, you would chose a representative like you do in most countries, which would have the n votes of the people that elected him by default, but at any time you could say this vote is for me, your representative would have minus one vote and you could vote anyway you feel like. This seens a bit more manageable than what jadbox describes in that you do not have to track potentially million of representatives. The biggest issue would be on how you could vote, because the window has to be relatively short for things to happen, but long enough to allow everyone that wants to to vote.
dondawest 7y ago
Yes, this already exists and is called Liquid Democracy or Delegative Democracy. It’s awesome https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/liquid-democracy-true-democracy-for-the-21st-century-7c66f5e53b6f https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/liquid-democracy-true-d...
jacques_chester 7y ago
What you're describing is proxy voting. It works well in certain circumstances: primarily in shareholding, where there are well-understood ways to divvy up authority. But most proxies are given with general power. This makes them comparable but not identical to a representative system. The problem with proxies for politics is twofold. First, there is the business of carving out subjects. If I hand John the power to vote on transport and Jill the power to vote on buses, who votes on the integrated schedule for subway-bus terminals? What happens if they both vote? How do I maintain anonymity under these conditions without getting double counted, possibly even cancelling myself out through my proxies? This problem doesn't arise in regular proxies because I can see how my proxy voted and anyone can see who was acting as my proxy. That's not compatible with ballot secrecy. The second problem is the usual problems of direct democracy, chief among which are demagoguery and mobs. Representative democracy is sluggish compared to direct democracy. That is a feature, not a bug. Imagine if twitter mobs could amend legislation.
- jadbox 7y ago
  This is a nice response, thanks. The one miscalculation here is it's clear that representational democracy is also rife with demagoguery. Because the system is 'slower', it gives those in power the ability to cause damage to the system, but keep their office because they support other populist sentiments. Often the issues that are most important are the ones that get abused, while the popular-but-less-important issues are the ones that people vote on for their representative. Without the representative, then these less popular topics can be voted on justly/rightly by people that need these bills (minority issues in particular). I agree though that the speed of direct democracy can also be problematic in a similar way: too hasty decisions on the popular topics.

by jadbox 7y ago

js8 7y ago

That's typically called semidirect democracy and is usually what the direct democracy proponents call for.

behringer 7y ago

That's what not voting does...

jadbox 7y ago
Oh god, no. By not voting, I've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average (which might be entirely counter to the direction I want). By giving my vote to someone else to cast, I temporarily empower my leader who stands for my principles or movement, who may understand better which policies to vote for on my behalf.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  >By not voting, I've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average (which might be entirely counter to the direction I want). By having a democracy you've surrendered to what the entire crowd wants by average, by not voting you've surrendered to what the rest of the crowd wants by average, and as the size of the crowd grows the distinction between these two states of surrender approaches zero.

Leherenn 7y ago

I can't reply to js8 due to the indentation level, but that's somewhat new to me. Semi-direct democracy when people use the term seems more related to some occasions where everyone has a chance to participate in a decision, through an initiative, referendum or similar. Wikipedia describes it like this. But it does not talk about cases where you could opt-in to vote on every decision, and if you did not your representative would vote for you. Basically, you would chose a representative like you do in most countries, which would have the n votes of the people that elected him by default, but at any time you could say this vote is for me, your representative would have minus one vote and you could vote anyway you feel like. This seens a bit more manageable than what jadbox describes in that you do not have to track potentially million of representatives. The biggest issue would be on how you could vote, because the window has to be relatively short for things to happen, but long enough to allow everyone that wants to to vote.

dondawest 7y ago

Yes, this already exists and is called Liquid Democracy or Delegative Democracy. It’s awesome https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/liquid-democracy-true-democracy-for-the-21st-century-7c66f5e53b6f https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/liquid-democracy-true-d...

jacques_chester 7y ago

What you're describing is proxy voting. It works well in certain circumstances: primarily in shareholding, where there are well-understood ways to divvy up authority. But most proxies are given with general power. This makes them comparable but not identical to a representative system. The problem with proxies for politics is twofold. First, there is the business of carving out subjects. If I hand John the power to vote on transport and Jill the power to vote on buses, who votes on the integrated schedule for subway-bus terminals? What happens if they both vote? How do I maintain anonymity under these conditions without getting double counted, possibly even cancelling myself out through my proxies? This problem doesn't arise in regular proxies because I can see how my proxy voted and anyone can see who was acting as my proxy. That's not compatible with ballot secrecy. The second problem is the usual problems of direct democracy, chief among which are demagoguery and mobs. Representative democracy is sluggish compared to direct democracy. That is a feature, not a bug. Imagine if twitter mobs could amend legislation.

jadbox 7y ago
This is a nice response, thanks. The one miscalculation here is it's clear that representational democracy is also rife with demagoguery. Because the system is 'slower', it gives those in power the ability to cause damage to the system, but keep their office because they support other populist sentiments. Often the issues that are most important are the ones that get abused, while the popular-but-less-important issues are the ones that people vote on for their representative. Without the representative, then these less popular topics can be voted on justly/rightly by people that need these bills (minority issues in particular). I agree though that the speed of direct democracy can also be problematic in a similar way: too hasty decisions on the popular topics.