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Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it c

Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it can be ensured that all data considered will be bundled with the decision. But how can such a thing ever be ensured? We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. It seems a bit much to ask politics to follow that state-of-the-art, which means that closed-doors talks* should be outlawed if the EU wants to have leg to stand on v. rising anti-EU sentiments. *. indefinitely-closed-doors talks. A mandatory post-mortem including release of the talks themselves after a set period of time would go a long way.

drewbug 7y ago
> We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. could you elaborate on this?
- Middleclass 7y ago
  Zero-knowledge proofs can prove that binary code conforms to a specification (e.g. source code) without revealing the process used to turn specification into binary code. In the analogy, the specification is the information provided to government officials and binary code is planned governmental actions. If both are known and the specification process for governmental action is proven it doesn't matter what biases the officials exhibit in the decision process - then the governmental action is proven-good according to the specs (e.g. system of laws) and the information provided (in which it would be relatively easy for citizens to have a say, e.g. "you MAY NOT ignore facts X, Y and Z").
derefr 7y ago
The difference is that citizens aren’t trained statesmen, diplomats, or political scientists. That’s the whole premise of representative democracy: that direct democracy (through e.g. having referendums on everything) doesn’t work, because people don’t have time to be good at whatever personally makes them a living and also politics; and so we pay some people to do politics for a living, so that they will have the time and invested practice to make nuanced decisions. Anything that subjects political representatives to constraints under which they have to vote according to exactly the public’s will, forfeits the benefits of representative democracy and replaces them with an implicit direct democracy.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  What your are describing is technocracy, not representative democracy. In representative democracy, the will of the people is still supposed to be the most important factor in the representative's decision making. Sure, the rep is expected to have better context on the implications of any decisions taken. But they should still use that context not to govern how they think is best by their own rationality, but to govern in the way they believe is most likely to achieve the will of the people. To give an extreme example, a personally peace-loving representative is supposed to declare war on another country if their constituency wants war to happen. However, if their constituency wants an end to hunger and some are noting that the neighbours have more food, the representative should do whatever they can to end hunger, avoiding war if they know that is unlikely to help.
  - derefr 7y ago
    > In representative democracy, the will of the people is still supposed to be the most important factor in the representative's decision making. To be clear, we agree on this. My point was that, in a direct democracy, it's not just the public's ends that are paramount, but also the public's preferences on means. One good example of what I'm talking about is Ancient Greece, which was a direct democracy, despite having so-called representatives. In the Ancient Greek system, people were chosen for the civic duty of governing the country like they continue to be chosen today for jury duty: they were drafted by lottery. They weren't afraid of politicians betraying the public will, because any politician that did anything the public didn't like, would be killed. And to be clear, "anything the public didn't like" included, for example, being friendly to foreign diplomats, or accepting gifts, even if these things would have had no later bearing on their political decision-making, i.e., on their practice of their profession. In such a context, a politician is forced to not only act toward the will of the people, but also to "perform politics" in a way that avoids upsetting their citizen-base, and so to avoid using some of the most effective political tools because the public finds them uncouth. Also, such performances often require the use of ineffective or downright counterproductive political tools, simply to satisfy the public. A clear modern example of the effect of direct democracy is when a municipal elected official, e.g. a county sherriff, feels pressure to put a suspect behind bars for a crime there's not yet sufficient evidence they committed, simply because the public demands that someone be punished for the crime. The entire point of representative democracy, is that the public is often irrational in ways that makes their proximate demands an ineffective way of achieving their own stated will. In this example, the public nominally wants to see justice done—but in the implementation of it, directly demands injustice. A representative is supposed to listen to the will of the public, certainly, but to ignore the direct demands; or translate the direct demands into the will they stand for. Patients know their symptoms but not the causes. Users know when there's a bug but not the correct fix. Well, voters know when there's a problem, too; but they're not any better at figuring out what to do about it than patients or users are. People don't have enough money to get by? Fixing that is certainly "the will of the people", and a politician that hears that complaint but doesn't do anything about it is certainly not being a representative. But the decision between fixing it via welfare, jobs programs, minimum wage, UBI, etc? That's statesmanship. And letting the public decide which of those policies is better is just abdicating the responsibility to practice the job of politics; just like a doctor just giving someone pills for whatever disease they think they have would be an abdication of responsibility for the practice of the job of medicine.

drewbug 7y ago

> We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. could you elaborate on this?

Middleclass 7y ago
Zero-knowledge proofs can prove that binary code conforms to a specification (e.g. source code) without revealing the process used to turn specification into binary code. In the analogy, the specification is the information provided to government officials and binary code is planned governmental actions. If both are known and the specification process for governmental action is proven it doesn't matter what biases the officials exhibit in the decision process - then the governmental action is proven-good according to the specs (e.g. system of laws) and the information provided (in which it would be relatively easy for citizens to have a say, e.g. "you MAY NOT ignore facts X, Y and Z").

derefr 7y ago

The difference is that citizens aren’t trained statesmen, diplomats, or political scientists. That’s the whole premise of representative democracy: that direct democracy (through e.g. having referendums on everything) doesn’t work, because people don’t have time to be good at whatever personally makes them a living and also politics; and so we pay some people to do politics for a living, so that they will have the time and invested practice to make nuanced decisions. Anything that subjects political representatives to constraints under which they have to vote according to exactly the public’s will, forfeits the benefits of representative democracy and replaces them with an implicit direct democracy.

tsimionescu 7y ago
What your are describing is technocracy, not representative democracy. In representative democracy, the will of the people is still supposed to be the most important factor in the representative's decision making. Sure, the rep is expected to have better context on the implications of any decisions taken. But they should still use that context not to govern how they think is best by their own rationality, but to govern in the way they believe is most likely to achieve the will of the people. To give an extreme example, a personally peace-loving representative is supposed to declare war on another country if their constituency wants war to happen. However, if their constituency wants an end to hunger and some are noting that the neighbours have more food, the representative should do whatever they can to end hunger, avoiding war if they know that is unlikely to help.
- derefr 7y ago
  > In representative democracy, the will of the people is still supposed to be the most important factor in the representative's decision making. To be clear, we agree on this. My point was that, in a direct democracy, it's not just the public's ends that are paramount, but also the public's preferences on means. One good example of what I'm talking about is Ancient Greece, which was a direct democracy, despite having so-called representatives. In the Ancient Greek system, people were chosen for the civic duty of governing the country like they continue to be chosen today for jury duty: they were drafted by lottery. They weren't afraid of politicians betraying the public will, because any politician that did anything the public didn't like, would be killed. And to be clear, "anything the public didn't like" included, for example, being friendly to foreign diplomats, or accepting gifts, even if these things would have had no later bearing on their political decision-making, i.e., on their practice of their profession. In such a context, a politician is forced to not only act toward the will of the people, but also to "perform politics" in a way that avoids upsetting their citizen-base, and so to avoid using some of the most effective political tools because the public finds them uncouth. Also, such performances often require the use of ineffective or downright counterproductive political tools, simply to satisfy the public. A clear modern example of the effect of direct democracy is when a municipal elected official, e.g. a county sherriff, feels pressure to put a suspect behind bars for a crime there's not yet sufficient evidence they committed, simply because the public demands that someone be punished for the crime. The entire point of representative democracy, is that the public is often irrational in ways that makes their proximate demands an ineffective way of achieving their own stated will. In this example, the public nominally wants to see justice done—but in the implementation of it, directly demands injustice. A representative is supposed to listen to the will of the public, certainly, but to ignore the direct demands; or translate the direct demands into the will they stand for. Patients know their symptoms but not the causes. Users know when there's a bug but not the correct fix. Well, voters know when there's a problem, too; but they're not any better at figuring out what to do about it than patients or users are. People don't have enough money to get by? Fixing that is certainly "the will of the people", and a politician that hears that complaint but doesn't do anything about it is certainly not being a representative. But the decision between fixing it via welfare, jobs programs, minimum wage, UBI, etc? That's statesmanship. And letting the public decide which of those policies is better is just abdicating the responsibility to practice the job of politics; just like a doctor just giving someone pills for whatever disease they think they have would be an abdication of responsibility for the practice of the job of medicine.