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Maybe a direct democracy is the way to go... if there’s no representatives, there’s no parties. People may be more likely to make up their own minds (or at leas

Maybe a direct democracy is the way to go... if there’s no representatives, there’s no parties. People may be more likely to make up their own minds (or at least vote for policies that would obviously help themselves).

nharada 6y ago
I don't love the idea of having to vote on every single thing. There's too much to learn -- being properly informed is a full time job. San Francisco and CA in general have a lot of "direct democracy" items on ballots (a couple dozen props each cycle) and nobody really understands more than one or two at the level they probably should. I personally have never read the full text of a CA prop, and I'm guessing most others haven't either.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Indeed, the fact that Uber managed to straight up buy a way to undo the law to suit their business... direct democracy doesn't prevent money and influence, which are really the root of political parties.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >Indeed, the fact that Uber managed to straight up buy a way to undo the law to suit their business Did they? Ballotpedia says that the support side outspent the oppose side 10:1, but maybe californians just like their cheap taxi/delivery service (just like they like their cheap apparel/electronics manufactured in developing countries), or they thought that AB-5 is riddled with exemptions already?
- dantheman 6y ago
  I think that the scope of government has grown so big that it's impossible for representatives to know what's going on, let alone understand the domains. The problem is they're trying to do too much.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    If the representatives don't know, what hope do the voters have?
    - zhoujianfu 6y ago
      What generally happens is people who don’t understand or know effectively become random “noise” and cancel each other out. Then those who are informed/care become the “signal” and you get a pretty good representative decision in the end. Better than with politician I’d say. It’s kind of like “ask the audience” in who wants to be a millionaire..
- filoeleven 6y ago
  Liquid Democracy. > Voters can either vote directly or delegate their vote to other participants; voters may also select different delegates for different issues. In other words, individual A of a society can delegate their power to another individual B – and withdraw such power again at any time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
  - adjkant 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing this, this sounds like a great combination solution I've never heard of!
  - nl 6y ago
    The obvious issue with liquid democracy is vote buying. There are various proposals to fix this (from banning to "what's the problem?") but nothing that seems to address the issue that it's really easy to corrupt.
    - kuang_eleven 6y ago
      There are quite a few permutations on liquid democracy, some of which stake out different points on openness vs. susceptibility to vote buying. For example, you could have only people who have delegates have open votes, while those that don't have anyone delegated to them can vote or delegate secretly. This isn't much worse than our current delegative system, which admittedly does have an issue with vote-buying!
- roenxi 6y ago
  It'd be inconvenient for you, but there are some big advantages. The number of people involved is too large to be bought off by corporate interests, for example. Politicians aren't fully informed about these issues either, there are a lot of examples where they vote laws through where it is pretty simple to deduce they haven't read the bill. The current legal framework in the US is so large and complicated nobody understands it all either, raising questions about how the politicians could even theoretically understand what they are dealing with. The quality of the decisions would rise under direct democracy, and laws would probably become more general and the body of law would shrink to something more manageable.
- rufus_foreman 6y ago
  >> I personally have never read the full text of a CA prop, and I'm guessing most others haven't either Do you believe that most politicians have read the full text of the bills they vote on?
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Bad actors will use mass media to influence with money.
- timbit42 6y ago
  Do you think that doesn't happen already?
bcherny 6y ago
Seems like this might still run into the same problem. People naturally look to authority figures for what to think about the issues, and even without political parties this will still be the case. The deeper problem is people who broadcast their political views do it to signal their identity and to feel important. I wish there was a way to decouple identity from political issues a bit more, at least for issues that aren't strictly social issues.
- thayne 6y ago
  But at least you could follow different authority figures on different issues.
  - bcherny 6y ago
    That already exists. Maybe it’s more about authorities changing their opinions as a bloc, similar to how OPEC adjusts oil prices as a bloc? (The issue isn’t that any one oil company sets prices, but that companies form a cartel that colludes on a price at the cost of consumers)
    - thayne 6y ago
      Not when it comes to voting. You vote for someone to represent you on all issues (at least in the US). If you disagree with them on some issues, there is no way to indicate that with your vote.
      - bcherny 6y ago
        Hey, that’s a fair point!
- rufus_foreman 6y ago
  >> People naturally look to authority figures for what to think about the issues You do this? I don't. I just automatically rebel against any authority that tries to tell me what to think. Probably to a fault but it has served me well so far in life.
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Tim Stryker, the author of Major BBS, wrote a cover article for Boardwatch Magazine about what he called 'Superdemocracy', which was a hybrid of representative and direct democracy. Stryker was a bit of a crank with some odd views but the article does have some interesting thoughts on how to make a hybrid system work. It was written in the days of dial up, so would have been rather cumbersome to implement, but easier in this age where even many homeless have phones with data plans. I don't know how well such a system would work in practice. I suspect that it wouldn't scale well but would be interested in seeing someone give it a try on the local level to see how it turns out. Some issues of Boardwatch are available on archive.org but I'm not sure if that particular issue is. It's been a couple of decades since I read the article so it's also possible my much younger mind thought more of it than I would if I found it again.
devmunchies 6y ago
> People may be more likely to make up their own minds almost nobody does this. Minds are molded by something, which, in the internet age, is extremely easy to do. Media/Tech companies foster a narrative and narratives influence voting. There are few people who realize this and even less who completely unplug from popular media. I actually think we need to rethink politics in the internet age. I've been thinking about making counties (no "r") stronger and voting is more focused on local issues. The distributed nature is like federated social networks where it's hard to influence/censor the whole.
nickik 6y ago
You can't really have direct democracy, specially not in a country with millions of people. I'm from Switzerland and we have probably the most direct democracy in the world and we do have parties (many in fact) and representatives. The direct democracy aspect however is a very important check on what the government does and it allows for grass root initiatives to get national discussion. We are not part of the EU because of population went against the parliament on that issue. Something most other countries in Europe didn't get the option to do. It also has some negative sides as well. In general I would say having more parties, would help a lot. If your social circle is full of people who have slightly different parties switching party is a lot easier. In the US the most important system is the get away from First Past the Post single election for congress and presidency. Remove primaries, use either larger districts with representative representation of some kind, or smaller districts with ranged/score/star voting. Ban the president primary and have people use range/score/star voting to select an actually popular president. This I think would eventually destroy the two party system in the US.

nharada 6y ago

I don't love the idea of having to vote on every single thing. There's too much to learn -- being properly informed is a full time job. San Francisco and CA in general have a lot of "direct democracy" items on ballots (a couple dozen props each cycle) and nobody really understands more than one or two at the level they probably should. I personally have never read the full text of a CA prop, and I'm guessing most others haven't either.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Indeed, the fact that Uber managed to straight up buy a way to undo the law to suit their business... direct democracy doesn't prevent money and influence, which are really the root of political parties.
- gruez 6y ago
  >Indeed, the fact that Uber managed to straight up buy a way to undo the law to suit their business Did they? Ballotpedia says that the support side outspent the oppose side 10:1, but maybe californians just like their cheap taxi/delivery service (just like they like their cheap apparel/electronics manufactured in developing countries), or they thought that AB-5 is riddled with exemptions already?
dantheman 6y ago
I think that the scope of government has grown so big that it's impossible for representatives to know what's going on, let alone understand the domains. The problem is they're trying to do too much.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  If the representatives don't know, what hope do the voters have?
  - zhoujianfu 6y ago
    What generally happens is people who don’t understand or know effectively become random “noise” and cancel each other out. Then those who are informed/care become the “signal” and you get a pretty good representative decision in the end. Better than with politician I’d say. It’s kind of like “ask the audience” in who wants to be a millionaire..
filoeleven 6y ago
Liquid Democracy. > Voters can either vote directly or delegate their vote to other participants; voters may also select different delegates for different issues. In other words, individual A of a society can delegate their power to another individual B – and withdraw such power again at any time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
- adjkant 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this, this sounds like a great combination solution I've never heard of!
- nl 6y ago
  The obvious issue with liquid democracy is vote buying. There are various proposals to fix this (from banning to "what's the problem?") but nothing that seems to address the issue that it's really easy to corrupt.
  - kuang_eleven 6y ago
    There are quite a few permutations on liquid democracy, some of which stake out different points on openness vs. susceptibility to vote buying. For example, you could have only people who have delegates have open votes, while those that don't have anyone delegated to them can vote or delegate secretly. This isn't much worse than our current delegative system, which admittedly does have an issue with vote-buying!
roenxi 6y ago
It'd be inconvenient for you, but there are some big advantages. The number of people involved is too large to be bought off by corporate interests, for example. Politicians aren't fully informed about these issues either, there are a lot of examples where they vote laws through where it is pretty simple to deduce they haven't read the bill. The current legal framework in the US is so large and complicated nobody understands it all either, raising questions about how the politicians could even theoretically understand what they are dealing with. The quality of the decisions would rise under direct democracy, and laws would probably become more general and the body of law would shrink to something more manageable.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> I personally have never read the full text of a CA prop, and I'm guessing most others haven't either Do you believe that most politicians have read the full text of the bills they vote on?

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

Bad actors will use mass media to influence with money.

timbit42 6y ago
Do you think that doesn't happen already?

bcherny 6y ago

Seems like this might still run into the same problem. People naturally look to authority figures for what to think about the issues, and even without political parties this will still be the case. The deeper problem is people who broadcast their political views do it to signal their identity and to feel important. I wish there was a way to decouple identity from political issues a bit more, at least for issues that aren't strictly social issues.

thayne 6y ago
But at least you could follow different authority figures on different issues.
- bcherny 6y ago
  That already exists. Maybe it’s more about authorities changing their opinions as a bloc, similar to how OPEC adjusts oil prices as a bloc? (The issue isn’t that any one oil company sets prices, but that companies form a cartel that colludes on a price at the cost of consumers)
  - thayne 6y ago
    Not when it comes to voting. You vote for someone to represent you on all issues (at least in the US). If you disagree with them on some issues, there is no way to indicate that with your vote.
    - bcherny 6y ago
      Hey, that’s a fair point!
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> People naturally look to authority figures for what to think about the issues You do this? I don't. I just automatically rebel against any authority that tries to tell me what to think. Probably to a fault but it has served me well so far in life.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

Tim Stryker, the author of Major BBS, wrote a cover article for Boardwatch Magazine about what he called 'Superdemocracy', which was a hybrid of representative and direct democracy. Stryker was a bit of a crank with some odd views but the article does have some interesting thoughts on how to make a hybrid system work. It was written in the days of dial up, so would have been rather cumbersome to implement, but easier in this age where even many homeless have phones with data plans. I don't know how well such a system would work in practice. I suspect that it wouldn't scale well but would be interested in seeing someone give it a try on the local level to see how it turns out. Some issues of Boardwatch are available on archive.org but I'm not sure if that particular issue is. It's been a couple of decades since I read the article so it's also possible my much younger mind thought more of it than I would if I found it again.

devmunchies 6y ago

> People may be more likely to make up their own minds almost nobody does this. Minds are molded by something, which, in the internet age, is extremely easy to do. Media/Tech companies foster a narrative and narratives influence voting. There are few people who realize this and even less who completely unplug from popular media. I actually think we need to rethink politics in the internet age. I've been thinking about making counties (no "r") stronger and voting is more focused on local issues. The distributed nature is like federated social networks where it's hard to influence/censor the whole.

nickik 6y ago

You can't really have direct democracy, specially not in a country with millions of people. I'm from Switzerland and we have probably the most direct democracy in the world and we do have parties (many in fact) and representatives. The direct democracy aspect however is a very important check on what the government does and it allows for grass root initiatives to get national discussion. We are not part of the EU because of population went against the parliament on that issue. Something most other countries in Europe didn't get the option to do. It also has some negative sides as well. In general I would say having more parties, would help a lot. If your social circle is full of people who have slightly different parties switching party is a lot easier. In the US the most important system is the get away from First Past the Post single election for congress and presidency. Remove primaries, use either larger districts with representative representation of some kind, or smaller districts with ranged/score/star voting. Ban the president primary and have people use range/score/star voting to select an actually popular president. This I think would eventually destroy the two party system in the US.