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> The way the accountability aspect is supposed to work is that voters are horrified and hold their elected representatives accountable by voting them out. As i

> The way the accountability aspect is supposed to work is that voters are horrified and hold their elected representatives accountable by voting them out. As it turns out, though, most people are profoundly ignorant and have no idea who/what they're voting for and lack the intellectual curiosity to figure it out. It's unfortunately more than ignorance. These budget bills have to be balanced so they include hundreds of items in them. It's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. With that large amount of provisions, it's easy to slide in things that only peripherally pertain to budget. I wish this were broken up in such a way that any changes to how things work and to laws need to be done BEFORE if required by the budget, such that the budget vote stops being this monstrosity.

wpietri 5y ago
> profoundly ignorant and have no idea who/what they're voting for and lack the intellectual curiosity to figure it out. This strikes me as unkind. It's true of some, surely. But people are just busy. The whole theory of representative democracy is that direct democracy is impractical, so we delegate most of the work to people who focus on governing. You also ignore the extent to which the average voter is energetically manipulated and actively discouraged from participation. In the 2020 election cycle alone, There was $14.4 billion in direct spending alone. That's ~$90 per voter. If we want more people to engage, wishing for better humans won't get us anywhere. We should do just like we do for tech products: figure out how to make useful behaviors easier.
- specialist 5y ago
  Agreed. I'm obsessed about policy and legislation. Books, a lot of participation, lobbying, comparing notes with others. I feel like I barely understand what's going on.