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One possible business model is to replace most of politicians the way Uber have replaced most of taxi company owners. Politicians are supposed to translate need

by chr1 5y ago

One possible business model is to replace most of politicians the way Uber have replaced most of taxi company owners. Politicians are supposed to translate needs of people who elect them to bureaucrats who are supposed to bring that to reality, but they do their job very inefficiently wasting a huge amount of money. If there was a combination of facebook, change.org and https://voteflux.org https://voteflux.org, allowing people to directly vote about issues they care, trade votes, propose laws, create local communities with custom laws, and in general control the way government spends taxes, there will be enough money saved to allow the companies providing this service to be richer than facebook without using any shady tricks.

blooalien 5y ago
Hahahahah! Pure freakin' GENIUS this is! Needs to happen. We'll just replace politicians outright. ———————————————————————————————————————— So, I'm totally okay with this comment gettin' downvoted, but can ya at least like … I dunno … add to the conversation maybe? Perhaps a small comment on why his idea isn't pure genius? Or why I shouldn't find it amusing? Or how about why replacing politicians with a better system could somehow be a bad thing? Downvote me if you like, but downvotes without context don't help me (or anyone else) understand anything you might be trying to get across. ———————————————————————————————————————— Just for fun, I'll propose another idea; Let's start drafting people into political office. "Congratulations {random citizen}! You've just been elected President!" And just like a regular wartime military draft, refusal to do the job to the best of your ability = jail time.
wussboy 5y ago
Allowing people to vote on issues they care about would be a disaster. We'd have the death penalty back in a week, and abortion/immigration/drugs outlawed in a month. Democracy doesn't work because the masses are smart and get to have their say. They work because democracies are an agreement that we can do anything in our power to change the government EXCEPT violence. Making the government more responsive to the population will result in worse government, not better. I'm not advocating for totalitarianism. I'm just cautioning against thinking that it's the wisdom of the people that makes good democracy.
- blooalien 5y ago
  When the people making the decisions actually know about the things they're deciding on, democracy can work great. When the decisions are made by people who know nothing about the topic but are totally convinced they know everything about it no matter how completely wrong they may be and no matter how many provable facts you face them with, democracy fails utterly.
- chr1 5y ago
  What voteflux proposes is not simply direct democracy where opinion of the people who don't care enough to not go to ballot box is simply discarded. Votes still can be delegated, by setting your vote to follow vote of the person you trust, changes require significant majority, not simply 50%+1, people can trade their votes on different issues to reach consensus, major changes can't be accepted in a week if there is significant opposition, and most importantly different regions will be able to choose different laws. Now issues like abortion/immigration/drugs are used like carrot by politicians to herd voters one way or the other, and politician elected to as a result of support of one issue ends up voting on lots of other issues in a way that absolute majority of voters do not like. Voteflux being a marketplace of votes, can allow people with different beliefs to find compromises with each other, will allow politicians to understand what people actually want instead of guessing based on number of angry letters/tweets, and will allow people to organize in a way to have different laws in different places allowing society to experiment with different things instead of fighting life and death battle each election.
wussboy 5y ago
Just to add to my other post, I like what you're getting at. I think getting money out of politics would make a huge difference. Let's make a voluntary and auditable pledge that politicians could make before they are elected where they promise never to entertain lobbyists. Politicians could take the pledge to win votes in tight election races.
nradov 5y ago
Your proposal would require another violent revolution to implement.
- chr1 5y ago
  Why would it be violent? Change.org is already able to influence politicians, if it was updated to have the required features, more politicians would have to follow it, and new politicians who believe in direct democracy would be able to get elected. So it would be a turbulent time, but no violent revolution.
  - nradov 5y ago
    You've got to be kidding. Change.org has only ever influenced minor, inconsequential issues. Signing online petitions allows people to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything.

by chr1 5y ago

blooalien 5y ago

Hahahahah! Pure freakin' GENIUS this is! Needs to happen. We'll just replace politicians outright. ———————————————————————————————————————— So, I'm totally okay with this comment gettin' downvoted, but can ya at least like … I dunno … add to the conversation maybe? Perhaps a small comment on why his idea isn't pure genius? Or why I shouldn't find it amusing? Or how about why replacing politicians with a better system could somehow be a bad thing? Downvote me if you like, but downvotes without context don't help me (or anyone else) understand anything you might be trying to get across. ———————————————————————————————————————— Just for fun, I'll propose another idea; Let's start drafting people into political office. "Congratulations {random citizen}! You've just been elected President!" And just like a regular wartime military draft, refusal to do the job to the best of your ability = jail time.

wussboy 5y ago

Allowing people to vote on issues they care about would be a disaster. We'd have the death penalty back in a week, and abortion/immigration/drugs outlawed in a month. Democracy doesn't work because the masses are smart and get to have their say. They work because democracies are an agreement that we can do anything in our power to change the government EXCEPT violence. Making the government more responsive to the population will result in worse government, not better. I'm not advocating for totalitarianism. I'm just cautioning against thinking that it's the wisdom of the people that makes good democracy.

blooalien 5y ago
When the people making the decisions actually know about the things they're deciding on, democracy can work great. When the decisions are made by people who know nothing about the topic but are totally convinced they know everything about it no matter how completely wrong they may be and no matter how many provable facts you face them with, democracy fails utterly.
chr1 5y ago
What voteflux proposes is not simply direct democracy where opinion of the people who don't care enough to not go to ballot box is simply discarded. Votes still can be delegated, by setting your vote to follow vote of the person you trust, changes require significant majority, not simply 50%+1, people can trade their votes on different issues to reach consensus, major changes can't be accepted in a week if there is significant opposition, and most importantly different regions will be able to choose different laws. Now issues like abortion/immigration/drugs are used like carrot by politicians to herd voters one way or the other, and politician elected to as a result of support of one issue ends up voting on lots of other issues in a way that absolute majority of voters do not like. Voteflux being a marketplace of votes, can allow people with different beliefs to find compromises with each other, will allow politicians to understand what people actually want instead of guessing based on number of angry letters/tweets, and will allow people to organize in a way to have different laws in different places allowing society to experiment with different things instead of fighting life and death battle each election.

wussboy 5y ago

Just to add to my other post, I like what you're getting at. I think getting money out of politics would make a huge difference. Let's make a voluntary and auditable pledge that politicians could make before they are elected where they promise never to entertain lobbyists. Politicians could take the pledge to win votes in tight election races.

nradov 5y ago

Your proposal would require another violent revolution to implement.

chr1 5y ago
Why would it be violent? Change.org is already able to influence politicians, if it was updated to have the required features, more politicians would have to follow it, and new politicians who believe in direct democracy would be able to get elected. So it would be a turbulent time, but no violent revolution.
- nradov 5y ago
  You've got to be kidding. Change.org has only ever influenced minor, inconsequential issues. Signing online petitions allows people to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything.