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You have three ways to vote: 1. With your ballot: very small chance of changing policies (1 vote) 2. With your wallet: small chance of changing policies (n vo

You have three ways to vote: 1. With your ballot: very small chance of changing policies (1 vote) 2. With your wallet: small chance of changing policies (n votes through political donations) 3. With your feet: guaranteed chance of changing policies The internet facilities 100% democracy as it simplifies voting with your feet (remote work, social networks), allowing likeminded individuals to congregate and influence policy. Blockchain furthers this, unlocking the ability to have a referendum on every issue, which maximises consent.

ineedasername 5y ago
Thanks for a thoughtful response! I agree more referendums would get to a better level of participatory democracy. Though on any specific issue it could still be a 51% win with 49% going away angry. I'm not sure how blockchains makes more frequent referendums easier. Maybe harder to game the system? Apart from that it seems like a platform for regular referendums could be built without blockchains. It's still relative early days on that tech though, and amidst "Blockchain" being attached to anything anyone wants to hype, I have ended up being a bit skeptical of claims they can fit a given purpose until it goes beyond the conceptual stage.
- Overton-Window 5y ago
  Math is more trustworthy than the state. One of the few things both Democrats and Republicans can agree on is the state of the Bitcoin ledger. Political representation becomes obsolete with blockchains that can facilitate a referendum on every issue without the need for centralised trust.
  - midev 5y ago
    Math is not magical and the blockchain doesn't solve any of these problems. Let's look at the risks and see how the blockchain does nothing: 1. Vote machines change votes - Great, the blockchain would allow people to verify their vote! Well, the software that sums up all blockchain votes could still miscount them, regardless of what the blockchain contains. Ok! So we can audit the results! Great, we can already do that with paper ballots. 2. Dead people voting - Again, same as the audit before. We see a John Smith voted on the blockchain. We can look up John Smith based on a paper ballot, just as we can with the blockchain. 3. Illegals voting - The same process used for identifying voters and giving out private keys can be used for verifying voters But what about risks you have introduced? 1. By making everything electronic, you've shifted the risk from local elections, to state actors. Signing keys are not magic. If a country found a solution to the factorization problem, or solving discrete logarithms, the scheme would collapse and they could forge massive amounts of votes. 2. Getting 300m people to manage cryptographic keys is impossible. Keys will be stolen, just as bitcoin wallets are. Now you need to deal with revocation of votes, and other controls that nobody has yet invented. tldr: blockchains are dumb
  - midev 5y ago
    Second reply > Political representation becomes obsolete with blockchains that can facilitate a referendum on every issue without the need for centralised trust The choice of representative democracy was not because of the difficulty of counting votes. The founding fathers very clearly rejected what you're proposing. It's because most people are grossly ignorant about most things, and their opinion shouldn't be counted. If you can't pass a high school math class, I honestly don't care about your opinion on climate change. The blockchain solves none of that.
mr_toad 5y ago
> Blockchain furthers this, unlocking the ability to have a referendum on every issue, which maximises consent. If you mean an open ballot: hard no! It’s much too easy to coerce, bribe or intimidate voters.

ineedasername 5y ago

Thanks for a thoughtful response! I agree more referendums would get to a better level of participatory democracy. Though on any specific issue it could still be a 51% win with 49% going away angry. I'm not sure how blockchains makes more frequent referendums easier. Maybe harder to game the system? Apart from that it seems like a platform for regular referendums could be built without blockchains. It's still relative early days on that tech though, and amidst "Blockchain" being attached to anything anyone wants to hype, I have ended up being a bit skeptical of claims they can fit a given purpose until it goes beyond the conceptual stage.

Overton-Window 5y ago
Math is more trustworthy than the state. One of the few things both Democrats and Republicans can agree on is the state of the Bitcoin ledger. Political representation becomes obsolete with blockchains that can facilitate a referendum on every issue without the need for centralised trust.
- midev 5y ago
  Math is not magical and the blockchain doesn't solve any of these problems. Let's look at the risks and see how the blockchain does nothing: 1. Vote machines change votes - Great, the blockchain would allow people to verify their vote! Well, the software that sums up all blockchain votes could still miscount them, regardless of what the blockchain contains. Ok! So we can audit the results! Great, we can already do that with paper ballots. 2. Dead people voting - Again, same as the audit before. We see a John Smith voted on the blockchain. We can look up John Smith based on a paper ballot, just as we can with the blockchain. 3. Illegals voting - The same process used for identifying voters and giving out private keys can be used for verifying voters But what about risks you have introduced? 1. By making everything electronic, you've shifted the risk from local elections, to state actors. Signing keys are not magic. If a country found a solution to the factorization problem, or solving discrete logarithms, the scheme would collapse and they could forge massive amounts of votes. 2. Getting 300m people to manage cryptographic keys is impossible. Keys will be stolen, just as bitcoin wallets are. Now you need to deal with revocation of votes, and other controls that nobody has yet invented. tldr: blockchains are dumb
- midev 5y ago
  Second reply > Political representation becomes obsolete with blockchains that can facilitate a referendum on every issue without the need for centralised trust The choice of representative democracy was not because of the difficulty of counting votes. The founding fathers very clearly rejected what you're proposing. It's because most people are grossly ignorant about most things, and their opinion shouldn't be counted. If you can't pass a high school math class, I honestly don't care about your opinion on climate change. The blockchain solves none of that.

mr_toad 5y ago

> Blockchain furthers this, unlocking the ability to have a referendum on every issue, which maximises consent. If you mean an open ballot: hard no! It’s much too easy to coerce, bribe or intimidate voters.