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I think this is a good step towards Governments and Parliaments that are more representative for their people. Direct Democracy sounds like something idealistic

I think this is a good step towards Governments and Parliaments that are more representative for their people. Direct Democracy sounds like something idealistic that would never work in practice, but that's only because people think of it to the extreme - as in literally the whole population deciding what laws need to pass and so on. And I don't think you should look at it like that, and instead using it as a scale - how direct do you want it to be exactly? Where are the specific situations where people can directly influence legislation and governance? The current representatives in all countries seem to have gotten out of hand, and they mostly do what they want, especially if it's an issue that threatens their power. To most young people voting seems pointless because they know it's a very weak form of feedback to vote a "party", and it's a feedback that happens too rarely. This is why they couldn't care less anymore about who get to be the next country leaders. If they could engage a lot more with the representatives, and feel like they helped shape a certain legislation, I think they will become a lot more enthusiastic about it. They'd also like politicians to be a lot more accountable, because too many times they get away with voting for legislation that isn't for the benefit of the population at all, neither in the short term, nor in the long term. Warren Buffet seems to agree with politicians becoming more accountable, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNEp7q30JCw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNEp7q30JCw

BerislavLopac 15y ago
Wow, this is truly nice! People gathering around, commenting and voting, singing kumbaya! Until someone games the system. Heavily. Then it ends.
- wladimir 15y ago
  It's not like the current system is not heavily gamed and exploited. This may be more, or less, robust.. who knows, only time can tell. In any case, this kind of experimentation is very important for taking governance into the 21th century.
lukesandberg 15y ago
The main question to ask would be, is this system scalable to larger more diverse populations. Iceland is tiny (approx. 250K i think).
- Joakal 15y ago
  In Australia for Federal election, there's a 'ticket' for electing senators. In NSW, there's over 150 candidates. The way to vote is in two ways; 1) Must accurately vote for each candidate in a numeric incremental fashion. One mistake = invalid vote. 2) Or pick just one party. There's 15 parties. With 2) If you pick a party, you voted for that particular party preferences where the party pre-filled the preferences for all 150 candidates for you. That is very scalable until there's 150 parties. Or maybe 1500 parties. I believe eventually that the government will be forced to provide a 'policy platform' department where the voter gets to 'vote' where their concerns are, eg do you support granting prisoners right to vote (Yes/No or Strongly/Disagree) and the output is the party most closely aligned. Then the onus is on the parties to submit all the relevant positions to the policy platform department. I tried to create this platform [0] and closed it, code is available for others. I think I'll add it to Github soon actually! I don't believe the platform will happen for a long time as parties complain that they can't fulfill all their promises while the voters believe that the parties will fulfill their promises. Leading some to rage when politicians call them 'non-core promises' [1]. Also, some parties treat election policies as trade secrets.. seriously. They won't reveal them until election time because gasp, the current government might implement them immediately. [0] http://joakal.com/topic/shockseat/ http://joakal.com/topic/shockseat/ [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=non-core%20promise&defid=1485810 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=non-core%20pr...

BerislavLopac 15y ago

Wow, this is truly nice! People gathering around, commenting and voting, singing kumbaya! Until someone games the system. Heavily. Then it ends.

wladimir 15y ago
It's not like the current system is not heavily gamed and exploited. This may be more, or less, robust.. who knows, only time can tell. In any case, this kind of experimentation is very important for taking governance into the 21th century.

lukesandberg 15y ago

The main question to ask would be, is this system scalable to larger more diverse populations. Iceland is tiny (approx. 250K i think).

Joakal 15y ago
In Australia for Federal election, there's a 'ticket' for electing senators. In NSW, there's over 150 candidates. The way to vote is in two ways; 1) Must accurately vote for each candidate in a numeric incremental fashion. One mistake = invalid vote. 2) Or pick just one party. There's 15 parties. With 2) If you pick a party, you voted for that particular party preferences where the party pre-filled the preferences for all 150 candidates for you. That is very scalable until there's 150 parties. Or maybe 1500 parties. I believe eventually that the government will be forced to provide a 'policy platform' department where the voter gets to 'vote' where their concerns are, eg do you support granting prisoners right to vote (Yes/No or Strongly/Disagree) and the output is the party most closely aligned. Then the onus is on the parties to submit all the relevant positions to the policy platform department. I tried to create this platform [0] and closed it, code is available for others. I think I'll add it to Github soon actually! I don't believe the platform will happen for a long time as parties complain that they can't fulfill all their promises while the voters believe that the parties will fulfill their promises. Leading some to rage when politicians call them 'non-core promises' [1]. Also, some parties treat election policies as trade secrets.. seriously. They won't reveal them until election time because gasp, the current government might implement them immediately. [0] http://joakal.com/topic/shockseat/ http://joakal.com/topic/shockseat/ [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=non-core%20promise&defid=1485810 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=non-core%20pr...