2 ms·

"What would lead to better democracy is a populace that isnt informed by network TV and tabloids" Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.co

"What would lead to better democracy is a populace that isnt informed by network TV and tabloids" Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...

specialist 4y ago
I'm very interested in novel forms of policy making, alternatives to parliamentary procedure. Your suggestions are worth trying out. Perhaps as a game or simulation, a la Nomics. I'm personally interested in participatory democracy strategies like citizen juries. Not to be confused with direct democracy strategies like initiatives. Which have proven to be poor choices. Emphasis on the deliberation, discourse, participation. Versus just voting. Learning how the Iroquois governed is on my "to do" list.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm working on a software simulation that will allow testing of different systems, to see how close a system of voting can come to aggregating the preferences of voters. Back in 1953, Kenneth Arrow published his Impossibility Theorem, which proved that rank voting failed to aggregate voter preferences. He later won a Nobel Prize, in part for this work. But Arrow remained hopeful about "approval" voting, where the voters get an infinite number of votes. The central problem is that our voting systems today tend to be course-grained, and they need to be fine-grained if they are to aggregate the will of the voters, without having small, random variations swamp the results. So I'm working on a simulation to let everyone experiment with all the possible variables: how many votes, how many candidates, etc.
  - specialist 4y ago
    Nice. Please share when you're ready. I share your concern about grain (scope). Both bundling unrelated stuff as well as the need to preserve (protect) mutually dependent facets. A "just so" example of the later is comprehensive progressive tax reform is easily sabotaged by breaking up the effort. I'm so glad you're thinking about these issues.

specialist 4y ago

I'm very interested in novel forms of policy making, alternatives to parliamentary procedure. Your suggestions are worth trying out. Perhaps as a game or simulation, a la Nomics. I'm personally interested in participatory democracy strategies like citizen juries. Not to be confused with direct democracy strategies like initiatives. Which have proven to be poor choices. Emphasis on the deliberation, discourse, participation. Versus just voting. Learning how the Iroquois governed is on my "to do" list.

lkrubner 4y ago
For what it's worth, I'm working on a software simulation that will allow testing of different systems, to see how close a system of voting can come to aggregating the preferences of voters. Back in 1953, Kenneth Arrow published his Impossibility Theorem, which proved that rank voting failed to aggregate voter preferences. He later won a Nobel Prize, in part for this work. But Arrow remained hopeful about "approval" voting, where the voters get an infinite number of votes. The central problem is that our voting systems today tend to be course-grained, and they need to be fine-grained if they are to aggregate the will of the voters, without having small, random variations swamp the results. So I'm working on a simulation to let everyone experiment with all the possible variables: how many votes, how many candidates, etc.
- specialist 4y ago
  Nice. Please share when you're ready. I share your concern about grain (scope). Both bundling unrelated stuff as well as the need to preserve (protect) mutually dependent facets. A "just so" example of the later is comprehensive progressive tax reform is easily sabotaged by breaking up the effort. I'm so glad you're thinking about these issues.