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> Well, first of all you have to ask if the 'decision to delegate' can be monetized or not. If American citizens could sell their vote directly to the highest b

> Well, first of all you have to ask if the 'decision to delegate' can be monetized or not. If American citizens could sell their vote directly to the highest bidder, then many likely would (most elections have relatively low turnout). How much would the average US citizen want in return? $100? $1000? $10? Would votes be purchasable only by other US citizens, or by corporate bodies, or by citizens of foreign nations? You're making up problems. The same exact problem, vote buying, exists in every form of democracy. Secret ballot is supposed to solve that. And has nothing to do with direct, liquid or representative democracy. > Beyond that, this is already supposedly how representative democracy works. No, you misunderstood liquid democracy if that's what you think. The difference is that anyone can withdraw their vote at any time for any reason and cast it on their own. It has nothing to do with committees. You can read more about liquid democracy in Wikipedia if the article wasn't enough for you [1]. > However, given the kind of people we have running Congress... this system doesn't seem to work that well. Geriatic insider traders who owe their positions to various corporate conglomerates (finance, energy, defense, pharmaceuticals, etc.) have ended up running all the committees, and the evidence that this is a failure can be easily seen by looking at America's crumbling domestic infrastructure. Yeah, this is what liquid democracy solves. Please make sure you understand the concept before arguing against it. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy

MichaelZuo 4y ago
I don't understand how it can be kept secret, after all the person who is receiving the delegated votes must know how many and who gave it? And the person sending obviously knows how many and who they're giving it to.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  The same way it is today. Nothing about voting would change, only who votes on what and when.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    Wouldn't it be far easier to just vote by yourself then?
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Nobody has time, energy ir interest to vote on ebery single thing. That's why you entrust your vote to somone else for things you don't care about as much.
      - raxxorraxor 4y ago
        I believe if you don't have an interest in informing yourself about political issues, your vote should just be voided. Democracy has a problem that it can degrade to a popularity contest and I believe this mechanism would only exacerbate that issue. If people are not interested they might also be inclined to sell their votes which would shift political power to wealthy individuals even more. With representatives people usually don't vote on every single issue, on the contrary, the democratic will is already heavily delegated to a party, even if the logistical problems of collecting opinions would be pretty small these days.
        guerrilla 4y ago
        I mean you don't, so I guess your vote should be voided. There are many things representatives vote on for you that you have no idea about.
X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
Wait how can you have both a secret ballot and liquid democracy? It seems like to delegate your vote you would want to know how your delegate voted.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  The delegate only needs to know how many votes they have to cast, not who the votes belong to. In fact, they don't even need to know that if another organization has that information. They would just say "I use the votes delegated to me, however many, and by whomever, to vote yes (or no) on X"
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
    But the delegator would want to know how their delegate voted. It's much better to buy votes from someone who has lots of delegations
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Too bad for them? If that's really what people want, then they don't have to have secret ballot, and then they have vote buying. Such are tradeoffs.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
        Yeah it really is too bad, I'm excited for the potential of liquid democracy, but pretty sad that the most important tool for preventing vote buying is seriously limited in liquid democracy.
        guerrilla 4y ago
        But we just establisged it's not.
notahacker 4y ago
> The same exact problem, vote buying, exists in every form of democracy. Secret ballot is supposed to solve that. And has nothing to do with direct, liquid or representative democracy. Sure, liquid voting can solve vote buying by making delegations and individuals' votes secret with software (afaik the problem of a person being able to secretly delegate their vote to another person who is in turn able to vote secretly is basically unsolvable with pen and paper and ballot boxes though, unlike regular secret ballots) But liquid democracy with secret ballot so voters are unaware that another person has delegated voting power to them can introduce a new edge case issue though. Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) [FWIW I'm talking about a form of liquid democracy similar to that outlined in the paper, where votes are delegated to individual neighbours who in turn may delegate to people they trust, not the form that looks more like representative democracy but you can pick different representatives for different issues)
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > votes secret with software Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. > Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    > Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identity of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. > This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate. That depends heavily on mechanism design though. If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists and it is practical for me to purchase X's vote (and indeed to purchase and validate that I possess the votes of tens of thousands of indifferent voters). If I am simply aware at some stage that I have become someone's delegate and am not made aware that person is X, the level of secrecy means that I may rationally choose to delegate my votes to X without realising the two delegations cancel out.
hash872 4y ago
>Yeah, this is what liquid democracy solves Do you have any real-world examples of where this was implemented & provided better results than a normal, representative system? If not, this seems like an overly strong statement- history is littered with hundreds of examples of social, economic or electoral systems that in theory sounded better, but didn't really work out in practice
- guerrilla 4y ago
  It's an a priori fact that it can't have the same kind of corruption because that kind of corruption requires representatives who have terms and who can't be recalled, and it does not have either. If you think that it can have the corrupt politician problem, then you haven't understood it. Everywhere it's used is an instance of broader interests being taken into account, by definition.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > It's an a priori fact that it can't have the same kind of corruption In theory, again. It is also a well known fact that it is gonna have a worse type of corruption: incompetence supported by numbers. Liquid democracy is nothing more than a system where social connections have been replaced by popularity. It is in practice a system run by influencers. Beware of what you wish for.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Not "in theory" - it's literally just impossible to even apply the problem to the system. Again, if you don't see that that is obvious then you don't understand the system we're discussing. > It is also a well known fact that it is gonna have a worse type of corruption: incompetence supported by numbers. That's a real criticism, for sure. > It is in practice a system run by influencers. We already have that problem. Our system is a system run by influencers. Enough people will never hear about any candidate or idea that the people who own the media (the state an capitalists) don't want them to hear about.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Yeah, this is what liquid democracy solves. In theory. In practice we kinda tried it in Italy (not me, I always thought it was a scam) and the party pushing for it was able to elect the mayor of Rome. It has been the worst mayor of Rome since Rome was founded. Thanks, but no thanks.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  This doesn't tell us anything except that you disagree with most people in Rome.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    First of all it says that in practice liquid democracy failed, and failed hard! It also simply says that people know nothing about govern, they should only vote once for themselves to protect their personal interest. And that liquid democracy doesn't work at all, when applied to practice,unless you have proof of the contrary. Because I have proof of what I say, you can ask the majority of romans what they think of Virginia Raggi's cabinet, she went from 50% of the votes to 14% in 5 years. Also: the same party that elected her has been critique of how she managed the City since few months after her election. https://www.politico.eu/article/the-sack-of-romes-mayor/amp/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-sack-of-romes-mayor/amp/ Please,if you wanna criticize something, at least make the effort of informing yourself on the matter. But most of all your answer proves why liquid democracy doesn't work: you seem to know virtually nothing about Rome and yet you expressed your opinion as it was a fact, because instead of checking if what I said was true or not, you simply found an angle to argue. Now imagine million of people doing the same while voting on important matters that impact the lives of the citizens of a large city like, say, New York. "I don't like face masks so let's delegate my vote to my friend who owns a pizza restaurant and let me eat there without wearing one". Now tell me that it's actually what you wish for the big apple.
    - mistermann 4y ago
      > It simply says that people know nothing about govern, they should only vote once for themselves to protect their personal interest. And that liquid democracy doesn't work at all, when applied to when applied to practice... Technically, these are beliefs that you have formed, not facts demonstrated by your example. For proof: > ...unless you have proof of the contrary. How would him providing proof change the epistemic state of underlying reality that you are allegedly describing?

MichaelZuo 4y ago

I don't understand how it can be kept secret, after all the person who is receiving the delegated votes must know how many and who gave it? And the person sending obviously knows how many and who they're giving it to.

guerrilla 4y ago
The same way it is today. Nothing about voting would change, only who votes on what and when.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be far easier to just vote by yourself then?
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Nobody has time, energy ir interest to vote on ebery single thing. That's why you entrust your vote to somone else for things you don't care about as much.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      I believe if you don't have an interest in informing yourself about political issues, your vote should just be voided. Democracy has a problem that it can degrade to a popularity contest and I believe this mechanism would only exacerbate that issue. If people are not interested they might also be inclined to sell their votes which would shift political power to wealthy individuals even more. With representatives people usually don't vote on every single issue, on the contrary, the democratic will is already heavily delegated to a party, even if the logistical problems of collecting opinions would be pretty small these days.
      - guerrilla 4y ago
        I mean you don't, so I guess your vote should be voided. There are many things representatives vote on for you that you have no idea about.

X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago

Wait how can you have both a secret ballot and liquid democracy? It seems like to delegate your vote you would want to know how your delegate voted.

guerrilla 4y ago
The delegate only needs to know how many votes they have to cast, not who the votes belong to. In fact, they don't even need to know that if another organization has that information. They would just say "I use the votes delegated to me, however many, and by whomever, to vote yes (or no) on X"
- X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
  But the delegator would want to know how their delegate voted. It's much better to buy votes from someone who has lots of delegations
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Too bad for them? If that's really what people want, then they don't have to have secret ballot, and then they have vote buying. Such are tradeoffs.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
      Yeah it really is too bad, I'm excited for the potential of liquid democracy, but pretty sad that the most important tool for preventing vote buying is seriously limited in liquid democracy.
      - guerrilla 4y ago
        But we just establisged it's not.

notahacker 4y ago

> The same exact problem, vote buying, exists in every form of democracy. Secret ballot is supposed to solve that. And has nothing to do with direct, liquid or representative democracy. Sure, liquid voting can solve vote buying by making delegations and individuals' votes secret with software (afaik the problem of a person being able to secretly delegate their vote to another person who is in turn able to vote secretly is basically unsolvable with pen and paper and ballot boxes though, unlike regular secret ballots) But liquid democracy with secret ballot so voters are unaware that another person has delegated voting power to them can introduce a new edge case issue though. Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) [FWIW I'm talking about a form of liquid democracy similar to that outlined in the paper, where votes are delegated to individual neighbours who in turn may delegate to people they trust, not the form that looks more like representative democracy but you can pick different representatives for different issues)

guerrilla 4y ago
> votes secret with software Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. > Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identity of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. > This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate. That depends heavily on mechanism design though. If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists and it is practical for me to purchase X's vote (and indeed to purchase and validate that I possess the votes of tens of thousands of indifferent voters). If I am simply aware at some stage that I have become someone's delegate and am not made aware that person is X, the level of secrecy means that I may rationally choose to delegate my votes to X without realising the two delegations cancel out.

hash872 4y ago

>Yeah, this is what liquid democracy solves Do you have any real-world examples of where this was implemented & provided better results than a normal, representative system? If not, this seems like an overly strong statement- history is littered with hundreds of examples of social, economic or electoral systems that in theory sounded better, but didn't really work out in practice

guerrilla 4y ago
It's an a priori fact that it can't have the same kind of corruption because that kind of corruption requires representatives who have terms and who can't be recalled, and it does not have either. If you think that it can have the corrupt politician problem, then you haven't understood it. Everywhere it's used is an instance of broader interests being taken into account, by definition.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > It's an a priori fact that it can't have the same kind of corruption In theory, again. It is also a well known fact that it is gonna have a worse type of corruption: incompetence supported by numbers. Liquid democracy is nothing more than a system where social connections have been replaced by popularity. It is in practice a system run by influencers. Beware of what you wish for.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Not "in theory" - it's literally just impossible to even apply the problem to the system. Again, if you don't see that that is obvious then you don't understand the system we're discussing. > It is also a well known fact that it is gonna have a worse type of corruption: incompetence supported by numbers. That's a real criticism, for sure. > It is in practice a system run by influencers. We already have that problem. Our system is a system run by influencers. Enough people will never hear about any candidate or idea that the people who own the media (the state an capitalists) don't want them to hear about.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> Yeah, this is what liquid democracy solves. In theory. In practice we kinda tried it in Italy (not me, I always thought it was a scam) and the party pushing for it was able to elect the mayor of Rome. It has been the worst mayor of Rome since Rome was founded. Thanks, but no thanks.

guerrilla 4y ago
This doesn't tell us anything except that you disagree with most people in Rome.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  First of all it says that in practice liquid democracy failed, and failed hard! It also simply says that people know nothing about govern, they should only vote once for themselves to protect their personal interest. And that liquid democracy doesn't work at all, when applied to practice,unless you have proof of the contrary. Because I have proof of what I say, you can ask the majority of romans what they think of Virginia Raggi's cabinet, she went from 50% of the votes to 14% in 5 years. Also: the same party that elected her has been critique of how she managed the City since few months after her election. https://www.politico.eu/article/the-sack-of-romes-mayor/amp/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-sack-of-romes-mayor/amp/ Please,if you wanna criticize something, at least make the effort of informing yourself on the matter. But most of all your answer proves why liquid democracy doesn't work: you seem to know virtually nothing about Rome and yet you expressed your opinion as it was a fact, because instead of checking if what I said was true or not, you simply found an angle to argue. Now imagine million of people doing the same while voting on important matters that impact the lives of the citizens of a large city like, say, New York. "I don't like face masks so let's delegate my vote to my friend who owns a pizza restaurant and let me eat there without wearing one". Now tell me that it's actually what you wish for the big apple.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    > It simply says that people know nothing about govern, they should only vote once for themselves to protect their personal interest. And that liquid democracy doesn't work at all, when applied to when applied to practice... Technically, these are beliefs that you have formed, not facts demonstrated by your example. For proof: > ...unless you have proof of the contrary. How would him providing proof change the epistemic state of underlying reality that you are allegedly describing?