3 ms·

To be listened to, rather than to be told what to care about, and to have those concerns make it to competent people with the power to do something about them.

To be listened to, rather than to be told what to care about, and to have those concerns make it to competent people with the power to do something about them. But it's not really compatible with a system where one person represents millions. You'd need something recursive such that no person represents more than a hundred or so, that way there's time to circle back and explain why certain complaints aren't being addressed this cycle and such. You know, responsibility of leadership to the people. It's also not really compatible with a system where your representative for foo-type issues must also be your representative for bar-type issues, because "competent people" is too broad of a category to be useful. How to get there from here? I'm not sure but it seems like it'll require a more significant discontinuity than we've seen so far.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
Repeal the act capping house representatives to 435. The house then expands massively and you get more representative government.
- chgs 1y ago
  So you have 6,000 representatives, which is about the same ratio as the population back in 1790. What does each one do? What agency does each have? They get 20 minutes a year to speak assuming a 2000 hour working year.
  - panick21_ 1y ago
    What would happen is that representatives are more locally focused on their districts and would vote in larger 'sub'-parties. In a single seat district system, increase in seats its also proven to improve representation for minorities. I don't think the expansion by itself is a fix-all solution. One of the issues is that you have many single issue districts and those that get elected can vote whatever they want on everything else. That is both good and bad in some situations. > They get 20 minutes a year to speak assuming a 2000 hour working year. Congress isn't about making public speeches, its about legislating in congress. Turning congress into a TV show is part of the issue in the first place.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      Where congress just follows the party line. Or does back room deals I think the larger problem with democracy in general is that constituencies are no longer geographic. A software engineer in Austin and one in San Jose have far more in common than a software engineer in Austin and a Tractor dealer in Austin. The representative for Austin has to represent the conflicting views of both the Tractor dealer and the software engineer.
      - panick21_ 1y ago
        Back room deals aren't necessary a negative. That how the sausage is made. I rather have backroom deals when people can make rational compromise, rather then having media spectral where congress sessions are reality TV. Mostly used to get clips that can then be used in adds. > I think the larger problem with democracy in general is that constituencies are no longer geographic. I think that is a good point. Specifically on federal level. On local level geographic still matters. Its basically the old socialist argument about class system. Just with a much more complex class system. I guess you could have some sort of cluster analysis putting into X different interest clusters and you could vote for a representative in each. And then somehow calculate an optimal congress. "Vote for me, I'm representing technically inclined fantasy nerds that like cat girls" Not sure that is the solution. But you are right that the 'pyramid' style system used in most countries could be improved on. A simple version of this is basically to do all federal votes for congress and use some kind of representation algorithm. The issue with this is that doing a political campaign on a federal level is insanely expensive. And I can't even imagine if each congress person had to try to get elected on federal level. The amount of political adds would be crazy. I really don't have the solution and its hard to run experiments on things like this. > The representative for Austin has to represent the conflicting views of both the Tractor dealer and the software engineer. Smaller countries does help her, as geographic area gets smaller more interested are represented.
        potato3732842 1y ago
        >I rather have backroom deals when people can make rational compromise, Along these lines, policy kind of went to shit when they got rid of earmarks. It used to be some congressman from rural Ohio being able to vote in favor of union stuff his people want but the party doesn't because he knows the bill has some pork for his district to make his people happy so he'll be secure next election. Now that guy's security next election is all dependent on party funding so he's gotta vote the party line every time and any deviations from the party line are a complex game of favor trading and backroom dealing and whatnot.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    The point is to make it easier for people to hassle their representative, and to make it feasible for them to actually understand what the people they represent actually want.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  I think the fix is a more drastic refactor than that. We need more depth in this tree. Much more depth. I imagine a sort of cultural "open enrollment" period during which anyone can mark anyone else as their representative. Perhaps we create four or five categories that we need representation in (foreign policy, infrastructure, education, monetary policy... something like that), so you gotta then find four or five representatives which you personally know and trust. Then we follow the directed representation graph to its terminal nodes (or cycles) and those are the representatives that we ask to get together and get things done. Those are our leaders. They meet only sometimes, the rest of the year they spend working with their constituents.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago

Repeal the act capping house representatives to 435. The house then expands massively and you get more representative government.

chgs 1y ago
So you have 6,000 representatives, which is about the same ratio as the population back in 1790. What does each one do? What agency does each have? They get 20 minutes a year to speak assuming a 2000 hour working year.
- panick21_ 1y ago
  What would happen is that representatives are more locally focused on their districts and would vote in larger 'sub'-parties. In a single seat district system, increase in seats its also proven to improve representation for minorities. I don't think the expansion by itself is a fix-all solution. One of the issues is that you have many single issue districts and those that get elected can vote whatever they want on everything else. That is both good and bad in some situations. > They get 20 minutes a year to speak assuming a 2000 hour working year. Congress isn't about making public speeches, its about legislating in congress. Turning congress into a TV show is part of the issue in the first place.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    Where congress just follows the party line. Or does back room deals I think the larger problem with democracy in general is that constituencies are no longer geographic. A software engineer in Austin and one in San Jose have far more in common than a software engineer in Austin and a Tractor dealer in Austin. The representative for Austin has to represent the conflicting views of both the Tractor dealer and the software engineer.
    - panick21_ 1y ago
      Back room deals aren't necessary a negative. That how the sausage is made. I rather have backroom deals when people can make rational compromise, rather then having media spectral where congress sessions are reality TV. Mostly used to get clips that can then be used in adds. > I think the larger problem with democracy in general is that constituencies are no longer geographic. I think that is a good point. Specifically on federal level. On local level geographic still matters. Its basically the old socialist argument about class system. Just with a much more complex class system. I guess you could have some sort of cluster analysis putting into X different interest clusters and you could vote for a representative in each. And then somehow calculate an optimal congress. "Vote for me, I'm representing technically inclined fantasy nerds that like cat girls" Not sure that is the solution. But you are right that the 'pyramid' style system used in most countries could be improved on. A simple version of this is basically to do all federal votes for congress and use some kind of representation algorithm. The issue with this is that doing a political campaign on a federal level is insanely expensive. And I can't even imagine if each congress person had to try to get elected on federal level. The amount of political adds would be crazy. I really don't have the solution and its hard to run experiments on things like this. > The representative for Austin has to represent the conflicting views of both the Tractor dealer and the software engineer. Smaller countries does help her, as geographic area gets smaller more interested are represented.
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        >I rather have backroom deals when people can make rational compromise, Along these lines, policy kind of went to shit when they got rid of earmarks. It used to be some congressman from rural Ohio being able to vote in favor of union stuff his people want but the party doesn't because he knows the bill has some pork for his district to make his people happy so he'll be secure next election. Now that guy's security next election is all dependent on party funding so he's gotta vote the party line every time and any deviations from the party line are a complex game of favor trading and backroom dealing and whatnot.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  The point is to make it easier for people to hassle their representative, and to make it feasible for them to actually understand what the people they represent actually want.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
I think the fix is a more drastic refactor than that. We need more depth in this tree. Much more depth. I imagine a sort of cultural "open enrollment" period during which anyone can mark anyone else as their representative. Perhaps we create four or five categories that we need representation in (foreign policy, infrastructure, education, monetary policy... something like that), so you gotta then find four or five representatives which you personally know and trust. Then we follow the directed representation graph to its terminal nodes (or cycles) and those are the representatives that we ask to get together and get things done. Those are our leaders. They meet only sometimes, the rest of the year they spend working with their constituents.