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> democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally 1) Even locally in countries where education is dece

by martin-t 10mo ago

> democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally 1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising. 2) People talk about education is a general thing but really, a lot of the stuff is biology, chemistry, memorizing book and author names in literature without deeper understanding, etc. What we're missing is education focused on logic and reasoning, both formal and the so called critical thinking - the ability to detect biases, manipulative ("rhetorical") techniques, lying etc. There's focus on "presentation skills" but nothing about "anti-presnetation skills" - detecting nicely packaged bullshit and detecting poorly presented good ideas. And what's completely missing is basic psychology and psychopathology (many politicians have blatant NPD or ASPD, yet people still vote for them). 3) There's no requirement for voting except age. Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions about math and formal logic and their vote weighted by how much they get right. Or simple questions about the party they're voting for.

rich_sasha 10mo ago
> 1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising. I mean, either these voters are right and are seeing something I don't. Or they aren't smart enough to vote. I'm not trying to be elitist but the world does feel a bit like a bus where the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit. > Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions I think about it from time to time. I guess the concern would be that the flat earthers & co will be more motivated and organised, grit their teeth, pass the tests (since political pressure will stop them from being too hard) and educated people will be less keen. I can totally imagine this in my native Poland, where the populist right is actually polling consistently around only 35% but is very organised and has the highest turnouts.
- martin-t 10mo ago
  > the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit. 1) I think a lot of people (correctly) feel that their quality of life is not improving the way it should be according to the (so often discussed) technological progress and growing economy, yet don't have the ability to think about the system as a whole and the root causes. I could be wrong too but the way I see it is that an increasingly large cut of wealth goes to the already massively rich. Any kind of passive income is IMO exploitation by a different name. If you're not putting in work, then the money coming out has to come from other people's work. Finite investment should yield finite reward. Owning companies should be illegal just like it's illegal to own humans already (at least in the civilized world but it took even us a long time to get here). > since political pressure will stop them from being too hard Calibrating the difficulty correctly will be hard but we won't know until we try. Politics is adversarial so the way of coming up with questions probably(?) has to be as well. I think people should be able to vote on laws directly - see my other comments. That would hopefully cut down on some populism and also incentivize not voting on stuff you don't understand. But as long as we're stuck with political parties, we could try systems where each candidate party provides a list of questions+answers (with a maximum amount). Or where anybody can submit a question if they collect enough signatures.

rich_sasha 10mo ago

> 1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising. I mean, either these voters are right and are seeing something I don't. Or they aren't smart enough to vote. I'm not trying to be elitist but the world does feel a bit like a bus where the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit. > Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions I think about it from time to time. I guess the concern would be that the flat earthers & co will be more motivated and organised, grit their teeth, pass the tests (since political pressure will stop them from being too hard) and educated people will be less keen. I can totally imagine this in my native Poland, where the populist right is actually polling consistently around only 35% but is very organised and has the highest turnouts.

martin-t 10mo ago
> the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit. 1) I think a lot of people (correctly) feel that their quality of life is not improving the way it should be according to the (so often discussed) technological progress and growing economy, yet don't have the ability to think about the system as a whole and the root causes. I could be wrong too but the way I see it is that an increasingly large cut of wealth goes to the already massively rich. Any kind of passive income is IMO exploitation by a different name. If you're not putting in work, then the money coming out has to come from other people's work. Finite investment should yield finite reward. Owning companies should be illegal just like it's illegal to own humans already (at least in the civilized world but it took even us a long time to get here). > since political pressure will stop them from being too hard Calibrating the difficulty correctly will be hard but we won't know until we try. Politics is adversarial so the way of coming up with questions probably(?) has to be as well. I think people should be able to vote on laws directly - see my other comments. That would hopefully cut down on some populism and also incentivize not voting on stuff you don't understand. But as long as we're stuck with political parties, we could try systems where each candidate party provides a list of questions+answers (with a maximum amount). Or where anybody can submit a question if they collect enough signatures.