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What is the underlying problem and what are the potential solutions? > saw dynamic+direct democracy as extremely dangerous Are you saying that humans, on aver

What is the underlying problem and what are the potential solutions? > saw dynamic+direct democracy as extremely dangerous Are you saying that humans, on average, are bad/harmful/evil? Or that they commit to decisions without thinking them through and act on emotions instead of reason? Because if the first, then making democracy indirect or otherwise limited should not help. So I believe it is the second. Then the question becomes either how to get people to vote more rationally or how to weight votes by rationality. The second options is not well explored.

clcaev 8mo ago
The principal danger is the concentration of power. We should start by rejuvenating and supporting local communities and institutions, interpersonal human connections with primacy. Bottom up governance seems critical, it is where political discussion (with real examples) might happen without becoming a spectacle of identity.
- martin-t 8mo ago
  > The principal danger is the concentration of power. Absolutely. Good people can cooperate or reach compromises for mutual benefit. Bad people are each in it for himself - while they do form alliances sometimes, ultimately working together is unnatural for them and often temporary. Requiring any position of power to be always distributed among many people obviously makes it hard for a single person to abuse power but less obviously disadvantages bad people by its very nature on a deeper level. > local communities and institutions I have an idea which I for now call consent-based society. I need to think about it a lot more but for now: People talk about rights and freedoms but can't decide where the rights of one person end and another person's begin. If we focus on consent, it may become simpler. People could then form larger and larger groups based on agreement (consent) to rules - a house, small village, city, state. But only as long as it benefits them - consent can be revoked at any time. But of course, historically, nation states emerged because large hierarchical power structures are advantageous at war and it'll take a long time to get people away from considering them natural, correct or inevitable. --- Anyway, I don't think your post really answers my question though. From what I read, liquid democracy seems like a form of bottom up governance.
  - clcaev 8mo ago
    I'm curious to hear more of this "Informed Consent" based framework. I think disclosure of potential negative outcomes from a decision would help. My concern with liquid democracy is about speed and predictability. Politics involves human relationships, traditions, compromises, etc. I'm worried rapidly switching would further erode local rule and undermine bottom up democracy. Recall referendum/elections seems to work well enough, they create a newsworthy topic so people may have time to absorb and adjust. Regarding your question. Human behavior seems more a function of circumstances; trying on someone else's shoes can be heartbreaking, so it's often rationale to look the other way. Emotional decisions must be acceptable in a democracy: who am I to decide if someone else is being rational? For the US, we could start by dramatically expanding the house of representatives so races become more about local human connection rather than party identity. The Senate seems immovable architectural debt, however, its role to buffer sudden change seems important.
    - martin-t 8mo ago
      > I'm curious to hear more of this "Informed Consent" based framework. I think disclosure of potential negative outcomes from a decision would help. Maybe I was too optimistic. Instead of deciding who has what rights, we have to decide what requires consent and what does not. Currently, in most legal systems, using any physical property of a person requires their consent - even if it just means walking about a plot of land they own without harming or devaluing it in any way. I want this to extend to intellectual property - if someone wants to build in top of my work, they should require my consent. This is partially motivated by 10 years of my work being effectively stolen by "AI" companies without any compensation for me. There's still the issue that for example parody (or other examples or "fair use") is building on top of the original work but should probably be allowed. And that a lot of work is performed by groups - do you need consent from all of them or just more than half? But I think it can be solved, it just needs more thought. Maybe consent would end up as just a reframing of the current system but it can still be useful if it forced people to take different perspectives. For example every salary negotiation is to some extent exploitative because the parties don't have equal information nor equal bargaining power. And a lot of people (ancaps especially) will try to keep denying this. Likening this to consent in sex can force them to either admit there's a massive power differential (and that we should try to reduce it) or claim power differentials are not an issue in sex either (and face the social challenges of defending that opinion). > Emotional decisions must be acceptable in a democracy: who am I to decide if someone else is being rational? Maybe emotional was not a good phrase. What I have a massive issue with is people reacting to events and looking (voting) for the easiest solutions without considering their downstream effects. There's also the fact politicians just lie without repercussions and people don't vote based on an objective reality but based on their impression which is based on what they hear. How to solve that? As elitist as it sounds, I'd like to see a system where smarter people have a stronger vote. How much stronger? Idk. What is smarter? It could be raw intelligence, or knowledge of the subject matter or better skill at detecting lies and manipulation or a combination of those. It's hard but it should be talked about.

clcaev 8mo ago

The principal danger is the concentration of power. We should start by rejuvenating and supporting local communities and institutions, interpersonal human connections with primacy. Bottom up governance seems critical, it is where political discussion (with real examples) might happen without becoming a spectacle of identity.

martin-t 8mo ago
> The principal danger is the concentration of power. Absolutely. Good people can cooperate or reach compromises for mutual benefit. Bad people are each in it for himself - while they do form alliances sometimes, ultimately working together is unnatural for them and often temporary. Requiring any position of power to be always distributed among many people obviously makes it hard for a single person to abuse power but less obviously disadvantages bad people by its very nature on a deeper level. > local communities and institutions I have an idea which I for now call consent-based society. I need to think about it a lot more but for now: People talk about rights and freedoms but can't decide where the rights of one person end and another person's begin. If we focus on consent, it may become simpler. People could then form larger and larger groups based on agreement (consent) to rules - a house, small village, city, state. But only as long as it benefits them - consent can be revoked at any time. But of course, historically, nation states emerged because large hierarchical power structures are advantageous at war and it'll take a long time to get people away from considering them natural, correct or inevitable. --- Anyway, I don't think your post really answers my question though. From what I read, liquid democracy seems like a form of bottom up governance.
- clcaev 8mo ago
  I'm curious to hear more of this "Informed Consent" based framework. I think disclosure of potential negative outcomes from a decision would help. My concern with liquid democracy is about speed and predictability. Politics involves human relationships, traditions, compromises, etc. I'm worried rapidly switching would further erode local rule and undermine bottom up democracy. Recall referendum/elections seems to work well enough, they create a newsworthy topic so people may have time to absorb and adjust. Regarding your question. Human behavior seems more a function of circumstances; trying on someone else's shoes can be heartbreaking, so it's often rationale to look the other way. Emotional decisions must be acceptable in a democracy: who am I to decide if someone else is being rational? For the US, we could start by dramatically expanding the house of representatives so races become more about local human connection rather than party identity. The Senate seems immovable architectural debt, however, its role to buffer sudden change seems important.
  - martin-t 8mo ago
    > I'm curious to hear more of this "Informed Consent" based framework. I think disclosure of potential negative outcomes from a decision would help. Maybe I was too optimistic. Instead of deciding who has what rights, we have to decide what requires consent and what does not. Currently, in most legal systems, using any physical property of a person requires their consent - even if it just means walking about a plot of land they own without harming or devaluing it in any way. I want this to extend to intellectual property - if someone wants to build in top of my work, they should require my consent. This is partially motivated by 10 years of my work being effectively stolen by "AI" companies without any compensation for me. There's still the issue that for example parody (or other examples or "fair use") is building on top of the original work but should probably be allowed. And that a lot of work is performed by groups - do you need consent from all of them or just more than half? But I think it can be solved, it just needs more thought. Maybe consent would end up as just a reframing of the current system but it can still be useful if it forced people to take different perspectives. For example every salary negotiation is to some extent exploitative because the parties don't have equal information nor equal bargaining power. And a lot of people (ancaps especially) will try to keep denying this. Likening this to consent in sex can force them to either admit there's a massive power differential (and that we should try to reduce it) or claim power differentials are not an issue in sex either (and face the social challenges of defending that opinion). > Emotional decisions must be acceptable in a democracy: who am I to decide if someone else is being rational? Maybe emotional was not a good phrase. What I have a massive issue with is people reacting to events and looking (voting) for the easiest solutions without considering their downstream effects. There's also the fact politicians just lie without repercussions and people don't vote based on an objective reality but based on their impression which is based on what they hear. How to solve that? As elitist as it sounds, I'd like to see a system where smarter people have a stronger vote. How much stronger? Idk. What is smarter? It could be raw intelligence, or knowledge of the subject matter or better skill at detecting lies and manipulation or a combination of those. It's hard but it should be talked about.