Have thought about this a bit. Moving towards DD used to seem like an obvious evolution to me, particularly with modern technology. Following recent political developments I see a lot more risks now.
First of all is how do we choose what to vote on; a lot of power is rests on whoever drafts and sets the "framing" of votes. If we also do this "directly" in some manner then the filtering mechanism is vulnerable, and if we try to crowd source all the things we are likely to get "government by reddit".
Direct democracy moves power away from politicians and towards media (traditional and social), celebrities, opinion makers. If you believe we live in a world of misinformation now, there is a potential for direct democracy to make that much worse.
It's also not obvious in a direct democracy how you would control for holistic things that result from many decisions. The obvious one is how do you balance a budget without making the voting process very complicated.
I think liquid democracy is a reasonable proposition: delegate your vote to professionals, but take it back on any propositions you have a strong opinion about.
Having met some representative and politicians, I can confidently say that they are as vulnerable to misinformation, hubris and inadequate education than the average voter.
Switzerland has actually a system pretty close to DD with its petition-triggered referendums. I believe California has something similar?
DD is the possibility to vote, but it is fine to have representatives, as long as you can take your cote back when you want.
What if we had a very serious law that says that if you get caught lying to people about the issues being voted on, you'd be thrown in jail?
Regarding the budget question - could we still vote on important issues and leave the rest up to the bureaucracy? i.e. The people have spoken. Make it so... If there is a major budgetary issue with a given decision, we vote on where to get the money...
Even if direct democracy wouldn't work officially - I think it would be interesting if there were a way to collect the general populations opinion on a matter at any given time and make it known. I'm surprised Facebook/Google hasn't done something like this yet. I bet you they would if some startup came along and tried to market an app like this.
> What if we had a very serious law that says that if you get caught lying to people about the issues being voted on, you'd be thrown in jail?
You don't have to lie in order to make people vote in a certain direction. For example, you could give more coverage of one side of the argument than the other. E.g. in the case of the topic of terrorism you can choose to ignore it, or you can frame the issue in such a way that it seems that the viewer is at a high risk of being attacked, e.g. by showing old footage in every news bulletin. As another example, take euthanasia; you can explain the humanitarian side of it, or you can zoom in on the mistakes that have been made by doctors in other countries in this context, and make them look horrific. You can apply these kinds of tricks to almost any topic, I'm sure you get the point.
Online polls are notoriously inaccurate. If Facebook/Google tried this and it gained traction, it would likely trigger an onslaught of fake and stolen accounts.
understanding the world is a full time job. not saying the current crop of politicians are doing a great job of it, but the chances for Joe Random to understand the ramifications of his voting in direct democracy are slim
Moreover the risk of unmitigated populism storming the masses into voting some real shit is ever present; while a populist leader still have to work within the framework of the houses it would be extremely easy to con the people into, say, voting xenophobic measures during circumscribed but substantial crisis like the Syrian war.
Indeed, there are many obvious shortcomings and risks with DD and any other system - pointing them out is about as difficult a shooting fish in a barrel. But I find this style of argument utterly unconvincing of the popular truism that it would inevitably result in a clusterfuck.
Not only that, any time I read such criticisms, they seem to overlook the fact that DD would change the landscape. Perhaps people are "ignorant of the facts" now, and I certainly don't disagree, but can you blame them? If a democracy offers you only two choices of party, who differ very little if viewed from a perspective outside the Overton Window (which is constantly drilled into people's minds as a true representation of reality), then why bother putting much effort into it?
Of course, the average Joe's reasoning doesn't get down into such detail, but I believe the common man has a reasonably accurate intuitive sense for discriminating between sincerity and theatre.
To know with any level of confidence whether DD could work, it would have to be tried, with many variations, over a very long period of time. To me, this seems unmistakably true due to the complex nature of reality - and yet, the overwhelming consensus opinion seems to be that It Is Known that it could not possibly work, full stop. To me, this seems like yet another an example of intuition being mistaken for fact, a general idea that this [0] excellent comment touched upon.
> To know with any level of confidence whether DD could work, it would have to be tried
No, you can also build up a set of ideas of how people behave in response to desires, norms, and stimuli. Those ideas let you make predictions of how people would act.
Can those ideas be wrong? Totally. So they should be tested. But at what scale do they need to be tested?
If you've seen a 20-person student group engage in a long wankerous meeting for 6 hours until 1:30am, does that experience provide valid information about what can happen in a Direct Democracy the size of Singapore (pop: 5.6 million)?
> ...you can also build up a set of ideas of how people behave in response to desires, norms, and stimuli. Those ideas let you make predictions of how people would act.
Correct. But I'm sure you realize that there is a difference between predicting something and knowing something. Don't forget, "knowing* something is actually limited to under a certain set of unique circumstances - whenever human beings are involved, very few things are absolutes, there's just too much randomness and inconsistency (matters of opinion vs matters of fact, hypocrisy, etc).
> But at what scale do they need to be tested?
That's the thing: we don't know - once again, you can make a well-reasoned prediction (now we have nested predictions) about how well they need to be tested, but forget that you're making predictions at your peril (see: the current state of affairs on planet Earth).
> If you've seen a 20-person student group engage in a long wankerous meeting for 6 hours until 1:30am, does that experience provide valid information about what can happen in a Direct Democracy the size of Singapore (pop: 5.6 million)?
Yes, absolutely - the key phrase being "can happen". However, what else can happen?
- do we know?
- how would we know?
- does anyone actually care? Let's say, just for the sake of conducting a thought experiment, we could magically invoke an omniscient being who could provide us the answers to these and other questions. Based on your reading of political arguments on HN and elsewhere, what percentage of people do you believe are truly interested in discovering The Truth (the best approach to yielding the maximum benefit to all people on planet Earth)? Personally, I would put that number at about 5%, tops. To be clear, I'm not talking about people that truly desire the best outcome - that number would be much higher - but rather, I am talking about people who are willing and able to set their egos and axioms aside and truly open their minds to all opinions and reasoning in pursuit of maximizing the outcome for all people. Most everyone thinks this is what they're doing, but watch how they react to the slightest hint of criticism of that belief.
EDIT: I won't mention the dreaded d-word, but excluding "Let's say, just for the sake...." and onward, I would absolutely love to know any thinking on how one might disagree with what I've said? I say this in interest of improving my personal thinking, which I perceive to be sound, but have no actual way of knowing.
> difference between predicting something and knowing something
In common speech, someone will say "I know this will happen" when they merely predict it with high confidence. So would you agree that we've reached the point where we need to be more meticulous about definitions?
If so, lets go back up the thread a bit:
/u/LoSboccacc said:
> the chances for Joe Random to understand the ramifications of his voting in direct democracy are slim
> the risk of unmitigated populism storming the masses into voting some real shit is ever present
To which you said:
> the overwhelming consensus opinion seems to be that It Is Known that it could not possibly work, full stop.
The distinction between "chances are slim" and "could not possibly" is as meaningful as the distinction you make between predicting and knowing. Its not the same type of distinction, but it is just as meaningful.
So if you actually think "I don't think it's 100% inevitable that DD would result in chaos", then sure. We agree on that.
But if you think "I don't think chances are slim of DD being stable and happier than our current system", then we inherently start to talk about probabilities of future events -- we start to talk about predictions.
>
So that is the path of how one might disagree: By pointing out that you're also making predictions and that I'm making different well-reasoned predictions.
--------
> does anyone actually care?
I think for this question to be meaningful, you have to resist the temptation to treat the verb "care" passively. To care about something is to direct attention to it... hopefully to direct action toward it. We eat, sleep, and care within finite time. So we can try to choose what to care about based on:
- What impact we predict the thing has on our lives.
- What impact we predict our care and its actions would have on the thing.
- How much time and effort we predict we would need to spend for our care to make that impact.
- How frequently that prediction of impact is re-enforced with evidence-of-success that we recognize.
And we strive to parcel out our attention well among all our responsibilities. Some are better at controlling their attention than others, but all have limited time.
Consequently, I think very few people direct a lot of their care to the question "what is the best approach to yielding the maximum benefit to all people on planet Earth?"
> So would you agree that we've reached the point where we need to be more meticulous about definitions?
Most definitely, ages ago.
> The distinction between "chances are slim" and "could not possibly" is as meaningful as the distinction you make between predicting and knowing. Its not the same type of distinction, but it is just as meaningful.
Maybe I misunderstand you, but people not realizing (so it seems) when they're making a speculative prediction (as opposed to stating a ~proven fact) seems like a rather big deal to me. The "chances are slim" and "could not possibly" comparison is from two different contexts. We must have our wires crossed somehow?
> But if you think "I don't think chances are slim of DD being stable and happier than our current system", then we inherently start to talk about probabilities of future events -- we start to talk about predictions. So that is the path of how one might disagree: By pointing out that you're also making predictions and that I'm making different well-reasoned predictions.
Had I made any predictions, I would obviously agree.
I guess my point is, I take a bit of offence to:
a) people strongly suggesting our options are limited, without evidence
b) people using speculative predictions as some sort of a proof of widespread racism: "Moreover the risk of unmitigated populism storming the masses into voting some real shit is ever present; while a populist leader still have to work within the framework of the houses it would be extremely easy to con the people into, say, voting xenophobic measures during circumscribed but substantial crisis like the Syrian war."
If similar negative generalizations were made about people based on skin colour or culture, I suspect the reaction would be far different.
> To care about something is to direct attention to it
100% agree. And I have noticed a pattern of people not being willing to direct attention to the possibility that their predictions of the future, and observations of reality, may be in part speculative.
> Consequently, I think very few people direct a lot of their care to the question "what is the best approach to yielding the maximum benefit to all people on planet Earth?"
100% agree, which is my complaint. However, there is simultaneously no shortage of people directing significant attention and effort into pointing out that certain groups are "the" underlying problem with the world, typically with no evidence other than popular opinion.
You could use that same argument to say a representative democracy would never work.
As obvious as some of the problems are with DD so is it obvious the system would need some guard rails. Just as modern republics looked at the failings of historical ones and added features to protect themselves.
I have no idea whether it could work or not but it seems to me there's little empirical evidence to validate the commonly held strong opinion that it would necessarily be a disaster.
Why do you believes this? I'm not an advocate of direct democracy but I have no idea why this valuation is so ubiquitous.