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Comment by touchofevil | Hacker News Reader

I think that direct democracy enabled by online voting and blockchain technology will eventually supersede the current representative system of democracy. I can understand that pre-internet it was necessary to have a representative democracy as it would not be possible to have all citizens vote in-person or by mail on all issues, but with the internet a direct democracy seems viable even at a large scale.

While there would be security and privacy issues to overcome with a digital direct democracy, at least it would not be as susceptible to corporate capture as our current representative systems of democracy.

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Serious question: given the track record of direct democracy in California, what reason do we have for expecting that direct democracy would work for a country as large as the United States?

And who runs foreign policy? How do state secrets work? Is there still a president and a bureaucracy and cabinet ministers?

> And who runs foreign policy? How do state secrets work? Is there still a president and a bureaucracy and cabinet ministers?

All of those seem tied to the Executive branch, whereas direct democracy would replace the Legislative (Congress in the US, Parliament in other countries). The current Executive follows the laws that Congress passes, direct democracy wouldn't change that.

I think part of the key is to have the direct democracy be digital/online. With needing to motivate people to go to the polls (like in California) advertising and money seems to play a large role.

I think a direct democracy will still need a president and congress to handle many aspects of governance, like military action, state secrets, etc. My hope would be though that a direct digital democracy would take some of the decisions away from congress and put those decisions in the hands of the people. But certain aspects of government, particularly the military and judicial system will always have to be centralized.

There's no reason advertising won't play a role on the Internet.

Or that it doesn't play a role in normal representative democracy. I find plenty times, a lot of pro-democracy individuals forget that people are influenced by others, especially by people in authority positions or skilled orators.

I believe California has demonstrated that the public voting directly on propositions is a terrible idea.

Well, California has medical marijuana, so I guess the proposition system works sometimes. But I do think the proposition system is corrupted by the need to raise large amounts of money to advertise.

I would argue that the big problem that the California proposition system caused was property taxes. Prop 13; and that is pure self-interest; homeowners voting themselves a tax cut. Because homeowners vote in state elections dramatically more often than people who don't own property, this law will remain on the books until we can get people who don't own to vote at a higher rate than people who do own. (Which will be difficult, considering that the majority of people live in a home owned by themselves or their family, and homeowners vote much more often than non-owners.)

I'm not sure why you believe this, what specific measures are you talking about?

Could you give more context & background please?

Isn't California the most economically successful state in the US? Also the most progressive. However terrible the idea is, it isn't doing much harm to California compared to other states. You might not agree with the results of some individual propositions, but maybe overall it has a positive effect?

The problem is not technological, it's definitional.

From the definition of "society", any society must make decisions that affect all of its members, otherwise they aren't a society, they're a collection of non-interacting individuals. From the definition of "decision", these decisions must be framed by an individual - we have yet to master mind-meld technologies. From the definition of "power", the people who make the decisions have the power.

Majority voting is a red-herring. The way that existing power structures operate today is to frame the terms of the decision: they define what the alternatives are. Take a look at who sponsors ballot initiatives in California: very often, you'll find that a process that's as close to direct democracy as you'll get in modern society was actually sponsored by a wealthy billionaire or corporation behind the scenes, and he has crafted both the legislation and the public messaging around the legislation to suit his interests. If the voting public is faced with two alternatives and option A enriches elite #1 at the expense of the public while option B enriches elite #2 at the expense of the public, you can't really say that the voters have power.

I do agree that the US should break away from the two party system, as either choice seems to yield only bad or worse results for the citizens.

But that's what most people want. If they didn't want it, they wouldn't keep voting for the same two parties or not bothering to vote. Why not just accept that the majority likes it that way, even if you feel it gives bad results?

I guess I'm making the assumption that democracy has the goal of giving people what they want. Whereas perhaps a more noble goal would be giving people what will benefit them. People are notoriously irrational at deciding what will benefit them though, so who could possibly make those decisions?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/185891/majority-maintain-need-thi...

> A majority of Americans, 60%, say a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties "do such a poor job" of representing the American people. (September 25, 2015)

In a FPTP system you cannot really deduce what people wanted from the voting results, as the system very strongly encourages tactical voting. (and in this instance also because of Duverger's law)

> I do agree that the US should break away from the two party system, as either choice seems to yield only bad or worse results for the citizens.

Worse than what? I mean, sure, nobody is 100% happy with the outcome, but some people say that's how you tell that a negotiation had a fair outcome.

I mean, I don't actually feel like direct democracy will work, as you will get uninformed, but popular decisions being made.

Take a look at the SF Housing crisis, I feel like a large part of the "lack of houses, but lots of companies" problem is the result of Proposition 13 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...). This means that each municipality would much rather host a company that pays tax than have housing (which the city comparatively loses money on), which leads to the current problems. (At least in part)

I fear other propositions like that one, which sound great ("No more taxes!"), but have subtle, but large consequences would get passed by such a system more readily.

In the current representative system of democracy in the US, the plutocrats benefit by having an uninformed population and a democratic process that can be influenced by money (advertising). Your fears, in my opinion, actually stem from our current representative system.

And the population will be uninformed in a direct democracy and advertising can still influence opinion even without buying politicians.

Moreover, the population will be engaged with work and other activities, leaving little time for general education that will make them informed voters.

Agreed, we can begin by wholly replacing the House, electing minimally compensated emergency representatives in the event of infrastructure failure. Legislation may be voted upon and edited word-for-word, tracked by a git-like interface, each edit vetted and voted upon by the whole country.

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