Hacker News Reader

Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

I think there are big opportunities here for the extension of democracy. Democracy as it stands is quite weak - technically a Polyarchy, meaning that elected officials make decisions which we ratify. This could mean citizens could participate in decision making.

The same reason is why the government and many people will try to oppose it, because greater democracy is a threat to any power system.

The reason why people feel disconnected from politics is by design. The rulers don't want the people to participate, they want them passive.

View on HN

Do you really want citizens participating though? I have no clue about what it takes to run a state and I'm not a lawyer and can't really read new laws. Also, I have a job and very limited free time that I don't want to spent on keeping up with new developments in politics.

So my opinions are likely very biased and quite useless for the political process. Even elected officials seem to have a hard time reading all the things they vote on, letting Joe average vote on almost everything seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

>I'm not a lawyer and can't really read new laws... Even elected officials seem to have a hard time reading all the things they vote on...

And yet you're expected to follow them. All of them. Ignorance is no excuse and lack of criminal intent is no defense.

We've got a bigger problem here than how the votes are cast.

When Austin gave its citizens the task to make a decision, they voted against uber/lyft, and now both companies have left the city. Currently feeling like we shouldn't give more voting power to citizens on everyday issues, since the media and lobbies can get people to do crazy things like give up easy cheap and safe rides.

Uber and Lyft spent millions of dollars in campaigning to make people vote in their favor according to the reports I've read.

If "media and lobbies" can get people to vote in their favor, why didn't the side with the money and lobbyists win the vote?

Funny how any time a vote goes your way it's democracy, but any time it goes the other way it's "the media" and "special interests" and "lobbyists" that perverted the system. I am extremely pro-Uber, but wasn't Uber's own marketing partly to blame for the outcome of that vote?

Yeah, democracy can suck when you disagree with the majority opinion...

> Ignorance is no excuse and lack of criminal intent is no defense.

For many, many crimes intent is indeed a requirement.

I think this issue could be overcome by a proxy/delegate style system. With the ability to change proxy/delegate at any time, we would have ongoing accountability and move away from the problems of election cycles. Even better from a representation viewpoint (but more complex from a design viewpoint) is the option to have different proxies/delegates for different decisions/topics.

The real problem is balancing tradeoffs, particularly between spending and taxes. Currently (in Australia at least) the size of the expected budget defecit is a crude metric for the overall financial responsibility of the government and is a factor in elections. If citizens can vote independently for spending versus taxes, then there is nobody to hold accountable (tragedy of the commons).

> I think this issue could be overcome by a proxy/delegate style system.

A proxy system should have an automatic expiration (1-month, 1-year, etc) as well.

Look up the Swiss style of democracy. They have elected officials for day-to-day tasks and frequent referendums for subjective matters. From what I saw, their referendum campaigns are great. You can make your own opinion with an hour or two of research, tops. Even with the very limited time, IMO few hours a year is worth it to be more involved with shaping your own society. Best of both worlds.

Look up the situation in California with referendums. More direct democracy is not always wine and roses.

Yes, for instance, Prop 13. Though it sounds good to voters, the actual results are terrible.

Our Swiss Constitution was based on California's. We added cooling-down periods and made referendums binding to the Legislature, not directly law.

> Do you really want citizens participating though?

What is the alternative? Some aristocracy deciding matters without any consent from the citizens?

If you get any alternative that's actually better than the citizens participating, I'd love to hear it.

That is almost exactly what we have now. I'd hope citizen participation would be an improvement but I'm not certain. Populist positions can be good, but they can also be disastrous -- look at Trump, his brand of populism preys on the most base and vile aspects of human nature: hate, bigotry and racism and he intends on enacting policies which will inarguably be horribly destructive to the very fabric of the country and arguably the world. If we had direct democracy, what makes you think we wouldn't just get more of that? A lot of the principled stands that keep the country in one piece are not widely popular.

This is what we have now. We just have a saying on what lizard will rule.

Do you think everybody voting for Trump would vote for his hateful policies? I'm not on the US, but it looks to me that Trump gets most of his approval from his "I'm not one of the lizards" PR. If people didn't have to get the entire package, it's very likely they would be critical of those worse parts.

I'm not sure if I'm reading your comment correctly. I totally agree we should aim towards educated and politically active society. However, educated bit should come first. Then we can start making it easier to participate. Tiering the barrier of coming to polling place won't educate people by itself.

This comment papers over a huge problem. How educated is educated enough?

Yeah, I'd imagine the founding fathers would see today's voting populace as quite educated, relative to theirs...

How do you get those educated citizens when it's against the rulers interest?

Agreed. In 100 years people will look back at how basic our democracy had become. One choice from a selection of two, every 4 years. This dissociation with current issues is dangerous.

As democracy develops and citizens start to participate, we become more responsible for our decisions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com