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Comment by pestkranker | Hacker News Reader

I would like to see a world where petitions are much more taken into account. Unfortunately, for many leaders, they are not taken seriously.

I hope Change.org can do something about this.

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There are some petitions on change.org which I, as a citizen, would like to petition against (rather than for). A petition may have huge support but it also may have huge opposition... that opposition is not shown on change.org. Not showing the opposition to an issue paints a skewed image that I hope politicians can recognise.

For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentially get a lot of support but yet there is no way for others to show their strong opposition against that as well.

Create a petition for the opposite thing.

I think that's easier said than done. People are inspired to up-vote a petition if it has action... but what if you're position is that we just keep doing the status quo on an issue.

For example, you can imagine a petition saying:

"The gender pay gap is statistically $0.72 for female workers. I propose we simply SOLVE this now. Let's tax MEN and give the proceeds to women to even up this pay disparity".

Sadly, I've seen petitions like that and they are as absurd as my hypothetical above.... but you're asking me to make a petition saying:

"The existing laws around gender discrimination are plenty good. Let's keep with what have now"

Somehow I feel like my petition wont take off.

Spot within your example, I've actually written a petition for "Men should have the same rights as women, i.e. change X and Y in sectors Z and Z2". If downvotes were allowed, it would take a single feminist organization to sweep my petition, whereas it is difficult to gather men's votes.

I much prefer that downvotes aren't possible. I can work little-by-little and find the right message until I gather enough votes to lead a better campaign.

> For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentially get a lot of support but yet there is no way for others to show their strong opposition against that as well.

Plus, even if somehow the evangelicals and those supporting them were to have the upper hand in terms of numbers, you still can't do things like ban abortions based on numbers alone. Basic, more modern human principles shouldn't be left to democratic vote (i.e. the voice of the majority). The right of a woman to have an abortion is a basic (and more modern, judging by recent history, if we exclude the Romans) human principle.

> > Basic, more modern human principles shouldn't be left to democratic vote

What process should be used to decide which are these modern human principles that are too important to be left to majority rule, and who gets to participate in that process?

Exactly.

It's a centuries old question. I for myself am a Kantian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative) when it comes to morals (or at least I try to be one), but leaving aside what I believe, I think it is fair to say that majority rule has historically been against lots of things that we now see as being "morally good", so to speak.

It's a millennia old question, and still the best answer for how to produce collective agreements, on questions we do not collectively unanimously agree on, is simply to count the votes and do what most people want to do.

Yes, the majority has often wanted to do things we now think were reprehensible, and this is certainly an ongoing situation. But Churchill is still right: democracy is a terrible form of government, it's just that it's not quite as terrible as every other form we've tried.

And you haven't answered my question - what should we replace democracy with, and precisely how would that process work - and without answering that question it's tedious to make pronouncements about how much better some undefined alternative would be. G.K. Chesterton: "Revolutionaries are always right about what is wrong, and they are usually wrong about what is right." It's easy to see the flaws in something that exists in front of us. It's very hard to design something that would in actual fact be better.

I thing petitions is the wrong way to go about it... They are static copies of the author's complaint, ignoring the precise and subtle opinions of the public.

Compare that to this democratic tool: https://blog.pol.is/pol-is-in-taiwan-da7570d372b5 - collaborative consensus sounds more politically compelling that petitions

I think in order to succeed, they need to take responsibility for more than just the petition. Measuring people's basic feelings about issues is just the first step in the process. They need to nurture the entire discussion, through debate with counter-arguments, policy formation, public debate of policy, balancing of priorities against other issues, and building a legislative caucus.

If they can move ideas through all of those stages, they can usher them into law. But just aggregating petitions is like asking 100,000 people what their dream house is and then claiming that you've done your part and now politicians need to solve the housing crisis.

There has to be a progression in order for leaders to take them seriously. It has to start with a petition, but there has to be something that happens if the petition gains critical mass but leaders don't acknowledge it. It has to go from petitions to protests and electoral losses at the very least.

If it stays a petition, it's much too easy to ignore.

Change.org could remedy this by adding a feature that would Mail, Email and or Phone the person and or group . If you would do this people would take it seriously.

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