Comment by skummetmaelk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skummetmaelk | Hacker News Reader

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> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes.

It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use.

> 2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to.

Party line is less of a problem in countries with sensible representative democracies, i.e not FPTP.

> You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code.

I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government.

> 3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling.

Representatives are not rulers.

> 4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person.

I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too.

> 5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available.

More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views.

> 6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc.

Just like today it would be the most charismatic that flow to the top. Perhaps it would be even worse since today only the representatives have to be charismatic. At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.

>> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes.

>It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use.

And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way, or away from bad way, quickly as well.

Representative democracy was a compromise of the days where direct democracy was not possible due to limits of communication. Not so in this day and age, you can have answer from people over the internet in few hours. Thought leaders would still continue to exist and influence people. But, representatives with limited attention span, limited brain power, limited time of the day, demands from multiple concerns, personal influences of experience and needs, won't wield so much power.

>I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government.

Bureaucracy exists in representatives democracy as well. It will continue to exist in direct democracy. Hire the best that people want, not political appointments.

>Representatives are not rulers.

I don't know. We, in USA, has developed a class of people, who "represent" people for ages and generations. They do polling of people to find issues that would result into they winning the race to be representative and then do what they want to do once they win. Electing a representative has a huge disconnect with what people want done.

>I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too.

Absolutely. No different than a representative trying to secure vote. But, with representative democracy people cede control for two years, four years, six years at a time. With direct democracy you get a chance every day to influence decision making.

>More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views.

really? Who is this external arbitrator of what is false and what is true? Can that arbitrator make mistakes? I believe there are more good people than bad, and many eyes examining what is true vs few arbitrators of truth, is better.

>At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.

A case for entertaining plumber or soldier, ha? I wouldn't mind knowing if the plumber can sing. lol. People would vote on a policy, a plan and a cost and an executive (Roman Consul) to carry it out. Hiring decisions would be left to the Consul. There would be a sense of Civic Duty and people would pay more attention, in a generation or two, education in schools would emphasize Civic Duties. Representative democracy, almost half the people don't even vote, knowing it doesn't matter much what the representative claimed in the election and what transpired.

"...And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way..."

Are you just interested in making arguments for arguments' sake? Besides that, all of your comments are good examples about why direct democracy is not a always a good idea - because most people don't have enough time/desire to think issues through, and yet they are willing to be adamant about their opinions on them.

So, let's trust a few who are even more distracted because of demands on their time and brain power.

Arguing for 500 congressman with all the power is arguing for all the "Research Institutes" which write the laws for them.

How many years would it have taken if we had forced those 500 to write just 2300 page ACA/Obamacare?

> why direct democracy is not a always a good idea

Always? When did I say always? I specifically said it had least things working against it compared to other methods. You could have second coming of Christ and these lands will be blessed again in his kingdom, but we are discussing state of affairs till that happens, aren't we?

> "And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way, or away from bad way, quickly as well."

People are massively influenced by the information they consume. We tend to live in filter bubbles (we're discussing within one right now). Breaking people out of those filter bubbles is not straightforward, as you're asking them to trade the certainty of the world they know with the uncertainty of the world they don't. It takes a certain amount of curiosity to want to do that, and that's something that has to come from within, you can't bring it about directly.

Are you waiting to bet that current President can be "educated" to change his views because he has intellectual curiosity? He is representative democracy in action, isn't he?

Are you willing to say that you support the President, because he is result of representative democracy?

>It takes a certain amount of curiosity to want to do that, and that's something that has to come from within, you can't bring it about directly.

Is that "something within" a requirement for our elected representatives? If not, aren't they just as equally susceptible to the same bubble think?

What I'm suggesting is that if big business and mass media can can effectively control the population, it doesn't matter if they have to control 500 or 500,000,000.

I'm not suggesting we wait for elected representatives to get better, a more direct form of democracy would be preferable, but there needs to be a shift in the way we engage with information and debate before that will make a positive difference. In other words, the priority should be sorting out the news media first.

>there needs to be a shift in the way we engage with information and debate before that will make a positive difference.

What do you think is going on while, as you suggest, entire population of the country updates its capability to deal with information presented? Are we not being influenced?

Is that an achievable goal? Why in a highly educated, highly liberal, highly resourceful society like USA we still lack this capability? Is it because at the end of the day we are emotional beings, not rational?

>What I'm suggesting is that if big business and mass media can can effectively control the population, it doesn't matter if they have to control 500 or 500,000,000.

They would try to control as many as they could for their benefit. Do you think we should make it easy for them by asking them to influence 500 or should we band together and use our numbers as a deterrent to mass influence?

"If they can effectively control...", but you are assuming it to be foregone conclusion. I think the battle is still raging on and more people we have on our side that they must influence the better, instead of just 500.

>In other words, the priority should be sorting out the news media first.

Will it ever be completed sorted out to be fair all the time, to all the parties?

I believe we have created this current phenomenal prosperity, not by assuming people doing right thing all the time, but despite there being bad elements. Hence, I appreciate what we have much more.

Anytime I hear, "and, over here all of us do the right thing.", I bet against that solution being successful.

If there is one thing that I agree with bible is that humanity is fallen. We must work with that assumption as we design or evaluate solutions.

> "Is that an achievable goal? Why in a highly educated, highly liberal, highly resourceful society like USA we still lack this capability? Is it because at the end of the day we are emotional beings, not rational?"

Let me put it another way. If we started using direct democracy tomorrow, which areas of policy do you feel informed enough to make policy decisions on? The economy? Foreign policy? Education? Healthcare? The military? Any others?

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