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Comment by tomklein | Hacker News Reader

Democratic nations are drifting more and more away from the wills of their people. How can this be changed?

Perhaps more accurate: some nations are drifting away from democracy. In particular the US can't really be considered a full democracy anymore, and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) which publishes a "democracy index" every year, has recently downgraded the US to "flawed democracy".

I think that this could happen in the US shows that democracy as currently implemented in most countries still has significant design flaws. We need a democracy 2.0 that's more stable, less easily corrupted, and helps educate the people so that their "will" is more rational. Personally I still believe that democracy is the only civilized option, or rather some manifestation of the principles of the "Open Society" as described by Karl Popper is the only option. But an Open Society is an iterative process which needs continuous improvement by definition.

Never heard about the democracy index. Pretty interesting. I share this thought of a democracy 2.0 where people are educated more on a rational basis before decisions are made.

This seems to me like overprotective parents trying to limit what the kids should do based mostly on feelings, which is not a bad thing per se, but should be backed by some form of rationality.

I guess a lot things can be challenged

No democracy has lasted more than a few hundred years. I think the constitution needed an expiration date. California’s proposition system is slightly better, but not great.

We probably need about a half dozen amendments at this point. Here are a few:

- “Right to privacy”, including against privatized surveillance.

- “Right to civil protection” (end qualified immunity and binding arbitration / class action waivers)

- Ban slavery, and ban profiting off slavery (no, we don’t have a blanket ban, and yes, forced labor is a huge industry in the US)

- Move closer to proportional democracy. All votes should count equally, regardless of where you live. Currently a Californian vote in a federal senate election is worth < 1/20 of a vote from a small state. Similarly, if you are not in a swing state, your vote for the president basically doesn’t matter at all.

- Some sort of police reform. Maybe spell out “equal protection” a bit more clearly.

- Campaign finance (and revolving door bribery) reform

> No democracy has lasted more than a few hundred years.

Is it even this long?

AFAIK the Greek version of democracy in Athens was very short lived, and the Roman Republic (which lasted about 500 years, give or take), was certainly not a democracy. The Romans famously sneered at the Greeks for what they called "mob rule" (demokratia).

Are there other historical democracies I don't know about that have lasted longer? Otherwise, the U.S. is currently setting the record for longest democracy at 231 years.

I don't think even your basic desires are possible, because no way in hell you'd get the majority of states to buy in to point four, which might as well read: "Establish a Californian political hegemony and erode away a significant portion of innate state strength for 38/50 states". Couple this with the fact that you'd need to spell out more well defined, explicit version of the first and second (which you cannot do meaningfully and get a large majority of support) , and the idea is DoA.

Are they?

Or, are the viewpoints of those in Westwrn nations more diverse?

In the "old days", opinion was often formed by highly controlled sources, compared to internet standards.

TV, radio, newspapers, magazines were created entirely from within (for example) the US, with strong editorial control.

Now, one person with a divergent view can spread said view nation wide, regardless of from where they hail.

So, I contend that views are more divergent now, more varied. And with that, comes a greater difficulty in crafting laws which "almost all" agree with.

How do you support the will of the people, when there is no collective will?

That’s an interesting point of view I didn’t think about yet. But as long as there is no collective will, should there be a law on that at all?

Vote like your life depended on the outcome.

Or the wills of their peoples are drifting away from democratic principles.

I think the majority of people would prefer if encryption weren't a thing - as they believe it's primarily or exclusively used by criminals to evade law enforcement.

If most people want X, and our elected officials are working on making X a reality, then isn't democracy working just fine?

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