Why Democracy Is Broken and How to Fix It
butwhy.media
butwhy.media
I am so so naive.
I think it’s really the only somewhat fair compromise to tyranny of the majority vs minority rule. Minority coalitions can’t pass legislation but with proof of work they can block it if the decision isn’t overwhelming.
I don't see an answer, personally speaking.
Making sure that politicians are incentivized to benefit society is most important, the risks are both that they will make bad choices because uninformed plebs want them to or they will make bad choices because lobbyists pay them.
If a movement gets riled up to abolish women's right to vote, no matter the amount of favor or lobbying, politicians should be able to be incentivized to listen to reason, right now there's nothing in place for that.
My suggestion would be voting on office time, we don't erase one sides votes anymore, they directly translate to office time, and every party is able to get into office each cycle, at the end of the cycle there's a pruning that happens where everyone votes on the policies that are made this cycle, the ones to get rid of. In this way only the best policies survive in a survival of the fittest strategy.
No more fight between two parties.
And this should probably also include some form of legal punishment if they don’t, not only incentives if they do.
Punishment is fine for me, I don't mind the carrot and stick, just don't know how to implement that. You could say that not being voted on is already a kind of punishment
1 - A situation that evolves where everyone treats a small list of things as the absolutely most important thing ever because they're trying to stop "the other team" from [doing absolutely horrible thing].
2 - bad faith actors producing an enormous collection of terrible law proposals and people not having enough votes to properly say 'no' to all of them / enough of them to make a difference.
The game theory just doesn't work.
Disinformation, corruption, capture of the judiciary, gaming of electoral systems, poor campaign finance regulations and voter suppression are all key factors that have contributed to democracy backsliding in different nations across the world. All of these issues stem from systems of government and representation that are not properly balanced or lack safeguards from abuse and manipulation. Voter education, competency and participation are also absolutely fundamental to having a healthy democracy. Quadratic voting cannot fix these issues and we should instead focus on learning how construct better systems which are inherently more stable. To that end, we need methods to instrument and properly quantify how laws effect the competency, fairness, virtue, and balance of representation in democratic systems.
I found this thesis interesting regarding this approach though I have not had time to scrutinize all of the math involved: https://kilthub.cmu.edu/articles/thesis/Computational_Perspe...
The notion of a DAO designed by a genius game developer also highlights that much of the problem can’t or won’t be “solved” by mathematics. The DAO was supposedly successful because the game developer understood human communities and psyche. We just don’t have the statistical data or computational power yet to solve problems of that nature, IMHO. Though better mathematical tools would be great ways to tune our systems.
Mainly mathematical tools miss out on the inconsistencies of human cognition. The best thing we can have is a well educated populous with a culture and belief system conducive to democracy. Also prosperity and abundance of natural resources help as well.
I have thought quite a bit about this over the past few of years, and I think it is probably the best method for replacing elected officials at least up to the senate level.
"Being able to select adequately competent participants can be a challenge depending on your source pool, and some point there would need to be a fair process, resistant to manipulation or gaming, in order to cull less qualified individuals."
I agree that it will initially be a challenge to find 'competent participants', but I think this can be solved by introducing/adding courses at the high-school level that the community/citizens believe are essential (I am thinking econ, history, the constitution, etc.)
I also agree that fairness is another an important issue - care must be taken to ensure that whatever 'competence' criteria are used don't turn into another poll-tax.
"There also exists problems with this method in highly polarized political environments, particular those in which exists two entirely separate information ecosystems such as the US."
Another excellent point. But I think we all have family members and friends who hold views that are the complete opposite of our own, or we may view are extreme, but we also find other issues we agree on and find ways to work/live together.
I think if a congressperson knows that they don't have to raise money or worry about a primary challenge, then I believe they will find ways to work with people from a different party, or colleagues who are independents.
The separate information systems will still be there, but I don't believe their influence on legislators will be at the level it is now.
If people can't actually vote on individual decisions it's still far from what an actual democracy should be like.
There is obviously little to none power in an individuals knowledge. Without money and/or lobbying no interests are going to be heard.
You are thought controlled and your civilization is an irresponsible delusion.