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To expand on this: Even if everyone devoted the time necessary to make informed decisions on all the issues (and they absolutely would not, but that wouldn't stop them from having an opinion and voting, especially if prodded by moneyed interests) it would mean that everyone would have to devote so much time to understanding politics, economics, and international relations (among other things!) that they'd have no time left to do anything else.

I'll keep my representative democracy and the ability to think about and work on things that aren't related to governing a state, thanks. Even if direct democracy could fix all the current system's problems and all of us did everything we could to be good, informed voters (it couldn't, and we wouldn't) I'd still be worse off under it.

Exactly. Even if you postulate that today's US politician spends 50% of their time raising money, they still spend 20-30 hours a week actually doing their job, however poorly. Not many citizens can do this, so they will most likely do a worse job than the current politicians. I don't really want that. Or, what's more likely is that they will outsource their thinking to the likes of Fox News. I shudder to think about what this could look like.

It would go something like this:

I propose we lower taxes. (everyone votes yes).

I propose we improve the roads. (everyone votes yes).

Oh - we are broke! Who can we blame.

California in a nutshell.

All problems you described can be essentially solved by a simple thing. The votes just should not be equal. Our computers can have any algorithms for that. No, I am not speaking about non-equality of people.

One of possibilities is to give more votes to those who intentionally pay more taxes (in percents from their salary) than others, i.e. help run the government more. It automatically means that they think more about the politics and care what is happening.

Another possibility would be to give more votes to people who have more achievements (i.e. higher education, science degrees, something strictly measurable). Maybe the final solution is a mix of these two possibilities.

What also is extremely important is a possibility to take my voice back when the elected person does not act as promised. Why we have no such possibilities? Then can promise whatever...

I should note that these thoughts is just a first approximation and should be improved. What is important is I see no problems in "stupid average person".

Consider the possibility that incumbents get re-elected at high rates in the U.S. because they do a good enough job.

Maybe it's not that there are no consequences for bad governing, it's just that the nature of the U.S. keeps the bar for "good enough" pretty low.

By that I mean that most Americans experience everyday life with little interaction with the government, and most things work. We generally have plentiful and abundant energy sources, light, food, water, shelter, clothing, communications, travel, healthcare, etc.--most of it provided by private or public/private entities.

Could these be better? Of course. But they could also be worse. It seems like quite a few people see job #1 for elected officials as preventing bad new ideas. So in a Congress that does not do much, a lot of officials can get re-elected if they have a long enough list of bad ideas they prevented.

Well, speaking of domain knowledge : - Why are politicians the ones that vote for/against net neutrality ? Do you really think, they have the domain knowledge ?

They're there because you (or people very like you) voted for them to represent you when the time comes to make new laws. If you don't like the one you've got, vote for another one.

This "if you don't like it, go elsewhere / vote otherwise" attitude really gets on my nerves.

It seems to presume the simplest possible Game-Theoretical scenario is fully representative of reality, and ignores all the factors that forced us to create representative governments in the first place or that are included in the common usage meaning of the word "politics".

To illustrate this, imagine an isolated SmallTown™ in northern Alaska, where relocating a family to anywhere else in the world costs upwards of 50 000$ (fictive figure). Mr. Daddy has a job and a family in this town. Suddenly, he's told that he now has to work 90h/week rather than 30h/week, and for whatever reason this is fully legal for his occupation and employment conditions. Now he has effectively no time to devote to his family. There are no other jobs available in this town where Mr Daddy has the skills for being hired that also pay well enough to support the family. "Not happy with the schedule change? No problem, you can just quit whenever!"... and have the family starve, as they're unable to relocate and there are no other options available.

The above scenario is an extreme where I've cranked up the scarcity level to 100%. However, even if you're a senior programmer in Bay, the problems and consequences and mathematics of quitting a job don't entirely go away. Depending on the situation and individual, the collaterals associated with quitting the job might be five times worse than accepting unfairly imposed conditions, where the situation could easily be resolved to everyone's benefit in a different configuration (think Nash equilibria vs Pareto optima).

And if you're not happy with this comment, well, obviously you should just go read another one. (heh)

Perfectly valid comment, but you've put it in the wrong place. My comment is about voting for one's representative, who then goes on to debate and shape future laws. This is key to representative democracy and has nothing to do with scarcity, mobility, or voting with one's feet/skill/labour.

If I don't like the policies of the guy I voted for last time, I won't vote for him next time. If lots of people in my region do the same thing, then he either has to shift policy or be replaced by someone who will. Are you suggesting I move if I don't like his policies? That is not how democracy works, and isn't even close to what I'm suggesting. Nor am I suggesting (anywhere) that if I hold a minority position that I move, or change my vote.

I sincerely think you read something into my comment that I didn't say, and I'm trying really hard not to use the phrase "straw man" in regards to your comment, because I actually agree with you, but you're arguing against a point I didn't make.

Yes, I derailed substantially there. I think it was just another case of needing to vent about Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and your comment was the convenient outlet for this particular one.

In retrospect I'm quite happy you didn't take it the wrong way, or worse take the bait.

I think we should (with the help of technology) vote one congress for each industry, with a board full of experts, and the president should be a philosopher.

> Do you really think, they have the domain knowledge ?

Of course not, that is why the First Amendment protects the right for citizens to petition the government.

In my experience, most people focus way too much on politics and voting, and way too little on grassroots and lobbying.

Voting is like buying a computer--you have to do it to get started. But then the computer has to be programmed, patched, updated, operated, etc. That's what people should be doing between elections.

So if you're concerned about net neutrality, find a group of people who agree with you, pool your money and time, and starting talking to your elected officials. For almost every issue, nonprofit groups already exist that you can join.

Of course there are plenty of people who already understand this. And they actually have more power if everyone else sits at home. So they put out propaganda that the government is bought by rich people and you can't have an impact. So you sit at home discouraged--meanwhile they are telling elected officials what they think. Neat trick.