A better form of democracy

[Harv]

I don't like it, most people don't know enough about anything to be making decisions on important matters like the economy.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

- Winston Churchill

 

[Zack]

The average voter isn't a thoughtful intellectual such as Churchill.

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

- Winston Churchill

 

[Borachio]

How does anyone decide what policy to follow?

Unless we can foresee the future, and there's good reason to believe that no one can (beyond 5 days or so), how can we make more than blind guesses about what to do? Especially when the whole caboodle of interconnected nation states, and global trading, is considered.

The true strength of a democracy is that, in the end, no one has anyone to blame but all the voters. Whether they voted or not, since you can blame them for not voting too.

Of course with a despot you can blame him, or her. But when you've lopped his, or her, head off, what do you do then?

 

[uppi]

Since the proposal is not to just ask random people on the street and just go with the answers.... no. That is not the essence of it. At all. Really that is a fracking question.. You should be ashamed of yourself.

What would be the difference?

 

[Mise]

Yeah, in principle, I see the difference (voters would be motivated/required to educate themselves on the subject they are responsible for), but in practice I can't see it working in any other way than as uppi described. I mean, if the premise is true, that a sample of the population is taken as being representative, then I can't see it working vastly differently from opinion polls. I think the idea of representative democracy is that the people who are in charge of, say, economic policy explicitly aren't representative -- they're specifically chosen by government/voted for by voters because of their expertise in that particular subject. More generally, the people in charge of government functions are specifically chosen because of their expertise in government, as demonstrated by, and subsequently voted in based on, their records in government (or otherwise).

 

[Harv]

The average voter isn't a thoughtful intellectual such as Churchill.

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

- Winston Churchill

Hmm. Well done! I think you one-upped me and it only took 3 minutes. It took me a good while to understand it.

 

[gay_Aleks]

To be fair, the most compelling argument against dictators or people in general is a 5 minute talk.

 

[Rashiminos]

I'm not sure the sampling process would mitigate the troll factor.

 

[Hygro]

And no, "well congressmen don't know any of that either, hurr durr" is not a legitimate counter.

Hmm, how come? "The people" are already better on economic issues than Congress, and once they are in charge, I would imagine could take one or two more steps better than they already are. I could could go to the moon and back with my economic policy recommendations but at some point I'll take "better than now" with a fair degree of enthusiasm.

 

[Zack]

Hmm, how come? "The people" are already better on economic issues than Congress, and once they are in charge, I would imagine could take one or two more steps better than they already are. I could could go to the moon and back with my economic policy recommendations but at some point I'll take "better than now" with a fair degree of enthusiasm.

I think it's ridiculous to think everyone is as knowledgeable about the economy as you are, and further that the masses are more knowledgeable than Congress. I'll quote someone else who already explained it quite well:

Moreover, while there are lots of isues with lawmakers not being knowledgeable about the topics upon which they vote...use randomly sampled people and those issues are massively over-magnified.

 

[Greizer85]

Were this to become a thing and people would see that it actually has an effect -- maybe they'd take notice and educate themselves about the issue they are to vote on (assuming they'd have some time to do that, between being chosen to vote and actually voting)? I don't vote because I don't see how choosing one despotic idiot over another is in any way conducive to my well-being... And if I go by party, it's even worse: I get to choose between toothpaste-smiled kleptocrats selling the country piece-meal to foreign interests, spineless socialists taxing the life out of all profitable business, and raving lunatics insistent on banning the only sensible form of power-generation. If I could actually vote on an actual issue -- no matter what it was -- and not on some idiot to 'represent' me -- you can bet I'd at least take a second look at it.

EDIT: We sort of have something like this in Finland. It was implemented only recently, and we shall see how long it's staying. I'm not sure how to translate it; I guess 'Citizens' Initiative' is good enough. Basically anyone can make a proposal for legislation, and people can support it on the internet. If enough names are gathered in support of the proposal (50,000), then it will be discussed in the senate (not sure what 'eduskunta' is in English...). However, as people are fond of pointing out, discussion doesn't mean approval; many people thus view the new service as nothing more than a smoke-screen gimmick. Basically it's a way for the government to say, 'Look how democratic we're being, giving you this new votingy-thingy!', without amounting to any actual changes at all. I'd be inclined to agree with this view (even though I did add my support to a few of the proposals). Finnish politics are firmly entrenched in certain decade-old conventions that are not being talked about, much less altered in any meaningful sense. The language issue is one these; iirc, the citizens' proposal about making the learning of Swedish voluntary across all levels of education (one of the first to fulfill the 50k quota, predictably) will be discussed sometime later this year. The senate is sure to overturn it, as politicans routinely state that everyone having to learn a foreign language that is spoken by 5 % of the country's population is a 'unique cultural richness' that should be embraced with open arms. The fact that a 70 % majority of all Finns disagrees does not matter in the slightest, and hasn't for the past 40 years.

(Turned into a bit of a rant against Finnish politics, but how can you not rant at it? )
EDIT: I notice I say that the language issue is not being talked about, then go on to contradict myself. But it's not really a contradiction if you're Finnish. You kinda have to be Finnish to understand certain things about... Finnishness. *smiles grimly, sees if it's raining sleet outside*

 

[Traitorfish]

I think it's ridiculous to think everyone is as knowledgeable about the economy as you are, and further that the masses are more knowledgeable than Congress.

It's a mater of knowledge, or of interest? The masses support policies which are broadly perceived to favour the interests of the masses, and Hygro believes that this perception is more or less on the money, while Congress favour policies which favour the interests of a very small elite. When Hygro says that the masses are "better on economic issues" than Congress, he doesn't mean that they're more learned, he means that they support policies which will produce preferable outcomes.

 

[Hygro]

The will of the people must be moderated by some means. Elsewise, we get mob rule that tramples minorities and the weak.

Black people make up about 12% of the US population. Using them as an example; under such a system they, voting a block, could never win on any issue. They could not barter with other groups to get things they want. They would not win 12% of the votes.

You could still have three branches, just a replaced legislature. Or any other such arrangements.

Moreover, while there are lots of isues with lawmakers not being knowledgeable about the topics upon which they vote...use randomly sampled people and those issues are massively over-magnified.

I don't see how that follows. Increasing the noise in a system should reduce "over-magnification" and similar distortion. You should expect that more in a system that has fewer people with unusually shared interests.

Well we can say goodbye to the scourge of minarets at least.

Political parties wouldn't be whipping up that kind of ire without elections to profit from.

Let's trial it.

Get a large enough pool of people to participate, correct for biases, and run a few test cases?

Make it a proper virtual micronation project even. Between us CFCers there are probably enough people who know about coding and data and modelling to set it up; at the lower end of the scale it could be as complex as a Civ or Paradox mod. Get a website with some fancy-not-too-fancy graphics, spread the word via social media, and voila.

I like your style.

Unfortunately, in comparison to the entirety of CFC and it's modding group, CFC OT is "those creepy guys constantly rambling about communism or something".

Unless, of course, for you, CFC OT is CFC.

I don't like it, most people don't know enough about anything to be making decisions on important matters like the economy.

Mind you the people in charge right now don't know anything about any of that either, so I say let's do it! If a guy who thinks evolution didn't happen can be in charge of science and a guy who thinks that internet packets travel through tubes can sit on a technology panel, or whatever, then we might as well put my neighbour Pete the bumbling fool who doesn't wear pants in charge of Wall street.

I like your style too! That's what I'm talking about.

I think this stands and falls with the right implementation. If it worked - that would be pretty glorious. But as said, all a matter of weather several issues can be overcome with the right implementation.

That people are laymen is not really the problem. For that you can have professional advisers. That just as it works with politicans, after all. Most politicans seem to not know much, as warpus correctly identified. But that depends on an aparatus which can guarantee that advice.
Bad crops can be weeded out by sufficient many duty legislators.

Where I see the real problem - how do you get such people sufficiently motivated? A job with such responsibility will suck up all their time and energy if they want to do it right, if it is only for a relatively short time and regarding one issue. But they may just want to get back to their actual jobs, or they may just lay back and enjoy the ride.

How to deal with this?

Perhaps that also can be compensated by a big enough number of voters....though


There is also another huge problem. We don't really know what would happen.
And it is not nice to not know. So we have tropes....

And here we go again with the standard American trope of the evil tyranny of the majority. It really is marvelous how they indoctrinate you over there. Just marvelous.

And we have bad instances of direct democracy we can highlight


and then we of course have the general issues people may like to uphold.

And then - many just seem to love to jump to the conclusion that it can not work - because then they know! And it is so much better to know...

@taillesskangaru

Just two problems with such a trial is that
a) it would lack the necessary (and expensive) infrastructure of resources available to actual duty-legislators
b) only people would be be available who are more or less hot for the idea to begin with

I don't think we could get much out of it. We may learn how to improve things. But not about its principle viability. In model conditions you can make pretty much anything work or fail... :shrug:



Anyway...

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Say for instance for a nation as big as the US... 10k duty legislated would be assigned to one case... That is a big enough sample methniks to account for rough problems... the ability to only focus one that one issue would make them IMO more knowledge than most politicians when voting on issues!

I like it, It took a while, but now I really like it.

Though still, it seems crucial how this will actually be implemented.
It could also be a chaotic mess.

How?
I don't see it.

Think on it some more I bet you can come up with a solution to implementation.

'The will of the people' is an illusion, because ultimately the will of the people is transplanted into the people by those that control the media.

The more educated you become the less this is true. The people have consistently favored increased education.

So, essentially the proposal is to make opinion polls legally binding?

Opinion polls are where someone calls someone up and asks them to choose one of a few options with no inherent ramifications. This would be folks getting an assigned topic for a set time period (a year? three months? two years?) to come to a conclusion to make a decision in which they are fairly responsible. Ownership changes performance.

I think it's ridiculous to think everyone is as knowledgeable about the economy as you are, and further that the masses are more knowledgeable than Congress. I'll quote someone else who already explained it quite well:

We already know that Congress is worse on economic issues.

Still, there's something really important here which is crowd wisdom. Large groups of uneducated people, when left alone to form their own opinions, when properly aggregated produce results that generally outperform experts.

(Turned into a bit of a rant against Finnish politics, but how can you not rant at it? )

Yeah but that's what makes forums interesting ;D

It's a mater of knowledge, or of interest? The masses support policies which are broadly perceived to favour the interests of the masses, and Hygro believes that this perception is more or less on the money, while Congress favour policies which favour the interests of a very small elite. When Hygro says that the masses are "better on economic issues" than Congress, he doesn't mean that they're more learned, he means that they support policies which will produce preferable outcomes.

Aye, so: On one axis, the people have vastly superior interests than congresspersons regardless of knowledge or expertise.

But on the other axis, it would be superior theory-wise. Congress suffers from a large degree of group-think that is both a) being congesspersons b) being the type of person who seeks and wins elections.

Coloring in this second dimension, Congress is small. You just don't have enough crowd wisdom when it's a few hundred. Especially given that half of what they do is based on parliamentary procedure rather than the shared will of Congress anyway.

Crowd wisdom is a powerful and real thing. The biggest impediments are aggregation and group-think. I think we improve aggregation and decrease group-think by divvying out political responsibilities in the way I suggest.


Also, I think Terx is right, on each issue the people will be more educated on their own assigned topics than their representative would be, because that's what they are asked to know.

 

[Zack]

It's a mater of knowledge, or of interest? The masses support policies which are broadly perceived to favour the interests of the masses, and Hygro believes that this perception is more or less on the money, while Congress favour policies which favour the interests of a very small elite. When Hygro says that the masses are "better on economic issues" than Congress, he doesn't mean that they're more learned, he means that they support policies which will produce preferable outcomes.

I think that's a bit simplistic.

We already know that Congress is worse on economic issues.

How?

Still, there's something really important here which is crowd wisdom. Large groups of uneducated people, when left alone to form their own opinions, when properly aggregated produce results that generally outperform experts.

Source?

 

[Hygro]

I think that's a bit simplistic.

It's down to the basics, which is pretty telling imo.

How?

Opinion polls

Source?

I didn't know this was contested, but here's a good book on the subject.

I caught the author on c-span a decade back, here's that talk http://www.c-span.org/video/?182386-1/book-discussion-wisdom-crowds

The entire market system functions on this logic. The reason we have a legislature instead of a ruler by decree is based around the idea that more heads are better than fewer. This is not new, so I'm surprised by your skepticism.

 

[Zack]

Are you kidding me, Hygro? That book only has 4/5 stars on Amazon? You just proved me right.

I was skeptical of the "uneducated people outperform experts" part, not that a large group of people > one person. I'll take your word for it, but that said -- wouldn't a large group of educated people outperform a large group of uneducated people?

Wouldn't this also lead to "tyranny of the majority" situations, if everyone is voting in their own self-interest? For example, gay marriage was very unpopular with the masses until recently.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that's a bit simplistic.

Could be. But it's no more simplistic than "congressmen know more than most people, so they should get to make the decision", which seems to be the alternative.

 

[Hygro]

Are you kidding me, Hygro? That book only has 4/5 stars on Amazon? You just proved me right.

Well, in all fairness to those who downvoted the book, there are some flaws. Mainly that the author is overly committed to his thesis, particularly his praise of efficient market theory, which Whomp disproved for me. But he still makes a good case overall.

I was skeptical of the "uneducated people outperform experts" part, not that a large group of people > one person. I'll take your word for it, but that said -- wouldn't a large group of educated people outperform a large group of uneducated people?

Wouldn't this also lead to "tyranny of the majority" situations, if everyone is voting in their own self-interest? For example, gay marriage was very unpopular with the masses until recently.

Experts perform better when there's more specific technical knowledge required. When dealing with amorphous social phenomena, crowds (but not mobs) outperform most experts, and few experts are consistently better.

 

[Tahuti]

The more educated you become the less this is true. The people have consistently favored increased education.

Miseducation is worse than lack of education, since the former will give you a false pretense of being educated and make it very difficult to return to the right path again.

Before you ask for a better form of democracy, you might first want try asking for a better system than democracy.

 

[Hygro]

Miseducation is worse than lack of education, since the former will give you a false pretense of being educated and make it very difficult to return to the right path again.

That's true. Fortunately, kind of like the value of the system I am forwarding/proposing, the more books you read and the more lectures you attend, the more places you go and people you meet, the greater your chance of escape the brainwash.

It's why the liberal arts are so important.

edit: seeing your edit, sure, and I do. This system is such a different form of democracy however that I think it's worth a look.

PS, I got my phone back ;D