Direct democracy using technology - Page 6 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

The solving of mankind’s problems and abolition of government via technological solutions alone.

Moderator: Kolzene

Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14229837
Thing is, nobody knows what the exact structure of an atom is, so according to Eran, all those nuclear physicists with their conflicting hypotheses don't understand about it. But the truth is that, they understand better than you or I (well, better than me at least) what the nature of the problem is.
#14229937
Sceptic wrote:Thing is, nobody knows what the exact structure of an atom is, so according to Eran, all those nuclear physicists with their conflicting hypotheses don't understand about it. But the truth is that, they understand better than you or I (well, better than me at least) what the nature of the problem is.

There tend to be very few substantive disagreements amongst natural scientists. Nothing at all compared with what you'd find in the social sciences.

In the natural sciences, the norm is a virtual consensus between experts.
#14230118
The important part of my post was that they better understand what the nature of the problem is, if not the exact solution, even if there may be a conflict of beliefs. (I think a large part of the disagreement lies in the fact they have different core values, so you will find social scientist, despite his attempts to be neutral will end up finding the facts that prove his argument. There is less ethics involved in the hard core research techniques employed in the natural sciences).
#14230433
They may or may not understand some aspects of the issue better.

But just as the plurality of mutually-inconsistent religious beliefs casts doubt on the veracity of any one faith, so the plurality of views amongst social scientists throws doubt on the knowledge, understanding, reliability and trustworthiness of any one view emerging from the social science academia.

I am not suggesting that no religion is true, or that no social scientist is ever correct (clearly I believe some are). Rather, I doubt the wisdom of relying on such dubious "experts".
#14413828
The dementia of democracy:

"This dementia is the profound belief held by the average North American that the multiplication of national moronity expressed through the ballot is the collective approach to divine omniscience in the solution of all of our national problems."

— Howard Scott, in The Dementia of Democracy,' Series A, Number 14, TECHNOCRACY magazine, October, 1938.
#14413883
redcarpet wrote:Not 'all'. And surely people have a right to a say on decisions made that affect them?


We would lose our right to vote once every few years, and gain a new right to vote every day, and as many times a day as we chose.

Our present vote amounts to the expression of a choice between two or more usually dubious political parties, once, say, every four years. Either way, our vote has positively no effect on the actual operation of the country, for the country is not run by politicians anyway. The voice of the people through the ballot box is absolutely nil.

The only real vote is purchasing power. What you buy you vote for. The people who attend wrestling matches in their thousands each week are voting for them each time they go. Every time you buy anything or use any service you vote for a continuation of that thing or service, and in this manner help to weave the texture of your life and the collective life of the country. Unfortunately the purchasing power of everyone today is unequal, which invalidates the real power of this consuming-power ballot. Under a Technate, however, everyone's consuming rights are equal (because by far the simplest way to distribute the right to use goods and services is equally) and therefore everyone has an equal voice in what he or she shall have. There are no elected politicians to spend your 'money' for you, so you spend it yourself and directly represent yourself; nor do you need anyone else to help you. Each individual tells the Technate what shall be made, and the Functional Control says how it shall be made. The only dictatorship in Technocracy is in the plant, where it is even now. Just try and be an individualist — working in a factory!"

https://archive.org/details/TechnocracyInPlainTerms
#14505777
I think it's the good place for the project MyVote. The goal is to promote direct democracy in an international level by using the android technology.

The princip is to simulate referendum on various topics. The questions and answers are similar to those of a referendum. The questions are simultaneously translated in several languages and the results are then summed up.
Any user can propose new referenda via the Contact tab. As soon as it's translated, the referendum is submitted to the community.

The goal is to get a global opinion in each subject without the language or medias slant.

The application is free, ad-free and apolitical.

What do you think about it? I think it's a good use of new technology.
#14505983
Zagadka wrote:In a whole, people aren't educated enough to make these kinds of decisions, especially both the large policy acts and with menial day to day operations votes.

Yes, electors are incompetent idiots.

But so are unfortunately the vast majority of our representatives, who are mere school teachers, physicians, entrepreneurs, etc. Yes they are idiots. Yes they are incompetent. Almost totally. Yes they spout stupid things all day long. We can think ourselves fortunate when they're at least competent on one important topic. They're still on the average slightly more competent than the average elector, but not enough to be significant, especially not when you take into account the unavoidable problems with the concentration of power: corruption, networking/oligarchy, different interests than the electors', courtesans and hubris, etc.

A very few of our representatives are genuine elites, highly educated and competent on many of the important topics. But they are often pursuing their own goals and there is no guarantee that they get the last word anyway: usually this one is a matter of influence, not competence.

In my opinion direct democracy + centralized executive power would not be worse than the horrible governance we currently have.


Zagadka wrote:1) Are people going to vote every day? Voter turnout in America is fucking pathetic

They won't, this is why I want to keep representatives: their weight on every vote will be a function of the number of people who did not vote.

2) Even ignoring all reality, technology is not nearly in the realm of having this be possible. We can't even produce an electronic voting system, even one that leaves a paper trail.

Indeed cryptographic algorithms are broken after 10-30 years on average (one exception: RSA), because of new mathematical discoveries (not even because of computing power increases). To have a currency, an electoral system or any other critical system depend on cryptography is stupid.

This is why electronic voting imposes to discard the vote secrecy. Yes this is big deal. But it is acceptable for some purposes, such as a direct democracy.

3) Debate. How would debate happen?

There is no need to hold a centralized debate, people could just go to forums / facebook / etc. I would still hold one though.

However there would be a lot to say about the executive process, amendments, popular initiatives, etc. While the executive process likely has to remain centralized, maybe we can have a greater transparency and openness (a random citizen could submit a project, gain crowd support, and then enjoy the executive machine for a few months to fuel a proper redaction after consulting all stakeholders and taking into account the many technicalities).


jean wrote:The goal is to promote direct democracy in an international level by using the android technology.

A global democracy would be a horrible thing, much frustrating for all of us. Believe me the result would be very far from the liberal values that most westerners hold, we could soon end up with a right to beat adultery women and such. The world is a weird place.
#14506062
Kolzene wrote:I think that it has nothing to do with Technocracy. Such discussions should be in the Democracy forum. Now if you want to discuss how this might relate to Technocracy in some way, then we can proceed.


Maybe both can be interesting?
#14506822
Kolzene wrote:Didn't say they couldn't be, just that there's a reason why we have different forums for different topics, and this topic doesn't belong here. Too many people have been using this forum as some kind of generic technology forum, which there already is one. This one is talking about technocracy and democracy, so it would stand to reason that it would belong in the democracy forum.


In fact, i'am not familiar with technocracy ideas and i was thinking, i was on the subject. I will open a new thread in democracy forum.
#14572108
newguy wrote:This seems appropriate since it is not feasible to have the entire population of a country in one place to discuss these subjects and vote.

I'm not sure this is the reason we don't have direct democracy. We're not "all in one place" when we listen to candidates, watch TV ads, and vote on election day -- but we still manage to vote on the same ballots on the same day, and on the basis of similar access to information.

I think the reason we don't have direct democracy is that the powerful have long suspected that direct democracy would run against their socioeconomic interests.

Recall the Federalist Papers, e.g., early debates in the US about how to structure the of House of Representatives.


As to the wonders of technology -- many of us are already critical of the use of "electronic voting machines" in the US. Doesn't it seem there is more opportunity to manipulate the process this way?
#14586516
You mean like Twitter?

Many of Obama an other major politicians' blunders in recent years can be attributed to the over-reliance on "new" media.

First, a mob, especially an internet one is not a rational democratic majority.

Second, some decisions require extensive contemplation, experience and knowledge, direct democracy where most or all important issues are voted online by the populace would likely make us all want fascism back in a few years.

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