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Elections are bad for democracy

theguardian.com

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Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#51

Post by rwmj »

jerf wrote: post #8
humanrebar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides when someone has "come to grips" with a topic? I mean, anyone who disagrees with me obviously hasn't come to grips with the issue, right?

It's very similar to jury duty. And you'd try to use similar mechanisms to keep the system fair and balanced. And it would have similar failure cases, but "system without failure cases" isn't really on the table here.

The difference is that juries don't usually have any "skin in the game". It doesn't make any difference to a jury member if the defendant is convicted or not (and when it DOES make a difference, we have a word for it -- jury tampering).

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#52

Post by [deleted] »

f_allwein wrote: post #2

Bit long winded, but boils down to recommending sortition, which I had not heard of. Interesting: "With sortition, you do not ask everyone to vote on an issue few people really understand, but you draft a random sample of the population and make sure they come to the grips with the subject matter in order to take a sensible decision."

[deleted]

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#53

Post by kristianc »

tremon wrote: post #47
reitanqild wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sortition is almost what we have elected politicians for isn't it? The default case? Referendums are for very important cases were we suspect politicians are out of touch with ordinary people. This has been a nagging issue in UK for years and finally they figured it was better to ask the people.

Sortition is based on chance, instead of agreeableness. Referendums are a great idea, but I think that the British yes/no vote was way too simple to game. Using hindsight to save the day, given that there appears to be no gameplan for where to go now, maybe the different options should have been explored before putting it to a vote: * remain in the EU * leave the EU, remain in the single market * leave the single mar…

I wonder if a referendum constructed in that way would actually make decision making worse.

As I see it, the public have voted to Leave, but some of the options for Leave are actually quite appealing, and would even appeal to some pragmatic Remainers (Norway-style EFTA agreement, join Schengen, negotiate trade agreements with the EU from the outside on a common basis with other EFTA countries, allow Eurozone to integrate closer).

By allowing the public to decide not only the decision but the details of the implementation (although I'm sure you weren't 100% serious with the "destroy chunnel" option) you increase the scope for voters to choose the worst one out of sheer spite.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#54

Post by hackuser »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
brooklyndavs wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its hypocrisy and contempt coming from "elites" via the very institutions that are critical to a democracy, the media. When the 4th estate works in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way democracy can work. However, once you have major media bought and paid for by those "elites" to push some billionaire's agenda you sow distrust in media. Once the voters don't have a place to go for trusted information all bets are of…

> institutions that are critical to a democracy, the media. When the 4th estate works in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way democracy can work. I don't believe mainstream media ever worked in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way. They definitely have not been for the past few decades I've been on this planet. Maybe in the past they were more under control by various "elites", government or otherwise. Now, in the…

> I don't believe mainstream media ever worked in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way. ... they are "free" - which means they actually serve Moloch[0], by writing what sells. That is, the most outrage-inducing, biased misrepresentations (and often outright lies) they can get away with. ... media isn't "a place to go for trusted information" ...

I think painting all news media with the same brush is significantly misconstrues the situation.

As a comparison, no software developer is perfect and can be absolutely trusted, and some devs are toxic. But I would be wrong to say: Therefore all software developers are toxic.

Similarly, there is better and worse news media. Can we absolutely trust any? Of course not; these are human institutions. But there's a long way from The Sun and The National Inquirer to The Financial Times and NY Times.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#55

Post by TeMPOraL »

tremon wrote: post #49
nutheracc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be argued that an understanding of how x works is irrelevant, only the outcome matters, in that individuals who don't understand the workings of x are still able to tell if the outcome is positive or negative for them, and vote on that.

Not in this case. The full outcome of the Brexit vote will not become clear for another ten years, probably. Both sides have tried to win over voters by scheming with "irrefutable facts" that clearly showed the other side's facts were wrong.

Not only that - ten years from now people will probably assign positive and negative effects of Brexit to other, more recent causes. The idea of people voting based on the perceived outcome for themselves is limited by their memory / attention span. A lot of important decisions, like those related to infrastructure, have immediate costs but bring benefits only years later.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#56

Post by mrec »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41
nemo44x wrote: post #32

Sortition is just too corruptible and disagreeable I would think. You can sample a society and "educate" them but then that process will forever be under fire too. I believe that in a democracy things should be hard to change. Changing things should take a super majority. This will lead to more compromise and possibly better results for all. If there was a 2/3 requirement to change things then there would be little r…

If you impose too high a barrier to change, then laws cannot stay in sync with society, and that will lead to severe unrest.

Yes. I think this is a common misunderstanding about democracy. Democracy is not good because it provides the best government, or even competent government; much of the time it manifestly doesn't. Democracy is good because it provides for stable succession; if a discontented group is strong enough to stage a successful coup or revolution, then in a democracy it's probably strong enough to achieve its ends at far lower cost and risk by waiting a couple of years until the next election.

The EU was founded in large part to prevent yet another European war; that's a noble goal and for all its flaws I think the EU can claim a lot of credit for 70 years of peace. Warnings against complacency that "it could never happen again these days" are well-made and well-taken.

But we haven't had a violent revolution or civil war in western Europe for a fair while either - anything since Franco? - and I think that's largely thanks to functional democracy. Messing with that is not to be taken lightly either. You don't have to go back very far to find everyone collectively soiling their breeches every time a monarch started getting on a bit without a solid heir in sight.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#57

Post by hackuser »

reitanqild wrote: post #19

Now, where is the "wisdom of the crowds" when it comes to decisions that we, "the elites", don't like? This annoys me. There is no doubt the result would have been "very fair" if it had been remain. What we are seeing now is IMO hypocrisy and contempt of ordinary people at a scary level. Now, did I want Brexit? No (I had no opinion). Do I think they should have requested more than 50% of the votes? As a conservative…

> where is the "wisdom of the crowds" when it comes to decisions that we, "the elites", don't like?

The crowds wisely thought the sun orbited the flat earth, and have voted for many bad decisions throughout history. Democracy is supporting their self-determination - the crowds have the power. That doesn't at all mean that every decision is a good one.

EDIT: As Abe Lincoln is quoted:

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Well, I guess there's a little bit of hope there ...

EDIT2: Can't believe I forgot this part:

Most nations use a republican form of government, where people choose the best of them (or the best person running) to deal with these issues. Direct democracy, where the people decide issues directly, is actually not part of the system. The UK has had 3 nationwide referendums and the US none, AFAIK.

There's a good reason for that: The average person has no idea what they're talking about on most issues. They have other jobs and interests, or no interest. Do I want the wisdom of the crowds deciding how the military should be funded and structured, or do I want elected officials who have hearings, a staff of aids, who study the issue and talk to the generals ... egads, I pay a lot of attention to public affairs, but I wouldn't want that responsibility.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#58

Post by mrec »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #37
kiruwa wrote: post #25

This article can be summarized as "Oh no! The 'wrong sorts of people' are winning! Lets ditch popular elections."

Or, specifically, the people voted the wrong way on the referendum. Let's stop letting people vote on referendums. You see the same thing with the EU Constitution - the voters rejected it in two countries. That can't be allowed. So we'll do the same thing via the Lisbon Treaty, but we won't let anybody vote on that, because they might vote wrong.

Be fair. They let Ireland vote on Lisbon, and when Ireland voted wrong they were even nice enough to let Ireland vote again.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#59

Post by TeMPOraL »

hackuser wrote: post #54
TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> institutions that are critical to a democracy, the media. When the 4th estate works in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way democracy can work. I don't believe mainstream media ever worked in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way. They definitely have not been for the past few decades I've been on this planet. Maybe in the past they were more under control by various "elites", government or otherwise. Now, in the…

> I don't believe mainstream media ever worked in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way. ... they are "free" - which means they actually serve Moloch[0], by writing what sells. That is, the most outrage-inducing, biased misrepresentations (and often outright lies) they can get away with. ... media isn't "a place to go for trusted information" ... I think painting all news media with the same brush is significantly mi…

I don't think it misconstrues the situation much.

To follow your comparison - sure, we don't say software developers are all toxic[0]. But we like to complain that almost all software is shit. There are gems of almost perfect beauty and usability, and we love them, but there are so few of those. Here on HN we sometimes like to discuss dynamics of what makes most of software shit - and we often find similar sort of economic pressures to those mass media faces.

The thing is, we put extra care in the software that directly affects lives of people. For anything else, we rarely bother. So if the institution of media is so important to democracy, maybe we should put some extra care here too.

(Though I don't know how to do that.)

[0] - also note, that I didn't say "all journalists are toxic"; however, the products of the institutions they form are a different story.

Re: Elections are bad for democracy

#60

Post by tremon »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #37
kiruwa wrote: post #25

This article can be summarized as "Oh no! The 'wrong sorts of people' are winning! Lets ditch popular elections."

Or, specifically, the people voted the wrong way on the referendum. Let's stop letting people vote on referendums. You see the same thing with the EU Constitution - the voters rejected it in two countries. That can't be allowed. So we'll do the same thing via the Lisbon Treaty, but we won't let anybody vote on that, because they might vote wrong.

Yes, the same thing happened with the NL referendum on the EU constitution. The reason people voted "no" was because they had never been asked before, so this was their first chance to have their voice heard.

That's about the only part of the article I agree with: if you're going to do referendums, then do them regularly. Referenda are only a useful tool if the public feel they really are involved in the process. Otherwise you'll have to answer for every decision that went around them.

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