A prototype of a decentralized political party • Hacker News Board

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#21

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #2

Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting systems, the outliers are moderated by the median, whose concerns are typically less emotional (abortion, guns) and more economic (price of milk, mortgage rates). Political parties are a concentrated form of voluntary voting. One of the reasons the USA's primaries s…

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal

Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#22

Post by riffraff » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #21

jacques_chester wrote: post #2

Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting systems, the outliers are moderated by the median, whose concerns are typically less emotional (abortion, guns) and more economic (price of milk, mortgage rates). Political parties are a concentrated form of voluntary voting. One of the reasons the USA's primaries s…

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

180 years is not much, other kind of republics fared better (the roman republic lasted 500 years, and the venetian republic more than 1000).

Also, the direct democracy in, e.g. Athens actually encompassed a very limited number of people (adult males owners of land) so it's not 100% comparable with a modern version.

I do agree we should try more things though.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#23

Post by riffraff » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

lumberjack wrote: post #4

M5S is trying to do that in Italy.[1] Though they don't use any crypto technologies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Star_Movement#Ideology

in theory, yes, in practice, not much.

Online voting was used a few times (election candidates, electoral law, presidential candidate), but for some cases the options were pre-decided (i.e. which party should be chosen as an ally in the european parliament, only 3 options) and in some cases decisions were dropped from "above" (i.e. the current party "Directorate").

And mostly, it has not been used at all.

One now-deceased party founder had a strong vision of internet-based democracy, but it hasn't really materialized _yet_ .

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#24

Post by brador » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

This is simply "Tyranny of the Masses" 2.0.

The next revolutionary system will be adaptive algorithms, created for fairness, implemented by system engineers, with strong feedback mechanisms for improvements.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#25

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #22

abecedarius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

180 years is not much, other kind of republics fared better (the roman republic lasted 500 years, and the venetian republic more than 1000). Also, the direct democracy in, e.g. Athens actually encompassed a very limited number of people (adult males owners of land) so it's not 100% comparable with a modern version. I do agree we should try more things though.

Owning land was not required. In Pericles's time they did add a requirement that both parents be Athenians, not just the father. I agree that the details and context matter, and there are a lot of details beyond "all the citizens can vote". (Here are some that HN readers ought to find cool: http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.ht...)

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#26

Post by mbrock » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #15

mbrock wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative forms of democracy can be implemented on top of direct democracy, no?

Do you mean "having a representative vote mechanically according to the results of another direct vote"? Sure, for the purposes of argument, you could draw a distinction. The dynamics will look like direct democracy. With all the troubles there attending. I imagine it would last until someone helpfully circulated a copy of Burke's Speech to the Electors of Bristol .

I mean delegating one's default vote to a "party" or "representative".

Could you explain why that leads to trouble? I'm not familiar with that speech.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#27

Post by jacques_chester » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #21

jacques_chester wrote: post #2

Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting systems, the outliers are moderated by the median, whose concerns are typically less emotional (abortion, guns) and more economic (price of milk, mortgage rates). Political parties are a concentrated form of voluntary voting. One of the reasons the USA's primaries s…

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

Classical Greece was a cultural diaspora of politically distinct city-states, which experienced very turbulent politics, swinging between systems of oligarchy, tyranny and democracy.

In fact, the Greek example that is often pointed to as an example of how not to do it. Even by the Greeks, who watched the dynamics up close. See, for example, Plato's fondness for tyranny of him and his buddies over democracy.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#28

Post by jacques_chester » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

mbrock wrote: post #26

jacques_chester wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean "having a representative vote mechanically according to the results of another direct vote"? Sure, for the purposes of argument, you could draw a distinction. The dynamics will look like direct democracy. With all the troubles there attending. I imagine it would last until someone helpfully circulated a copy of Burke's Speech to the Electors of Bristol .

I mean delegating one's default vote to a "party" or "representative". Could you explain why that leads to trouble? I'm not familiar with that speech.

> I mean delegating one's default vote to a "party" or "representative".

This is representative democracy, isn't it? I'm confused.

> I'm not familiar with that speech.

It's a short speech and worth reading as one of the clearest explanations of a representative's role: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.h...

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#29

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #27

abecedarius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

Classical Greece was a cultural diaspora of politically distinct city-states, which experienced very turbulent politics, swinging between systems of oligarchy, tyranny and democracy. In fact, the Greek example that is often pointed to as an example of how not to do it. Even by the Greeks , who watched the dynamics up close. See, for example, Plato's fondness for tyranny of him and his buddies over democracy.

The Greeks had turbulent politics both before and after the democratic period. I'm kind of impressed by the resilience of Athenian democracy.

Plato's a great example of how much better antidemocratic views seem to have survived subsequent transmission. Whenever we read historical judgments instead of facts we need to keep in mind we're seeing what managed to keep getting copied over almost two millennia until the printing press, almost all of the time under ideologies where the prince's word was law.

Re: A prototype of a decentralized political party

#30

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sun, Sep 11, 2016, 7:06 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #21

jacques_chester wrote: post #2

Voluntary voting effectively gives people with a single-issue obsession more power than everyone else, because they show up to vote. In compulsory voting systems, the outliers are moderated by the median, whose concerns are typically less emotional (abortion, guns) and more economic (price of milk, mortgage rates). Political parties are a concentrated form of voluntary voting. One of the reasons the USA's primaries s…

> Direct democracy's historical performance in this respect is abysmal Is that true? It certainly has its critics, but in classical Greece it more than held its own in a highly competitive ecosystem for ~180 years. I'm sure at least that we need more experiments with different institutions.

Classical Greece is arguably a poor example for reasons outlined elsewhere in this thread.

My argument against is this: professional politicians and bureaucrats often have a hard time governing a nation, what makes anyone believe the aggregate decisions of the crowd would do any better. Admittedly it'd often be hard to do any worse, but make no mistake we are as, and probably more so, fallible and as easily influenced as any politian.

At least with representative democracy we, the crowd, have someone to blame / prosecute / shame / hang. And we probably secretively want that.

I guess I just don't believe that salvation from our own follies can be found in one political system or another. Politics is a shitty abstraction built on top of shitty people like me, what with my unconscious biases, prejudices, and personal preferences. I don't know what's best for other people, he'll I don't even know what's best for me. I mean, I have trouble deciding what to have for dinner let alone what is good economic or environmental policy for the next x period of time.