51–60 of 168 posts
Can someone post an English translation of the "theses" or questions in the Wahl-o-mat? When I hear about such initiatives I am always wary of this kind of polling manipulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
One problem with this sort of thing is that the "who would you rather have a beer with" question is actually vastly important in black swan situations. If you believe that a candidate shares your basic instincts and cultural mores, they're likely to take the choice you would in an unexpected circumstance, like the Covid pandemic, for instance.
Democracy only works when we're humble and aware of our own limitations. We need to develop our trust in other people based on their capability as opposed to their personality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The site deinwal.de tries to address this by letting you vote on past bills and then showing you who votes most similar to you. However, for opposition parties this doesn't work reliably since they'll sometimes vote against something if it doesn't go far enough or if they disagree with the implementation details, even if they agree with the general idea. Unless you read up on the vote, these nuances will be missed. I…
I am one of the creators of deinwal.de Your description is spot on, although we tried to exclude votes where something did not "go far enough" for some parties. AMA.
Have you considered adding references to relevant sections of the party programs on the detailed thesis view?
For example, it might be interesting to see on [1] that the SPD claims to be in favour of the bill they just voted against. This is just one example, but I think an easy way to compare a vote with future claims of the parties would be interesting.
For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something. Like "we should stop burning coal" - obviously we should, as fast as possible. But stopping tomorrow won't work, neither will treating every part of the country the same way. Is this the most urgent measure we can do for climate? You just can't answ…
If you check the detail answers from parties on Wahl-O-Mat, you can often see this:
Party A: "We agree, but only if x"
Party B: "We disagree, because we want Y, which is similar"
And both actually want the same, but with a simple "yes/no" answer, this isn't accurately reflected.
The questions are often dumbed down and you actually do need a lot of background information. With many questions, my answer is "it depends" or "I don't know enough".
Is voting based on matching your exact ideology a good idea? You could have a system where everyone has a party that represents their views exactly, but democracy is about compromise, which takes political skill. This should be a factor in voting. In the UK, up until recently we had a pretty far left guy called Jeremy Corbyn in charge of Labour, the largest left wing party. I was pretty aligned with him on a his idea…
Germany utilizes a proportionate parliamentary system and the level of consensus building is supposed to happen at the party level. People express their party preferences, and coalitions are going to produce governments that can legislate. The German chancellor does not tower over policy. You're primarily voting for a party, not a person. Even more so in Scandinavia, where minority governments are common. This is not…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The site deinwal.de tries to address this by letting you vote on past bills and then showing you who votes most similar to you. However, for opposition parties this doesn't work reliably since they'll sometimes vote against something if it doesn't go far enough or if they disagree with the implementation details, even if they agree with the general idea. Unless you read up on the vote, these nuances will be missed. I…
This doesn't even work that well for the governing parties. Coalition governments are based on the parties making compromises where their positions disagree. This means that in particular the smaller partner(s) have to vote against their own program most of the time if they want to at least get their core issues through the parliament. Unfortunately, an alarming number of people seem not to know this.
And building a "coalition" isn't a natural law nor even how things were intended – the house is named "parliament" so there shall be discussion of all voting members prior voting on EVERY SINGLE bill. That's the MPs job description.
A coalition in fact is an illegal voting cartel as since decades each contains the paragraph "there will be no differing votes" while each vote is subject only to the conscience of the MP by definition of the constitution.
How could that go together.
For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something. Like "we should stop burning coal" - obviously we should, as fast as possible. But stopping tomorrow won't work, neither will treating every part of the country the same way. Is this the most urgent measure we can do for climate? You just can't answ…
I don't know why you're downvoted, because you're right. If you check the detail answers from parties on Wahl-O-Mat, you can often see this: Party A: "We agree, but only if x" Party B: "We disagree, because we want Y, which is similar" And both actually want the same, but with a simple "yes/no" answer, this isn't accurately reflected. The questions are often dumbed down and you actually do need a lot of background in…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what I'm getting at at all in this case. The left in Europe tends to be highly critical of the EU, and advocates either reforming the EU radically to make it more democratic or, if that isn't possible, leaving it. This is often referred to as "soft Euroscepticism".
Which left parties in Europe are advocating leaving the EU? I think these would be more hard-left than centre-left.
I hope not too many people base their voting decision on the amount of similarity they have in their answers with parties. The way questions are phrased do not always give parties a way to answer (Yes/No/Neutral) in the same way. As an example, 2 parties could both say No to a higher Co2-tax, but one of them does so because they claim climate change is a hoax, while the other one has a problem with it not being progr…
But as a voter who is in favour of a higher CO2 tax, why would you care about that distinction? If there's one party who thinks climate change doesn't exist and one who believes in climate change but is unwilling to do anything about it, the only difference between the parties is in their rhetoric. I'd argue that voting based on actual policy proposals a benefit, not a drawback of this approach.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The site deinwal.de tries to address this by letting you vote on past bills and then showing you who votes most similar to you. However, for opposition parties this doesn't work reliably since they'll sometimes vote against something if it doesn't go far enough or if they disagree with the implementation details, even if they agree with the general idea. Unless you read up on the vote, these nuances will be missed. I…
This doesn't even work that well for the governing parties. Coalition governments are based on the parties making compromises where their positions disagree. This means that in particular the smaller partner(s) have to vote against their own program most of the time if they want to at least get their core issues through the parliament. Unfortunately, an alarming number of people seem not to know this.
"We support clean energy" - "we had to support opening new coal plants because we wanted to get support on our budget proposal for some agency"... Do I really give a shit they claim to support clean energy ?