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Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

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Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#61

Post by [deleted] »

dsr_ wrote: post #59
dkhenry wrote: post #13

This is the wrong soution to this problem. The _right_ solution is to quadrouple the number of senators and house members. This effort shows that yes via technology we can have more people voting on the important business of the country , but it doesn't mean we should ignore the benefits of representative democracy and pretend everyone will know everything about everything. The right solution is to water down congres…

Let me make an alternate proposal. Suppose that we want 600 congresscritters and the population of voters is 300M. Dividing A into B, we get a simple ratio of 500K to one. Let's allow them to sign up directly. No reason for it to be limited geographically. If you like Representative Archie, sign up with him. When Archie gets 500,000 registrations, he gets a seat. Even better, we'll let more people sign up -- if Archi…

[deleted]

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#62

Post by michaelt »

lukifer wrote: post #39

I heartily support this idea; however, the problem I see is that the secret ballot is not enforced, either in the process, or through the threat of legal enforcement. If I can reliably observe someone voting, even with their consent, votes can be influenced through purchase or coercion. And unless new laws get passed to cover online pseudo-voting, such things wouldn't even be illegal, and I could roll around poor-inc…

Plenty of places let you vote by post, which has this problem. And with people taking their camera phones into voting booths, arguably manual voting does too.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#63

Post by jrs235 »

zanny wrote: post #33
dmix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Moving towards more state-level government instead of centralized federally.

I think state level misses the point. The underlying ideology is applicable at all levels, which is that a representative can better represent fewer people rather than more people. You trade off accuracy of representation for protection against popular interests. Currently, we are at an absurd extreme in terms of human history (one president for 320 million, then in Cali its 1 senator per 25 million people). We alrea…

The senate was never intended to represent the people, it was intended to represent the states. The 17th Amendment usurped the states rightful representation in the federal government and would be best if repealed. But it's harder to control the state governments if the federal government can't enforce mandates such as withholding money from states that refuse to pass or enforce laws. Those in favor of such centralized power are often unaware of their Authoritarian support. No state senator would pass such mandates laws and vote to limit their state governments if the senators had to answer to and were elected by the state legislatures. Each state can elect their senators as they see fit.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#64

Post by charlesjshort »

dsr_ wrote: post #59
dkhenry wrote: post #13

This is the wrong soution to this problem. The _right_ solution is to quadrouple the number of senators and house members. This effort shows that yes via technology we can have more people voting on the important business of the country , but it doesn't mean we should ignore the benefits of representative democracy and pretend everyone will know everything about everything. The right solution is to water down congres…

Let me make an alternate proposal. Suppose that we want 600 congresscritters and the population of voters is 300M. Dividing A into B, we get a simple ratio of 500K to one. Let's allow them to sign up directly. No reason for it to be limited geographically. If you like Representative Archie, sign up with him. When Archie gets 500,000 registrations, he gets a seat. Even better, we'll let more people sign up -- if Archi…

Please see academic paper here on Mathematics of Digital Republic.

http://www.ysenate.org/academic.html

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#65

Post by emkemp »

jrs235 wrote: post #63
zanny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think state level misses the point. The underlying ideology is applicable at all levels, which is that a representative can better represent fewer people rather than more people. You trade off accuracy of representation for protection against popular interests. Currently, we are at an absurd extreme in terms of human history (one president for 320 million, then in Cali its 1 senator per 25 million people). We alrea…

The senate was never intended to represent the people, it was intended to represent the states. The 17th Amendment usurped the states rightful representation in the federal government and would be best if repealed. But it's harder to control the state governments if the federal government can't enforce mandates such as withholding money from states that refuse to pass or enforce laws. Those in favor of such centraliz…

A nitpick: I don't know how you can say the 17th Amendment "usurped" states representation in the Senate. The states ratified the 17th Amendment, and willingly gave up their powers in that sense.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#66

Post by dkhenry »

downandout wrote: post #55
dkhenry wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you did that you would get into much the same situation you see with the discussion over the tax/budget changes that are happening today. Its really easy to rally people _against_ something. Its a bit harder to get them to support it. I think you would find with a public veto that nothing substantial would pass through congress.

I disagree. The current tax debate is largely over whether or not to raise taxes on, at most, 2% of the population. That isn't remotely close to enough of the population to overturn anything under my proposal. If you set the percentage required high enough, only those laws that are truly objectionable would wind up in the trash bin.

but there are many more people opposed to it then just the 2%. Take for instance me. I am no where near close to that 2% in income, and unless you want to give them official representation in proportion to their tax burden then I claim what your doing is tyrannical. I bet I could convince enough people to a. Care and b. Vote about it that we could overturn it.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#67

Post by avar »

davekinkead wrote: post #54
avar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normal people don't have the time to vote on every single issue It's really easy to have both direct democracy and the convenience of not having to vote on any given issue. You could grant the use of your vote to another citizen or a group of citizens. If you don't like how they vote you could instantly revoke their right to cast your vote on your behalf and go back to voting on every single issue. You could also g…

> You could grant the use of your vote to another citizen or a group of citizens. This idea is common in a lot of new ideas about representation (eg the German Pirate Party's Liquid Democracy http://liquidfeedback.org/ ) yet I'd argue it is also a really bad idea. One of the key values of any democracy, and direct democracy in particular, is that it values and promotes human autonomy. Instead of being subject to arbi…

That's a very good point, and thanks for the link to liquidfeedback. It's very interesting, especially how it seems to do almost all of the logic needed in PostgreSQL.

    > Proxy voting allows those with little skin in the
    > game to drown out those significantly affected
    > by proposed laws.
But that's exactly what you'd get today in a representative democracy. If there's a fringe issue that 1% of the population really cares about they'll have to convince their representatives to vote their way on it. Since the representatives go for the popular vote they'll probably vote with what the 99% wants 100% of the time.

You'll only get minority issues through if the minority cares enough about it and it doesn't negatively impact everyone else, or if the negative impact from not giving the minority what they want would be greater than just giving them what they want.

I think you'd be more likely to reach a consensus like that using proxy voting than you would be in a direct democracy. With proxy voting any fringe issue will by default go to some general issues political party of your choice, which is likely to have a reasonable position on miscellaneous issues like this.

With direct democracy where 1% really cares about some issue but the 99% doesn't care either way (so much that they can't be bothered to vote either way) you might never end up passing it because you have another 1.5% population of voters that just votes "no" on everything out of general principle.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#68

Post by fatbird »

syedkarim wrote: post #37
fatbird wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland is just over 2.6% the size of the U.S. and much, much more homogenous a culture. They're not remotely comparable.

I can understand how cultural homogeneity could impact the decision-making process (though Switzerland is a country of four official languages, so it's not that homogeneous), but I don't see how size matters. Care to elaborate?

Among other things, it has to do with the practical allowances for different communities of opinion, or factions within the polity. The smaller the group, the less opportunity there is for distinct subgroups to form, especially ones in opposition to others. There's also a more uniform experience of the polity that tends to shape opinion. The overall effect is that there's less variety of opinion, which makes direct democracy a closer approximation of the polity's feeling on something.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#69

Post by zanny »

emkemp wrote: post #65
jrs235 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The senate was never intended to represent the people, it was intended to represent the states. The 17th Amendment usurped the states rightful representation in the federal government and would be best if repealed. But it's harder to control the state governments if the federal government can't enforce mandates such as withholding money from states that refuse to pass or enforce laws. Those in favor of such centraliz…

A nitpick: I don't know how you can say the 17th Amendment "usurped" states representation in the Senate. The states ratified the 17th Amendment, and willingly gave up their powers in that sense.

They were mostly bullied with federal funding, as they always are. It is why federal dependence and welfare is so dangerous, not because of flawed ideologies of who "earned" what, but because they can easily use their services as carrots on a stick to drive people the way they want them the same way a gang might extract loyalty through "protection". It already happens all the time with the elderly in the US and social security / medicare.

Re: Hollingsworth for US Senate 2014, implementing direct democracy

#70

Post by zanny »

jrs235 wrote: post #63
zanny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think state level misses the point. The underlying ideology is applicable at all levels, which is that a representative can better represent fewer people rather than more people. You trade off accuracy of representation for protection against popular interests. Currently, we are at an absurd extreme in terms of human history (one president for 320 million, then in Cali its 1 senator per 25 million people). We alrea…

The senate was never intended to represent the people, it was intended to represent the states. The 17th Amendment usurped the states rightful representation in the federal government and would be best if repealed. But it's harder to control the state governments if the federal government can't enforce mandates such as withholding money from states that refuse to pass or enforce laws. Those in favor of such centraliz…

> to an elector tree like the old US Senate rather than direct voting for too many positions

I mentioned this. The senators are still one of the largest divergent points from public interests that are direct elected. I'm all for abolishing the 17th amendment amongst other things (I disagree with the policy of 2 senators per state in principle anyway).

> No state senator would pass such mandates laws and vote to limit their state governments if the senators had to answer to and were elected by the state legislatures. Each state can elect their senators as they see fit.

I wish we could have unified state congresses that directly elected all federal representatives from within their own ranks. The citizenry shouldn't even be involved in the fed, which shouldn't be nearly as large as it is. They should be involved locally, and their local choices should influence larger groups through representation. The way republics are supposed to work.

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