Maybe I'm slow, but I've seen this a couple times now and went to the website, read the "about" section and I still don't understand what this is or what problem it's solving. I think OS in the name lead me to immediately assume it was another operating system. So considering I thought it was a new operating system, the more I read the more underwhelmed I am. Good luck on the project, but IMO you've not named it appropriately nor described how it uniquely solves any problem. Sorry if that sounds harsh, just giving honest feedback.
DemocracyOS
101–110 of 160 posts
Re: DemocracyOS
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I think that it's a relevant analogy to what an operating system does. Like an OS a system of government (like Democracy) manages a collection of physical elements (institutions) and serves as an interface between those and the end-users (citizens.)
That's a metaphor, and its confusing if not mildly infuriating.
Agreed. Within the demographic that understands the acronym (OS=Operating System or Open Source, etc.), it's likely to be confusing. Outside the demographic, it's not useful as a metaphor because they don't know have an expansion for OS in their heads.
Re: DemocracyOS
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually know who owns democracy.com but still, democracy reminisces a 2000 year old system.. we need to update that.
In the spirit of the US Military. "Improved Democracy" Or "Updated Democracy". If you're not familiar with this...search US Army IOTV to get an idea.
How about "Future Democracy System" or "Joint Democracy Platform" ;)
Re: DemocracyOS
#104"We support real browsers and IE10+" -- https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support
I chuckled.
Re: DemocracyOS
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only source that can provide equal access without using market forces, is the State. For the State to have such political will, it must have a political party that embraces the view on why internet access means access to education and knowledge. And that's one of the core aspects of our political party. Privilege? Think about a system that has 500 decision makers for a population of 300 million. That certainly re…
I'm not in disagreement with your ideas behind your political party, but I do not agree with the system you want to institute.
Can you explain why? I agree with their stystem but I think that any system that gives direct voting power has to solve issues like vote selling and engagement. I think both should be introduced in the system as explicit economic incentives.
Re: DemocracyOS
#106Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?
Constitutional democracies exist for this reason. But typically when people talk about "majority violating rights of minority", people generally mean "mass of people taking away everything from the rich". Look, even America, as a constitutional republic, took the rights away from millions of blacks for a long time. The Constitution at its inception did not save them. I really believe the rich have scared people about…
Your example could hardly be more at odds with your premise.
Re: DemocracyOS
#107So, this platform allows policy to be decided by a "technorati"[1] class? Are there individuals with low-income, little to no internet access, don't know what a blockchain or open source is, have hectic work schedules with the addition of raising a family participating on your platform? From what I can tell this platform is giving more power to those who already have some sense of power. This platform does not allevi…
The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people. We come from Argentina, a latinamerican country and we are very aware of the social challenges we face. But it's not just a technological solution, we ALSO created a Political party that does a lot of offline activism helping society understand the power they have using digital technology. The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 a…
> The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people.
> The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires
How do you justify that most of the votes came from wealthy neighborhoods of the city?
Re: DemocracyOS
#108Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?
Constitutional democracies exist for this reason. But typically when people talk about "majority violating rights of minority", people generally mean "mass of people taking away everything from the rich". Look, even America, as a constitutional republic, took the rights away from millions of blacks for a long time. The Constitution at its inception did not save them. I really believe the rich have scared people about…
> mass of people taking away everything from the rich
Honestly, I don't think they do. Moreso than anything, I think they're hearkening back to when slavery was legal, women couldn't vote, and it was perfectly acceptable to assault gays in nightclubs.
It's only as those minority groups gain acceptance that they start generating sympathy, really, but while gays are more and more getting acceptance in their fight for marriage equality, polygamists are still a lesser known, smaller minority, and their rights are routinely trampled, despite that all the arguments applying to same sex marriage are equally applicable to them.
As it sits, 51% of the democratic party approves of some form of censorship, so it's not too hard to imagine being in a gerrymandered district in which DemocracyOS is prevalent, and losing the ability to freely exercise your first amendment rights.
That said, this problem isn't unique to DemocracyOS, as we've always had people who hate the rights of others, and even managed to pass the 18th amendment as a result.
The biggest problem with direct democracy is in educating people about the Constitution. We have long, embattled conflicts between Constitutional scholars on whether X aligns with the Constitution, and the "will of the people", absent that knowledge, may serve to exacerbate the issue.
Re: DemocracyOS
#109The technical quality of the project has been so far debatable[1][2].
The Partido de la Red results seem to reveal a problem that is obvious at first sight: the underrepresentation of those who need representation the most[3].
I have doubts about whether direct democracy is a good idea, at all[4]. Summarizing, dividing the burden of decision making is inefficient for the population at large, and it does not guarantee better results.
People behind this project admit that this does not fully solve the problem it is attempting to solve[5].
Even if I could ignore the previous statement (which of course I can't), I wonder if the advantages of moving from an indirect democracy to a direct democracy are enough to even try to solve the problems. I think the cost of switching is high, and I cannot see any benefit.
In USA the main problem with democracy is the lack of interest of population in government elections. Does micromanaging decisions make this problem better or worse? The question is valid. It could be better if the feeling is that no matter who wins nobody will represent the voter; it could be worse if people do not care about the decisions that have to be make. There are other possible options, of course, but I don't really know if this solves problems or makes it worse.
I wonder how selection bias would affect decision making. People will mostly vote on subjects they feel passionate about, and ignore the others. Which will probably lead to what programmers know as bikeshedding[6].
Now I would like to highlight the positive of thinking about this problems and attempting a solution. Also following up Congress's debates and actions is something that should happen more often, for example Congressional Dish[7] attempts to do so.
[1] (Spanish) https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que...
[2] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536
[4] (Spanish) https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-direc...
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Trivialit...
Re: DemocracyOS
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are working to validate democracyOS votes with the blockchain. Happy to listen to any other suggestions
Please check out: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-count... This is a paper describing an end-to-end verifiable self-enforcing electronic voting system called DRE-i (Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity). In my opinion this is a superior solution to any other electronic voting system developed to date.
Thank you!