A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#211

Post by heraclius » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #56

What we need isn't necessarily centrism, but lowered emotions. Emotions are what skew reason and then catch like wildfire. It happens that they tend to push people to the extreme ends of the political spectrum, but that itself isn't really the problem. It's not about sheer distance from the center, it's about voting based on anger and hatefulness and fear. Anti-fascists in Nazi Germany would've been "extreme" relativ…

It’s tempting to think that we can operate politics without emotion. However, it is unclear what the foundations of our political beliefs are if not intuitive reactions of the sort that emotions are as well. For example, most people who oppose torture oppose it because they have an intuition that it is unacceptable and value that intuition. We can construct “objective” methods to derive political claims from other claims, but ultimately they involve a value judgement—politics without value judgement has no way to decide between competing objectives. “Reason” does not provide a coherent morality, as the failure of the Enlightenment project shows; “emotion” is quite capable of justifying a centrist view—I should imagine most have negative emotional reactions to the Leninist and Hitlerite states. I imagine that one reason for the decline of the liberal order is its abandonment of emotional claims and pretence to objectivity as if that were possible. Those who continue to use emotion, to appeal to our intuitions as to what is right, instead of simply referring to empirical concepts whose connexion to such intuitions is severely dulled, appear to have the most success; unfortunately they do not seem to be particularly constructive at the moment. Anger and fear are not entirely unreasonable as emotions go: we fear and are angered by the spectres of poverty and dictatorship, and those are not unreasonable positions to hold.

Attacks on morality and value judgements in politics often take the form of, to take an example, Sir Humphrey’s utterances in Yes Minister. Government, in his view, is about order, and the prevention of chaos. Hacker, the minister, suggests that it is about doing good. Why is Sir Humphrey so scared of chaos? His fear thereof is the same sort of fear that drives morality; we might even call it a moral belief. It is not an implausible belief—chaos has its problems. Most of the time what seems “objective” is no longer on demanding a further reason. “Lowered emotions” should not really be the end; a sensible method of dealing with competing emotions is the need of the hour.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#212

Post by retzkek » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

breuleux wrote: post #91

forinti wrote: post #66

The greeks had two institutions we could use: ostracism and lottery. We should be able to vote on those we want out of politics and the most voted would have to seat it out. And a small portion of representatives should be chosen by lottery. Maybe 5% or 10%. These representatives, obviously, would not have to answer to their sponsors.

Actually, why not choose all representatives by lottery? I don't think representatives need to have any particular competencies beyond being representative of the interests of the population. Hired staff can take care of things that require particular abilities. I reckon that a wholly random set of representatives would act like a direct democracy where every voter is free to fully focus on the issues, is allowed an…

The formal name of this system is Sortition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

There's a good TED talk about it: https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_p...

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#213

Post by heraclius » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

youdontknowtho wrote: post #17

"intense preferences of the minority" are enshrined in the constitution. The senate, the electoral college, and the states themselves are designed to protect the minority of property onwers. It's designed to slow progress. Read Madison. Also, I'm sure Bloomberg writers LOVE attempts to replace Democracy with some weird economic neo-market model. Coins...get a grip, man. EDIT: Sorry. "Tokens". Whatever.

I quite understand that there is a tendency to marketise decision-making in an unhelpful fashion, but I’m not entirely sure how this scheme is too much of a problem, beyond using the word “tokens”. Could you elaborate as to the specific problems of this scheme as opposed to those of general attempts to marketise?

And “quadratic voting” may have uses beyond the areas governed by the US constitution. Even within those areas, there are minorities other than property owners. Blacks, for example, do not seem to have been very successful as a minority in preventing the various things that the state does to them that are plausibly unhelpful (though the quantification thereof may well be intractable). The particular use case here, however, seems to be to make the specific institutions you describe more effective, as opposed to relying on their being pitted against each other to make things work. I think that it is more desirable to have a single institution that works well, where possible (which it generally isn’t) than multiple institutions that operate against each other in an attempt to avoid pitfalls, because one generally falls into more pitfalls in the process, even if the balance of advantage lies with the latter case.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#214

Post by ng12 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #210

ng12 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 3% tax on my dividends didn't even come close to SALT. Personally I'd like to see the government stop spying on US citizens, more protections for digital privacy and free speech, reduced military spending, curbs on an an increasingly militarized police force and privatized judicial system, and policies designed to protect the American middle class against increasing globalization. It's hard to draw a meaningful d…

Honestly I think your list highlights why I get so frustrated when people equate the parties, because there are so obvious, provable distinctions it the items you list: 1. "government stop spying on US citizens, more protections for digital privacy and free speech" - OK, this one I'll give to you, I don't see significant differences between the mainstream parties on this one. But I'd argue that is because this issue…

> because there are so obvious, provable distinctions it the items you list

Really? It seems to me like you either agree or gave a kind-of-not-really example for each point.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#215

Post by mamon » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

awinder wrote: post #190

cwperkins wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listen to yourself man. By closing the door to debate you open up the floor to hostility. Some conservatives have demented ideas, but that doesn’t mean ALL do. If we are going to heal our divisions it’s going to take more than each side calling the other ‘Snowflake’

I'm not taking a side here and said nothing about not listening to any conservative or closing off to debate. I'm merely pointing out that "college kids didn't want to listen to token conservative talkinghead A or B" is not equivalent to how classes of people are treated in the slightest.

There's a difference between "I dont want to listen to token conservative talkinghead A, so I won't come to his lecture" and "I don't want to listen to token conservative talkinghead A, so I think he should be banned from ever entering my college premises".

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#216

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

Para2016 wrote: post #198

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which issues do you care about? Because I hear this vague-y statement ("the two parties are functionally identical") without specifics, and I can't for the life of me figure why people think this. Also, to your point "As a relatively high income earner the only significant tax increase I've ever seen was under Trump.", and don't see how this could possibly be true. For example, Obamacare added significant taxes for M…

They're irrelevant differences to me. I care about local and state issues. For instance local infrastructure, local school districts, local road maintenance, local taxes, etc. Federal politics is a distraction. A useless distraction that you're obsessed with. That's the kind of thinking that's "dangerous".

> Federal politics is a distraction. A useless distraction that you're obsessed with. That's the kind of thinking that's "dangerous".

While I realize this is pretty much a trolling post, I just want to highlight that you are in quite the privileged position to believe this. You couldn't possibly believe "federal politics is a distraction" if:

1. You desire to get married to someone of the same sex.

2. You have anyone you care about who has been affected by federal drug laws.

3. You have any close relatives who are citizens of another country.

4. You are a woman who cares deeply about her own reproductive rights. Conversely, you believe that human life starts at a stage earlier than currently recognized by the Supreme Court.

5. You have a pre-existing medical condition.

I could go on, and of course there are loads of ways federal policies affect virtually everyone albeit in a less direct manner (tax policy, monetary policy, foreign trade policy, etc.)

But congratulations, I'm sure those only apply to other people, so fuck them.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#217

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC

danielvf wrote: post #126

bilbo0s wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were always pretty interesting ideas to me, and I always used to wonder why the Founders did not replicate those facets of the Athenian Republic? It would solve a lot of our problems today.

In general, the founders thought Greek style democracy was a horrible system of government. Inevitably incompetent, bloody, unjust, rash, and would quickly self destruct. When the French Revolution happened - with chaos, purges, wars, and then an emperor taking over the country - the founders basically said “I told you so”. Here’s an example. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6371

[deleted]

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#218

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

zorked wrote: post #151

breuleux wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good point. I currently lean towards requiring every citizen to register for the lottery once every ten or so years (for one year of service). If they are picked, they have to go, except for serious unforeseen circumstances, but at least they would be able to plan for it to some extent. This might also require a cultural shift for people to accept it, but maybe not a radical one.

Being government for a year is a better deal than military service, and people don't complain too much about that.

[deleted]

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#219

Post by logfromblammo » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

memory_grep wrote: post #200

logfromblammo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voting method breaks down entirely when you consider strategic voting by groups, and multiple-repetitions game strategies. 100 players would form a voting cartel, and each member would spread their votes out among all the members' favorite issues. Reneging on the cartel's rules means that the entire cartel retaliates on the next vote. So each party has exactly 100 issues in their platform, and no individual voter…

You're assuming votes are public, which is not usually the case. If there's no way to check someone else's vote, there's no way to enforce a voting block.

If the votes aren't public enough to see the ballots, how do you know if a voting district cast the correct number of votes for the number of ballots cast? How do you know if the number of quadratic votes match the sum of sqrts of the individual votes? How do you check to see if anyone's cheating?

If you can see the ballots, you can filter for the ones that match the cartel platform, and count to 100. There may be a voting coordination strategy to find out who cheated. Maybe instead of 100 members, you have 99, and each member votes 2 for a different issue.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#220

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #214

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think your list highlights why I get so frustrated when people equate the parties, because there are so obvious, provable distinctions it the items you list: 1. "government stop spying on US citizens, more protections for digital privacy and free speech" - OK, this one I'll give to you, I don't see significant differences between the mainstream parties on this one. But I'd argue that is because this issue…

> because there are so obvious, provable distinctions it the items you list Really? It seems to me like you either agree or gave a kind-of-not-really example for each point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_sequestra...

"By Republicans in Congress"

The Republican House had narrowly passed a bill on December 20, 2012,[15] which would have replaced only the defense side of the sequester with cuts to programs including food stamps, Dodd-Frank and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"By Democrats in Congress"

Patty Murray, Democratic Chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, proposed on February 14 to replace the 2013 sequester with $110 billion in spending cuts and tax increases. Like the House version, these policies also include a Buffett-rule tax, the closure of the oil subsidies, and cuts to farm subsidies. Additionally, this bill would cut defense spending for 2013 in excess of the amounts required by the current sequester. But this bill has little chance of winning the 60 votes required to override a filibuster.

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