251–260 of 602 posts
But their evidence doesn't show that. Yes, there is a spike in people googling "what is BREXIT" and such things. But how many voters are doing that search? What percent of voters are uninformed? No one knows, so why write an article about it?
This is low quality journalism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can say with confidence that it might mean the government stays out of their medicare /s
I get the joke, but after having dealt with them, I would personally love it if the government got out of medicare. Just give everyone a voucher and let them buy their own health insurance using it. The amount of paperwork, and details to keep track of and calculate was absolutely unreal. I have BOXES full of paper from medicare, there was so much I could barely keep up. The worst was the arcane and utterly confusing…
That might be a good idea. In fact, it is very likely a good idea, for some global notion of 'good.' But people on Medicare would be, shall we say, vocal in their complaint.
I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switzerland is also much smaller than the UK or California in most respects.
>Switzerland is also much smaller than the UK or California in most respects. This comes up all the time, especially in "Why can't the US do X?" discussions but isn't it just the equivalent of shouting down with "That will never scale!" Of course it might not be exactly the same. Maybe the bigger country will need more servers spun up or a tweaked algorithm (to continue the analogy), but just saying a country is smal…
So, specifically in the context of discussing direct democracy, size does matter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know it was just Brexiters who were Googling "What is the EU?"? Seems a bit presumptive.
I don't. But if Bremainers were googling it it's inconsequential. It's the Brexiters who google it that tell us something about the vote.
In any case, we can't say for sure which side of the argument was searching for 'What is the EU?', though odds are it was a mixture of people from remain, leave, undecided and ineligible.
I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…
I think one solution is to hold the vote open for an extended period of time-- weeks, say. Keep an updated tally going at all time. That way, it's not just a high-stakes, one day event. Everyone will have a chance to vote, and nobody can (rightfully) say, "I wish I had voted, it didn't go the way I wanted" or "If I had known, I would have voted". You will know, and there will be time for you to vote still. If I under…
There was a lot of rain. Flooding / trains cancelled - biggest thunderstorm I've seen in the UK since moving here 13 years ago. In this case I think it probably made a difference, because those that were fighting to leave were more likely to turn out.
I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…
> We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments…
I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…
> We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments…
I also think this is something that works best on "smaller" scales - that is, not on the scale of France, or the UK, or Germany, but on the scale of Switzerland, Luxemburg, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, ...