Same thing with DAOs democratizing governance. Have you been to a city council meeting? You want ANYONE to be able to create a proposal that everyone else has to vote on?
Yes I realize that sometimes referendums give sub-optimal results (i.e. brexit), but I'd much rather live in a truly representative democracy that occasionally gets it wrong than a republic that doesn't represent the people's wishes at all.
A. Hitler Mustache
B. KKK Hood
Do you think everyone should have to vote on that?
From there it's pretty easy to associate real political capital with digital decisions.
E.g. Automatic n+1 "ban proposing user" option added to all proposals. If after n votes (where n is large) the sum(ban proposing user) > 0.25*sum(all other options), proposal is removed and user is banned until a proposal to unban is passed.
I do think something like Brexit is fine for a referendum. It's a singular issue and clearly very important. In California we have referendums for weird tax issues that become impossible to be informed on and it leads to bad outcomes.
This Country hasn't held a fair, informed referendum. Whether that be the AV , Scottish independence or brexit.
The game has changed, you have social media companies, Russia, Palantir and Cambridge Analytica types weaponizing misinformation.
The electorate got pushed to voting against their interests for both Brexit and AV by absolute bullshit lies. (E.g. 350 million to the NHS, AV referendum killing babies...)
At this point in time, we have seen the same thing happen in India, Brazil, the US, UK...
Also, I would very much like to see a 5 hour free form interview with major political candidates. I feel like politicians mostly just repeat prepared remarks and don't really have a thorough understanding of issues and/or are not that smart.
At the moment, the issues surrounding external influences, Cambridge Analytica/PLTR style voter manipulation occur outside the scope of electoral regulators.
In reality, both systems are failing spectacularly given they are being abused by lobbyists, monetary interests, gerrymandering, FPTP, and sheer electoral fraud.
E.g. The Tories openly lying (Brexit empty promises, Scaremongering, AV killing babies). The Tories splitting by campaigning for the left vote to abuse FPTP. The Tories openly ignoring electoral spending restrictions because the fines are ineffective. The electoral college system/voter boundary abuse resulting in people in London/California having far less voting power than those in rural regions.
Neither system will be fair until the above aspects are rectified.
In the future, we are going to need to take unpleasant actions for which the current government models fail absolutely. Take climate change, or even the most recent pandemic. The current government models in the West failed spectacularly compared to places like China or Singapore.
If 50%+1 of voters becomes the metric to hit, it will almost certainly be achieved. Looking at California's ballot referendums, it's clear that it's no impossible task to get voters to approve something against their best interest or ostensibly against their stated political values and beliefs.
See: The ballot initiative exempting commercial property from Prop 13 that failed: (https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...), and the initiative to overturn California's law requiring ride share drivers to be classified as employees that passed: (https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...).
Also, just wanted to point out that you said you'd rather live in a "representative democracy" when talking about direct democracy. Representative democracy is another term for a republic.
Not really. Since we're talking about Brexit, it's worth noting that the UK is a representative democracy but is definitely not a republic.
I don't think "be done with it" on abortion is remotely possible. The two sides are completely intractable. In my long life I've never heard anyone be persuaded by the other side.
Besides, overturning RvW will not federally prohibit abortion. It will leave it up to the states, which will decide democratically.
This satisfies nobody.
For example, here in Washington State, there is no chance that abortion will be outlawed by the State. But that hasn't stopped major demonstrations protesting the Supreme Court.
Not wishing to be unnecessarily provocative, but if each state were to have to set the policy isn't it likely it would be that which is most popular in that state?
Wouldn't more people be satisfied overall? Even if some states end up hating each other a bit more ... than they already do
Everyone likes to talk about will of the people. Well here is news. Different people have different desires, in different regions of the country majority wants to do different things. Only way to keep lid on this without the whole thing blowing up is to have representation of the this and slow the process down as much as possible, quick changes are the most disruptive/dangerous.
Sure. But there is a big problem when the minority of people in an area end up getting what they want because the system that is in place isn't able to properly enfranchise the majority.
Absolutely not, lol.
The world is way, way too complicated for every individual to have a meaningful and informed opinion about every particular topic. That's why we delegate to experts in the field. There's no way I want some corn farmer in Iowa voting on monetary policy. Most people here haven't the faintest idea how monetary policy works. The comments here are horrifying, and this is a pretty elite group to begin with.
Similarly there's no way I want some city-slicker who's never held a hoe to vote on farm policy.
That's before we even start in on civil rights.
It's a flawed, backwards idea best left in the dustbin of history. It just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Specialization is good. Delegation is productive.
So why on earth would you advocate for the people who know the least about a topic to make the decisions? It's bananas.
There's no janitorial staff on Apple's board. There's no cooks on the Facebook board. There's no software engineers on the Twitter board. At least in industry we've - more or less - accepted that the folks with the relevant experience should be making the relevant decisions. This should be no less true in governance.
Yes there is. 3 out of the 11 members the board are clearly software engineers.
Makes em easy to dupe...
Is "plutocratizing" a word? Because that's what most of them are actually doing -- granting power to whoever has purchased (or rented!) the largest number of tokens.
As if procedural hacks were not enough (leveraged seizure of stake sufficient to exploit anyone...?),
who could possibly both be smart enough to write a contract, yet dumb enough to entrust it with their own money?
Trick question. That's the crypto koan of rue. The answer is no one. The rest is an exercise a lot of students are learning the hard way.
In any system I'm not obligated to participate in, I prefer benevolent dictatorships. If I disagree with the dictator, I can take my business elsewhere.
Have you ever seen a road? Do you think everyone got an equal say and vote if and how that road was built? Cities that operate well and are not total disasters to live in, have governments that can improve infrastructure without having to include everyone's opinions equally. Obviously I think that is unfair, especially if I am the person who doesn't want brighter street lights on my street, but I don't want my city to end up like San Francisco where apartments cost 2 Million dollars and are surrounded by tent cities and taxes are super high.