Comment by arlort | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arlort | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> and how is bipartisan consensus is being achieved in real-time

This is a horrible idea in practice because everything that is public and open turns into a purity test.

You need people to be able to negotiate with each other in order for consensus to be established, and negotiations only work if the negotiators give up on something that they want to get something else. The moment you make this public all that you get is people turning negotiations into a way to generate soundbites and scared of doing any actual work because they'll just give ammunition to their opponents.

This is doubly bad in the US with the primary systems which makes legislators even more vulnerable to attacks from their flanks.

Legislators are not elected to be proxies for the voters, that's not how it's supposed to work. They're elected to use their judgement, that's why there usually aren't recall elections or restrictions on how they can vote etc.

As a matter of fact I'm of the opinion politics everywhere would be a lot better if plenaries, committees and hearings were not recorded or televised in the first place. I'm ok with minutes being made available but I'm convinced without being able to clip soundbites or tiktoks out of every meeting legislatures would be a lot more productive. Definitely more so than if we attached a camera crew to everyone in politics for "transparency"

> As a matter of fact I'm of the opinion politics everywhere would be a lot better if plenaries, committees and hearings were not recorded or televised in the first place.

At that point we might as well get rid of the press, as otherwise someone might be able to hold someone actually accountable to their actions and decisions. Taking the argument ad absurdum, might even go back to monarchy so we don't have to deal with informed (or quasi-informed) voters to begin with.

I get where you come from, that the public perception of politics is mostly soundbite-driven is indeed a huge issue, in my opinion probably one of the biggest issues of our century, as it allows absolute incompetence a democratic pathway to power by playing to human basic instincts and emotions.

But as long as we want to cling to democracy, the voters _must_ have a way of knowing who is doing what, who is involved in which decision, and what favors are being traded. How else is a voter supposed to make an informed choice?

EDIT: To address the soundbite-problem, I think systems that are more oriented towards consensus democracy (proportional elections, chance for referendums etc.) rather than competitive democracies (first past the post, majority takes all) are more stable against it. Election systems should favor choice of opinion rather than choice of persons, if that makes sense. I think especially the US (for context, I'm Swiss) would benefit a lot from such changes; right now it seems all outrage-driven.

> At that point we might as well get rid of the press, as otherwise someone might be able to hold someone actually accountable to their actions and decisions

Minutes are a thing, you know? And I'm not saying all sessions need to be held behind close doors, I'm perfectly fine with journalists or the public being present

> _must_ have a way of knowing who is doing what, who is involved in which decision

They do, that's what elections, roll calls and minutes are for

> and what favors are being traded

You're implying this is actually possible, it's not. Favours will always be traded in secret and deals made. All that the radical transparency proposals do is making sure that compromises can't be done effectively in official settings

Reply on news.ycombinator.com