Hacker News Reader

Comment by adventure331 | Hacker News Reader

That’s great but are we collectively deciding or is it being decided by a very small group of people?

You vote for the representatives and the representatives decide what they think optimizes for their value function (some mix of getting elected again, what they think is best, what they think the aggregate want, etc.). Don’t like it, elect new representatives. What other way is there to do it?

Let’s vote, the same way we do to choose representatives. Granted not everything needs to be voted but I think we could do with a bit more, rather than just trusting people that again and again show incompetence when it comes to representing and making decisions.

Direct democracy is a thing. If your municipality doesn’t implement it you can certainly agitate for it to be implemented. It is not without its downsides.

FWIW I think it is a big assumption on your part that the allowance of delivery robots is a show of “incompetence”. You may not like them but I think a lot of people find them nifty.

In the sense that 9 people decided that abortion is legal (and then illegal) in a country of hundreds of millions: it is being decided by a small group of people who were assigned to the role of deciding. No different from the ACA being decided by a few hundred people. A repeal of all rules decided not by plebiscite (or a large fraction of voters, even) would lose us the constitution.

What a strange way of thinking. Do you ask permission before every new act or task? Things are legal by default unless some law or regulation comes up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com