Ask Slashdot: We've Had Online Voting; Why Not Continuous Voting? (iamnotanumber.org) 490
periegetes writes: This idea has been bugging me for a while. It takes months to organize a physical election, and several days to count the results, so it makes sense that we don't organize elections every day. However, with the computing resources at our disposal, it would be child's play to setup a site where every citizen could vote for (or against) proposed laws themselves, and could even change their vote at all times, cutting out the middle man and restoring true democracy to the world. That last part may be a stretch, but I, for one, would feel more involved in my government if I didn't have to watch it screw up for years before getting another say in it. I've found precious few articles discussing the matter, which usually means I'm missing an obvious problem. Why, in the age of Big Data and petaflops, don't we consider continuous voting?
SIgh (Score:5, Insightful)
You're away on holiday.
An important vote you care about gets put up.
You want to change your vote, but can't because of whatever reason (no Internet, etc.)
Do you end up voting by default the way you voted last time? Or do you have to put in a vote between a certain window?
Oops. You either have a stupid situation, or you're back to the old way of voting.
Not to mention that it requires electronic voting which - in any significant amount - is still not as provable, prevalent or as tamper-proof as it could be.
Re:SIgh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SIgh (Score:4, Informative)
This basically puts control of an entire nation directly into the hands of whomever can hack the results of the voting system. With the issues of security that have popped up with e-voting, even normal voting requires paper receipts, via a Chaumian system, so people can verify their vote actually applied.
A constant voting system will be a big target for every single blackhat on the planet. All they need to do is just flip a few votes, and they can fundamentally change the direction the government goes in extremely subtle ways.
Voting is too sensitive to have it be on the Internet without a verifiable paper trail as it stands. Adding continuous voting just makes things worse.
Re:SIgh (Score:4)
> This basically puts control of an entire nation directly into the hands of whomever can hack the results of the voting system
Just like it is now? Except it's easier when there's fewer elections. This concern is not limited to this continuous voting ideal. The question of "should policy be shaped by public mass opinion" is the important one.
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You've got to be kidding. China has a huge and growing middle class. Yeah, a lot of people still have pretty crappy conditions, but it's no worse, and usually better, than it was a few decades ago. I'm sorry, but there's no way to take a country the size of China from the way it was around 1970 and magically turn it into a first-world nation overnight.
Re:SIgh (Score:4, Interesting)
The early USA had a government that resembled China's more than it does today's government. Remember, back then, only white male landowners were allowed to vote. That effectively kept a good portion of the population away from the voting booth, so that only the elites could choose the governmental leaders. It wasn't until later that non-landowners were allowed to vote, and later women, and later black people (the last one didn't really happen until the late 1960s).
Remember, China isn't a dictatorship, it's basically a cabal. The elites of society are the ones who run the "Communist" Party, and they choose the leaders. Not that different from the early USA.
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No, actually they didn't. South Korea is basically a clone of Japan: they both had huge involvement from the Americans and with their own hard work combined with the huge influx of money and other resources from the US government as well as lots of hand-holding (Japan's constitution was partially written by General MacArthur), they got to their present state. China didn't have any of that outside assistance; they had to do everything themselves. And they did a pretty terrible job of it too, while Mao was
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There is a way around that of course. Non-binding continuous voting on a government created and presented forum, where registered citizens can use a government provided pseudonym, to put forward and discuss ideas, as well as discuss proposed policy and then informally vote or more accurately rate proposed policy. You require pseudonyms because some people are very reactionary and react very poorly to people disagreeing with them, so real people's names are hidden behind the government provided pseudonym bu
Re: SIgh (Score:2)
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Trick question. Since you never had a chance to set your vote, there's nothing to change.
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That's not the biggest problem.
If you have elections online, you're going to have Undertale elected president.
main issues (Score:3)
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So I'm still voting for some guy who gets to vote for anything - even something completely against what I want?
That's still not democracy.
(P.S. also the reason I don't vote - one 70-millionth of a vote for a local head, that I've never been able to meet or speak to, of a well-funded party of which only two are contenders and only three have ever been in power, which results in one of the parties being elected based on how many areas they win - not how many votes they got overall - which is then used to just
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No.
Protip: it's generally a good idea to read all of something before commenting on or replying to it, even if your finger gets tired.
Proof of why this is a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
"Protip: it's generally a good idea to read all of something before commenting on or replying to it, even if your finger gets tired."
The vote would be based upon the latest headline flashed at the most people. However the latest twitter celeb of the hour felt, would become the law.
And, of course, being able to "change your vote" means that, somewhere, the way that you voted is recorded... so that you can be tracked down if you voted "the wrong way".
Representative Proxy Votes (Score:3)
Every citizen should have a vote on every topic, which they would give to their representative to use on their behalf. For most mundane issues, the representative would cast the votes given to him, but at any time any citizen could take their vote from their representative and cast it any way they see fit.
Yes, direct democracy could be saved from the tyranny of the active minority if for each citizen who didn't vote on an issue, their elected representative was given such a proxy vote. But I'd make representatives' proxy votes only fractional, so that the system wasn't a dead duck unless 50-75% of citizens cast a ballot.
Re:Representative Proxy Votes (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a serious issue, and why I think that "liquid" democracy - the hybrid of direct and representative democracy - is critical.
There are way too many issues that come up for consideration every day for every citizen to be expected to vote on them. Some people might be that hardcore but few actually ever will. So if you don't want representatives then on the vast majority of votes only a tiny fraction of the public will vote. The smaller the percentage of the population that votes, the easier it will be for vested interests to get basically whatever they want. It's a recipe for basically giving corporations and wealthy individuals everything that they could ever dream of.
In liquid democracy, you can direct-vote whenever you want and choose representatives - who you can change whenever you want, and who can be anyone at all - to fill in for you when you can't. You may even be able to pick different people for different categories of votes. And if a person you pick isn't active enough for every vote, they too can have representatives - votes "flow" in the order of assignment, and if a person ever doesn't like it, they can change it at will.
Direct democracy without something like that would be IMHO one of the worst systems imagineable.
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Tyranny of the majority
Versus the current tyranny of the minority?
Re: SIgh (Score:4, Informative)
Several of the founding fathers had very negative feelings towards democracy, give the only democracies around at the time were direct democracies. They saw tyranny of the majority play out, where what they believed to be inalienable rights could be stripped from people purely by the vote of the majority. A great example of that is these people who claim that states should have the right to vote on whether or not to allow same sex marriage. That is a classic example of tyranny of the majority.
The constitution doesn't empower the majority, it restricts them from committing tyranny of the majority and subjugating the minority to the majority's whims.
Re: SIgh (Score:4, Interesting)
-1 Dumb.
First, a constitutional republic IS a representative democracy. They're two names for the same thing, though the former is more accurate because it describes how the government is set up better (like having a constitution for one); "representative democracy" is more general but distinguishes it from direct democracies.
Secondly, the bit about the founders makes no sense. There haven't been any true direct democracies running nations since the Ancient Greeks. Britain didn't even have a constitutional republic, it had a monarchy with a parliament bolted on to deal with some of the more mundane stuff the King didn't want to waste time on. These days, it's no different except the Queen doesn't really do anything as far as governing and Parliament does it all along with the Prime Minister et al.
As for states voting on same-sex marriage, how's that any different from the federal government voting on same-sex marriage? The whole "states' rights" argument is an argument over how much power different levels of government should be allowed to have, but they're all basically the same, since they're all representative democracies, whether it's the federal government, the state government, or your town council or board of aldermen or whatever. It's just the the higher up you go, the less power your vote has, and the more you're subject to laws passed by people voted in by a larger number of people from farther away. Sometimes it works out well (from your perspective), other times it doesn't, and it entirely depends on the issue and your opinion.
So while I do agree that same-sex marriage should be legal, as a counterexample look at marijuana: the only reason it's legal (either fully or medical) in many states is because those states thumbed their nose at the federal government and legalized it themselves, and refused to enforce federal drug laws. One of those states is Washington State, which fully legalized it a while back, and that's not exactly known as a conservative state or one involved in the Civil War. More recently, their neighbors Alaska and Oregon joined them. Alaska's pretty conservative (but not like the South), but Oregon's a seriously liberal place; you can't even pump your own gas there!
So, are you opposed to legal pot because the federal government hasn't legalized it yet? With all the Republicans in Congress (especially the ones from the South), it probably would never have happened if those states hadn't pushed the issue themselves. It's looking like the Federal government is going to stop the ban really soon and just let states decide, though with the election coming up it's impossible to say what'll happen.
Also with same-sex marriage, that was done first in a bunch of states because the SCOTUS finally ruled on it. It probably would never have been legalized at the federal level if it weren't for the Court; there's no way all those Republicans would vote for it. So yes, that is an example of tyranny of the majority, but that's the problem with large governments and making decisions at the top level: you can only pass stuff that everyone agrees with. If you're a social liberal/libertarian and you're sharing a nation with a bunch of backwards religious conservatives, then you're not going to have much luck getting socially-liberal legislation passed, since you're forever going to be fighting against a bunch of morons who want to mandate that science classes teach your kids that the Earth is 6000 years old.
Notice that the nations which have much more effective democracies (excuse me, "constitutional republics", since some dipshit will probably jump in here to say these aren't "democracies"; it happens every single fucking time I use the term here) are small European nations which have small populations (like the size of one of our small-to-medium size states) and are culturally and ethnically mostly homogeneous. There's a reason for this: they don't have radically different blocs of voters constantly fighting each other on every l
Re: SIgh (Score:5, Insightful)
-Britain didn't even have a constitutional republic, it had a monarchy with a parliament bolted on to deal with some of the more mundane stuff the King didn't want to waste time on. These days, it's no different except the Queen doesn't really do anything as far as governing and Parliament does it all along with the Prime Minister et al.
Says someone without a clue about British political history.
The Crown has not had any significant role in governance since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when Parliament inf effect fired the King and hired a new monarch. Since that time the Crown has been acutely aware that it serves at the pleasure of Parliament, who holds all of the reigns of power.
You second sentence seems to be aware of the real situation (but which has not changed since the American Revolution), though you preface it with the strange statement " These days, it's no different except..." and then go on the describe a situation which is completely different.
Republic vs Democracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the US at least, and honestly it should be the same elsewhere, we don't want an actual Democracy due to the downfalls of that system. In effect a true, pure democracy will always devolve into anarchy and eventually a dictator will rise to power and effectively enslave the population. The US system is designed to provide a modified democratic system with protections against the outcome I just described. This is well documented elsewhere, I've provided a pointer in what I believe is the correct direction for finding the answer.
Re:Republic vs Democracy (Score:4, Interesting)
I have always been in favour of people voting on individual issues rather than for representational democracy. We have the technology; that is if we can get citizens to keep up with passphrases and singing keys. There is lies the problem. That old Winston Churchill quote about people will be dissuaded from democracy by a six minute conversation with the average voter.
But if you start creating basic logic tests for voters, you get into Jim Crow era.
Democracy is a broken system. To every person who says, "It's worked great for n years," you need to take a step back, look objectively at the West and realize the US and UK overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran, twice, to maintain oil reserve. The US is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in South America and heads of state that are elected on the premise of returning wealth to their nations often die in airplane crashes.
Giving ever individual the power to vote on ever issue would distribute that injustice on a wider population. People are very easily persuaded by advertisements. Elected officials often come into power because they can afford their campaigns. In the most progressive election systems like in Australia (order of preference; no first past the post; mandatory voting -- it is literally impossible to throw your vote away unless you go in and put an X on your ballot) they still elect idiotic parties like that one that put Tony Abbot in power.
It would probably be easier to industry to persuade the general population than just a few congressmen, and non-profits don't have the energy to take that on every day. ...you know .. now that I think about it. Maybe that system wouldn't be worse at all. In reality, it would be no better or worse than the situation is currently. It's mostly because your vote doesn't really matter. If you think it does, remember that from the early 1980s until 2012, there was always a Bush or Clinton within 5 people in the line of succession for the presidency. In America, we elect kings and queens.
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I have always been in favour of people voting on individual issues rather than for representational democracy. We have the technology; that is if we can get citizens to keep up with passphrases and singing keys.
No, we really don't. The current system allows everyone to go to some central place and cast their vote. Why? Because then there are witnesses around to make sure that nothing improper happens. In a totally online system, what prevents coercion? What happens when a boss demands all employees vote the way he wants? Or some lead family member? Some neighbourhood bully?
Until we figure that out, we don't have the technology to all vote on each issue from our homes.
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I can see someone designing software that watches someone screen and ensures they vote for the "proper" candidate, either what the employer wants, or what a criminal organization wants.
I'm with you. Voting by paper and snail mail as a last resort, but voting booths and locations give people to be able to vote and have their vote be truly anonymous, so they can vote for the candidate they so choose and be resistant to coercion.
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This is a common misconception - that if Alice can prove X to Bob, then that means that Bob can prove X to Carol. But this is simply not true. If Alice and Bob know a secret Y that Carol doesn't know, and Alice refuses to confirm or deny anything about Y, then Alice can prove X to Bob by means of reversible function f(X, Y), multiple possible values A in the function of f(X, A) are valid. Bob cannot prove anything to Carol about Y because Alice refuses to answer and a valid result from f(X, Y) means nothi
Re: Republic vs Democracy (Score:2)
How do we change our voting practices to ensure we don't reflexively vote based on the misinformation of the moment?
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I don't really see how you made your point with your example. You see, you've already done the math. You're ready to pay more in taxes. You've determined that whatever Bernie wants from you, you're going to be a-ok with it. If that wasn't a pocketbook calculation, I don't know what would be.
If you're prepared to pay 150% more, then you've always had the power to simply give your money to the Federal government. They do take donations.
Honestly, you're not asking, "how can I help?", you're really saying,
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e.g. Sweden, whose economy is roughly 90% state owned.
That is complete nonsense.
The state might still own some shares of SAB or Volvo, but thats it.
As in most western nations the "economy" is owned by the share holders which in the end are people and often foreigners.
No idea where those stupid ideas come from that "health care" only works if the state owns the means of production.
Sweden is a free capitalistic market like most of the world meanwhile. Health care, mothers protection, luxury taxes, a very broa
Re:Republic vs Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Here in the US at least, and honestly it should be the same elsewhere, we don't want an actual Democracy due to the downfalls of that system. In effect a true, pure democracy will always devolve into anarchy and eventually a dictator will rise to power and effectively enslave the population.
Tell that the Swiss.
The US system is designed to provide a modified democratic system with protections against the outcome I just described.
No it is not. You are governed or herded by a money aristocracy, or call it the oligarchy of the 1% super rich.
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Although you lose, thanks for playing "soundbites.".
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United States Constitution, Amendment 1:
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Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of direct voting would result in utter chaos. Nothing's more fickle than public opinion, and it's impossible to get anything done when changing direction at the speed of the news cycle.
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Direct voting would happen every 3 or 4 months, on certain topics like new laws. Laws would still be crafted by the parliament, but the people would vote if it goes into action and probably for how long until there is a revote about the law.
No one thinks about direct voting every evening to address current problems.
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Generally, the electorate isn't informed enough on issues to make good decisions.
And you think that congress is? I mean the internet all tubes invented by Gore right? shesh. You guys deserve your corrupt leaders.
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...it's impossible to get anything done ...
That to me sounds like the perfect reason to implement such a continuous voting system.
Already have continuous voting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not sure applying such a concept to anything important is a good thing.
How would you do that? (Score:3)
Its a nice fantasy - but even if you could solve the technical issues, do you really think our current political class would give up their power? There are millions of people that make a good living by being government overhead - they would never willingly give up their jobs...
Peter.
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do you really think our current political class would give up their power?
Bingo! 100 points and a new refrigerator for the contestant!
It's common for folks in the US to complain that they don't trust their politicians. Well, the feeling is mutual . . . US politicians don't trust their citizens as far as they can throw them. Switzerland does a great job with this, by punting out some important political decisions as referendums. That is something I would like to see in more countries.
On the other hand, if Germany had something like this, those one million refugees, from God
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On the other hand, if Germany had something like this, those one million refugees, from God only knows where, would be on their way back home.
Very likely not.
In the news people who don't want them to come to Germany get a big platform. So in media the impression is (especially to the outward) that the germans don't want them.
Honestly: the majourity does not care ... no body cares. Germany is an apolitical nation where no citizen is really taking care about anything anymore. As we are in the same situation a
E-voting is a stupendously bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
A fundamental tenet of democracy is that voting is secret, and that the counting process is transparent. E-voting provides none of these. I'm aware that there are cryptographic protocols that would allow this in theory, but this does not resolve the issue of the voters being coerced by their spouses, families, communities or big brother to vote a certain way. Only casting your vote anonymously inside the voting booth prevents this. Further, having a verifiable paper trail and manual counting makes fraud MUCH more difficult. In E-voting, you only have to alter a single number to sway the election in your favor. In traditional voting, throwing a whole election becomes much harder.
Even if we assume that we go the E-voting path, how can we trust the software running on the system? Who wrote it? Me? Then I know who the next president will be! We can cook up all kinds of hashes etc, but how can you verify that a system that claims to run a particular version of the code is, in fact, running this version? Particularly on a remote connection? Even if all this were, in some fictional universe, in place, this system is highly complex: In code, in technology, in infrastructure. I may be able to grasp this, but my mother (a smart woman, but not tech savvy) won't have a clue. This is fundamentally undemocratic.
See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
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A fundamental tenet of democracy is that voting is secret, and that the counting process is transparent. E-voting provides none of these. I'm aware that there are cryptographic protocols that would allow this in theory, but this does not resolve the issue of the voters being coerced by their spouses, families, communities or big brother to vote a certain way. Only casting your vote anonymously inside the voting booth prevents this. Further, having a verifiable paper trail and manual counting makes fraud MUCH more difficult. In E-voting, you only have to alter a single number to sway the election in your favor. In traditional voting, throwing a whole election becomes much harder.
Even if we assume that we go the E-voting path, how can we trust the software running on the system? Who wrote it? Me? Then I know who the next president will be! We can cook up all kinds of hashes etc, but how can you verify that a system that claims to run a particular version of the code is, in fact, running this version? Particularly on a remote connection? Even if all this were, in some fictional universe, in place, this system is highly complex: In code, in technology, in infrastructure. I may be able to grasp this, but my mother (a smart woman, but not tech savvy) won't have a clue. This is fundamentally undemocratic.
See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I wonder why this isn't obvious, but some seem to think that there is an algorithm or a neat trick that will make everything wonderful, and not stop to think about why things are the way they are.
no (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want government looking like a Facebook feed.
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Because as bad as politicians are, they are still better-informed than the general population.
Now if only they were informed about the legislation that they were voting on too.
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> Because as bad as politicians are, they are still better-informed than the general population.
I think they are about the same.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quo... [brainyquote.com]
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http://www.brainyquote.com/quo... [brainyquote.com]
A rare moment of honesty from a politician.
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Did you say that out loud?
Nope, I wrote it. And I'll write it again: if you are ever elected for office, you won't read the bills either, you will have an aid who reads them and tells you what they say.
It's _supposed_ to be a little hard to vote. (Score:2)
So you'd like the entire electorate to vote on laws and the like (something completely contrary to the system of representative government the US has (and I'm going to guess you're American), but let's roll with it for a sec...).
What's to prevent people from voting en-masse for lunatic ideas that might be proposed after an event like 9-11, without any check on their power, with little debate?
What's to prevent populist strongmen from grabbing the reins of power - through a legitimate vote, of course - and wr
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What's to prevent people from voting en-masse for lunatic ideas that might be proposed after an event like 9-11, without any check on their power, with little debate?
How's that different than the current system which passes knee-jerk bills that takes away our rights whenever something happens?
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What's to prevent people from voting en-masse for lunatic ideas that might be proposed after an event like 9-11, without any check on their power, with little debate?
By letting the actual law/action be prepared by the parliament/senate.
What's to prevent populist strongmen from grabbing the reins of power - through a legitimate vote, of course - and wrecking the democracy? I think you can find an current example of the risk without breaking a sweat.
Same as above.
Tyranny of the majority (Score:2)
"The phrase "tyranny of the majority" (or "tyranny of the masses") is used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule. It involves a scenario in which decisions made by a majority place its interests above those of an individual or minority group, constituting active oppression comparable to that of a tyrant or despot. In many cases a disliked ethnic, religious or racial group is deliberately penalized by the majority element acting through the democratic process."
I think that kind of says it all
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In the US democracy, the most important issue in deciding who a person votes for is the dashed R or D that follows their name.
The middle man would object. (Score:2)
sounds nice, but (Score:3)
Re: sounds nice, but (Score:2)
Why not direct democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've got a great idea; get 38 states to pass laws demanding a new Constitutional Convention, and then get yourself appointed to the Convention to rewrite the Constitution.
The purpose of the Constitution isn't to make government easy or convenient or practical. The purpose of the Constitution is to make it as difficult as possible for wannabe-tyrants to grab enough power to rule over the people who would rather be LEFT ALONE. Passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments (income tax and direct election of Senat
Re:Why not direct democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
The slavery thing... Well, it's a matter of perspective. That they argued about it at all is actually an indication of improvement. This is hard to explain but I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject because a part of my heritage is descended from Black African slaves who fought on the side of the English during the Revolution. (It's a neat story but I'm not going to share it all tonight unless you really want me to type it out.)
Anyhow, to the point (and it's not much of a point), we must look at things in perspective. This is not an attempt to wipe it away or to minimize it, it's wrong and was always wrong even if there were people who felt it was perfectly justified.
See, to them it was normal. In 200 years we'll have people looking back at us and thinking we were uncultured, barbaric, ignorant, evil, and worse. The things you do today will be considered an abomination tomorrow by those who wish to judge you their lesser.
Keep in mind, it wasn't a bunch of white people running around with nets to catch fine specimens. No, it was black people selling their brethren into slavery. They too were making use of slave labor. Those "Slavic" countries? Err... Yeah, not even all slaves where black.
An article on Slashdot, a day or two ago, was about the targets for nukes. Many of us thought it was deplorable. Yet, you weren't there. (I wasn't even born yet - I was born in '57 and the list was made in '56.) What nobody in that thread mentioned was that the USSR had started targeting American population centers and the USA responded in kind. Then long-range missiles came out and there was a bit of a gentleman's agreement (likely violated) where they agreed to go back to targeting military infrastructure instead.
Times, perspective, and values change. What you're doing, right now as you read this, may be considered a crime against humanity in 200 years. It's okay to judge and to judge harshly but I think it's important to understand the environment and perspectives. Ethics are situational, though we might say that morals are not but those are often influenced by perspective.
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So in the US, you would start by converting one state to direct democracy (or even one city or county), then over time, if it works, scale it up to the national level. But I don't think it will work, I think direct democracy requires an informed electorate, and I personally don't want to become informed enough on every issue. For example, I don't want to research re
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Ancient Greece had a direct democracy, but as the population gets bigger, country has to move to a representatives system.
As for ideas, how about using a Block Chain system similar to BitCoin to counter voting frauds?
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Not true. Ancient Athens had a direct democracy. Ancient Greece was not a country, it was a culture - a collection of what we would call countries all unified only by a common language and religion and reasonably similar culture. They were not all under the same form of government, and were frequently at war with one another. Athens was the one that had a direct democracy for a time, and it didn't last long.
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One form of security would be to allow each voter to verify their vote online after the fact.
It needs to be secure and anonymous. If you can verify it online after the fact, then it's not anonymous.
Because it's like edit wars on Wikipedia (Score:2)
Whoever has the most time to spare and obsessive compulsive interest, wins. And maybe a few celebrities that could make something go viral and make this proposition see 10x the usual voter turnout, 90%+ representing one special interest group. Even the Congressmen are saying there's no time to personally read everything related to every bill, they have aides for that and that's their full time job. If you want a functioning democracy that reasonably accurately represents the will of people, you have to limi
Please, please no (Score:2)
This is a horrendous idea for a number of reasons. First of all, we've all used apps that constantly pester us to rate it in the app store. Voting would become the same thing. Lobbyists and candidates would be pushing links down our throats continuously to cast a vote for whatever it is they're pushing.
The second problem is voter intimidation. When voting occurs on a single day, it vastly limits the scope and method in which those wishing to influence an election by threat or force can operate. They ca
Two issues (Score:2)
First you have the technical problems. If everything is on the internet then anyone that hacks the system could effectively change US law. A very serious issue. Beyond that, I can assure you that people are going to say stuff like "well how will poor people vote"... or something so you'll have to deal with that. Really the technical issues are many... but assuming you were able to address everything... there is the second issue...
Second, direct true democracies kill themselves. We've had a lot of experience
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I'd make it a minimum 70% to pass a law - because if you put it at 50%, a too-close-to-call issue could flip back and fourth twice a week as competing campaigns take the edge and the luck of the polling margin. That'd just leave people uncertain what the law actually says.
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You wouldn't need to hack the system. You'd need to disable it, which is a lot easier.
It's election day! Who shall be president?
A botnet strikes! Massive DDoS attacks upon internet infrastructure. Major AT&T and Comcast routers knocked out of service in Texas, Kansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Millions are unable to vote. Guess who wins the election? Investigators are unsure if the attack was by an activist group or a state-sponsored actor on behalf of another country.
Security Fail (Score:2)
"Why, in the age of Big Data and petaflops, don't we consider continuous voting?"
Because so far, nobody has been able to provide secure communications.
Ability to do something does not make it needed (Score:2)
it would be child's play to setup a site where every citizen could vote for (or against) proposed laws themselves, and could even change their vote at all times
Something should not be done for the sole reason that it is capable of being done.
.
What problem is needs to be solved by the implementation of this? What other ways are there to solve that problem? Is one of the solutions better than the others?
To me it looks as if someone just discovered a hammer and now wants to invent nails.
Easy (Score:2)
The "powers that be" consider the plebs to uneducated and to dumb to be trusted to vote on stuff that matters, hence you (and we) can only vote for a President or a Party ...
And with a proper set up remote voting, is it really anonymous? If it is not, you certainly can make it tamper proof, however considering that from an outside point of view the Bush elections where rigged ... do your "powers that be" really want that? Or didI watch to many conspiracy videos on youtube?
Agrabah (Score:2)
40% of Trump voters are in favor of bombing the Kingdom of Agrabah. A third of Republicans overall. A fifth of Democrats. Agrabah is the fictional setting of Disney's Aladdin [sky.com].
While the governments we have now are based on horses and pidgeons, in terms of technology, and are totally obsolete, putting people directly into power never works. Putting representatives into power never works either. Power kills. [hawaii.edu]
Work to replace these ancient barbaric systems, not augment them.
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Fundamental problem: People are idiots.
A republic partially addresses this because politicians are, mostly, reasonably well educated and have access to advisers. This means they can act as a sort of 'moron filter' that usually means the government can't be talked into banning the lethal chemical dihydrogen monoxide. Stupid ideas can still get passed, but the absolutely brain-dead idiotic ones usually don't. Usually.
blame the muggles (Score:2)
basically it would upset the muggles. look at the responses here: all of them are based on vacuous analogies to ancient systems, dredge up irrelevant issues like voter intimidation, or praise politicians (who would certainly still exist, as would parties) or that less indirect democracy would somehow eliminate the constitution. or worse: suggest that voting security would be a problem.
the main issue is that muggles are used to the dysfunctional system we have now, and the vested interests are comfortable
Why we shouldn't vote every day... (Score:2)
Let's see.
I can easil
continuous decisions (Score:2)
For example, if a irreversible change requires 75% of the vote, then someone might be able to lock that in with a manufactured crisis and a highly popular impassioned plea. Even if enough people change their mind the next morning, it's still a done deal.
Or voting on the distribution of funds in a public pension may fluctuate around an important voting threshold. So when the v
Disaster warning here (Score:5, Insightful)
The current system, which limits the number of entitlement programs voters can vote for themselves, has created an $18.8 trillion national debt and what's far scarier, over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities: http://usdebtclock.org/ [usdebtclock.org]
If those limitations were removed, I'd expect such an orgy of debt that the U.S. would have no choice but to default or careen into hyperinflation.
As they say, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
California votes for a ton of things... (Score:3)
But the net effect is the voting population acts like children. They vote for services but vote down paying for them.
Politicians shouldn't always do what the popular vote tells them to do. (The fact the voters tend to vote in morons is a complete separate topic).
Direct democracy is a terribly bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition he doesn't understand other people's reasoning (and isn't interested in trying), can't think straight (leaves gaps in reasoning and lacks the stamina to address them) is far too emotional to deal in a sane way with complex policy issues. jumps to conclusions, and has the attention span of a goldfish (and therefore hardly never learns, except the most basic facts).
That is the reason we have a representative democracy, not a direct one. Elected politicians look after the medium-term tactics, and direct the professionals. That doesn't always pan out, but more often than not it works quite well.
Technical issues aren't important. If desired we could have set up nation-wide monthly referenda since the advent of the telegraph.
The thing the average voter can sort of be trusted with is (a) judging people (running for office) (b) choosing between to opposing world views, and (c) choosing to adopt or reject certain fundamental ideas.
That's sort of doable for almost anyone: if people make a mess of things, vote 'em out and go with the competition. It also allows people to decide on questions of principle (but only after they have been assessed by functionaries and elected officials)
The electorate (in our case) works like a final court of appeal, but also as a "noisy" arbitrator: individual opinions run the gamut from smart, insightful, and perhaps even noble to dumb, blind, and venal with terrible extremes. Fortunately _on average_ our electorate seems to have done fairly well over the past few centuries.
Direct democracy would be terribly noisy, incredibly volatile, over-emotional, and would in general serve us very very badly.
So lets leave day-to-day affairs to officials, short-term politics to representatives, and genuine questions of principle to the electorate.
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No, people don't tune in all the time to see their representatives in action.
In fact, most people can't be bothered to read the columns in the newspapers that show how each of the reps voted. And come the next election, the reps LIE about what they voted for.
You want REAL governmental reform? The problem is that tax day, April 15, is almost exactly 6 months away from Election Day. When the taxes come due, people don't remember who they voted for, and come election day, they've forgotten much of the pain of
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No, people don't tune in all the time to see their representatives in action.
I don't even know who my representative is, even if I had voted for him, I likely would not know it.
The problem is that tax day, ... and come election day, they've forgotten much of the pain of paying their income taxes. .. they will vote for lower taxes? Is that your message? Why not have votes where the people can vote "for what to spent the taxes"?
Yes, because it is a pain in the ass to pay taxes
You think low taxes are a soluti
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Huh? That sounds like how we do it in Britain, but we're most definitely not a republic.
We gave it a try, but it turned out a bit shite.
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The Greek city-states had direct democracy and while a good idea, it had bugs. These bugs were discussed extensively and people came up with the idea of a republic instead.
The greek city states never had republics.
It is a loss of our Western culture if people have forgotten this process.
You are mixing this up with Rome.
We are just going to repeat the past if we don't learn from it. This is wisdom that is thousands of years old and yet the question asker has never heard of it.
No, there is no wisdom.
You are
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