

Improving democracy with lines of code - ricardorauch
http://gravityonmars.com/2013/11/04/the-net-party/

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jgtr
This is a great case study.

Representative forms of democracy solved the problem that polling all citizens
in a city/state/country is impractical.

Now we can poll everyone on most important decisions using technology.

So, are we not in an era where technology can make direct democracy real and
practical?

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smacktoward
The problem with direct democracy isn't technical, it's that most people have
lives of their own to live and don't want to have to cast a ballot on every
issue a government has to deal with. Have you seen the lengths people will go
to in order to avoid jury duty? Now imagine if we all were on permanent jury
duty, every day, all year. People (including me!) would hate it.

There's also the problem that most people aren't familiar with the intricacies
of every single issue. If you're a baker, you've spent your life learning the
fine details of baking bread, which is great if a bread-related issue is up
for debate but not so much for anything else. The result is that you'd either
get lots of people casting completely uninformed votes at random, or opinion
leaders would emerge who people would blindly follow to avoid having to
research every issue.

Representative democracy avoids both these problems, by letting the vast
majority delegate their votes to someone who manages them full-time so they
can go about their own lives, and by putting that full-time representative in
a position where she can learn independently about the issues, and hire a
staff to help her do that.

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jgtr
I think a lot of people would enjoy being asked whether they want their tax
dollars to go to another contract for a defense company, or whether education
or medicare should be cut. Presently I think many people feel it is the large
funders and lobbyists that dictate policy.

And I understand not wanting to worry about issues deemed not important. But
then you can abstain from participating in such polls.

I think this would provide a natural check and balance -- important issues
draw a crowd, smaller issues are handled by the bureaucrats. Don't you think?

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pontifier
I literally bought TechnologyParty.org yesterday to try to push for better
technology use in US government. It's an idea who's time has come.

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jgtr
Also interested in helping out.

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kurumin
Amazing!

