8 ms·

I wish we had direct voting on important decisions

Analemma_ 7mo ago
Hell no, California has this and it’s a catastrophe. Prop 13 is one of the worst policies enacted by a democratic polity in the 20th century, and has been wrecking the state for decades.
- terminalshort 7mo ago
  So do you believe in democracy or not? And I do not mean this as a loaded question because the value of democracy is a legitimately arguable point. If the majority of Californians want caps on property tax, then I do not see a good argument that they should not get it that is also compatible with democracy.
  - biophysboy 7mo ago
    Democracy can mean a lot of things: direct, representative, etc. Voting for yourself is different from voting for your constituents. Ideally, the latter will also consider community effects.
  - thomassmith65 7mo ago
    If you put a question to the electorate like 'should we tax only people whose last name begins with an X, Y or Z?', it's liable to pass. Nobody really advocates for Direct Democracy. It isn't viable: 'tyranny of the majority' etc. Most Western governments are Liberal Democracies - where some issues aren't subject to a vote - partly so that the mob can't persecute outnumbered subgroups.
    - jemmyw 7mo ago
      That is highly unlikely. People may seem stupid when acting as a larger group, but I think part of that is that our current democracy doesn't require much engagement. If we moved to direct democracy then imo we'd get some bad policies that would quickly be reverted once the effects become apparent, and then voters are going to be a bit more careful. For example, "only taxing people whose last name begins with X, Y, Z", I don't think voters would currently be that dumb, but if they were then how many weeks of zero tax money would it take to get that undone?
      - thomassmith65 7mo ago
        I can't muster the enthusiasm to debate this. There are centuries of literature on this topic involving people smarter and more eloquent than me. The following wikipedia entry has examples you may find more persuasive than mine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
    - chr1 7mo ago
      If majority of people in a country want to persecute an outnumbered subgroup, then what prevents the majority of delegates wanting the same as well? You have an implicit assumption that the delegates are going to be smarter and better people that are going to lie to the majority to get elected and then will valiantly protect the subgroup. But that have not happened anywhere. In fact in every case it is the delegates who organize persecution of various subgroups, even in situations when the share of population truly wanting to persecute subgroup is far from being a majority.
      - thomassmith65 7mo ago
        I refuse to believe that anyone reading this is incapable of remembering at least five historical examples in which the public was happy to treat an unpopular group unjustly. There is no foolproof system that can guard against it, however declaring 'rights' and delegating the responsibility to protect them to the judiciary at least is a mitigation.
        chr1 7mo ago
        Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress. Can you bring one example where the public wanted to treat a group unjustly and parliament elected by that same public have defended the group?
        thomassmith65 7mo ago
        Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress. If that is the Direct Democracy you had in mind, than we have no disagreement. What I originally commented on was this: So do you believe in democracy or not? I take issue with the implication that it's all or nothing. If we characterize anything less than a direct vote on every issue as anti-democratic, then the only people left standing will be kooks.
        chr1 7mo ago
        I hope you will agree that the overall goal is maximizing freedom and autonomy, that is allowing every person or group to pursue happiness the way they want make mistakes or good choices and bear the consequences. The representative democracy has a problem with delegates not faithfully representing the people they are supposed to represent. It allows politician to be elected by campaigning for issue X which is popular with majority, then do Y and Z that almost no one wants, and then campaign again on other party undoing X, leaving people no way to communicate that they want X and not Y Z. Social media have greatly increased the impact of this instability, the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication between people and the government. No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting, and yet many people vehemently argue against that. Meanwhile there is a much more interesting discussion: how to make cooperation between people more efficient using the new technologies that we have.
  - drecked 7mo ago
    Democracy != Direct voting. It’s never meant that. So people can “believe” in Democracy just fine and still think direct voting is bad. Also, Democracy doesn’t even mean “if a majority of people believe X, therefore X”.
    - lvass 7mo ago
      False, cf. ancient Athens.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- mothballed 7mo ago
  Courts can just overturn direct vote anyway like they did prop 8.
- mystraline 7mo ago
  Prop 13 isnt bad. Its all the money pumped in to political advertisements that turn this from "1 person, 1 vote" to "1$, 1 vote". And that goes to the heart of the matter, that corporations aren't people, no matter what some court or law says. And they should be heavily restricted on speech. (I include spending money on political adverts and similar.) Humans can commit crimes worthy of the death penalty. Wells Fargo shouldn't exist due to their decade long fraud. Nor should United Health Care, for actively denying humans their health coverage until the humans died. Or countless other cases. When a company gets "killed", and all assets get assigned to the wronged, I'll start to believe they are humans. Haven't seen that yet. Likely won't ever, in the USA.
  - zozbot234 7mo ago
    If you think you've incurred damages due to a company's illegal actions, you can go to court already. If the company is liable and its assets do not suffice to pay full compensation, it enters bankruptcy proceedings and ultimately gets dissolved, just like you're saying.
    - mystraline 7mo ago
      15 years ago, I worked at Walmart. Note the poverty income, no unions, no real savings. Basically average US citizen, not the HN bubble. I got injured with a malfunctioning pallet jack. Went to ER and got Xrays. Week later, was fired. My paperwork explicitly said I got fired for getting injured at work and costing the company money. Went to 6 different lawyers. Had to ask for pro-bono. I couldn't afford a lawyer. All refused. Why? None of them could deal with a Walmart lawsuit. None. I had them dead-to-rights with a wrongful termination. Double manager signature. Even recorded their termination on my phone, on the sly (in single party state). They even admitted to forging a different manager. None of it matters.
- chr1 7mo ago
  Why do you think that similar law could not be passed without direct vote? The problem is not direct democracy but the fact that it is being done in a wrong way. Voting should be done without anonymity, online. One should be able to either vote for everything manually, or delegate the vote to any other person. If some change is supported by 100% of the voters it should be implemented immediately. But if smaller percent supports the change, then there needs to be a vesting time (e.g. 10 years for 60%, infinity for 50%+1). This allows people to either trade support for policies (i'll vote yes for your initiative if you vote for mine, or give me money), or to get high level of support locally and try out various laws on local level. The same site that manages voting should also show detailed budget of city/state/country, where people can see where their taxes are being spent and should be able to redirect the money they have paid.
  - mystraline 7mo ago
    Dumbest idea ever. Billionaire goes: get $10 off at my store, called Scamazon, for these votes (lists votes). And naturally even the $10 is manipulated to be recouped with dynamic pricing.
    - chr1 7mo ago
      What we have now is a politician saying vote for me and i'll pass laws that will give you 10k in next 4 years, people vote for the politician who then takes money from scamazon gives 10 to voters and takes 10mln to get elected again. Eliminating the middleman makes things better already. But more importantly with vesting time, large number of votes, ease of reversing a decision in a new vote, take $10 and vote for something that costs you more simply won't work.
  - f30e3dfed1c9 7mo ago
    "Voting should be done without anonymity..." This is a spectacularly bad idea.
    - chr1 7mo ago
      Why is it a bad idea? Can you describe one bad consequence of it, if it is implemented in combination with the other ideas above?
- Gud 7mo ago
  Having some random vote is hardly direct democracy, though. Parts of the US is mature enough to implement a similar system as Switzerland, which has a superior form of democracy.
- asdff 7mo ago
  Prop 13 is a nothingburger. Median homeownership period in california vs nationally is only like 2 years longer. It shouldn't be affecting costs that much in other words since median property is back to market rate every 15 years or so. And what costs are we talking about anyhow? Tax shortfalls for local government? Decades later that has been rectified through other taxes and funding mechanisms and we still get new roads and schools in california. Housing costs increasing? I would say the fact that cities today are zoned within a few percentage points of present population levels (vs zoned for 10x present population levels pre 1970) is the actual source of that sucking sound from the chest.
  - zozbot234 7mo ago
    That's not really the point. Prop 13 is known to be a huge disincentive to efficient transfers in home ownership - people will strenuously avoid selling their homes and buying something that's closer to the kind of shelter they actually prefer, because they might have to pay a higher assessed property tax if they did that. These effects are very real and well documented.
    - asdff 7mo ago
      Prop 13 wouldn't lead to those incentives if property prices didn't increase so aggressively. Once again comes back to zoning as the root cause. Is prop 13 bad? Only in the face of inappropriate zoned capacity, it seems. Which begs the question of what prop 13 removal would even do in such a situation? Zoning capacity isn't changing so prices will still go up beyond what is affordable for the median worker. The only thing changing is people won't be insulated from that rise at the end of their life when they are on a fixed income is all. Does that solve the housing crisis? No, but it does ensure more people are regularly displaced from their homes.
      - zozbot234 7mo ago
        Property prices are increasing so aggressively because assessed property taxes are low and people are significantly deterred from selling.
jandrewrogers 7mo ago
This has proven to be a disaster in practice. See also: California.
- Gud 7mo ago
  It’s working fantastic here in Switzerland.
- w4yai 7mo ago
  Wrong. It has actually been scientifically proven otherwise in crowd theory : with the right setup, the crowd is more effective to take a good decision that the top1 best decision maker. Exemple : a crowd playing chess may beat the top1 chess player, even though the crowd individually cannot beat him.
  - a_t48 7mo ago
    A crowd playing chess can absolutely not beat a top chess player.
    - dmoy 7mo ago
      Yea in fact this thing has been done before multiple times as exhibitions (Kasparov vs 50k, Carlsen vs 132k, etc). And yea, no surprise, the masses do not win. Even when in the latter case, a huge chunk of the 132k was obviously using stockfish cranked to the gills (though the did get a draw out of it?).
  - ajam1507 7mo ago
    The crowd elected Donald Trump -- twice.
podgietaru 7mo ago
Brexit.

Hell no, California has this and it’s a catastrophe. Prop 13 is one of the worst policies enacted by a democratic polity in the 20th century, and has been wrecking the state for decades.

terminalshort 7mo ago
So do you believe in democracy or not? And I do not mean this as a loaded question because the value of democracy is a legitimately arguable point. If the majority of Californians want caps on property tax, then I do not see a good argument that they should not get it that is also compatible with democracy.
- biophysboy 7mo ago
  Democracy can mean a lot of things: direct, representative, etc. Voting for yourself is different from voting for your constituents. Ideally, the latter will also consider community effects.
- thomassmith65 7mo ago
  If you put a question to the electorate like 'should we tax only people whose last name begins with an X, Y or Z?', it's liable to pass. Nobody really advocates for Direct Democracy. It isn't viable: 'tyranny of the majority' etc. Most Western governments are Liberal Democracies - where some issues aren't subject to a vote - partly so that the mob can't persecute outnumbered subgroups.
  - jemmyw 7mo ago
    That is highly unlikely. People may seem stupid when acting as a larger group, but I think part of that is that our current democracy doesn't require much engagement. If we moved to direct democracy then imo we'd get some bad policies that would quickly be reverted once the effects become apparent, and then voters are going to be a bit more careful. For example, "only taxing people whose last name begins with X, Y, Z", I don't think voters would currently be that dumb, but if they were then how many weeks of zero tax money would it take to get that undone?
    - thomassmith65 7mo ago
      I can't muster the enthusiasm to debate this. There are centuries of literature on this topic involving people smarter and more eloquent than me. The following wikipedia entry has examples you may find more persuasive than mine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
  - chr1 7mo ago
    If majority of people in a country want to persecute an outnumbered subgroup, then what prevents the majority of delegates wanting the same as well? You have an implicit assumption that the delegates are going to be smarter and better people that are going to lie to the majority to get elected and then will valiantly protect the subgroup. But that have not happened anywhere. In fact in every case it is the delegates who organize persecution of various subgroups, even in situations when the share of population truly wanting to persecute subgroup is far from being a majority.
    - thomassmith65 7mo ago
      I refuse to believe that anyone reading this is incapable of remembering at least five historical examples in which the public was happy to treat an unpopular group unjustly. There is no foolproof system that can guard against it, however declaring 'rights' and delegating the responsibility to protect them to the judiciary at least is a mitigation.
      - chr1 7mo ago
        Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress. Can you bring one example where the public wanted to treat a group unjustly and parliament elected by that same public have defended the group?
        thomassmith65 7mo ago
        Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress. If that is the Direct Democracy you had in mind, than we have no disagreement. What I originally commented on was this: So do you believe in democracy or not? I take issue with the implication that it's all or nothing. If we characterize anything less than a direct vote on every issue as anti-democratic, then the only people left standing will be kooks.
        chr1 7mo ago
        I hope you will agree that the overall goal is maximizing freedom and autonomy, that is allowing every person or group to pursue happiness the way they want make mistakes or good choices and bear the consequences. The representative democracy has a problem with delegates not faithfully representing the people they are supposed to represent. It allows politician to be elected by campaigning for issue X which is popular with majority, then do Y and Z that almost no one wants, and then campaign again on other party undoing X, leaving people no way to communicate that they want X and not Y Z. Social media have greatly increased the impact of this instability, the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication between people and the government. No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting, and yet many people vehemently argue against that. Meanwhile there is a much more interesting discussion: how to make cooperation between people more efficient using the new technologies that we have.
- drecked 7mo ago
  Democracy != Direct voting. It’s never meant that. So people can “believe” in Democracy just fine and still think direct voting is bad. Also, Democracy doesn’t even mean “if a majority of people believe X, therefore X”.
  - lvass 7mo ago
    False, cf. ancient Athens.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
mothballed 7mo ago
Courts can just overturn direct vote anyway like they did prop 8.
mystraline 7mo ago
Prop 13 isnt bad. Its all the money pumped in to political advertisements that turn this from "1 person, 1 vote" to "1$, 1 vote". And that goes to the heart of the matter, that corporations aren't people, no matter what some court or law says. And they should be heavily restricted on speech. (I include spending money on political adverts and similar.) Humans can commit crimes worthy of the death penalty. Wells Fargo shouldn't exist due to their decade long fraud. Nor should United Health Care, for actively denying humans their health coverage until the humans died. Or countless other cases. When a company gets "killed", and all assets get assigned to the wronged, I'll start to believe they are humans. Haven't seen that yet. Likely won't ever, in the USA.
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  If you think you've incurred damages due to a company's illegal actions, you can go to court already. If the company is liable and its assets do not suffice to pay full compensation, it enters bankruptcy proceedings and ultimately gets dissolved, just like you're saying.
  - mystraline 7mo ago
    15 years ago, I worked at Walmart. Note the poverty income, no unions, no real savings. Basically average US citizen, not the HN bubble. I got injured with a malfunctioning pallet jack. Went to ER and got Xrays. Week later, was fired. My paperwork explicitly said I got fired for getting injured at work and costing the company money. Went to 6 different lawyers. Had to ask for pro-bono. I couldn't afford a lawyer. All refused. Why? None of them could deal with a Walmart lawsuit. None. I had them dead-to-rights with a wrongful termination. Double manager signature. Even recorded their termination on my phone, on the sly (in single party state). They even admitted to forging a different manager. None of it matters.
chr1 7mo ago
Why do you think that similar law could not be passed without direct vote? The problem is not direct democracy but the fact that it is being done in a wrong way. Voting should be done without anonymity, online. One should be able to either vote for everything manually, or delegate the vote to any other person. If some change is supported by 100% of the voters it should be implemented immediately. But if smaller percent supports the change, then there needs to be a vesting time (e.g. 10 years for 60%, infinity for 50%+1). This allows people to either trade support for policies (i'll vote yes for your initiative if you vote for mine, or give me money), or to get high level of support locally and try out various laws on local level. The same site that manages voting should also show detailed budget of city/state/country, where people can see where their taxes are being spent and should be able to redirect the money they have paid.
- mystraline 7mo ago
  Dumbest idea ever. Billionaire goes: get $10 off at my store, called Scamazon, for these votes (lists votes). And naturally even the $10 is manipulated to be recouped with dynamic pricing.
  - chr1 7mo ago
    What we have now is a politician saying vote for me and i'll pass laws that will give you 10k in next 4 years, people vote for the politician who then takes money from scamazon gives 10 to voters and takes 10mln to get elected again. Eliminating the middleman makes things better already. But more importantly with vesting time, large number of votes, ease of reversing a decision in a new vote, take $10 and vote for something that costs you more simply won't work.
- f30e3dfed1c9 7mo ago
  "Voting should be done without anonymity..." This is a spectacularly bad idea.
  - chr1 7mo ago
    Why is it a bad idea? Can you describe one bad consequence of it, if it is implemented in combination with the other ideas above?
Gud 7mo ago
Having some random vote is hardly direct democracy, though. Parts of the US is mature enough to implement a similar system as Switzerland, which has a superior form of democracy.
asdff 7mo ago
Prop 13 is a nothingburger. Median homeownership period in california vs nationally is only like 2 years longer. It shouldn't be affecting costs that much in other words since median property is back to market rate every 15 years or so. And what costs are we talking about anyhow? Tax shortfalls for local government? Decades later that has been rectified through other taxes and funding mechanisms and we still get new roads and schools in california. Housing costs increasing? I would say the fact that cities today are zoned within a few percentage points of present population levels (vs zoned for 10x present population levels pre 1970) is the actual source of that sucking sound from the chest.
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  That's not really the point. Prop 13 is known to be a huge disincentive to efficient transfers in home ownership - people will strenuously avoid selling their homes and buying something that's closer to the kind of shelter they actually prefer, because they might have to pay a higher assessed property tax if they did that. These effects are very real and well documented.
  - asdff 7mo ago
    Prop 13 wouldn't lead to those incentives if property prices didn't increase so aggressively. Once again comes back to zoning as the root cause. Is prop 13 bad? Only in the face of inappropriate zoned capacity, it seems. Which begs the question of what prop 13 removal would even do in such a situation? Zoning capacity isn't changing so prices will still go up beyond what is affordable for the median worker. The only thing changing is people won't be insulated from that rise at the end of their life when they are on a fixed income is all. Does that solve the housing crisis? No, but it does ensure more people are regularly displaced from their homes.
    - zozbot234 7mo ago
      Property prices are increasing so aggressively because assessed property taxes are low and people are significantly deterred from selling.

jandrewrogers 7mo ago

This has proven to be a disaster in practice. See also: California.

Gud 7mo ago
It’s working fantastic here in Switzerland.
w4yai 7mo ago
Wrong. It has actually been scientifically proven otherwise in crowd theory : with the right setup, the crowd is more effective to take a good decision that the top1 best decision maker. Exemple : a crowd playing chess may beat the top1 chess player, even though the crowd individually cannot beat him.
- a_t48 7mo ago
  A crowd playing chess can absolutely not beat a top chess player.
  - dmoy 7mo ago
    Yea in fact this thing has been done before multiple times as exhibitions (Kasparov vs 50k, Carlsen vs 132k, etc). And yea, no surprise, the masses do not win. Even when in the latter case, a huge chunk of the 132k was obviously using stockfish cranked to the gills (though the did get a draw out of it?).
- ajam1507 7mo ago
  The crowd elected Donald Trump -- twice.

podgietaru 7mo ago

Brexit.