A Digital Direct Democracy For the Modern Age

New submitter lordofthechia writes "Last month the White House created an online petition system through which constituents can directly voice any grievances and concerns to the US government. Any petition that reaches 25,000 signatures (5,000 originally) is promised an official reply. This weekend the first petitions will be closing, and already many have far exceeded the required number of signatures. Is this the way for the voice of the electorate to gain more weight in modern politics, or is it the web version of a placebo button? Will the President's office really consider the top pleas, which include petitions to Legalize and Regulate Marijuana, Forgive Student Loan Debt, and Abolish the TSA?"

Re:That's not direct democracy

[IamTheRealMike]

Yup, there is also a paper I wrote a while ago on delegated voting [google.com]. Essentially you form a decision tree. Voters can delegate their vote to other people based on topic, with a "catch all" delegation of their local representative for anything that they don't take themselves or delegate to anyone else. It has the nice property that it can be implemented in a basically backwards compatible way - for people who don't care about politics nothing needs to change, but decisions have far more democratic legitimacy. Nobody can ever say their voice wasn't heard.

Re:That's not direct democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, direct democracy didn't work very well even in Athens. They weren't effective in the endâ"they lost the war against Spartan oligarchy. Most of their problems came down to demagogueryâ"guys like Pericles and Alcibiades misled the voters into doing stupid things. Not all that different from Glenn Beck and Kalle Lasn getting tea partiers and OWSers to rally against the concepts of government or corporations.

When the Athenians reorganized the democracy later, it devolved into demagoguery yet again, with guys like Demosthenes and Aeschines using the political process for their own profit (Demosthenes was corrupt, and everyone knew it, especially after the Harpalos affair, but he still wielded enormous power in the assemblies).

Re:Not likely

[Hatta]

Are you really going to write off the unjust imprisonment of thousands of harmless Americans as "a dead subject"? Anyone who doesn't see this as a travesty of justice is sick. Your dietary issues are quite frankly pathetic next to the harm marijuana prohibition causes.

Re:That's not direct democracy

[transami]

Petition for the Real Thing [whitehouse.gov]

Re:Diff between Greeks & Electronic Direct Dem

[Kreigaffe]

To answer your last question first: Yes, absolutely, and even more than that it certainly would be.

Consensus is not a good thing.

Go outside. Ask 1,000 people for directions to somewhere that they don't have a firm grasp exactly where is located. You'll get a bunch of answers. A few of them may be right, many of them will not be.

There's only one, or at most very few, right answers. There's innumerable wrong answers. Consensus would be mixing the right answers with the wrong answers. That leaves you with a wrong answer.

I imagine that an overwhelming majority of people would agree that Fred Phelps should shut up. That's already a consensus. They're also wrong. He shouldn't shut up. Some states have passed laws so that the ways in which he was exercising his free speech are prohibited, but he's still allowed that free speech -- just not at the time and in the place he'd prefer, because how he was doing things was getting him the most attention. Even if the majority decides and agrees to a thing, it still may be a violation of someone's rights.

Direct democracy is 3 wolves and 1 sheep voting on who gets eaten for dinner. Compromise is 3 wolves and 1 sheep agreeing to only eat half the sheep.

We've got a system that was designed to be democratic while also eternally preserving the rights of that sheep. It's not ideal, but compromise, consensus, direct democracy? Good fucking lord those ideas are so much worse

Re:Diff between Greeks & Electronic Direct Dem

[Kreigaffe]

My point was that there are some answers, some solutions, which are *simply right*. Maybe that's to do nothing, even, but they are just.. exactly.. right. And, sometimes, a majority of people would disagree.

That doesn't mean it's not right. That means that a majority of people are wrong.

When you have something which is simply right, you can't compromise, you can't try and reach consensus. That would only dilute the right solution and make it wrong. Wanna invade Canada? Wanna strip-search 8 year old girls who try to fly on a plane? Wanna demand that people answer their location of origin and destination when stopped by police?

There's only one single right answer to all those issues: No. Even if 99% of the population disagrees, the right answer is still no. You can't compromise. You can't plead and make concessions. There's only one right answer.

Direct democracy fucks up those sorts of things. Constantly. Continually. If you think knee-jerk reactionaryism is rampant in our government now, just gander over to public opinion polls. There's your direct democracy. Holy mother of shit god, THAT is knee-jerk reactionaryism -- damn the facts, full emotional appeal ahead! Let's all do something so we feel like we've done something and to hell with the consequences! We're all in agreement, consensus has been reached, WE'RE FUCKING BANNING GRAPEFRUIT!