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[GlyphGryph]

sInspired by discussion in other threads, I want to talk about not just Democracy and its variations, but if a better alternative exists! It seems likely it would - many the flaws of Democracy are fixable, in my opinion, while maintaining all its strengths... of course, there are always potentially unseen consequences.

So here are the questions to start us off:
What are the strengths of democracy - why is democracy a good thing?
What do we want from an ideal government, and how does democracy get us closer to that?
What is the best form of democracy and why?
Of the potential best forms, what are  there flaws?
Are there possible ways to fix those flaws and develop a better system?
Should we still call that better system democracy?

[Mrhappyface]

Theocratic Despotism?

[aenri]

Define "better" .

[Pnx]

My vision of a "perfect" government is one run by an incorruptible AI. I kinda feel humans are too moronic in general to be trusted with the job.

But apart from that, it just can't really be done. Building a government system is all about making trade-offs. The ideal government puts a lot of power into a group of people who are wise, selfless, and intelligent.

The trouble is any system changes that place more power in these people also puts more power in the kind of people you really don't want to have power. Hence all the focus on the selection process, trying to get a system that puts wise and good leaders in place, rather than a more random chance system that doesn't.

Except of course democracy doesn't quite work out that way. I think personally it's mostly because the average person doesn't know anything about running a country, so rather than pick people that are good at the job, they focus on people who are "the most like them", and/or the ones that have their particular interests closest to heart (which is such an incredibly narrowminded way to elect people).

Unless you can fix these issues, your democracy will always be flawed.

[misko27]

Democracy really is ruined by the fact that there are morons, assholes, the selfish and simply ignorant, and that can't really be completely eliminated from humanity. It also leads to rampant Populism, to the point where arguments are carried out entirely as they will be viewed by the public and media, or in worse cases, by the one segment of the public they represent. These two issues can only be mitigated, and they feed off each other.


As for alternatives? Nothing simple, no grand singular alternative. You'd have to really go out of your way to build some sort of "grand design", incorporating elements to keep politicians both focused on their constituents, without allowing them to abuse there wishes. Perhaps some Technocratic design, with people elected to a higher council on the basis of moderation, dedication, with an easy method of vetoing candidates. I sometimes imagine a cross between a technocratic and Democratic system, walking the line between the high and mighty personal ideals of experts, and the low-brow but important concerns of the masses. Sorta like Wikipedia I guess, technically everyone can edit it, but it's mostly people who know how to write in Wikipedia's language, which is balanced by the fact that anyone can go out of their way to learn how to write and edit it.

Simply put, massive self-regulation, where more power and a higher position requires more and more vetting. But most importantly it's a very difficult issue, and It'd take time to hit the closest idea, but really all that's important is to get it in the correct area, and things can slowly reform as necessary closer to the hypothetical "best government".

[shadenight123]

Democratical Elected Dictatorship, Based Upon the Masses Consensus.

That is the Ultimate Form of Democracy.

Basically, you Elect someone, a 'X' who has to at the very least have the following things in his favor:

Have served in the military for two years.
Have a Degree in Economics, Engineering or Mathematics.
Have a complete and utter Religion-Less life.
Have no family.

Then we can keep adding restriction.

Afterwards, he comes up with his own political agenda, and he 'proposes' it to the People through the Internet, through the news, through Freely distributed papers...
The people then can 'Vote' Him at any of the always-open voting spots. The vote REMAINS until it is changed. Hence there is no 'Fixed' time of dismissal from power. If the Dictator remains loyal to his agenda, and keeps on providing the people with what they need, he remains in power.
The moment he goes down the 'bad-End Route' people change their votes accordingly to the others around them who have remained as 'candidates' until then.

The Highest definition of Democracy after all is that the will of the People is superior to that of the minority.

To keep the Dictator on Check however, and to keep the people themselves on check (Who is to say they don't want to 'Crucify soccer players' and actually get the law passed because they want that in the agenda?) there are some common rules.

1) The Dictatorship is born upon the Free Will of the People, no law may, at any one time, infringe upon the freedom of people to talk, write or discuss.
1a) No citizen may at any one time declare his will superior to that of another, and force through strength of arms his choices, for we are all born Free and Equal.
2) The Dictator is to remain in charge for Two months since his start of the term as a minimums, afterwards he may be freely removed from lack of votes.
3) The Dictator must always have the Majority of votes from the Country's people, otherwise he will be replaced by whoever achieves said majority.
4) The Dictator cannot declare war without the approval of the people.
5) The Dictator is the Ultimate form of Law, Military and Executive system. In cases where Bureaucracy is inherently flawed, in cases where the need of the people is left unheard because of the cogs of society he may intervene at his leisure as the last form of decision.
(Case being Criminals who are set free because the cop didn't tell them their rights, mafia-guys who go out of jail because Corrupted judges let their crimes 'go in prescription' and people who are inherently guilty, have been found such, but have been freed because a test suddenly was 'invalid' out of a procedure vice or protocol)
(If an old woman is about to lose her home to high-interest loans brought forth by Loan-Sharks, the Dictator may intervene too)
(Basically, give him a white cape and call him Super-hero)
6) The Dictator is the Representative not of a small part of the citizens, but of his entire Nation, his entire assembled citizenship and must thus provide for all of them indiscriminately.

That is what I believe would be the best form of government possible.
A single man or woman able to make quick and rapid decisions for the benefit of the majority, without being tied down by anything more than the people's will.
In a short word: The Greek's model of Dictators, the ones that cropped up in the Polis and were valued as extremely useful individuals.

[Tellemurius]

Minimum office time of two months then we can decide to give person da boot? damn dude


Though of course we still need power checks.

[Virex]

I do not know what the ultimate utopia would be. However, there's one simple fix to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of any democracy: Take away the right to vote from white men and forbid white men from being elected. After all, the biggest problem with any democracy is that it is all too easy for the majority (in the power sense, not necessarily in the numerical sense) to abuse their power and override the rights of minority groups. In addition to that, white men are pretty unique in the extend to which they're willing to abuse and destroy for personal gain, both on a personal and institutional level. By taking away our suffrage and preventing us from being elected, a significant part of our political influence will be nullified, which should level the playing field for other minorities (women, black people etc.) somewhat.

[Drakale]

What I'd like is a sort of megaproject based government where a party is elected with a precise nation wide project in mind. The term will end with the success or abandon of the project, with a confidence vote every x year in case the project goes badly. A minimum of 20% GDP must go into that project realization each year. So, as an example, a party may decide to base it's platform on a speed train network construction in 10 years and if elected will stay in power for those 10 years as long as they don't get a vote of non-confidence. Once realized ,they have to step down or present a new project.

One issue is that you actually vote for the project, not for a general platform that give you a clear idea what policies the party will implement, but modern democracy is pretty bad in that aspect too. I guess those policies could be voted for separately in a separate census from the voting one. Ideally only persons with the relevant education may vote on some of the issues, to avoid uninformed voting and vote manipulation through disinformation.

[LordSlowpoke]

I do not know what the ultimate utopia would be. However, there's one simple fix to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of any democracy: Take away the right to vote from white men and forbid white men from being elected. After all, the biggest problem with any democracy is that it is all too easy for the majority (in the power sense, not necessarily in the numerical sense) to abuse their power and override the rights of minority groups. In addition to that, white men are pretty unique in the extend to which they're willing to abuse and destroy for personal gain, both on a personal and institutional level. By taking away our suffrage and preventing us from being elected, a significant part of our political influence will be nullified, which should level the playing field for other minorities (women, black people etc.) somewhat.

Oh good lord, let me get my popcorn.

Actually, hold on. You're using "us" and "our". And you're calling women a minority...? Virex, have you been reading tumblr lately? I don't mean to insult you or your views, but even in the context of the US (where whites are no longer a stricte majority for... about a decade?) the quality of democracy has been steadily deteriorating.

Could you please point me to a place where what you're saying actually has occurred and the effects you're describing happened? Because I can point to South Africa right off the bat - the seat of power has shifted according to the people's will, and all was well, but in the representative system we have there now they're ending up very close to being straight up genocided. Please don't call this karma, for in Namibia, which also worked on the Apartheid system which was abolished around the time South Africa decided to get rid of it does not happen to have even a single article on Genocide Watch regarding their situation.

In fact, Namibia is quite a prosperous country as of the present, while the situation in South Africa is going straight down the drain. I'm not saying it's all because whites haven't been kicked out of the political process in the former, but it has influenced the current situation.

[Virex]

I do not know what the ultimate utopia would be. However, there's one simple fix to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of any democracy: Take away the right to vote from white men and forbid white men from being elected. After all, the biggest problem with any democracy is that it is all too easy for the majority (in the power sense, not necessarily in the numerical sense) to abuse their power and override the rights of minority groups. In addition to that, white men are pretty unique in the extend to which they're willing to abuse and destroy for personal gain, both on a personal and institutional level. By taking away our suffrage and preventing us from being elected, a significant part of our political influence will be nullified, which should level the playing field for other minorities (women, black people etc.) somewhat.

Oh good lord, let me get my popcorn.

Actually, hold on. You're using "us" and "our". And you're calling women a minority...? Virex, have you been reading tumblr lately? I don't mean to insult you or your views, but even in the context of the US (where whites are no longer a stricte majority for... about a decade?) the quality of democracy has been steadily deteriorating.

White men still hold a majority when it comes to political influence though? Numbers aren't everything you know.

Could you please point me to a place where what you're saying actually has occurred and the effects you're describing happened?


As far as I know, no country has ever tried to restrict the political power of men.

Because I can point to South Africa right off the bat - the seat of power has shifted according to the people's will, and all was well, but in the representative system we have there now they're ending up very close to being straight up genocided.

So why don't they just leave? It's not like they have a right to be there, they stole the land from it's original owners. Besides, if the inhabitants of South Africa feel the country would be better off without a white population, then it is their right to act on that.

Please don't call this karma, for in Namibia, which also worked on the Apartheid system which was abolished around the time South Africa decided to get rid of it does not happen to have even a single article on Genocide Watch regarding their situation.

In fact, Namibia is quite a prosperous country as of the present, while the situation in South Africa is going straight down the drain. I'm not saying it's all because whites haven't been kicked out of the political process in the former, but it has influenced the current situation.


I feel like your line of reasoning is straddling awfully close to white suprematism and racism.

[Nadaka]

My vision of a "perfect" government is one run by an incorruptible AI. I kinda feel humans are too moronic in general to be trusted with the job.
...

This. But it will never happen.

In the meantime, I would use technology to enhance our own democracy.

1: political redistricting is not determined by the states. It is performed by fair algorithm without human intervention.

2: all law would be entered into a publicly readable version control system. The development branch used for proposing, writing and updating laws could be monitored in real time. We would be able to trace back every change to its source on a line by line basis. We could tell who checks out the repo and reads the files before voting on a law. Etc.

3: all executive decisions are likewise recorded into a version control system that has somewhat more restricted access requirements. The existence of records in this system can not be publicly hidden, even if their content and details can be hidden for security reasons.

4: the testimony of officers of the law would always be considered suspect unless verified by audio/video recording. Every police officer would have to wear a recorder while on duty. Any law enforcement activity performed without a public audio/video record would be considered a felony committed by the officer. Any law enforcement activity that infringes on the rights of a person would be considered treason.

[burningpet]

Please. the most corrupted countries and leaders can be found in africa, latin america, asia and the middle east.

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results

[Eagleon]

Democracy really is ruined by the fact that there are morons, assholes, the selfish and simply ignorant, and that can't really be completely eliminated from humanity. It also leads to rampant Populism, to the point where arguments are carried out entirely as they will be viewed by the public and media, or in worse cases, by the one segment of the public they represent. These two issues can only be mitigated, and they feed off each other.

This is why I think we should worry less about our government and more about our people.

In theory, I love the idea of a civics-focused government, where the biggest role they have is in ensuring a continuing dialogue on government, increasing the number of things a person has a voice in and educating the public (with oversight) on what's happening and why. How we do this without propaganda and apathy entering the mix is beyond me, but I think a good place to start is increased transparency across the board, better knowledge of how things could be different, and better tools for parsing the ridiculous amount of information we have renewed access to. Journalism used to be essential for that, but it's fallen on very hard times. With the paradox of massive amounts of reporting coming from people who may have no idea what they're witnessing, simultaneously people have a much more thorough understanding that what they hear from their news might not be the untarnished truth.

[Nadaka]

I do not know what the ultimate utopia would be. However, there's one simple fix to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of any democracy: Take away the right to vote from white men and forbid white men from being elected. After all, the biggest problem with any democracy is that it is all too easy for the majority (in the power sense, not necessarily in the numerical sense) to abuse their power and override the rights of minority groups. In addition to that, white men are pretty unique in the extend to which they're willing to abuse and destroy for personal gain, both on a personal and institutional level. By taking away our suffrage and preventing us from being elected, a significant part of our political influence will be nullified, which should level the playing field for other minorities (women, black people etc.) somewhat.

The answer to the institutional inertia of formerly legal oppression is most emphatically not more legalized oppression.