Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

With the advent of the internet, let's just turn in to a direct democracy. Voting for state issues is held every friday, and federal ones at the end of the month. Big issues are voted on once a year, and certain flashpoint issues are decided when they come up. If not enough people vote, we assume they dont care and it's decided by simple majority. If say, most, citizens vote it's decided by super-majority.

And then 4chan gets involved, and we find that our national symbol has been changed from the bald eagle to the honey badger, the national anthem has been changed to "I Did It For The Nookie", and Kim Kardashian is appointed as AmbASSador to the UN.

No thanks, direct democracy is a terrible idea in a society where most people are thoroughly uneducated and disengaged.

[Bohandas]

I am asexual

Hates women so much won't even sleep with them. PATRIARCHY CONFIRMED

I would laugh, if I hadn't actually been subjected to that accusation before.

SMJJames:

Of all the absurd euphemisms used to describe genitalia, those ones are the ones that confuse you? (Joke)

Scriver:

Patriarchy, the original word, literally means "Governance by elder males."  Modern feminism has taken this term and redefined it L Ron Hubbard style, into a boogey man.  It now represents some conspiratorial secret chauvinist society BENT on the degradation of women-- or something. Without the implication that "Leadership by old men == defacto subjugation of women", the use of the term becomes nonsensical to their campaign.  Note, when referred to, it is given the pronoun "The", as in "The Patriarchy."  Much like saying "The Masons" or "The Communists."  (or "The Terrorists!") It's a boogey man.

I can see being against male chauvinism. But call it chauvinism. Clearly deliniate that one can be male, and even be attracted to women, and NOT be a chauvinist. But don't go using loaded language, and certainly dont go screaming about boogey men.

Agreed

[Bauglir]

And then 4chan gets involved, and we find that our national symbol has been changed from the bald eagle to the honey badger, the national anthem has been changed to "I Did It For The Nookie", and Kim Kardashian is appointed as AmbASSador to the UN.

No thanks, direct democracy is a terrible idea in a society where most people are thoroughly uneducated and disengaged.

I cannot tell a lie - I would rather live in that world than this one.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Could one not make the same arguments against all democracy? If giving power to the people results in mass misuse, then we should be preferring a philosopher-king oligarchy, not spurning it.

Personally, I would choose the potential harms of direct democracy over the very, very established harms of the elite. People aren't given enough credit, and often used as boogiemen against themselves. 

[Helgoland]

Could one not make the same arguments against all democracy? If giving power to the people results in mass misuse, then we should be preferring a philosopher-king oligarchy, not spurning it.

Personally, I would choose the potential harms of direct democracy over the very, very established harms of the elite. People aren't given enough credit, and often used as boogiemen against themselves.

Sure you can - it's well known that all state forms are crap. That's why we tend to blend them: To reduce their negative traits and promote their positive ones.
Example USA: The country being ruled by a single dude with that much power is a clear trait of monarchy - literally 'the rule of the one'. Congress and senate are aristocratic institutions. Aristocratic in the ancient sense - oligarchic would probably be a more fitting description, but that has its own connotations. They're institutions in which a limited number of people wield the power. Them being elected by the common man is the democratic element in the blend.

This blending of state forms is often cited as a reason for the success of the Roman Res Publica. Of course they later on turned into a cesspool of corruption and despotism. I won't draw any parallels to the US there, but feel free to do so yourself.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Zangi]

And then 4chan gets involved, and we find that our national symbol has been changed from the bald eagle to the honey badger, the national anthem has been changed to "I Did It For The Nookie", and Kim Kardashian is appointed as AmbASSador to the UN.

No thanks, direct democracy is a terrible idea in a society where most people are thoroughly uneducated and disengaged.

I cannot tell a lie - I would rather live in that world than this one.

That sort of democracy would probably be politics based on entertainment/glamour. 
Politicians are the celebrities of now.

Can you smell what Senator Rock is cooking?
Schwarzenegger for POTUS.

Here is the caveat though, the politicians by default are obviously incompetent at administration, how else would it survive long enough to evolve into this mess?
So the politician is one position, but it also holds appointment power over a bunch of other positions within the government/jurisdiction directly over their electorate.  That is where the actual government work gets done.
So if the politician is voted out, their appointed administrators can be replaced by the winner.

Sure, the glamour/entertainment is a huge part of getting elected/being a politician, but a failing administration would be blamed on them, because they are directly responsible for appointing people into those positions.

Taxes?  Low, revenue is generated by political entertainment and merchandising.  Some people would try to submit that Vocaloid, ‎Hatsune Miku as a politician.  It will probably work.

[Frumple]

Hey, there's quite a few politicians I'd sooner give a vote to an insentient data construct than them. Miku'd probably have a decent enough chance, if we threw out the natural born citizen requirement.

[Bohandas]

Definitely. It's like the Roman emperor Caligula. As I said before, Caligula was not necessarily insane to appoint a horse to a high-ranked government position given that the most obvious alternative was to appoint a politician.

[wierd]

Appointing an AI to office seems like the ultimate solution to me.  Something based on FOSS source code, so it can be fully audited, and to which anyone with the skill can contribute to.

That just leaves the problem of how to manage the project maintainers.

Of course, that kind of AI is still a VERY VERY long ways off.  Still, you cant bribe a computer. No amount of offering it a bigger CPU will make it budge.

[Frumple]

... you can totally bribe a computer. It just needs to be coded to accept and respond favorably to bribes. And an AI in particular might well weigh increased computing infrastructure against some degree of graft and decide in the favor of infrastructure.

But the coders wouldn't allow that, one says. And the answer is they probably are going to code some acceptance of outside argument and self-sufficiency, and one way or another it'll end up with bribes. Maybe bribes of refined rhetoric instead of overt graft, but hey.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Sheb]

I dunno, direct democracy actually doesn't work too badly. It's all well and good to rail against campaign finance, but a clear majority of people is in favor of campaign finance reform, and it'd probably pass in a system with citizen's initiatives.

[Helgoland]

The funny thing about direct democracy is that its advocates are usually leftists, while rightists decry it as rule of the plebs. And yet when it's implemented it produces mostly rightist results and not leftist ones. Just look at Switzerland: They have a minaret ban, and even the Minder initiative just gave more power to stockholders instead of capping manager salaries directly.