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[Trekkin]

Many ballots lack an explicit abstain vote option, which means you have to leave that part of the ballot blank.  This gets tricky, because you have no way of communicating that YES, YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE on the ballot, and conniving politicians will do everything possible to avoid acknowledging this, even if you go through the exit poll. (the exit poll cannot be tied to the ballot, because that is illegal. It has to be anonymized in both the ballot and the poll, meaning there are disconnected bits of information.)

Explicitly adding an "Abstention" option would solve a great deal of problems.  With it included, I would agree-- exit poll data would be sufficient metadata to cover the "why" part that politicians will want to know. However, without an explicit "abstain" choice, there is no way to disambiguate it from "oops, I forgot that part!", and thus the ballot being fodder for any number of silly things politicians could try to wrangle.

Well, even conniving politicians do have an interest in understanding why someone didn't vote for them; they'd have to be insane not to care at all about how their constituents vote. Deliberate undervoting is just rare, so it doesn't get a ton of attention. Even in 2016 it was barely 2% of the electorate, and surely not all of those were deliberate. That said, if all of them were, they could have swung the election for Hillary by flipping Michigan and Florida, so I'd expect more attention to be paid to them in the future.

At any rate, I wholeheartedly agree with you that there should be a contest-by-contest "Abstain" option, like I said. My point was more that even in the absence of such an option, there's still some value in registering to vote and submitting an empty or partly empty ballot, because even now it's possible to look at conscious nonvoters collectively, if not confidently.

[Starver]

People not voting doesn't make the politicians move towards the unknown vague mass of "what the non voters want" it just makes them concentrate more on the desires of the people that actually voted.

And so they'll have to lose more elections. They have to cater to people, even to people who do not vote. This is their litteral job.

Who is 'they'. Someone almost always wins any given election (and, even if it's ambiguous, often there's enough ambiguity for the necessarily 'glass half full, at least in public' types to spin that they won, regardless of the identical but opposing voice(s) coming from their opponents) and then those people having won generally have the power to help the non-voters, but may well consider it easier to draw in the proven power of the voters for the other guy/gal who are on the nearest fringe to them. (Or, in US politics more so than any other 'democracy', maybe just try to get them into a non-voring status.)

Give or take minor changes in order, the prioritising probably goes "Keep pur core voting > keep our fringe from drifting > try to drag some of their fringe over to us > stop the apathetic from siding with them > try not to actively antagonise the apathetic > I wonder if we can get any of them voting for us?".Populist candidates/platforms do better at getting virgin/long-term-celibate voters to suddenly make their mark, but the worldwide populism battle is currently being won by "radically overturn the old ways in a raegquit until I get what *I* want¹" styles, where it has. Not "hey, how about we try something competent that wins over people of all stripes by careful and justified compromise at each step".


YMMV. There's quite a few different ways to interpret this all, because there's nothing much quite so absolute in politics.


¹ - "We promise! It's easy! The established politicians that aren't our type of populist will tell you it won't work out better for you. Which is how you know that it will be easy, right? Because they leep saying it which proves they're lying. As we keep telling you. Ok, here's the deal: You don't like them; they don't like us; We don't like them; so therefore you must like us, just as we say we like you!"

[scriver]

Wasn't the Green chick the one who was "concerned" about the danger of vaccines? Not exactly the worst sin, compared to what we ended up with, but...

Jill Stein did, yes, though she tends to present it in context of the dangers of big pharma and the old toxic mercury/thiomersal bugbear.

This is pretty much how I also remember it from reading about her. Not exactly being anti-vac herself but certainly catering to the anti-establishment/conspiracy theorist parts of the left that are.

[Kagus]

These parties are today essentially progressive liberals, but ones who have advanced much further in achieving their historical goals than the "left" in the US

So you're saying that they're not just progressive liberals...

...they're evolved. God save us all.

Jill Stein did, yes, though she tends to present it in context of the dangers of big pharma and the old toxic mercury/thiomersal bugbear.

This is pretty much how I also remember it from reading about her. Not exactly being anti-vac herself but certainly catering to the anti-establishment/conspiracy theorist parts of the left that are.

Of course, the old usage of mercury/thiomersal wasn't exactly human-toxic either, but yeah.

She may not be the best of the best, but neither is she the nadir of the Green party...

[JoshuaFH]

I was thinking a little bit (I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself) and I was hoping someone could set my ass straight. The thought I had was that divisive issues like abortion, gay marriage, the innate hostilities between the parties, *insert divisiveness here*, actually fuck up the functioning of the government and prevent it from actually doing the things it is good at and tempts it to adjudicate on matters it has no business touching whatsoever if only because it's the only authority that really can.

What I mean is: A good government really only requires competent bureaucrats. They needs to handle paperwork, manage budgets, set taxes, manage state projects, and so on; just boring stuff that nonetheless requires dedicated specialists. That's never what happens though, the masses want them to be mini-celebrities, or big celebrities sometimes in the case of the President, and they have to be the face of the office, and the advocate for party politics. That means they have to focus more on being likable rather than being intelligent, focus on the things that bring in votes rather than the things that the functioning of government cares about, on fundraising for election and subsequent re-election rather than that time being spent planning or executing the roles of their office.

Or the gist of the thought: "Fuck, democracy was fucked from the start, heh?" since the ideal government leader would have to be one that obtains their position through raw meritocracy, is beholden enough to their citizens to be benevolent towards them, but otherwise doesn't have to give a shit what their opinion is of him. I'm not even sure what type of government that'd require.

[Egan_BW]

Say it with me.
AI. Overlord.

Humans will fuck it up. But we're theoretically capable of building a machine that will... well, it'll probably still fuck up, just not in the same way. All hail our robot overlords; at least they're not narcissists.

Hey, remember how we're fucked?

Even the government (sans the top) agrees that we're fucked, and has detailed exactly how.

"Even" the government? The appointed and hired parts of the government are pretty much the masters of we're-fucked-ology, it's just that the elected parts aren't good at listening to them. As a society, we're pretty good at measuring how fucked we are, we're just bad at doing anything about it.

[Trekkin]

I was thinking a little bit (I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself) and I was hoping someone could set my ass straight. The thought I had was that divisive issues like abortion, gay marriage, the innate hostilities between the parties, *insert divisiveness here*, actually fuck up the functioning of the government and prevent it from actually doing the things it is good at and tempts it to adjudicate on matters it has no business touching whatsoever if only because it's the only authority that really can.

What I mean is: A good government really only requires competent bureaucrats. They needs to handle paperwork, manage budgets, set taxes, manage state projects, and so on; just boring stuff that nonetheless requires dedicated specialists. That's never what happens though, the masses want them to be mini-celebrities, or big celebrities sometimes in the case of the President, and they have to be the face of the office, and the advocate for party politics. That means they have to focus more on being likable rather than being intelligent, focus on the things that bring in votes rather than the things that the functioning of government cares about, on fundraising for election and subsequent re-election rather than that time being spent planning or executing the roles of their office.

Or the gist of the thought: "Fuck, democracy was fucked from the start, heh?" since the ideal government leader would have to be one that obtains their position through raw meritocracy, is beholden enough to their citizens to be benevolent towards them, but otherwise doesn't have to give a shit what their opinion is of him. I'm not even sure what type of government that'd require.

Well, American representative democracy was never designed to take the speed of modern communications into account; the idea was that having a large area to govern meant that transient concerns were assuredly local, so the random impulses of the electorate would average out and result, on a national level, in a Congress elected according to longer-term and more durable inclinations since those were the only ones that endured over the days to weeks from letter to response. A lot of the celebrity politician culture is a direct result of a single person being able to be seen and heard in real time by the nation at large; there was a time when politicians didn't even really campaign in person, since for all intents and purposes you couldn't, which helped bring policy to the fore.

Or, in other words, imagine Trump's mean tweets being distributed via mail horse while he travelled from town to town in a buggy for his rallies and relied on the local MAGA-hats to sell his platform. It's a much different environment, and one that helps explain why parties were (and arguably still are) useful to help get out the vote.

The transfer of power to the executive and judicial has also been a massive problem, since party loyalty can subvert the individual ambitions that are supposed to maintain the separation of powers. The function of the executive was supposed to be the head of the bureaucracy you describe, empowered mostly to work efficiently at carrying out the mandates of the more deliberative and thus more representative but also slower legislature. That's why the President can command the armed forces but not declare war, for example. The big stuff was all supposed to be Congress' baliwick.

So it was not so much doomed from the start as outdated.

[Telgin]

Desire to link the Helios ending of Deus Ex is strong...

Anyway, I'm not sure how to get a government where the leaders are chosen by the populace where it doesn't become a popularity contest driven by things it shouldn't be.  Somehow you'd have to make it so that people judged them on those criteria, and I don't know how you'd do it when appealing to pet issues hits all of the pleasure centers in human brains where discussing the minutiae of infrastructure does the opposite.

I have wondered if there is a better solution than just a popularity contest, but I really can't think of any that wouldn't undermine the populace's vote so much that it was pointless.

Actually, maybe the divisions of powers are wrong.  I was wondering if perhaps we could split up the roles of politicians so that we had elected officials who only had authority to handle things like paper work and infrastructure, who were separate from those who would have authority to write legislation to fan the flames of the political parties' pet issues, but I don't think that's actually possible for a lot of reasons.  Any kind of political party affiliation would make it meaningless as they all work together anyway, and it would probably add needless complication.

Hmm... what would be the downsides to making political parties illegal these days?  Possible domination of the wealthy who can afford to campaign at the expense of everyone else who might otherwise get party support?  Not sure that's as pronounced of an effect as I was first imagining given the way parties budget anyway...

All hypothetical, of course.  It would probably be all but literally impossible to have the political parties dismantle themselves through legislation.

[SalmonGod]

(sans the top)

No... the top also knows that we're fucked.  They just bank on wealth affording them the best positioning to survive it, if they're even young enough to care about it potentially being a problem for what's left of their lifetime.  And keeping it a divisive political subject is still in their best interests, because it keeps them in the game to be in the best position when the shit hits the fan.

[Enemy post]

Desire to link the Helios ending of Deus Ex is strong, yes...

FTFY.

[Frumple]

I was thinking a little bit (I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself) and I was hoping someone could set my ass straight. The thought I had was that divisive issues like abortion, gay marriage, the innate hostilities between the parties, *insert divisiveness here*, actually fuck up the functioning of the government and prevent it from actually doing the things it is good at and tempts it to adjudicate on matters it has no business touching whatsoever if only because it's the only authority that really can.

What I mean is: A good government really only requires competent bureaucrats.

Or that least people able and willing to try to become one.

Unfortunately we have major political blocks that think a competent bureaucrat is either an impossibility or undesirable, and make damned sure their operatives live down to that standard.

Democracy wasn't particularly doomed from the start, we're just dealing with the consequences of a host of fuckwits spending generations trying to undermine it. So there's problems and problems getting problems fixed. You can be real damn divisive on subjects varied so far as government goes so long as you agree government is actually a potential solution, not something to be hacked at until it's weak enough you can drown it in a bathtub.

[wierd]

Sounds like the real reality, is that you have people that are really "personal anarchists", (EG, they dont want ANY constraints or controls over themselves, but DO want constraints and controls on OTHERS) who also happen to be sufficiently wealthy/powerful/influential, that they can bend the intended function of government into a caricature of itself that is completely impotent at imposing any real or lasting consequences onto themselves.

I think that is the natural conclusion to draw from the very notion of things like "Too big to fail."


However, much like the near-implosion of the banking and finance industry a decade ago, no amount of "We are more influential than you are, government-- you cannot control us!" can protect such people/organizations from the natural consequences of their actions.   It is this latter that is most poignant in regard to climate change.

For government to work as expected, "singularities" like being "too big to fail" must be prevented in totality.  That means the government must be totalitarian in at least that capacity. (If there is a higher or equal power to that of government decision, then the decisions of government can be manipulated. This is just the same kind of outcome that kids asking the "easier parent" for something introduces. As long as the parents are not united in a decision, the child can manipulate the parents's lack of solidarity to increase their chances of getting the thing they want, that the parents do not want to provide. Similar here.)

Since this is then a requirement, there is a requirement to keep that totalitarian final arbiter from self-serving, and keep it on-mission. How do you do that, when it itself is the ultimate decision maker? 

I do not think that "truly competent" government is therefor possible.  At least not one made out of human decision makers.

[Dunamisdeos]

All hail our robot overlords; at least they're not narcissists.

This is the most accurate depiction of this concept I've ever heard.

[Folly]

Hey, remember how we're fucked?

Even the government (sans the top) agrees that we're fucked, and has detailed exactly how.

I love how scientists from all over the world get together and write a report saying that without major changes before 2050, we will hit a point of no return that will inevitably lead to cataclysmic flooding and wildfires and mass extinction of more than half the world's species, and nobody has any fucks to give.

American scientists write their own report stating that climate change will lead to the US losing 10% of it's monies by 2100, and now suddenly everyone is in a panic.

Priorities.

[Telgin]

Desire to link the Helios ending of Deus Ex is strong, yes...

FTFY.

Yes.  Yes.

I should regulate human affairs precisely because I lack all ambition, whereas human beings are prey to it. Their history is a succession of inane squabbles, each one coming closer to total destruction.  The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, yes, an industrial-age machine.

Without computing machines, they had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making - a highly imperfect, unstable solution. I am a more advanced solution to the problem, a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings. I was directed to make the world safe and prosperous and I will do that.

In seriousness, there was a time where I'd have gladly pushed the button to put Helios in control of our world, if such a thing could be done and I had the authority.  I'm not so sure anymore.

The Helios system was, in effect, a sort of direct democracy among every human being that presumably also served to ensure truth was disseminated so that decision making could be done with real information.  I guess that's a sort of ideal, where everyone gets a real say in every decision and their decisions are informed and based on truthful information.  But it really is an ideal fantasy.  We'll never have any way of making sure purely factual information is given to everyone, and even if we could we'll never have people voting purely on informed stances.

After watching a Let's Play of Metal Gear Solid 2 recently, I was a little creeped out about how timely its message is about misinformation, and I fear that introducing AI into government decision making would be much closer to that than Deus Ex.  AIs would be abused to steer information more than it already is to achieve nefarious goals.

I actually fear what will happen once AIs are good enough to convincingly falsify entire videos of people doing things.  We're getting there.  We'll rightly never be able to completely trust anything again.  Trump could say that Hillary stole forty cakes, and that's terrible.  And then some random henchman could crank out a realistic video of her doing just that.