Complicated Politic and Rational Ignorance

How to make a legislation when a lot of Politics don't involve most people or too complicated ?

created from The Right To Keep and Bear Arms thread where there are argument that People who don't understand gun should not make gun regulation.

Major Tom >

Deboss >

It seems to me this assumption could be extended to Anime, Drug, Porn, etc. In fact most law or regulation actually affect only small number of people. large number of people will not actually be affected by Anime Ban, Gun Control, Status of Wolf as Endangeered Species or Clean Coal legislation. so it makes sense that those that affected will be most vocal about them and creating interest group devoted to that interest.

But limiting law / legislation to small interested groups have a lot of side effect : Alaskan might think tax money from Oil Company more important than Polar Bear extinction. Gun Hobbyist might prefer that No Government Registry (which could raise their insurance, or affecting their neighbor perception) more important than limiting ease of criminal or crazy people could get gun. Drugs users would prefer freedom to buy drugs than harmful side effect to society or people who become addicted. West Virginian might think defending their Livelihood more important than Global Warming. Banker might think the profit and economic growth from Derivatives are more useful than make a safeguard against Financial Collapse.

on the other hand, allowing People who don't understand participate in Lawmaking, will cause dominance of Moral guardian. a person who never watches anime or using gun as a hobby, might be easily persuaded that some activity "have no value" and we must "protect the children ".

It also that most law are too complicated for people too understand.

From " a tool of the media thread " Tomu friend >

a lot of people did not understand "Supply Side", "Keynesian" or "Runaway Global Warming" and a lot of people also cynical about media and scientist. And it makes sense that people did not understand, cynical or ignorant. people have a lot thing to do : work, family or hobby that more important in their daily life than complicated politics, economics or science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance

so a lot people didn't participate in Politics, use Party line vote or just appeal to Authority (whether its their priest, father or friend)

so is there any solution how democratic society might make a legislation on matter that don't involve most people without fall to Interest Group Politics, Moral Guardian or just Appeal to Authority ?

Betting!

Allow people to bet on which policy will have which results, i.e. "I bet 1000$ 4-to-1 that if such-and-such gun legislation passes, violent crimes will go down by at least X% in the following decade (if the legislation doesn't pass, the bet doesn't count as either won or lost)."

That way people who think they have better knowledge than the population can put their money where their mouth is, and others can check their track record to see how oftenthey turn out to be right.

Once enough people have bet on the results of an issue, the people can vote based on that information. I'd vote for a policy if enough economists were willing to bet a good deal of money that it would decrease unemployement - sure seems easier than sifting through dozens of editorials trying to figure out each person's biases!

That is such a bad idea in so many ways. The moment you tie money to anything it opens up a whole board of incentives to fuck with it to make sure the numbers fall your way. Money becomes more important to people than the actual result of policies. It should be something that's completely divorced from any other sort of influence. All of a sudden the passage of a bill has a different meaning other than just what the bill itself entails. It's a terrible idea.

The legislative branch should handle obscure topics in the exact same way the judicial branch (who are usually the ones that have to clean up their mess) do, bring in experts in the topic to give them a quick review on the topic in person.

There are plenty of cases where money incentives can be used for Good.

Also, say you have a bunch of people arguing about how to design a bridge; some of them are architects, engineers, but a lot or claiming more expertise than they actually have (sometimes for bragging, sometimes because they honestly are honestly mistaken), and nobody is really sure of who is an expert.

One way of designing the bridge is to have them vote on which material to use for which part, which design to use, etc.

But another way would be to first have a round of betting, "if we use concrete for the pylons, I bet $X that the wind will never make the top of them oscillate by more than two meters", etc. Those with better knowledge will be more willing to bet large amounts of money or bet at seemingly unfavourable odds, so as a result, when it comes to voting, everybody will have a better idea of how the exports evaluate the quality of each choice of design.

Do you agree that the second process is more likely to result in a well*designed bridge than the process with simple betting? (of course, there can be even better processes, like building miniature bridges first etc.)

edited 19th Jul '11 1:55:40 AM by SlightlyEvilDoctor

Again, the obvious problem is that greedy people might throw the results just to make money- in your example, bet against the bridge and then make it fail in the way they bet. And if you don't think construction companies have the power to cut corners in the name of making money...

Note: I don't necessarily mean fail as in fail completely, which the company would probably be liable for in the long run. Just fail in the way they bet.

Which is actually the original purpose of political lobbying. But I think generally the problem with lobbying as it is, is that "experts" go to the government, rather than the government going to experts. Plus, you throw in politics, politicians tend to try to grab experts that agree with them rather than just experts in general.

Rational ignorance makes perfect sense overall, so improvements to our current system should probably be centered around getting information to people who, as a result of their career would naturally be concerned about specific topics. We've the internet and social media technology. It can be used to get all economists in a country involved in analysing tax policy changes. Provincial/state policy changes on highway systems can involve relevant civil engineers. Healthcare changes can involve medical associations and so on. It's not perfect, but I would think it is better.

I'm pretty sure they do. Of course, some of those experts are anything but unbiased.

Still, there's a reason why there are study committees and research groups, and yes, even junkets.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:24:45 PM by blueharp

@breadloaf: One method in use by some courts is to have expert witnesses be impartial, that is, work directly under the judge or tribunal to evaluate evidence submitted by both sides of a trial. Perhaps special interests vetted by both sides of a political debate (much like judges) could be placed into a “pool” of on-call consultants for rapid consultation on esoteric subjects?

We had a thread on designing a constitution, in which we agreed on the use of expert policy panels with executive authority to mandate regulations on a variety of issues. I could share if anyone interested.

Indeed. Its like... the U.S refuses to improve gun control and thus millions of weapons and ammunition flood Mexico.

Mexico on the other thand does as the U.S says, keeps drugs illegal, and thus provides financing for brutal armed criminal gangs who buy U.S manufactured weapons to kill whomever might get in their way.

Furthermore, by doing this the U.S indirectly finances gang violence, who sell Mexican drugs, using said money to buy things such as U.S manufactured guns. Then the money this groups spend on guns are used in part to fund powerful pro gun advocacy groups and conservative think-thanks that lobby in favour of war (such as the war on durgs)to be able to sell even more weapons.

In this way the Mexican goverment receives U.S aid so they can buy U.S manufactured weapons (this time trough more direct channels) so they can die in fire fights in which both sides are provided their ammunition by the same supplier, the U.S. Who benefits? Gun manufacturers.

So maybe one might not know a lot about guns per say, but I dont need to know what are the mechanism that make bullets go supersonic upon being fired to know the effects they have on other people and other countries.

edited 20th Jul '11 6:45:22 PM by Baff

Not Our Problem. Constitutionally gun control is 0 for 3 in court in the last 20 years. We can't put more, nor should we. Mexico on the other hand is free to do whatever the fuck it pleases to solve its problems. We should not have to solve Mexico's problems for them.

Well then we have no right to complain about all the violence in the border. But the gang problem, is not Mexico's problem, is our problem. The U.S is the most violent industrialised nation. Is the country with the highest rates of murders per inhabitants in the industrialised world. etc. etc. Guns dont have to be banned, but they should be more heavily restricted, like in Canada.

edited 20th Jul '11 6:37:51 PM by Baff

You're wrong. Believe it or not, while the blanket bans in some cities were ruled against, plenty of other laws were found to be quite acceptable.

Even Scalia said:

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,"

So...yeah, even ignoring that they were 5-4 rulings, you're really ignoring that they don't give you a free pass.

Besides, that comment is more about commerce, with a foreign nation. That's pretty clearly 100% within the scope of federal authority, or maybe you haven't read Section Eight?? There's also some treaty obligations. Do you think the US gov't should go back on its word?

edited 20th Jul '11 6:46:00 PM by blueharp

^ Some cities? The federal blanket ban on schools (United States vs Lopez) was shot down citing both the 2nd Amendment and curbing the commerce clause.

You should note how Congress passed a new version in 1995 that has passed court scrutiny.

And of course, there's nothing in a decision that overturned a law based on the Commerce Clause that would stop a state or city from passing such a law.

But why are you ignoring that the comment was about commerce with a foreign nation? Do you think Congress doesn't have authority over that?

edited 20th Jul '11 7:00:24 PM by blueharp

Bad Baff, no derail. And you too Tom, for feeding it. This thread's about the general topic of expertise and specialist knowledge in public policy, not the specific topic of gun control. Want to debate that? go to this thread.

So what's the problem if the legislature gets a law wrong? Courts can overturn it, legislatures can pass new laws. Chances are they will have to anyway, nobody has perfect knowledge of the future, or even the present.

Yeah, bad things may happen. But bad things may happen if nothing is done.

This is not to say that legislatures should pass laws without due deliberation and caution, but to point out that there's a potential price no matter what choice is made.

edited 20th Jul '11 7:43:09 PM by blueharp

in the long run yes, but in short term law can be quite damaging. and some law does have long term consequence, animals could be extinct, some area could be permanently damaged.

my primary concern is democracy is supposed to be governed / guided by informed citizenry. but when law have consequence only for small number of people, people can be surprisingly casual in make decision. a lot of people didn't even bother to even try to be informed about it.

they hear some anime otaku kill people, they want anime ban. they see general arguing in TV that torture is absolutely necessary, they support torture. they unemployed, they blame current president. on some thing the law is harsh (marijuana, porn, anime) on other they ignored ( torture, financial regulation, british public ignore phone hacking until they murdered girls phone were hacked).

a lot thing become so complicated that only very small subset of people understand (weather, medicine, banking) and ended up self-regulating. and some thing (gun, anime, private airplane) with only small people care also ended up outside people attention until it make news. can democracy actually effective if a lot of field simply decided casually by people who don't understand them ?

In the short term, lack of a given law is equally capable of having damaging consequences, and it can even be of the same long-term nature.

You cannot argue a general principle when either way the same problem can happen. That is when it is important to consider specific circumstances.

The rest of your statement meets the reality that it isn't direct democracy for everything, but instead representative, and that laws aren't usually passed overnight, but are the subject of hearings, review and commentary.

edited 20th Jul '11 9:09:14 PM by blueharp

Unless somebody staked their career on a law, in which case it's used as a stepping stone to resume build, and they fight tooth and nail to make sure it stays there even though it's a bad law. See: drug bans (only medical professionals should have a say), infrastructure designs (only civil engineer/appropriate profession should have a say), or agriculture setup.