Fluid Democracy

So, this sounds pretty... er... sound. That's what the Pirates are trying to implement. So what do you think? Is it worth a try? Can you see any obvious drawbacks?

It would probably require that the voter have an internet connection (I'm assuming that's how this would be implemented) and at least enough education to be informed on issues or know who to trust when delegating their votes.

Otherwise, people in the fringes of development without internet connecttions won't vote enough. If they aren't educated enough, the potential for demagoguery could be noxious, either for those who vote on their own or those who delegate their vote and don't bother checking on their delegate's performance. I can see patronage systems springing up in poor areas where people delegate their votes for food or money.

Other than that, it may work in the context of Germany and other first world European nations. Seems sound enough, and it's nice to see a system that embraces tech and citizen participation.

Direct democracy with proxy isn't direct anymore isn't it ? A lot of non-activist/non-political people wouldn't bother to study issue, or breaking vote to several different people, or studying their proxy political opinion deeply. Their proxy would simply become their representative.

Sound like good idea, but need more detail on how this achieved.

There's just one little problem with this idea: people+internet anonymity = dickwad. Don't believe me? Just look at the typical comments from an MSN.com article, even one that isn't even remotely political or serious, and see how fast they get derailed or turn into some stupid racist rant. Or how Anonymous has recently become politcally active, and has now started lashing out at movements they believe to be unjust while hiding behind the veil of "Wasn't me, probably just other random anon that did it". Hell, it doesn't have to apply to the internet: even in the last election campaign, we had folks out there stupid enough to seriously believe that Obama was a muslim sleeper agent out to destroy us. And you're trusting to put important decisions to the power of the masses, internet style?

The only way I see that working is if that system had some sort of Review committee to act as damage control when the crowd starts voting irrationally or making ill informed decisions. That way, the good ideas can get through, but the stupid ones can quickly get the axe. But by that point, it's pretty much what a government acts like today, isn't it?

Honestly it sounds like a very generic way of saying most of what we already have, but from a wide-eyed naive standpoint that trusts everything to work right.

Seriously, this sounds like something that would come out of a corporate meeting. Meaningless buzzwords and all.

I'd need to know the exact implementation details, and I'd want a professional opinion from a decent number of top political scientists.

On the face of it, it does not sound like a bad idea: I'd certainly be in favor of a more direct form of democracy. But the devil is in the details.

edited 17th Apr '12 2:21:14 AM by Carciofus

Yeah, pirates and anarchists always claim to have morally better system when most of them really just want laws which allows them to do what they want

Well, I'm generally in favor of letting people do what they want with their own stuff — including, of course, instantiating in it patterns which are similar (or identical) to the ones instantiated in other people's stuff

As I said, I am sort of in favor of this proposal, pending details and more thorough analysis. Our current democratic systems are basically mildly benevolent oligarchies with a few checks and balances: could be worse, certainly, but I think that it could be better.

What are the buzzwords?

The GIFT? Well, obviously when people are anonymous they act more on what they really want than on what other people expect them to want, but that also applies for the normal voting process, which is already anonymous. Also, there's no such thing as Anonymous, it's just a label different groups slap on themselves.

Point is, most(from what I've seen) pirates don't really seem to work for liberal reasons but for having legal reasons to download everything free and same about anarchists, they don't seem to do it for good of everyone(of course, there are exceptions like those groups who overtake unused houses for good causes which would be otherwise wasted), but just so they can do whatever they want without police complaining

Excactly because majority like idea of getting things free legally

The biggest issue with this sort of government is that there's a high risk of the voting process being hijacked by radicals/lobbyists or abused by the public over petty issues. A form of management to help decide what issue gets put to the vote would be critical, or else you'd be swamped with useless or even illegal propositions. Also, a means to entice individuals with expertise on the subject to act as guest speakers on the forum, or even give past case studies for the forum to consider would be necessary to ensure that the decion made is the most productive.

And communists are just jealous of the rich and libertarians are just right-wing whites who hate Christianity and hippies just want to do drugs and have sex all day and staunch republicans just want to militarily dominate the world and the religious right just don't want their children to be taught strange scientific theories and racists just have a complex about black people having bigger dicks and...

Feh, gimme instant runoff voting and better civic education in school.

What's instant runoff voting?

edited 17th Apr '12 5:58:08 AM by TheHandle

It's a system in which before you vote, you have to run a marathon, and the better your time, the more your vote counts.

Anyway, about this "Fluid Democracy" thing... from what I've heard of it, its main point is that every part of the decision-making process is transparent and open to discussion, rather than some parts of it as is the case in "normal" democracy. Which sounds cool on paper, but I'm afraid that it would take 20 years to agree on anything that way.

Maybe. For one thing, a lot of effort would be saved in the perpetual combat between factions to obtain or conceal information from each other. From what I gathered from such series as Yes Minister and The Thick Of It (I know, generalizing from fiction, but they're ostensibly based on true stories), cabinet minsters and their immediate subordinates both from the party and the civil service spend an awful lot of their time doing just that, battling with information. Making everything open and public might actually save time and effort.

Transparency and public exposure are fantastic and should be encouraged.

For the Record: Instant Runoff voting is a system that functions like first-past-the-post, but allows each voter to vote twice, in priority. You get a "first choice" vote and a "second choice" vote. They count all the first choice votes, eliminating everyone besides the top two contenders, and then count the second choice votes. Of the two top contenders, the candidate with the most votes (both first and second choice) wins.

Everything in moderation, my friend. There's a reason why meetings of the legislative branch are held in public for all to see, but meetings of the executive branch are top secret.

edited 17th Apr '12 11:15:15 AM by MidnightRambler

I like the system used, frankly, in crowners, a variation of approval voting.

I think multi-choice crowners actually do a good job of representing the will of those who vote in them, the problems with crowners are turnout and informedness. No voting system well help with those.

Ignorance does have some dignity to it. I fear we might all become jaded assholes like the Athenians were. The fun thing with leaving the morally bankrupting decisions to politicians is that they take all the blame while we can reassure ourselves that we didn't know, that we were against their actions...

But if we have to actually decide whether to grow a little poorer, or get a couple thousand "foreign motherfuckers" we never knew or cared about before dead... what will we choose? And what excuse will we have? Could we ever show our faces in those countries again?

That's why one thing I like about the Pirate Parties is that they've got a Three Laws of Robotics thing going on, except law 1 is the UN declaration of human rights, law 2 is their own manifesto, and law 3 is whatever their voters ask them to do.

There's something to be said for sacred pieces of paper that no-one is allowed to question or go against, even if the majority of the population, at a given time, is in favor of transgression. It's like an ethical injunction of the level of societies. The reason I prefer the Human Rights to the Bill of Rights is that, well, it's much more comprehensive.

Or we could, you know, not make morally bankrupt decisions.

EDIT: Please don't comment on my wide-eyed idealism - I know full well what I am.

edited 17th Apr '12 1:05:32 PM by Qeise

Actually that's a pretty good idea. Why did I assume we'd act like assholes?

I mean, we could, but it's all about developing the right culture.