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Ask HN: Why is there no solution for direct democracy?

by tevlon on 7/29/24, 3:27 PM with 17 comments

• by jedberg on 7/29/24, 3:33 PM

  Direct democracy is terrible. Look at reddit as an example. Without any spam controls, it would be a complete disaster.

  Most voters aren't informed. Despite all the information being available no one looks at it. For example, when I fill out my California ballot once every two years, I spend a day reading all of the new proposed laws and reading on the backgrounds of all the people. Then most of my very intelligent friends just ask me to tell them how I'm voting and why, because they don't have time to read.

  And that's once every two years. There is no way I'd have time to do that for every law. That's what politicians are for -- to be experts on the law and to hire other experts to inform them.

  It's far too complicated to possibly be well informed on every issue.

• by thiagoharry on 7/29/24, 4:41 PM

  This is not a technical problem that creating an app would solve. This is a political problem. The current system gives a lot of power to lobbying. And big companies lobbying the existing governments will not like to change the system to something that gives them less power. How do you change radically the political rules, creating a different distribution of power? Remember that you are at disadvantage: the parties that have advantage in the existing scenario will leverage everything that they have to prevent such rule change (and to prevent the change of even being considered and proposed).

• by jones1618 on 7/29/24, 4:45 PM

  As others have said, just having citizens vote directly on everything doesn't work, even if technology might allow it. Primarily, it is because the number of issues that need deciding overwhelms the number of issues that your average voter can be even remotely informed about.

  One solution that has worked well is Deliberative Democracy: https://www.mosaiclab.com.au/what-is-deliberative-democracy

  Think of this as jury duty for laws and regulations where "average citizens" are recruited to 1) get informed about a set of issues that impact them and 2) come to a consensus about solutions/regulations.

• by dave4420 on 7/29/24, 3:47 PM

  Even in Switzerland, they only have referenda every three months. They still have a parliament.

  Anyway, most people don’t care about the details of new laws. They want to be able to set the general direction and let the politicians worry about the details.

• by basementcat on 7/29/24, 8:25 PM

  Previously asked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9144412

• by meristohm on 7/29/24, 4:00 PM

  [I see this is flagged already... tevlon, consider toning down your reactions and letting the responses and discussion unfold? You started with a question. Why not ask more questions and listen?]

  From Constructing Worlds Otherwise by Raúl Zibechi[0] I learned more about the Zapatistas (EZLN) in Chiapas in Mexico. They use direct democracy:

  https://theconversation.com/mexicos-masked-marxists-meet-the...

  https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/zapatista...

  [0] https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=constructing+worlds+oth...

• by threesevenths on 7/29/24, 3:50 PM

  Let's imagine a land governed by direct democracy which has a river, and two communities on either side of the river. Because the communities trade with each other, a bridge over the river is proposed to link the two communities and increase trade. But who will pay for the bridge? Where will it be built? Will there be a toll to cross the bridge to pay for it? Will the ferries that crossed the river be compensated for the loss of income?

  These are simple questions. If everyone was like-minded and had an equal share in the benefit of the bridge, then it should seem simple to build it.

  In direct democracy, you'd expect people who would not directly benefit or who might need to pay a portion for the bridge to still vote for the bridge because they understand the benefit to the community as a whole.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn't seem likely that people would vote if it wasn't in their interest. Especially when it's a monetary thing. There will be the anti-bridge people: the ferry operators, the nimby bridge naysayers, the locals worried it will blight their view who say the bridge ought not be built. The stonemakers, brick layers, business owners, and travelers want the bridge. A public campaign ensues. The bridge might not be built, and the communities do not grow and prosper. Everyone has forgotten why the bridge was proposed in the first place because the bridge has brought up other issues.

  Politicians are the imperfect solution to this problem. A politician is supposed to have the interests of their constituency when they discuss the proposition, and compromise where their constituents cannot individually. They are supposed to see the bigger picture, and try to find the best solution for the location, funding, and compensation for affected people.

  To your point of people being informed, people are (sort-of) informed today, certainly more than they were long ago. People are still not informed in the intricacies of lawmaking and how written rules will affect people. The cost of the whole population being informed also will detract from productivity.

  Would you be willing, and would your employer be willing to commit a day a week to civic issues and informing yourself in order to vote effectively on issues that matter in your community.

  I think technology can improve our government process; our representatives should do a better job communicating with their constituents on what they are doing, and importantly, get their input. This is a problem technology can solve.

  On the other side, we the people, need to do a better job electing representatives. We need to elect reps that answer to us, not the highest bidder, and not to only a certain minority of the constituency. We need to hold our representatives accountable, and when they do not faithfully represent their constituents we need to collectively replace them with a new representative.

  The bridge over a river is a contrived and simple problem; the reality of the problems that face politicians are typically more complex and the path forward is not at all obvious.

  This is the problem if you try to enable direct-democracy without representatives. You burden the constituents with new responsibility and not everyone will accept it willingly or faithfully.

  This doesn't touch the cybersecurity implications of voting on laws with technology.

• by talldayo on 7/29/24, 3:32 PM

  People don't want direct democracy. In America, the majority of polled voters declared intent to vote straight-ticket: https://www.courthousenews.com/most-registered-voters-to-vot...

  I hate bipartisan politics, for what it's worth. But good luck getting even a fraction of voters off their ass enough that they know the difference between "red versus blue". On top of that, digital identity is hard to protect from fraud in the same way voter registration prevents. From a relative perspective I think the modern American vote system is fine enough for people that want to vote deliberately; the biggest problem remains a cultural one.