the voters don't vote on issues, and there are no consequences for breaking campaign promises. and direct democracy is le bad, of course (since Brexit).

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tialaramex 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Direct Democracy is bad because even if people were capable of doing the hard work to actually decide on coherent trade-offs, for which there is precious little evidence, they do not have time which means we should hire a few people to do that hard work, and that's what an Indirect Democracy is.

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AlBugdy 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think direct democracy is bad for a couple of reasons (some are probably rephrased versions of another reason):

* not everyone can be an expert on everything;

* people can't know what they're not sufficiently knowledgeable about;

* people would like to vote (if it was quick and easy) for anything they have even the slightest opinion on;

* people could be manipulated much easier than an expert or than an educated representative influenced by experts would;

* people value their voice and opinion and themselves too much;

* only a minority of people would vote on lots of things, skewing the results; a majority would vote on just a few issues;

* education fucking sucks everywhere - people don't have enough information about different topics, they don't know how to get said info, how to analyze it or how to filter trash or spam;

* people passionate enough about something will vote on it much more than people not passionate enough about it - with the caveat that someone can be passionate "for X" but not that passionate "against X" - which can lead to the phrasing of the question deciding who will vote;

* it would be easier to bribe someone to vote on something they don't care about (or don't realize they care about) - you wouldn't vote for a new supreme leader but might vote for a specific change in laws about metallurgical unions (gave it as an example as I know nothing about the topic so I "don't care" about it).

If people were educated, had critical thinking, knew how to spot manipulation, weren't greedy and were able to think about abstract things, direct democracy might work. But people aren't, don't, don't, aren't and aren't.

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amarant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've always wondered if a hybrid system could work. You'd need a lot of voting infrastructure, and you need online voting, which means you need a reliable and quick method of online identification. Scandinavian countries fill those prerequisites, perhaps other places do too.

The idea is basically that you give a politician a mandate to use your vote. Whatever your chosen politician votes for will count as their and your vote. If you happen to disagree with your chosen politician on a given question, you can manually vote in that question. Your chosen representatives vote in that question will then be worth one vote less, since you've effectively used it yourself.

In the end we get the best of both worlds: voters don't have to vote in every single issue, but they can should they choose to. When they don't vote themselves, a politician they've chosen gets to use their vote, in a representative-like manner.

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croemer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's pretty much Switzerland. Indirect democracy for most things, but if enough people disagree with what the government does or they feel strongly about something the government isn't doing they can call a referendum.

	▲	amarant 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Huh...I guess that means it does work: From the outside at least Switzerland appears to work pretty well!

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tormeh 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know. Direct democracy seems to work well in Switzerland and badly in California. So direct democracy is clearly not bad per se. We know it can work.

	▲	dwattttt 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Don't you bring nuance into this, this is the internet. Let alone suggest a populace would need to know it.

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epistasis 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Long before Brexit, I was bemoaning the bad effects of direct democracy in California for constitutional amendments that pass with a simple majority. A good amount of the dysfunction in California is from these sorts of propositions that can not be overruled or modified by the legislature. And the public debate about them is largely divorced from their actual content, quite frequently. You still encounter people that think that Prop 13 is a about letting grandmas stay in their homes in retirement by sheltering them from any increase in property taxes, but it is a much much larger handout to commercial real estate and investment properties than it is to grandmas, for example!

Even a slightly higher threshold than majority vote would be good for direct democracy. And constitutional amendments should either have a higher bar, or should automatically expire after X years unless there's a second vote to verify that the change should actually stay in effect.

I tend to vote no on all ballot propositions automatically due to the bad effects of permanent changes being far too easy with too little substantive information provide to voters.

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mr_00ff00 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t know if just one instance means direct democracy is bad. For example, in the US referendums have been used a lot for issues that are popular for voters, but politicians won’t touch.

(Weed legalization in many states, Abortion protection in Missouri I believe)

You could also argue Brexit. Ultimately, most of the UK was okay with shooting themselves in the foot to feel more independent like the good olds days. Maybe was wrong long-term, but if it’s what the people wanted, then maybe it’s good. Politicians never would have done it despite the people wanting it.

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wat10000 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm anti-Brexit (not that it matters, not British) but also pro-referendum in general. One modification I'd like to see is higher thresholds for more significant actions, especially ones that are difficult to reverse like this was. I don't think something as huge as Brexit should be decided on the basis of 50%+1. There should be a bias towards the status quo, and this should require maybe 60% or 2/3rds to overcome.

	▲	AlBugdy 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm afraid that could lead to political instability. Maybe not, but I imagine if 59% of people vote "X" but 60% were needed, people could revolt or at least drastic and unpredictable changes in voting in the next elections could happen - "how can this political regime ignore the voice of the majority?!". You'd need most of the people to understand why 60 or 66.(6)% of people are needed to decide something and really believe in this threshold. And Y% of the populace is different psychologically than Y% of elected officials (in cases where a supermajority of officials are needed to pass Z in a forum like parliament/house/senate).

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wat10000 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even if you accept that party affiliation determines the vote, there are primaries. Which see horribly low turnout, which is 100% the voters' fault.