makes me envy of Switzerland's "enough signatures causes referendum which actually does create a new law" system

Symbiote 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Proportional to the respective populations, this would have needed roughly four times as many signatures to get to that level in Switzerland.

	▲	NooneAtAll3 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		if so, making that failure more explicit would also be of great help

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Barrin92 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the Swiss can only propose new constitutional amendments, not statutory laws. And precisely to avoid having what is supposed to be a technical decision into an overly broad popular vote, because those are still supposed to belong into parliamentary debate.

Because if people voted on every single regulation you'd be at the ballot box five times a day.

	▲	izacus 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You should check out Swiss constitution sometimes to see how true that is :P

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phyzix5761 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So, mob rule?

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necovek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Some would more amicably call it democracy, but to each their own.

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keybored 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Democracy is mob rule when I don’t like it. Democratic activity is populism when I don’t like it.

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hobofan 4 hours ago | parent [-]

More direct democracy also makes it more attackable for misinformation campaigns (trying to offer a populist answer to complex problems).

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account42 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's always a misinformation campaign when you'd rather people be uninformed.

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

For this argument to work, you'd need to show that a generic politician is somehow immune to misinformation campaigns/lobbyism.

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hobofan 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's reasonable to at least expect that. It's their job after all, while for any single voter there is a lower standard you can realistically hold them too and less time available to verify/debunk claims.

On top of that, there are also instruments that help the voters track whether politicians are engaging in corrupt lobbyism like voting records + donation / campaign contribution records, though few countries do that to a degree that it forms a cohesive anti-corruption framework. None of those measures exist for individual voters.

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suddenlybananas 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Why is it reasonable to expect that? What mechanism makes politicians immune to disinfo?

	▲	gambiting 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, your local coucilor probably doesn't have access to it, but MPs definitely have access to aides and experts they can ask for opinion and summary before they go in front of a camera and make a fool out of themselves for saying something based on a snippet they saw on TikTok. They are literally surrounded by people whose entire job is to be well informed.

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keybored 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That more democracy is more attackable is not a coherent position. More democracy means more people power. But people being powerless to resist misinformation campaigns means that they do not have power. Which means that it is not really democracy. This is the same as saying that democracy is being undermined by wealth inequality. If money can buy political power and money is unevenly distributed then it’s not a democracy.

If one was actually interested in actual democracy one would fix that misinformation asymmetry.

	▲	bjelkeman-again 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And that, I would argue, is rooted in wealth inequality.