Democracy: can we do better?

[miniboes]

I know Brimstone just made a topic about the electoral college, but this thread has a much broader scope. If we were not limited by contitutions, than is there any way in which we can improve on democracy, either by replacing it or changing it dramatically?

One idea is that of sortition. In sortition, people are randomly drafted into a governmental function and are given the time to come up with a solution in cooperation with elected officials and experts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9EMvbBq_U

An idea that i quite fancy is that of the epistocracy. This is the idea of political philosopher Jason Brennan. It means that voters that are better informed get more voting power. Brennan thinks the main issue with elections is that people are badly informed, and they would vote otherwise if they were. He thinks there is no incentive to inform yourself, because your vote doesn't matter enough to impact you. He compares it to juries: we would think it were horrible if juries came to their judgement without assessing all the relevant facts. The details are still up to debate, in his view. It could be as simple as asking people to estimate basic facts like the unemployment level and weighing their vote against how they perform on questions like that. It could be as elaborate or simple as we want to make it. Better informed voters could also be achieved by giving people who inform themselves before voting a tax credit or something.

Do you think we can improve on election based democracy, and if yes, how?

[brimstoneSalad]

Unfortunately, improvements are prone to abuse, because we have to ask who decides which voters are better informed, and who frames the discussion in a deliberative democracy.
That doesn't mean it's not possible, but that systems like these need a lot of debugging.

The current system has something like this, whereby representatives are informed by lobbyists (on both sides of issues), and become better able to make decisions and sometimes change their positions after these conversations. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated (and pessimistic) this can be misinterpreted as corruption... and the cry to "get money out of politics" may have the effect of increasing overall ignorance of elected representatives.

The informational aspect needs to be preserved, but the deception eliminated. That's easier said than done, because that steps on the toes of free speech.

[Jebus]

I was just thinking about posting a similar topic. Democracy as we have witnessed lately is not ideal in a population with low IQ/education. The problem is that any attempt/suggestion to remove democracy will likely result in an uprising. One way of improving the current system would be to have the candidates chosen by an election committee. The election committee would be chosen in a way similar to the US Supreme Court. Candidates for office would first have to be selected by the committee and there would be strict minimum requirements, such as.

Hgher education (such as a Phd)
A minimum IQ of 130
A minimum of two years military service or full time charity work
Pass exams for English and Spanish (if in the U.S.) and other subjects relevant to the position, such as history, political science, sociology etc.

After having selected 10 candidates the people would then vote for their favorite after they had been thoroughly presented to the public through televised debates and Q&A. All answers will be immediately fact checked so the candidates will be held accountable for any dumbass claims. Party affiliation, campaign donations and advertisements will all be illegal.

Out of the 10 candidates selected by the committee, the four most popular will end up with a job. The winner will get the top position (president If you will) whereas the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most popular will all be vice presidents. The vice presidents, if united, can veto any presidential decision.

During the following election, the public will select one of the vice-presidents for the top position, whereas the other 2 (plus the president) can again reapply through the selection committee.

A similar selection process should also be used for senators and governors. The only tricky part, as I see it, would be the first time selection of the committee and getting the whole thing rolling, but if I were to buy a country tomorrow this is the system I would implement.

[miniboes]

Unfortunately, improvements are prone to abuse, because we have to ask who decides which voters are better informed, and who frames the discussion in a deliberative democracy.
That doesn't mean it's not possible, but that systems like these need a lot of debugging.

The current system has something like this, whereby representatives are informed by lobbyists (on both sides of issues), and become better able to make decisions and sometimes change their positions after these conversations. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated (and pessimistic) this can be misinterpreted as corruption... and the cry to "get money out of politics" may have the effect of increasing overall ignorance of elected representatives.

The informational aspect needs to be preserved, but the deception eliminated. That's easier said than done, because that steps on the toes of free speech.

What do you think of what the European Commission does, subsidising certain under-represented lobby groups so business don't dominate?

[miniboes]

I was just thinking about posting a similar topic. Democracy as we have witnessed lately is not ideal in a population with low IQ/education. The problem is that any attempt/suggestion to remove democracy will likely result in an uprising. One way of improving the current system would be to have the candidates chosen by an election committee. The election committee would be chosen in a way similar to the US Supreme Court. .

Wouldn't this be just as much of a political shitstorm as the appointment of supreme court justices, then?

A minimum of two years military service or full time charity work

I know you're just giving an example, but I think this is a pretty bad criterium. Full time charity work is often far less effective than earning to give or working in policy. It sounds nice, but it's not the only form of altruism. Military service is also pretty meaningless unless it's a high office.

Your idea is interesting, but it would need more refinement. This will probably end up as a very closed up aristocratic class of people, because the 10 people chosen are the only ones who can choose the next 10. They can just circulate within a political elite.

[Jebus]

Wouldn't this be just as much of a political shitstorm as the appointment of supreme court justices, then?

Should be smooth sailing as soon as they get rid of that ridiculous two party system, where people identify themselves with one group or the other.

This will probably end up as a very closed up aristocratic class of people, because the 10 people chosen are the only ones who can choose the next 10. They can just circulate within a political elite.

The ten are not the ones who choose the ten. The committee chooses the ten and then the people vote their favorite from these ten. As the committee members have no commitment to any business or political party, their main motivation would be to be perceived as fair and unbiased.

[brimstoneSalad]

One way of improving the current system would be to have the candidates chosen by an election committee. The election committee would be chosen in a way similar to the US Supreme Court.

The problem with that is circular appointments, as miniboes said.

Should be smooth sailing as soon as they get rid of that ridiculous two party system, where people identify themselves with one group or the other.

Getting rid of the current two party system wouldn't override human nature toward tribalism and group thinking.

You'd need something like a computer system to select the election committee, or just make the election committee a computer system period.
Otherwise, you could do a lottery and randomly select a thousand or so people to serve on it, but I don't think that would do much better than elections as they are, since a personality could still come out ahead.

The ten are not the ones who choose the ten. The committee chooses the ten and then the people vote their favorite from these ten. As the committee members have no commitment to any business or political party, their main motivation would be to be perceived as fair and unbiased.

No, but they choose the committee which chooses the ten. Pretty much the same thing.
It's impossible to eliminate human bias in the committee, and the 10 prior would have no reason to try, rather picking a biased committee that will elect people more like them.

[Mr. Purple]

Do you think we can improve on election based democracy, and if yes, how?

I actually came across something like this a while back called deliberative democracy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cpY0MuMDU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll
I think it's the best system I've seen yet.

It gets an accurate representative sample through verifying the participant's views against a wider polling before starting the process. Then we see how these people change their opinions after debating the issue with various interests and each other for 2 or 3 days.

Who frames the discussion in a deliberative democracy

This doesn't seem like a huge issue to me.You just need to make sure the views of the discussion guides at the table are balanced, and\or that the people can vote to replace a discussion guide if they smell them being partisan or unfair. Of course variables may need tweaking for a system to work most efficiently, but that's with every system that exists.

[brimstoneSalad]

You just need to make sure the views of the discussion guides at the table are balanced,

Easy said. How would that be possible?

and\or that the people can vote to replace a discussion guide if they smell them being partisan or unfair.

1. If the people are ignorant of the topic, then they have anosmia. Whoever sets the agenda can then easily control them with rhetoric or fear mongering.
2. If the guide was fair and balanced, a majority could elect to replace it with one that was slanted to their preferences anyway.

Of course variables may need tweaking for a system to work most efficiently, but that's with every system that exists.

I agree that deliberative democracy is a promising idea if we can solve the problems, but that doesn't mean it is even possible to solve the problems. There are some problems innate to certain systems which can not be solved by any amount of tweaking. You're speaking on faith alone here when you assert they can be fixed; a measure of agnosticism is appropriate.

[Mr. Purple]

1. If the people are ignorant of the topic, then they have anosmia. Whoever sets the agenda can then easily control them with rhetoric or fear mongering.
2. If the guide was fair and balanced, a majority could elect to replace it with one that was slanted to their preferences anyway.

The guide doesn't need to play a role that would allow for any significant bias.
On each issue that needs addressing, have a bare bones non partisan description of it. Then, hand out the the pro and con pages along with their rebuttals written by the relevant interested parties.

The actual person guiding the session is just there to keep discussions running smoothly and structured, and maybe answer factual questions by directly quoting from the bill itself. The guide could be on rails and be restricted to stuff like: "What does everyone think of bullet point 1?" , " Does anyone disagree with his point? Why?" "Who wants to summarize this into a sentence to present to the experts?" "Does everyone agree with this summery?", and so on. It's basically just placing a bunch of people in a room with something like the voter guide I get here in California for the props but with a structure to foster learning and debate between a bunch of people.

If your issue is that the interested parties writing the pros and cons will lie or exaggerate(of course they will), then after getting pointed in the right direction with the rebuttal, this setting with a lot of other people, time, and a guide familiar with navigating the bill will help find the truth. Ideally what is allowed to be written in the pro\con sections would be better regulated to fit the facts of the bill, but maybe it's impossible to exclude value judgement there.

I agree that deliberative democracy is a promising idea if we can solve the problems, but that doesn't mean it is even possible to solve the problems. There are some problems innate to certain systems which can not be solved by any amount of tweaking. You're speaking on faith alone here when you assert they can be fixed; a measure of agnosticism is appropriate.

You are super weird with how specific you need people on the internet to be about their level of certainty before speaking about anything. This is why I told you multiple times in the past to assume an "it seems to me" in front of everything I say to help you out. I’m fine with thinking and talking about ideas without certainty of the outcome.

Proving a human system is 100% possible is not going to happen until it's currently being done, but that's sort of a silly standard to judge new ideas by. We wouldn't have ever made any progress with that mindset.